NBA Over/Under Wins 24/25 (Raps 32.5)

[Thaddy]

It's tough to say we're definitely better than what we were last year. I would go for the under here. Masai and our front office have to know that we aren't up to par talent wise. The best path forward this season is to increase the trade value of players like Poeltl and Barrett and then ship them out to find better fitting pieces to put around IQ and Barnes.

[YogurtProducer]

Orlando and Indiana already won 47 last year and have younger cores for the most part, I doubt they backslide much.

This is still the NBA. The 2021-22 Raptors won 48 games with a young core, and then were at a 31 game pace with a technically improved roster (same team + Poeltl really) last year.

Crazy **** happens every year.

[Shakril]

Orlando and Indiana already won 47 last year and have younger cores for the most part, I doubt they backslide much.

This is still the NBA. The 2021-22 Raptors won 48 games with a young core, and then were at a 31 game pace with a technically improved roster (same team + Poeltl really) last year.

Crazy **** happens every year.

Injuries for our Teams and for the opponent. Time of the season you play someone (start or finish of the season), back to backs etc.
There many variables which can easily swing a teams fortune from 20 win to 30 or from 50 down to 35. Raptors last year were a clear Playoff team, they simply werent able to put it together, but on paper it was a very strong team.

[Jadoogar]

I wish i could say under but the bottom teams are too bad. I'm guessing we hit 35

[DG88]

Orlando and Indiana already won 47 last year and have younger cores for the most part, I doubt they backslide much.

This is still the NBA. The 2021-22 Raptors won 48 games with a young core, and then were at a 31 game pace with a technically improved roster (same team + Poeltl really) last year.

Crazy **** happens every year.

Injuries for our Teams and for the opponent. Time of the season you play someone (start or finish of the season), back to backs etc.
There many variables which can easily swing a teams fortune from 20 win to 30 or from 50 down to 35. Raptors last year were a clear Playoff team, they simply werent able to put it together, but on paper it was a very strong team.

A team that lacks half court creation, 3 point shooting all while being terrible defensively will not be a playoff team.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

Our #2 three point threat this year is a sophomore.

[MainEvent]

Under, we didn't solve the shooting problem. With Gary gone, it probably gets worse.

I was just thinking about this.

Looking at the roster who can you bank on hitting over 35% from 3? IQ, Kelly and Dick everyone else is a question mark, that's not good

[Shakril]

This is still the NBA. The 2021-22 Raptors won 48 games with a young core, and then were at a 31 game pace with a technically improved roster (same team + Poeltl really) last year.

Crazy **** happens every year.

Injuries for our Teams and for the opponent. Time of the season you play someone (start or finish of the season), back to backs etc.
There many variables which can easily swing a teams fortune from 20 win to 30 or from 50 down to 35. Raptors last year were a clear Playoff team, they simply werent able to put it together, but on paper it was a very strong team.

A team that lacks half court creation, 3 point shooting all while being terrible defensively will not be a playoff team.

We lost so many games simply for lack of effort. So yes it was a playoff team despite it drawbacks.

[YogurtProducer]

Under, we didn't solve the shooting problem. With Gary gone, it probably gets worse.

I was just thinking about this.

Looking at the roster who can you bank on hitting over 35% from 3? IQ, Kelly and Dick everyone else is a question mark, that's not good

Walter you would hope is north of 35%. Vezenkov if he is here would be as well. Between Agbaji/Barnes/RJ I would think at least 1 manages to shoot over 35% as well.

[YogurtProducer]

This is still the NBA. The 2021-22 Raptors won 48 games with a young core, and then were at a 31 game pace with a technically improved roster (same team + Poeltl really) last year.

Crazy **** happens every year.

Injuries for our Teams and for the opponent. Time of the season you play someone (start or finish of the season), back to backs etc.
There many variables which can easily swing a teams fortune from 20 win to 30 or from 50 down to 35. Raptors last year were a clear Playoff team, they simply werent able to put it together, but on paper it was a very strong team.

A team that lacks half court creation, 3 point shooting all while being terrible defensively will not be a playoff team.

My original point is teams blow up or fall off all the time.

Did anyone expect the 2014 Raptors to ascend to win that many games after the horrible 2013?

It really just does not take much to just gel and ascend. The gap between where we were last year and a .500 record is not as big as some think it is. A team of IQ/RJ/Scottie all locked up long-term and committing to winning could result in a decent year.

Will it or would I bet on it? Probably not. But to act as if it is some impossibility is not fair IMO

[Raps in 4]

Knicks over 51.5 seems too easy to me. They should be a machine in the regular season.

Half their roster is going to get injured again with Thibs running all their injury-prone players into the ground.

[Jadoogar]

It's a toss up whether this team is going to be bad enough to miss the play-ins, because 2/7 of the Raptors, Hawks, Hornets, Bulls, Nets, Wizards and Pistons are guaranteed to stumble into the play-ins with how weak the East is looking at the bottom this year.

I'm hoping it's the Hornets and Hawks. But we will need some strategic tank maneuvers, especially if the Hawks or Hornets have any injuries. Our roster can't compete with the likes of the Nets and Wizards.

[DG88]

Injuries for our Teams and for the opponent. Time of the season you play someone (start or finish of the season), back to backs etc.
There many variables which can easily swing a teams fortune from 20 win to 30 or from 50 down to 35. Raptors last year were a clear Playoff team, they simply werent able to put it together, but on paper it was a very strong team.

A team that lacks half court creation, 3 point shooting all while being terrible defensively will not be a playoff team.

My original point is teams blow up or fall off all the time.

Did anyone expect the 2014 Raptors to ascend to win that many games after the horrible 2013?

It really just does not take much to just gel and ascend. The gap between where we were last year and a .500 record is not as big as some think it is. A team of IQ/RJ/Scottie all locked up long-term and committing to winning could result in a decent year.

Will it or would I bet on it? Probably not. But to act as if it is some impossibility is not fair IMO

I don't think anyone disagrees that the 2014 scenario could happen with this team but honestly how likely is it to happen? That 2014 needed a trade and don't forget Kyle was this close to being traded to the Knicks. 2014 could have had a very different trajectory. Realistically this team as currently constructed has a Play-In ceiling with upside to be better next year.

[Scase]

This is still the NBA. The 2021-22 Raptors won 48 games with a young core, and then were at a 31 game pace with a technically improved roster (same team + Poeltl really) last year.

Crazy **** happens every year.

Injuries for our Teams and for the opponent. Time of the season you play someone (start or finish of the season), back to backs etc.
There many variables which can easily swing a teams fortune from 20 win to 30 or from 50 down to 35. Raptors last year were a clear Playoff team, they simply werent able to put it together, but on paper it was a very strong team.

A team that lacks half court creation, 3 point shooting all while being terrible defensively will not be a playoff team.

Not to mention having a bottom 3 bench for multiple years in a row, and it's not like that's been solved. If anything it's been made worse since it's filled with a bunch of young players/rookies.

People thinking this team is hitting 42 wins at minimum, are out to lunch, even with how bad the east is.

We went 14-17 against sub .500 teams last year, and 11-40 against above .500 teams. 51 of our 82 games were against above .500 teams.

Sub .500 teams last year :

CHI, got worse. We were 2-2
ATL, likely better. We were 2-2
BKN, got worse. We were 1-3
UTA, same, maybe better. We were 0-2
MEM, WAY better. We were 1-1
SAS, better. We were 1-1
POR, worse/same. We were 0-2
WAS, worse. We were 3-1
DET, better? We were 1-2

So lets say we make improvements vs the teams that got worse, and we lose more games against the teams that got better. And next year we go :

CHI, 3-1
ATL, 2-2/1-3
BKN, 2-2
UTA, 1-1/0-2
MEM, 0-2
SAS, 0-2
POR, 1-1
WAS, 4-0
DET 1-2/2-1

So with rough estimates, we basically end up with essentially the same record against sub .500 teams, maybe we pick up an extra win or two. People are out here acting like we are going to go on some crazy tear on sub .500 teams, like we aren't one ourselves.

The east did not get significantly worse, or at least not so much so that we are 4-0ing all our competition. The good teams got better, and the bad teams got marginally worse.

Against the good teams in the east last year though?

BOS 0-4
NYK 0-4
MIL 2-1
CLE 1-2
ORL 0-3
IND 2-2
PHI 0-4
MIA 1-3

We likely play worse against IND and MIL, and possibly CLE. So whatever couple wins we may pick up against a worse east, we drop against the better teams in the east. And we play all of them WAY more than 5 bad teams in the east.

And before anyone uses the injury excuse, we played 22 games without Scottie where we went 3-19. Out of those 19 losses, only 5 were against sub .500 teams.

We were losing to bad teams before injuries, and we lost to them after injuries. People need to temper their expectations with what this roster is capable of. We don't even have an NBA quality starting 5.

[DG88]

Injuries for our Teams and for the opponent. Time of the season you play someone (start or finish of the season), back to backs etc.
There many variables which can easily swing a teams fortune from 20 win to 30 or from 50 down to 35. Raptors last year were a clear Playoff team, they simply werent able to put it together, but on paper it was a very strong team.

A team that lacks half court creation, 3 point shooting all while being terrible defensively will not be a playoff team.

We lost so many games simply for lack of effort. So yes it was a playoff team despite it drawbacks.

The only player dogging it was OG because he wanted to leave. I didn't see that from the rest of the team. It just struggled to score in the half court an defend at an average level.

[HolyMage110]

I hope we do under. This top 5 talent in this draft is insane. Each would go number 1 in this past draft easily

[YogurtProducer]

A team that lacks half court creation, 3 point shooting all while being terrible defensively will not be a playoff team.

We lost so many games simply for lack of effort. So yes it was a playoff team despite it drawbacks.

The only player dogging it was OG because he wanted to leave. I didn't see that from the rest of the team. It just struggled to score in the half court an defend at an average level.

But we had all those same issues in 2021-22 when we won 48, no?

[WuTang_CMB]

32.5 is dead on. Team likely lands in bottom 8-12 territory

[YogurtProducer]

A team that lacks half court creation, 3 point shooting all while being terrible defensively will not be a playoff team.

My original point is teams blow up or fall off all the time.

Did anyone expect the 2014 Raptors to ascend to win that many games after the horrible 2013?

It really just does not take much to just gel and ascend. The gap between where we were last year and a .500 record is not as big as some think it is. A team of IQ/RJ/Scottie all locked up long-term and committing to winning could result in a decent year.

Will it or would I bet on it? Probably not. But to act as if it is some impossibility is not fair IMO

I don't think anyone disagrees that the 2014 scenario could happen with this team but honestly how likely is it to happen? That 2014 needed a trade and don't forget Kyle was this close to being traded to the Knicks. 2014 could have had a very different trajectory. Realistically this team as currently constructed has a Play-In ceiling with upside to be better next year.

I meant just that team as an example of a team who suddenly just gels and figures it out - but that really did not happen until some guys got more ability to showcase themselves and we got more of a bench.

I could see in theory how that could happen this year. We have a lot of "unknown" that it is tough to really IMO definitively say what we are right now.

- Barnes is going into year 2 as "the guy" and year 4 overall which feels like a pretty natural time to break out if someone were to have that next step
- IQ is starting for the first time in his career. Does he flourish and become an all-star caliber guard (that is the obv. expectations our FO has)
- Dick is going into year 2. Do we get 2nd half Dick or was that just a quick mirage?
- RJ played the best ball of his career with us. Do we keep getting a super efficient 22ppg?
- Bench --- I saw someone (Scase) say our bench has been a problem and this year it is worse. That to me is a HORRID take as there is next to no chance it gets worse. In game 1 last year we brought GTJ, Flynn, McDaniels, and Precious off the bench. GTJ/Precious both still are unsigned (surprising tbh), and Flynn/McDaniels are candidated for worst player in the league. I am not really sure how you can figure soem combo of Mitchell/Dick/Ochai/Olynyk/Brown/Vezenkov/Boucher/rookies is going to be worse. If anything, I think we might actually have some solid depth this year at the guard and wing positions. Bigs... not so much.

Now - I would still not expect us to blow projections out of the water, but IMO it would not take as much as others think to have a surprising season.

[OakleyDokely]

1 .Celtics = 57.5
2. Knicks = 51.5
3. Sixers = 51.5
4. Bucks = 51.5
5. Magic = 47.5
6. Cavaliers = 47.5
------------------------
7. Pacers = 45.5
8. Heat = 44.5
9. Hawks = 34.5
10. Raptors = 32.5
-------------------------
11. Hornets = 29.5
12. Pistons = 24.5
13. Wizards = 22.5
14. Nets = 19.5

Bulls: ?????