The Toronto Raptors can be a 50 win playoff home team. Here is how.

[sbsat]

the raptors relative to the east (injuries and all) have gotten immensely better. They win 40-45 imo

[isyed]

I still Beleive in masai. His unwavering support of Scottie will pay off and it will show this year. If we stay healthy I saw we end up top 3 in the east.

Masai is a scout at heart and just look at what we have gotten with low first rounders, second rounders and undrafted players. Now imagine a top 5 and top 10 pick and what Masai can get us.

All his guys in the top 15 range have gone into becoming top 5 players (ie Giannis, sga). He also got kawai and injuries aside really showed to the world how good he really was and could be.

Now imagine scottie and cmb as our top picks that Masai hand picked. These guys are going to absolutely rock the nba. Scottie this year and cmb in a couple years.

Ingram is a wild card, I don't know how that will work but having shooters like iq and dick along with scorers like Ingram and RJ will truly unlock scottie this year.

I'm calling 20/10/9/4 stocks all while shooting over 35% on three.

We will see this team absolutely explode and people will say the east is week etc.

Scottie is Masais guy and he will prove it this year.

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[Los_29]

40-45 is our best possible outcome in my opinion. We are a young team and will need to rely on a lot of these young players to give us good minutes. Ochai, Dick, Walter, CMB, Shead and Mogbo are all likely going to get consistent minutes.

[KRANG]

Damn, I was down on the team before reading that

But f@ck it, let's do it for the wife

[iBall101]

They ain't winning no 50 games with this current coach.
They will be treading around the .500 mark next season. Play-in bound. Quote me on it too.

[Troubadour]

Here's why I think this is a 40-win team.

1) Defence
I don't buy the defensive resurgence from the second half of the season. The quality of the opponents fell off a cliff and the 2nd rated defence (post All-Star Break) was paired with the 5th worst offence in the league. My belief is that the defence looked better with 2nd-string and G League players fighting for their lives against similarly skilled teams. On top of that, opposing teams shot a league-worst 33.2% from three - a full percentage point lower than the next best three-point defence. That, to me, is largely based on shooting variance and not anything special that they achieved as a team.

2) Availability
Last season highlighted how this team cannot survive an injury to any of the starters. If Poeltl goes down for any significant stretch of time, I don't see how this team plays even .500 basketball. The injury history of Quickley and Ingram, in particular, would suggest that we should expect some lost time. Who steps up behind that? This team may have depth, but it is theoretical depth based on potential. If someone steps up, that's great, but the probability is that they may fall short of the starting standards.

3) Top-end Talent
We need Scottie Barnes or Brandon Ingram to play at an All-Star / All-NBA level to be a confirmed playoff team. I'm skeptical of whether they can hit that level, but only time will tell.

[ash_k]

They ain't winning no 50 games with this current coach.
They will be treading around the .500 mark next season. Play-in bound. Quote me on it too.

The talent level is so high with the length and agility on the frontline that I just cant see how even a Darko can fully mess this up on a year3 (he has had an extended opportunity to learn).
AND if we start too slow, Bobby could always replace him and pick his own coach ("vs Masai's")

[Shakril]

We were a 30 win team, with everything going against us. Alone in the last strech of the season, we could have easily have 5 wins more. And in the first part of the season we lost many games through idocity, not because the other team beat us. Calculate the injuries in, and we again have 5-10 wins more. So 41 win season is my benchmark, we should reach.

This is all without BI in the equasion as i dont trust his health. If he were to be healthy, he alone is 3 to 5 more wins worth.


summarize:

under 41 wins -> catastrophe, blow it up
41 wins to 50 wins -> expectations
over 50 wins -> overachieving

[TimeForChange]

Read on Twitter

35 wins max

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I love how sure people are about the raptors record when Yak, RJ, IQ, and Scottie played a total of 14 games last year spread out over an entire season. Then add BI a 3 level scorer, plus a bunch more depth this year?

[Boogie!]

We only lost Chris Boucher this offseason…. (Whose barely a subtraction because he didn’t really play last year)

While adding: Ingram, CMB, Martin, and Mamu

It ain’t rocket science - we got a lot more firepower, our young guys are bound to take the next step, and the East is gonna be extremely weak next season.

I think we’ll be pretty good next season. Could easily see us being a 50 win team. But we need to be healthy and need at least 65-70 games from Ingram.

Interesting to say we only lost Boucher when he was literally a huge reason why we won a stretch of games last year and people were clamouring for us to bench him because he was ruining the tank. Boucher is a winning player.

[nikster]

We only lost Chris Boucher this offseason…. (Whose barely a subtraction because he didn’t really play last year)

While adding: Ingram, CMB, Martin, and Mamu

It ain’t rocket science - we got a lot more firepower, our young guys are bound to take the next step, and the East is gonna be extremely weak next season.

I think we’ll be pretty good next season. Could easily see us being a 50 win team. But we need to be healthy and need at least 65-70 games from Ingram.

Interesting to say we only lost Boucher when he was literally a huge reason why we won a stretch of games last year and people were clamouring for us to bench him because he was ruining the tank. Boucher is a winning player.

Your talking about like 5 wins in a 14 game stretch of the season where he played well? Quickley was missing for 4 of them, Peoltl the last one. Ochai and Mogbo missed a couple of those games. One was a blow out we definitely win without Boucher anyway.

[ConSarnit]

Here's why I think this is a 40-win team.

1) Defence
I don't buy the defensive resurgence from the second half of the season. The quality of the opponents fell off a cliff and the 2nd rated defence (post All-Star Break) was paired with the 5th worst offence in the league. My belief is that the defence looked better with 2nd-string and G League players fighting for their lives against similarly skilled teams. On top of that, opposing teams shot a league-worst 33.2% from three - a full percentage point lower than the next best three-point defence. That, to me, is largely based on shooting variance and not anything special that they achieved as a team.

2) Availability
Last season highlighted how this team cannot survive an injury to any of the starters. If Poeltl goes down for any significant stretch of time, I don't see how this team plays even .500 basketball. The injury history of Quickley and Ingram, in particular, would suggest that we should expect some lost time. Who steps up behind that? This team may have depth, but it is theoretical depth based on potential. If someone steps up, that's great, but the probability is that they may fall short of the starting standards.

3) Top-end Talent
We need Scottie Barnes or Brandon Ingram to play at an All-Star / All-NBA level to be a confirmed playoff team. I'm skeptical of whether they can hit that level, but only time will tell.

I don't buy the defensive resurgence either. Here was our strength of schedule for the final 2 months of 2024-25:

.367

I'm pretty sure that was the lowest SOS any team has EVER had over the course of 2 months.

We don't have the talent to be a top defense.

-IQ/RJ/BI is not a good perimeter defensive rotation

-Poeltl is not as good defensively as many prop him up to be. He's still solid but he hasn't been the same defender he was in SAS and the numbers back this up. He's no longer the top 6-7ish rim protector he was in his SAS days. He's not a "drag a team to a top defense" level center.

-our offensive system isn't conducive to being a top defense. We preach ball movement. That leads to turnovers and deficits in the possession game.

Nothing about this team suggest we'll be "good" defensively. Maybe above average at best. We don't have the talent and our playstyle results in worse defensive outcomes .

[Clutch0z24]

We been saying this every offseason for the past few years that we will surprise people and be a great team + have a good playoffs .....Which always ends up not being the case.....We should just wait and see how it goes....Every offseason i see a bunch of posters say we will be a top seed and have a playoffs run....Which does not actually happen....

It will take one heck of a season by all players on the roster to come close to 50 wins imo...But we shall see...

[VanWest82]

With these teams right now, they're saying us and Golden State are the superteams, and they're trying not to build that many superteams, and Adam Silver came out with the statement and this and that. I still believe that.

[VanWest82]

I love how sure people are about the raptors record when Yak, RJ, IQ, and Scottie played a total of 14 games last year spread out over an entire season. Then add BI a 3 level scorer, plus a bunch more depth this year?

Counter: it's unlikely we have that bad of injury luck again, and even if our starting five only average 60 games each, this team proved in the Casey era that having a bunch of depth can lead to multiple 50 win seasons in a weak East. If anything, our current issue might be too much depth as we have 11 guys (12 if you count Mogbo) who will justifiably be expecting to be in the rotation. The only real hole on the roster is we don't have a super star but playing a team game and sharing the ball in Darko's system can make up for a lot, especially if we have some good injury luck for a change.

[ash_k]

We been saying this every offseason for the past few years that we will surprise people and be a great team + have a good playoffs .....Which always ends up not being the case.....We should just wait and see how it goes....Every offseason i see a bunch of posters say we will be a top seed and have a playoffs run....Which does not actually happen....

It will take one heck of a season by all players on the roster to come close to 50 wins imo...But we shall see...

Injuries cannot be predicted right? (IQ had never been this injured before, not even close)then add on top of that FOs forcing the coaching staff to lose games on purpose, once the season looks lost early.

It is like the fans predicting at the beginning of the season 30-wins then they come back at the end of the season "I was right" cmon .

Anybody that thought we were a 30-win-team last season just can't see basketball&talent-level properly at all.(and that is without BI)

Ingram's talent level is up there with Tatum. Can he stay healthy for 70 games? Can IQ stay healthy back to his normal-self? Scottie&Yak? can they play over 70 games? if they can then watch out, if they cannot then same mess.

[tsherkin]

We been saying this every offseason for the past few years that we will surprise people and be a great team + have a good playoffs .....Which always ends up not being the case.....We should just wait and see how it goes....Every offseason i see a bunch of posters say we will be a top seed and have a playoffs run....Which does not actually happen....

It will take one heck of a season by all players on the roster to come close to 50 wins imo...But we shall see...

Injuries cannot be predicted right? (IQ had never been this injured before, not even close)then add on top of that FOs forcing the coaching staff to lose games on purpose, once the season looks lost early.

It is like the fans predicting at the beginning of the season 30-wins then they come back at the end of the season "I was right" cmon .

Anybody that thought we were a 30-win-team last season just can't see basketball&talent-level properly at all.(and that is without BI)

Ingram's talent level is up there with Tatum. Can he stay healthy for 70 games? Can IQ stay healthy back to his normal-self? Scottie&Yak? can they play over 70 games? if they can then watch out, if they cannot then same mess.

We'll see how it goes. RJ isn't the healthiest guy. Ingram is almost assuredly not going to play 70 games. Quickley has now played under 70 games 3 times, though is more likely to play a good number than not, as last year was certainly an outlier.

Injuries are a thing. But if we're even passably healthy for, like, 2/3s of the season, we should be in a good place. This is a lot more interesting than our 2025 record, that's certainly true. And maybe CMB will surprise and help firm up the bench enough that we are more mid/high 40s at the end of the year. There's any reason to be optimistic, especially with the state of the East, which is kind of nice.

[SFour]

50 is a reach but 45 is definitely realistic...I think for 50 we would need at least one of the top players (Scottie, IQ, RJ, Ingram) to take a leap in their game...especially Scottie he's the most important.

[Clutch0z24]

We been saying this every offseason for the past few years that we will surprise people and be a great team + have a good playoffs .....Which always ends up not being the case.....We should just wait and see how it goes....Every offseason i see a bunch of posters say we will be a top seed and have a playoffs run....Which does not actually happen....

It will take one heck of a season by all players on the roster to come close to 50 wins imo...But we shall see...

Injuries cannot be predicted right? (IQ had never been this injured before, not even close)then add on top of that FOs forcing the coaching staff to lose games on purpose, once the season looks lost early.

It is like the fans predicting at the beginning of the season 30-wins then they come back at the end of the season "I was right" cmon .

Anybody that thought we were a 30-win-team last season just can't see basketball&talent-level properly at all.(and that is without BI)

Ingram's talent level is up there with Tatum. Can he stay healthy for 70 games? Can IQ stay healthy back to his normal-self? Scottie&Yak? can they play over 70 games? if they can then watch out, if they cannot then same mess.

Injuries are part of the game so yes health will play a factor....But also on court chemistry matters (The starting lineup has not played together yet), Coaching matters....Its not just "Look at the talent" on the roster thing....The players on the court have to fit together and play together well....

Not saying they won't or will.....What im saying is every off season these kind of threads are made with lots of posters saying how good we will be .....Which ends up not being the case the last 5 years or so.....We will be lucky to get to 45 wins imo....50+ seems a little bit much....But we shall see...

Betting on Ingram to stay healthy + No Yak injuries is something to not bet on imo...