Toronto Raptors Quietly Building Something This Season

It’s tough to find an NBA franchise more successful over the past decade than the Toronto Raptors, under the direction of team president Masai Ujiri.

Raptors Starting Strong

Here are the top players on the Raptors roster as far as production. These numbers are per game average.

It’s early in the NBA season, but the Raptors are showing signs they might be a force in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. Power forward Pascal Siakam came out just before the start of the regular season and said he aims to be an NBA Top 5 player. 

So far he has scored at least 20 points in all five Raptors games (they are 3-2). In a recent win over the Philadelphia 76ers, Siakam showed playmaking skills, with 13 assists. In their loss to Brooklyn, he had a 37-point triple-double. As 76ers coach Doc Rivers says, Siakam is a “bonafide star in the league”.

Toronto has the reigning NBA rookie of the year, Scottie Barnes, and it has an established point guard, Fred VanVleet (averaging 15.8 points and 8.2 assists so far), who has NBA championship pedigree. The Raptors starting five is as deep as you will find in the NBA. 

The bench is led by Canadian Chris Boucher (who totalled 13 points in 17 minutes against the 76ers). And that doesn’t even yet include Otto Porter Jr., the big off-season free agent signing, who is out of the lineup for personal reasons.

Sportsbooks Give Raptors Decent Futures Odds

Fans who go to Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena where the team plays just have to look up to see all the Raptors championship banners that run along the rafters, going back over the past decade.

When he was hired by former president of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Tim Leiweke in May 2013, the Ujiri move has turned into one of the great turning points in Toronto sports overall.

There were multiple playoff seasons under the on-court leadership of DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. There was the “trade” during the summer of 2018 that brought Kawhi Leonard north of the border followed by an NBA championship the following spring, the greatest moment in Toronto sports since the Joe Carter home run gave the Blue Jays their second World Series in 1993.

After a disappointing COVID-19 season that saw the team play in Tampa, the team last season earned the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference. They are a strong pick by many to finish around there again this season. 

Ujiri’s selection of Barnes looks like a master stroke. The team has kept together a strong core on multi-year contracts, led by VanVleet and Siakam (products of an impressive developmental system), and were front and centre in the off-season rumours to land superstar Kevin Durrant.

So it comes as absolutely no surprise then that the sportsbooks have given the Raptors decent futures odds.