Bill Simmons RIPS the Raptors roster and salaries. (UPDATE Zach Lowe & Rob Mahoney go in on Raptors)

[DG88]

Yeah I have Walter above Dick right now. I think Dick has more offensive room to grow for potential but Walter is more likely to be the impact player.

People are all being way too negative, we have a bunch of fun storylines going into this next season.

Same here. I personally wasn't a fan of draft Dick mainly for his defense, which I thought was lacking. He has to be able to stay on the floor. If he can't Ja'Kobe leaps him in the rotation.

I honestly thought Dick would be a better defender than he has been. Also thought he'd be a better shooter.

I'm with Reeko where I see this untapped potential. He reads the game well, makes the right play, has sneaky offensive potential. But so many guys in the history of the NBA had that as well and it never materialized.

Watching his defensive tape in college I wasn't overly impressed. He got blown by or completely out muscled. I thought he'd be a better shooter coming in but he's been hit or miss. I do agree he has a better offensive package than Ja'Kobe does, but Ja'Kobe is much better defender than Gradey. We'll see how the season unfolds for the both of them.

[PushDaRock]

The Lowe/Mahoney takes are pretty fair. I do find it a bit strange that they ignored Ingram as a shooter (essentially saying the only guy in our starting lineup who can shoot is IQ). I think that that also overstated our contract issues. Yeah, we may not get a lot back for guys like RJ, IQ, and Ingram, but I also don't really think that unloading them is a problem either.

My guess is that we'll see RJ get unloaded for a lesser player on a lesser salary. For example, a straight up RJ for Kuzma trade. That would clear a bit of our wing logjam (I feel like we'll want to start one of Gradey, Jakobe or Ochai) while saving us $5mill.

I'm going to throw up if I see any more of these RJ for Kuzma trade suggestions.

[Zeno]

It is not that I think this roster is fantastic but I think these podcasters, even the ones I generally respect are more and more lazy with their analysis and a general group think seems to take over across podcasts. Yes, the team is expensive and the starting lineup is pretty ill fitting. But they are also one of the youngest teams in the league and have all their picks going forward. To me it isn’t a bottom 5 situation in the league to talk about constantly

[Badonkadonk]

By the way, listen to Zach Lowe. Less hot takes, more knowledge.

Just listened to it, he was great and the criticism was fair. At least he went down the roster and most importantly addressed how the pieces fit. He actually had decent things to say about most of the pieces themselves, particularly Scottie.

Bobby used the term "talent acquisition mode", which is a strong signal to me that the roster will look pretty different a year from now. They're clearly building up to a consolidation trade, and obviously have precedent for this action. This is largely why I'm not concerned about how things currently fit, especially given how Darko runs his offense.

The segment (it was short, less than 10 mins I think?) also reinforced my belief that the Raptors have one of the widest range-of-probabilities for wins/losses this year in the whole league.

I worry that they built up to a move no longer possible - or much harder to make - under the current CBA.

We went into our rebuild at an awful time. The league has changed substantially in the last 2 years. Whatever your priors are, I think they have to be thrown out the window at this point. Unfortunately, it might mean another re-set and a step back is necessary for us.

Can you elaborate? I think the apron rules will actually lead to MORE transaction volatility as team fortunes change more dramatically season to season. Like the Celtics would've been sitting on their roster heading into 2026 if not for the apron rules imo.

There are more severe constraints for overall spending, but if you can avoid triggering the 2nd apron I think there's decent flexibility. You can still do salary match on trades under the 1st with various combinations, just not over 100%. TPE's from the prior season can't be used, but those are edge cases (and TPEs often go unused).

If you trigger the 2nd apron, you can't aggregate 2+ players for the purposes of salary matching headed out the door. My reading of the rules is that You CAN still trade 1 player who has the highest salary out for a package of lesser contracts that do not exceed the one guy's larger salary. There are other restrictions as well.

So basically even under the 2nd apron, you'd still be able to move RJ if you could find a package of players that's close to his salary.

I'm not to worried tbh.

[DG88]

I'm optimistic about the upcoming season for several reasons: the team was surprisingly competitive last season even though they were tanking, they made a big leap defensively, despite all the focus on the starting lineup the team has a lot of youth who are bound to improve, the East is weaker, plus teams will be tanking for a strong 2026 draft. That said, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be critical of the current state of the Raptors until they prove it on the court.

Competitive during the second half of the season considering our schedule was the easiest in the NBA.

[AkelaLoneWolf]

I wouldn’t say Zach and Rob ripped the Raptors, but they brought them up as one of their “WTF is this team doing?” teams.

Zach is assuming (likely correctly) that we will be starting the highest paid guys, running out IQ/RJ/Ingram/Barnes/Jak. He’s not sure how that’s going to work, nor what we plan to do with all of the guards that aren’t in that lineup.

That is to say, he’s not really low on the Raps, just not really sure what they’re going to look like.

It’s just blatantly obvious that RJ is the odd man out. Not because there is anything wrong with RJ, we just have way too many young guys who deserve minutes there and RJ is blocking them. He’s easily replaced and serves the least purpose for the future. I’m sure if they could get a late first and an expiring he’d be on a flight yesterday. Unfortunately everyone else also knows this, so we’re likely just getting offers of “how about we just take him off your books, but we won’t give you any picks.”

Like how Siakam was blocking Scottie? There are huge question marks about Walter and Dick and even Ochai.plus with Ingram health issues we need redundancy in the offense which RJ provides.
There is no hurry to trade him. His trade value is not going to fluctuate wildly.
I wish we had more of a veteran hand at our backup PG spot though for offense and stability.

[Dalek]

It is not that I think this roster is fantastic but I think these podcasters, even the ones I generally respect are more and more lazy with their analysis and a general group think seems to take over across podcasts. Yes, the team is expensive and the starting lineup is pretty ill fitting. But they are also one of the youngest teams in the league and have all their picks going forward. To me it isn’t a bottom 5 situation in the league to talk about constantly

I think a lot of analysts come at things not from a pure talent perspective, but how much room does a team have to grow.

You can argue that Toronto is young and has its picks, but it is playing a weird game of assembling talent without a ton of regard for fit in a functional NBA offense, and then kind of capping itself to that team with little way to improve.

To guys like Zach Lowe the middle is the worst place to be. You have a team which added Ingram, and a healthy roster is worth about 42 wins. Great, but how much more can that team develop into a contender? The worst part is it is hard to tank out with that expensive a roster, and now we are finding it hard to move bigger salaries. I don't know if Toronto is bottom-five overall, but from a flexibility standpoint it isn't great.

To me this is reminding me of the Chicago Bulls, but at least the Bulls have a crazy fun offense with Coby White and Josh Giddy. I have a feeling Toronto's offense might be an eyesore with Barnes/Barrett/Ingram tripping over each other.

[OakleyDokely]

I'm optimistic about the upcoming season for several reasons: the team was surprisingly competitive last season even though they were tanking, they made a big leap defensively, despite all the focus on the starting lineup the team has a lot of youth who are bound to improve, the East is weaker, plus teams will be tanking for a strong 2026 draft. That said, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be critical of the current state of the Raptors until they prove it on the court.

Competitive during the second half of the season considering our schedule was the easiest in the NBA.

30 wins is still 30 wins when you were injured and/or trying to lose most of the year.

[ConSarnit]

It is not that I think this roster is fantastic but I think these podcasters, even the ones I generally respect are more and more lazy with their analysis and a general group think seems to take over across podcasts. Yes, the team is expensive and the starting lineup is pretty ill fitting. But they are also one of the youngest teams in the league and have all their picks going forward. To me it isn’t a bottom 5 situation in the league to talk about constantly

The biggest issue is that is sort of dumb to try and project 5 years out. If they had said 3 years I could see more of a case. Here were top 4 and bottom 4 teams by record 5 seasons ago:

Utah
Phoenix
Sixers
Nets

OKC
Orlando
Pistons
Houston

And ironically 5 years prior to that the Nets, Sixers and Suns were in the bottom 4.

Way too much can happen over 5 years.

[ConSarnit]

I'm optimistic about the upcoming season for several reasons: the team was surprisingly competitive last season even though they were tanking, they made a big leap defensively, despite all the focus on the starting lineup the team has a lot of youth who are bound to improve, the East is weaker, plus teams will be tanking for a strong 2026 draft. That said, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be critical of the current state of the Raptors until they prove it on the court.

Competitive during the second half of the season considering our schedule was the easiest in the NBA.

30 wins is still 30 wins when you were injured and/or trying to lose most of the year.

Last year was an extremely bad year for trying to predict the future of this team.

We had the weakest SOS over the last 2 months of the season that has ever been recorded. We can’t derive anything from the last 2 months of the season given how terrible our competition was.

Unfortunately we can’t really derive much from the start of the season because of our injury problems. Only WAS played more total rookie minutes and most of our rookies were 2nd round picks or undrafted.

This team is one of the harder teams to try and predict this season.

[raptor jesus]

I'm optimistic about the upcoming season for several reasons: the team was surprisingly competitive last season even though they were tanking, they made a big leap defensively, despite all the focus on the starting lineup the team has a lot of youth who are bound to improve, the East is weaker, plus teams will be tanking for a strong 2026 draft. That said, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be critical of the current state of the Raptors until they prove it on the court.

Competitive during the second half of the season considering our schedule was the easiest in the NBA.

They also lost close games early in the season against good teams - I think they lost on the final possession twice vs Denver, in OT in Boston, in LA vs the Clippers to name a few.

[OakleyDokely]

Competitive during the second half of the season considering our schedule was the easiest in the NBA.

30 wins is still 30 wins when you were injured and/or trying to lose most of the year.

Last year was an extremely bad year for trying to predict the future of this team.

We had the weakest SOS over the last 2 months of the season that has ever been recorded. We can’t derive anything from the last 2 months of the season given how terrible our competition was.

Unfortunately we can’t really derive much from the start of the season because of our injury problems. Only WAS played more total rookie minutes and most of our rookies were 2nd round picks or undrafted.

This team is one of the harder teams to try and predict this season.

The SOS is the SOS though. If they played all the easy games during the middle season instead and the harder games came at the end, they still likely end up around the same win total, if strategy/injuries don't change. You need to play all the teams at some point. But I agree, it's hard to read much into last years stats because the lineups being played were so different than what we will see this year.

[ConSarnit]

30 wins is still 30 wins when you were injured and/or trying to lose most of the year.

Last year was an extremely bad year for trying to predict the future of this team.

We had the weakest SOS over the last 2 months of the season that has ever been recorded. We can’t derive anything from the last 2 months of the season given how terrible our competition was.

Unfortunately we can’t really derive much from the start of the season because of our injury problems. Only WAS played more total rookie minutes and most of our rookies were 2nd round picks or undrafted.

This team is one of the harder teams to try and predict this season.

The SOS is the SOS though. If they played all the easy games during the middle season instead and the harder games came at the end, they still likely end up around the same win total, if strategy/injuries don't change. You need to play all the teams at some point. But I agree, it's hard to read much into last years stats because the lineups being played were so different than what we will see this year.

But it wasn’t just a weak SOS, it was the weakest SOS ever. If I’m remembering correctly it was the easiest stretch any team has ever had over the course of 2 months (23 games). I just don’t know how much it balances things out when it was an outlier compared to every other team. The 2nd easiest SOS during that period was closer to the 12th hardest schedule than they were to us, that’s how easy our schedule was.

[Tripod]

I'm optimistic about the upcoming season for several reasons: the team was surprisingly competitive last season even though they were tanking, they made a big leap defensively, despite all the focus on the starting lineup the team has a lot of youth who are bound to improve, the East is weaker, plus teams will be tanking for a strong 2026 draft. That said, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be critical of the current state of the Raptors until they prove it on the court.

Competitive during the second half of the season considering our schedule was the easiest in the NBA.

That's a lazy comment and ignores what was actually happening.

We started the year injured without IQ, Brown, KO, and Walter. We forced guys into the rotation that fee ever expected..like Shead, Mogo and Battle. They were 3rd stringers. But they actually hung in there and we were very competitive even when losing games at the start of the season. Plus Barnes got hurt too.

Then just before X-Mas, that changed. We seemed top slip into bad habits and we started getting blown out....30 pt losses to Memphis, Atl and 50 to Boston.

At that point, it was like Darko flicked a switch and the team as a whole started focusing on defense and it drastically changed the team and how it played. We also dressed guys if healthy instead of sitting them and showed what was possible.

GSW, Bos, Orl, 2xAtl(both on road), NO, Wash, LAC....that was the 8 wins in 10 games that TWO freaked out about. That wasn't against only bottomed feeder teams like some suggest. But it showed to the players that they can win games being committed to team defense and playing as a team. And then they continued to play that type of defense the rest of the season even when we sat guys like Yak, IQ, etc... and played g-leagurrs and 10 days. It was an identity re-set.

Now we just hope that it caries over to this season and it should considering the 3 guys we added in CMB, Martin and Chuck are all defense 1st guys.

We are winning 45+ next year imo.

[OakleyDokely]

Last year was an extremely bad year for trying to predict the future of this team.

We had the weakest SOS over the last 2 months of the season that has ever been recorded. We can’t derive anything from the last 2 months of the season given how terrible our competition was.

Unfortunately we can’t really derive much from the start of the season because of our injury problems. Only WAS played more total rookie minutes and most of our rookies were 2nd round picks or undrafted.

This team is one of the harder teams to try and predict this season.

The SOS is the SOS though. If they played all the easy games during the middle season instead and the harder games came at the end, they still likely end up around the same win total, if strategy/injuries don't change. You need to play all the teams at some point. But I agree, it's hard to read much into last years stats because the lineups being played were so different than what we will see this year.

But it wasn’t just a weak SOS, it was the weakest SOS ever. If I’m remembering correctly it was the easiest stretch any team has ever had over the course of 2 months (23 games). I just don’t know how much it balances things out when it was an outlier compared to every other team. The 2nd easiest SOS during that period was closer to the 12th hardest schedule than they were to us, that’s how easy our schedule was.

I believe the Raps had the toughest or second toughest SOS to start the year though. Eventually, you get to play all the bad teams, those just happened to come at the same time.

[Zeno]

It is not that I think this roster is fantastic but I think these podcasters, even the ones I generally respect are more and more lazy with their analysis and a general group think seems to take over across podcasts. Yes, the team is expensive and the starting lineup is pretty ill fitting. But they are also one of the youngest teams in the league and have all their picks going forward. To me it isn’t a bottom 5 situation in the league to talk about constantly

I think a lot of analysts come at things not from a pure talent perspective, but how much room does a team have to grow.

You can argue that Toronto is young and has its picks, but it is playing a weird game of assembling talent without a ton of regard for fit in a functional NBA offense, and then kind of capping itself to that team with little way to improve.

To guys like Zach Lowe the middle is the worst place to be. You have a team which added Ingram, and a healthy roster is worth about 42 wins. Great, but how much more can that team develop into a contender? The worst part is it is hard to tank out with that expensive a roster, and now we are finding it hard to move bigger salaries. I don't know if Toronto is bottom-five overall, but from a flexibility standpoint it isn't great.

To me this is reminding me of the Chicago Bulls, but at least the Bulls have a crazy fun offense with Coby White and Josh Giddy. I have a feeling Toronto's offense might be an eyesore with Barnes/Barrett/Ingram tripping over each other.

It is not so much the argument then the uniformity of argument that I find annoying. I can totally understand the perspective. But I have heard it repeated by basically everyone. Why is that? Is it that this uniform opinion on basically every team has been super accurate in assessing the season to come in recent years? I have actually found the hit rate of the general media has been shockingly predictive of what won't happen in recent years except in the case of the Westbrook trade to the Lakers being a disaster. They hit that one. You know who built from the middle? The Pacers, the Knicks and the Pistons. Sure this is an assessment of Cade and Haliburton to a degree vs Barnes I suppose. Again, I am not arguing against the take as much as the lack of diversity of opinion in general. Are they scared to have different opinions about the league from one another because they might end up being ridiculed for getting things wrong? Better for everyone to get it wrong/ or right together?

[DG88]

I'm optimistic about the upcoming season for several reasons: the team was surprisingly competitive last season even though they were tanking, they made a big leap defensively, despite all the focus on the starting lineup the team has a lot of youth who are bound to improve, the East is weaker, plus teams will be tanking for a strong 2026 draft. That said, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be critical of the current state of the Raptors until they prove it on the court.

Competitive during the second half of the season considering our schedule was the easiest in the NBA.

30 wins is still 30 wins when you were injured and/or trying to lose most of the year.

Yes I agree 30 wins is 30 wins, but having the easiest final 2 months of the season is also the easiest to months of the season. There are already so many variables that will dictate how good or bad we are during the season. I still think we have a better season next year, I just also want to be reasonable and keep expectation fairly tempered.

[OakleyDokely]

Competitive during the second half of the season considering our schedule was the easiest in the NBA.

30 wins is still 30 wins when you were injured and/or trying to lose most of the year.

Yes I agree 30 wins is 30 wins, but having the easiest final 2 months of the season is also the easiest to months of the season. There are already so many variables that will dictate how good or bad we are during the season. I still think we have a better season next year, I just also want to be reasonable and keep expectation fairly tempered.

I don't get why it's important what order the games are played in. You need to play those easy games at some point, whether it's the at beginning, middle or end.

But I agree with the overall point, it's hard to make many comparisons between last years team and this years team. A lot of unknowns still.

[Dalek]

It is not that I think this roster is fantastic but I think these podcasters, even the ones I generally respect are more and more lazy with their analysis and a general group think seems to take over across podcasts. Yes, the team is expensive and the starting lineup is pretty ill fitting. But they are also one of the youngest teams in the league and have all their picks going forward. To me it isn’t a bottom 5 situation in the league to talk about constantly

I think a lot of analysts come at things not from a pure talent perspective, but how much room does a team have to grow.

You can argue that Toronto is young and has its picks, but it is playing a weird game of assembling talent without a ton of regard for fit in a functional NBA offense, and then kind of capping itself to that team with little way to improve.

To guys like Zach Lowe the middle is the worst place to be. You have a team which added Ingram, and a healthy roster is worth about 42 wins. Great, but how much more can that team develop into a contender? The worst part is it is hard to tank out with that expensive a roster, and now we are finding it hard to move bigger salaries. I don't know if Toronto is bottom-five overall, but from a flexibility standpoint it isn't great.

To me this is reminding me of the Chicago Bulls, but at least the Bulls have a crazy fun offense with Coby White and Josh Giddy. I have a feeling Toronto's offense might be an eyesore with Barnes/Barrett/Ingram tripping over each other.

It is not so much the argument then the uniformity of argument that I find annoying. I can totally understand the perspective. But I have heard it repeated by basically everyone. Why is that? Is it that this uniform opinion on basically every team has been super accurate in assessing the season to come in recent years? I have actually found the hit rate of the general media has been shockingly predictive of what won't happen in recent years except in the case of the Westbrook trade to the Lakers being a disaster. They hit that one. You know who built from the middle? The Pacers, the Knicks and the Pistons. Sure this is an assessment of Cade and Haliburton to a degree vs Barnes I suppose. Again, I am not arguing against the take as much as the lack of diversity of opinion in general. Are they scared to have different opinions about the league from one another because they might end up being ridiculed for getting things wrong? Better for everyone to get it wrong/ or right together?

I see what you mean about the group-think tendency of media. I also find it a bit redundant especially with things like the draft coverage. Not a lot of divergent thinking.

I do praise Toronto for being brave and forging a very different identity. There are not a lot of defense first teams like Toronto that will gamble away without adding a lot of outside shooting.

For the Knicks they clearly used their draft assets well and made shrewd trades. They got the best player in the OG for RJ/IQ trade and the same for Mikal Bridges. They signed a star in Brunson and built well around him. There is no question the Knicks have a talented defensive team on paper and clearly they have shot for the next few seasons to get tot he Finals. That's all you can hope for.

Now Toronto has made its big moves with a mind to build around Barnes - adding IQ and Ingram and retaining Poeltl. It could end up more like the Pistons where they take a leap. That is a very real possibility but again it goes as far as the best player.

I do think with Pacers getting as far as they did with a build from the middle team will eventually change the narrative. Right now, it looks like you have to get into the playoffs and stay healthy. Boston won a title with other teams losing key players, OKC beat Pacers because of a key injury, but the Pacers and Thunder themselves made a finals from depth.

I honestly don't mind Toronto being underrated. No one thought they would win a title when the Kawhi trade happened and right now the media is not factoring enough how bad the East is. I still think Cleveland is the best team on paper right now, but any playoff team has a shot to make the finals.

[YogurtProducer]

People are really overthinking here .. legitimately when was the last time he had anything positive to say about the Raptors? Even the championship year...I can't recall him being particularly positive about the team. Even Barnes getting a rookie max got **** even though every team in the league would of offered him the same deal (maybe 29/30 but generally..come on)

It is a tad concerning that it seems every media outlet from the US besides Lowe has us as the worse of the worse but truthfully I would put that more as no one really paid attention to why the team was bad last year.

One of the worse injury filled seasons. *Shrug*

I put more faith in Lowe than anyone else