25 Game Check-In - How are you feeling?

[Scase]

Hard to answer honestly, somewhat happy with the performance of the players, but somewhat unhappy with our record. I worry that some extra unneeded wins will bite us in the ass at the end of the season.

But apparently this team is legally not allowed to be healthy, so who knows.

[raptorforlife88]

Honestly we really should have every reason to be reasonably happy about things. Masai appears to have nailed the last draft. Mogbo is already a plug and play rotation piece with a possibility of a better ceiling. Jakobe has clear potential if he can figure out his shooting. Shead can be a steady backup. Chomche is a long way away but he's the right kind of big swing on potential to take with an additional pick.

Gradey took a jump forward and has high potential as a scorer going forward. RJ has made improvements, although he's a question mark in terms of value he's not an anchor of a contract that people expected. Scottie too has made small improvements although because of his injuries it's hard to get a gauge on the kind of season he can have. IQ has had a lost season so far unfortunately but with the Scottie injury he's going to have an opportunity when he's back to show his capacity. Ochai is a positive asset now as well.

The injuries have allowed us to competitively lose many games more than we might have and we're tracking for a solid pick in the top ten at least. Honestly ideally we have a season where the team loses competitively and it allows us to retain Jakob, because I don't know that he's very replaceable. Tanking while retaining Jakob is the best way forward.

I see a team that in contrast to last year has lots of young pieces, may add another valuable asset, has two additional assets in 2026 that could be great with the Pacers floundering. I see plenty of hope honestly. The only real question I have at this point is the IQ contract, and hopefully he's shows he's going to be worth it.

[Tofubeque]

Like most the main thing I want out of this season is a high draft pick, and secondarily some good basketball played by the young guys. It was looking like the team would win too many games, especially with the season's final months being soft as hell, and the Raptors would need to get (un)lucky with injuries or make some deadline trades for nothing (such as offloading Poeltl) which would be unlikely from Masai.

Now we're getting (un)lucky with injuries again, so the tank is looking good. But now my concern is that this roster will have injury issues when they try to compete. Seems like these dudes can't stay healthy

[Mr Funk]

Somewhat happy. Love how they all really like playing with one another and never give up. Absolutely love the new emerging team culture and identity. In terms of establishing a new culture and identity, getting everyone to buy in, while seeing massive developmental leaps from guys like Ochai and Gradey, Darko has done a masterful job. Just a few too many wins, but we're still not a good team, which is fine.

"It was the perfect loss. It was super entertaining and the Raptors played pretty well against a team that's been playing really well and came up a little bit short. And we're back, baby. We're back in the bottom four, which is where we want to be come draft lottery time." - Matt Bonner today on The Raptors Show (December 10).

He's made very similar comments recently and is definitely pro-tank, which we should be with this insane draft coming up. A top five pick will really accelerate the rebuild and make us competitive and ultimately a contender much sooner than anticipated.

[SFour]

This season has been really entertaining despite the injuries and record....last season was unwatchable at times, I skipped a bunch of the games.

I think everyone can sense that adding a top 4 pick to this roster would drastically accelerate the rebuild, right now Raptors are a middle of the pack team when healthy imo, adding another Barnes-like prospect would nudge them towards the top 10.

[YogurtProducer]

Hard to answer honestly, somewhat happy with the performance of the players, but somewhat unhappy with our record. I worry that some extra unneeded wins will bite us in the ass at the end of the season.

But apparently this team is legally not allowed to be healthy, so who knows.

I hate how the NBA has led to a team who is on pace to finish 22-60 might have "extra unneeded wins".

Not a comment on the value of tanking, but rather a comment on the **** the NBA has created where there is even a discussion to root for garbage like this.

I voted somewhat happy though. We have fought well, young guys look promising, development everywhere.

[Shakril]

More Like exhausted after all those close losses. Its just heartbreaking. Its not like we are bad, we just manage to fumble it in the last few minutes of a game. I would like to know how other teams fair in close games on average. We have to be far far of the average.

[Shakril]

Hard to answer honestly, somewhat happy with the performance of the players, but somewhat unhappy with our record. I worry that some extra unneeded wins will bite us in the ass at the end of the season.

But apparently this team is legally not allowed to be healthy, so who knows.

I hate how the NBA has led to a team who is on pace to finish 22-60 might have "extra unneeded wins".

Typical loser talk i guess. Rooting against your own team will never feel right.

[Dalek]

Incomplete. The core has not really played together and the vets have been out. The benefit is seeing the rookie class a bit more and they haven't been great, but passable.

Seeing how Poeltl has been used and the need for a passing big has shown the path forward for the the position. Need a hub type of C - a screener, shooter, and a guy who can make a pass.

Not sure what to make of Dick and Barnes. Both have some elite moments but others where they disappear in games.

I think not necessarily a hub type of C. A stretch C with hard screen would be good enough.
However, there may not be any available.

Maybe not one you run everything through, but we need a C who can pass considering all the cutting we do. Also, they need to be able to do dribble hand-offs for a lot of our actions. I don't think we can get away with a dunks and threes type of C. Poeltl, Olynyk and even Jontay Porter and Branden Carlson are certain type of C.

I would think Zvonimir or Tomislav Ivisic will be guys Toronto will have some interest in unless they want to look at slightly undersized bigs like Queen or Sorber.

[MiamiSPX]

Happy as hell. They picked a direction and it's trending the way we want it to.

Our 1st round pick just dropped 19 last night in a close loss against a much better team.
Our sophomore dropped 27 in the previous game, again in a clsoe-ish loss against a much better team.

They've been in most games and they are being led by the guys we want to see growth from. Do I wish they were all "blue chip" prospects? Of course, but this is going to take time.

Perspective is everything. At this time last year we had 3 pending UFAs where I am willing to bet the collective situation caused weirdness in the room. One was angling his way out (OG), one wanted to stay but only on a max deal that Masai had already told him he wasn't getting (Siakam), and one was a failed trade target that the team likely wished hadn't picked up his PO (GTJ).

These guys play hard and have been in a heck of a lot more games than any of us thought they would.

Still no albatross contracts....the list goes on....a lot of positives if you choose to see them.

[tecumseh18]

Happy, happy, happy with all the entertankment, Next year's draft will be intriguing, but the development of the kids this year is well worth my attention. Going into this season, I didn't expect to be as thrilled as I am with Walter and Mogbo. It's about time the Raptors hit on post-lottery guys.

Lots of empty seats last night, and resale tickets are apparently going for cheap. But with the Leafs finally poised for a deep run in the playoffs, I'd say MLSE will have lots of patience with the Raptors for this season at least.

[djsunyc]

Happy, happy, happy with all the entertankment, Next year's draft will be intriguing, but the development of the kids this year is well worth my attention. Going into this season, I didn't expect to be as thrilled as I am with Walter and Mogbo. It's about time the Raptors hit on post-lottery guys.

Lots of empty seats last night, and resale tickets are apparently going for cheap. But with the Leafs finally poised for a deep run in the playoffs, I'd say MLSE will have lots of patience with the Raptors for this season at least.

masai used the word rebuild and the ticket demand has followed suit.

[NinjaBro]

[Tacoma]

Unhappy because we aren't good enough to really challenge for anything but not bad enough that we'll rely heavily on luck of the draw for the draft. And also, our main guys keep falling to injuries and some of 'em are really slow to come back. If there's light at the end of the rainbow, I'd feel better but I don't see it yet.

if the team was completely healthy all year, what do you think our record would be now?

Our injuries happened at the beginning of our schedule which was considered to be very tough, so many were predicting a bad start. We're 7-18 start to the season, in the ballpark of where many had predicted we'd be after the first 25 games.

One can say the # of close games we've had that were losses but sometimes good teams play down to their opponents so they see us at sub .300 and think this will be an easy win and not try as hard until the 4th Q when the game is on the line.

Also, 2 of our few wins were against teams with major injuries (PHI and NO), so we're not alone and in a hypothetical where all teams played at full strength, we'd probably have a similar record.

[Indeed]

Incomplete. The core has not really played together and the vets have been out. The benefit is seeing the rookie class a bit more and they haven't been great, but passable.

Seeing how Poeltl has been used and the need for a passing big has shown the path forward for the the position. Need a hub type of C - a screener, shooter, and a guy who can make a pass.

Not sure what to make of Dick and Barnes. Both have some elite moments but others where they disappear in games.

I think not necessarily a hub type of C. A stretch C with hard screen would be good enough.
However, there may not be any available.

Maybe not one you run everything through, but we need a C who can pass considering all the cutting we do. Also, they need to be able to do dribble hand-offs for a lot of our actions. I don't think we can get away with a dunks and threes type of C. Poeltl, Olynyk and even Jontay Porter and Branden Carlson are certain type of C.

I would think Zvonimir or Tomislav Ivisic will be guys Toronto will have some interest in unless they want to look at slightly undersized bigs like Queen or Sorber.

Zvonimir Ivisic aren't really good at reading and making a pass, while Queen isn't exactly a C (he is overweight to play the C, I think he can slim down to play PF). I haven't done the scouting on Sorber, but only seems to be average in the ability of passing out in double.

I think we might need to lower the expectation on our C being a good passer, there is only a handful of these C.

[Scase]

Hard to answer honestly, somewhat happy with the performance of the players, but somewhat unhappy with our record. I worry that some extra unneeded wins will bite us in the ass at the end of the season.

But apparently this team is legally not allowed to be healthy, so who knows.

I hate how the NBA has led to a team who is on pace to finish 22-60 might have "extra unneeded wins".

Typical loser talk i guess. Rooting against your own team will never feel right.

Sorry I am not simple enough to find happiness in mediocrity, you do you though.

[WhatsaTDot]

Very happy. The boys play an entertaining brand of hoops but can’t clutch the wins. None of the injuries are career ending. The younger pieces show flashes at various times but are all wildly inconsistent.

[Parataxis]

This is exactly what we wanted, isn't it?

Kids are playing hard, games are close, development is happening, and we're racking up the Ls.

[Ell Curry]

Very happy.

We are a good rebounding team with Poeltl at the 5 and Barnes and Mogbo at the 4. We can't shoot yet, but Dick and Walter look promising, Agbaji seems to have become a useful rotation guy and we still have a lotto pick that may be a plus shooter and Quickley to add to this team as shooters and even if we don't get a top 5 pick, the draft has a bunch of wing prospects who can shoot if we wanna reach for one if we can't get a creator.

Haliburton is struggling, so that helps the odds of the Pacers 2026 1st pick being alright.

Plug in a creator from the draft and the team looks pretty good:

(1 on the floor, Poeltl getting 28-30, then 20 backup big minutes to compete for) Bigs: Poeltl, Mogbo, Olynyk, presumably one of the 2026 1sts or maybe the PDX 2025 2nd, Chomche as developmental types
(2 on the floor, 36 minutes for Barnes, about 30 each for the other 2) Creators: Barnes, 2025 1st, RJ Barrett
(2 on the floor, let's say 30 for Quickley, 25 for Dick and Agbaji, 16 for Walter) Shooters/Spacers: Quickley, Dick, Agbaji, Walter

The bench young guys looking like plausible rotation guys (Agbaji, Mogbo, Walter) means that we aren't light on depth and could maybe combine both 2026 1sts and try to move up in that draft, or use one of those 2 firsts to inch up in this draft if there's a guy we want to target a few picks above where we end up. And we still have all our picks going forward for say a Barrett + MLE signing /re-signed Mitchell or Bruce Brown + Multiple 1sts move if going all-in for a 40-50M type 2nd star to go with Barnes makes sense if/when a star becomes available to upgrade that grouping.

For me the big hope this year was that:
1) Young guys take a leap forward, no regression from anyone relevant - seems to be happening

2) A few non-serious injuries lead us to a proper tank and we come out the 2025 draft with a good starting wing - We've had the injuries, just need Scottie and Quickley to rehab completely and the injuries to not be the types that linger or recur, which I'm not qualified to even guess at, I found high school biology quite difficult.

3) Lottery/draft luck - This can be ping pong balls (The Bargnani slot, though not the pick obviously), or a couple bad picks taken ahead of us leading to a guy expected to go at a higher tier falling (Dick, Anunoby), or Masai nailing the pick out of nowhere (Mogbo, Norm Powell, Siakam).

So far we're on schedule, as long as Scottie's injury isn't a thing that matters after this (or next really, we're not going deep in the playoffs next year and if we do it would probably be an Atlanta style fluke) year and Quickley's elbow heals up fine.

[DKB333]

Hard to answer honestly, somewhat happy with the performance of the players, but somewhat unhappy with our record. I worry that some extra unneeded wins will bite us in the ass at the end of the season.

But apparently this team is legally not allowed to be healthy, so who knows.

They should have a much better record. They have won more quarters then they have lost, plus they have played a lot off really good teams. If they ever get healthy they may still get in the play-in. I highly doubt that they finish in the bottom 5 or anything like that but just hoping to avoid the play-in.