It’s mailbag time again! The Toronto Raptors take a winless road record into Wednesday’s game at New Orleans and are close to the NBA’s cellar — yet, most fans are pretty pleased with where things stand. Why? It’s all about the stacked draft class. Losses suck, but if you’re a fan of “ethical tanking,” few teams of recent vintage have done it better than the Raptors so far.
Thanks as always for the questions. You can send them my way on Twitter or Bluesky.
Johary on Bluesky asks: “I suppose Gradey (Dick) is the 5th starter once the team is at full health. But who’s going to the bench– if any at all — should the Raps get one of those much coveted top prospects in the 2025 draft?”
RW: It’s way too early to think hard about this one, but we’ll give it a shot. There’s no scenario where Scottie Barnes doesn’t start and Jakob Poeltl is probably a lock too if he isn’t traded since even the best centre prospect isn’t ready to step right into the NBA next season. Immanuel Quickley has the second-biggest contract in Raptors history and is a talented player and I still think he starts even if Toronto lands one of the top guard prospects. That leaves RJ Barrett and Dick. Barrett’s been solid as a Raptor, especially at home, where he’s played at an all-star level, and Dick has taken major steps forward as sophomore, but the draft is loaded with high-upside wings. If a great shooter is picked maybe it will make sense for Dick to come off the bench. But if it’s Cooper Flagg, who excels right now in other areas, maybe they’ll need Dick’s shooting and Barrett would become one of the NBA’s best sixth men? Again, it’s early.
Menashe on Twitter asks: “What is your assessment of (Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic) so far? Positives? Areas to improve?”
RW: Darko’s done a great job of keeping things positive both last year and early this season even with the losses piling up. Last year it was blowout after blowout, lately it’s been close defeats that could demoralize some groups, but he hasn’t let that happen. Players are getting better under the watch of Rajakovic and his staff, which was the main reason why he was hired in the first place. I think he’s had some struggles late in games with lineups, timeouts and things like that and the defence has been way too porous and foul-prone (but still better than last year), but overall has done a good job. He certainly knows the game, has great rapport with his players and works hard.
Mark Russell on Bluesky asks: “I’m curious about why we’re touting the defensive abilities of certain Raptors when our team is so incredibly bad at defense. I haven’t noticed many teams have an “off night” against us.”
RW: That’s fair. Before Tuesday’s games, Toronto ranked 24th in defensive efficiency and defensive rebounding percentage. But when you factor in the team leads the NBA in man games lost to injury, how exactly are they supposed to gain any defensive cohesion? Plus, I assume you’re referring to Davion Mitchell and maybe Ochai Agbaji here and NBA.com’s stats show Mitchell has done a superb job on many stars. He held De’Aaron Fox to 3-for-9 shooting when they were matched up, Anthony Edwards to 3-for-7, Jaylen Brown to 1-for-5, LaMelo Ball to 1-for-7, for example. He forced Cade Cunningham and DeMar DeRozan to each have three turnovers in eight, and three minutes matched against Mitchell, for example. He’s a really good defender. It’s the other end that’s holding him back.
Agbaji didn’t do a good enough job forcing Jaden Ivey into a tougher shot on Monday at the buzzer and has tailed off a bit for sure. But, he’s often had the toughest matchup and done OK against ultra elite player like LeBron James, Jayson Tatum and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Team defence is just that – team. One or two guys can’t do it on their own.
Fromthecheapseats on Bluesky asks: “Jamison Battle has taken 2 Technical free throws for the Raptors, how many free throws did he make in whatever training camp competition they most of had for him to earn that right as an undrafted rookie?”
RW: Ha, I’ll have to look into this. But Battle is one heck of a shooter. I’d imagine he knocks down a ton in practice and he hit 9-of-15 three-pointers in Summer League, 8-of-14 in the pre-season and 43% in his final season in the NCAA (he also shot 88-for-95, 92.6% from the line that year). Right now he’s one of the best options. Dick and Quickley would probably be my picks over Battle, but he’s a good choice too. But you’re right. There can’t be many examples of undrafted rookies getting the job before. Fred VanVleet would be a good guess as the last Raptor in that situation to do it.
Jurassic Snarked on Twitter asks: “What are the best & worst case scenarios for how the rest of this season goes for the Raptors?”
RW: Worst case is they land somewhere in the middle — either in the play-in or just out of it and miss out on drafting in the top 5. Or a top player suffers a bad injury that will impact them long-term. Best case to me is things continue like this (OK, with a few more wins so they get off this 13 win or so pace to more like 25 victories or so) tough losses but they keep playing hard and improving as players. Get an asset or two for Bruce Brown/Chris Boucher and hope for lottery luck. Others might see best case as similar to the year they traded Rudy Gay and inexplicably won 48 games and the division out of nowhere. That’s not happening though.