TORONTO — Just know, Toronto Raptors fans, that when one of the team’s beat reporters updates the health status of a player for a given night’s game, we know what is coming. There are a lot of one-track minds out there.
On Thursday morning, the Raptors announced starting centre Jakob Poeltl was questionable for the evening’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, ultimately a 129-92 loss, due to an illness. He missed the game. Poeltl was not listed on the injury report on Wednesday. I, among other reporters, put the news out into the world.
“I was worried that they would ruin the tank, rest up Jakob,” @rapsangelss replied to me on X.
“They were winning way too many games,” wrote @easymoneyhesi.
“Dread it, run from it … the tank arrives all the same,” added @Raptorsshaq.
This is a reasonable, if predictable, reaction. This season started with talk about the need for a high draft pick, and that comes with a lot of losing. The Raptors were well on their way to that sort of volume of defeat before Scottie Barnes’ return from a broken orbital bone two weeks back. Since then, they have gone 4-4, and now the likes of the Washington Wizards, New Orleans Pelicans and the Utah Jazz are looking way up at them. The gap created could be permanent. For a bad team, the same energy and time required to win a game is roughly equivalent to what is necessary for a good team to win seven. We’re looking at a reverse-dog-years calculation here.
After the Raptors beat the struggling Indiana Pacers (only two wins ahead of Toronto!), my colleague Michael Grange of Sportsnet wrote that these results were getting a little worrisome. The Raptors are a little too good to be necessarily bad, and that is bad for the long-term health of the franchise.
I get the sentiment, but if you view getting to 58 losses as, by far, the most important assignment of this season, you are missing something pretty fundamental about team sports and the structure of the NBA. Additionally, if that is the only lens through which fans are watching games, maybe turn off the television and flip it back on in May for the draft lottery.
For one thing, this seems like an overreaction, at least right now. The Raptors currently have more wins than all of five NBA teams. They are exactly where they were at the end of last year, with the sixth-worst record in the league. That resulted in the Raptors getting (and immediately losing, via the Poeltl acquisition) the eighth-overall pick, but they had a 37.2-percent chance of moving to the top four. This year’s Raptors could have gone 0-82, and they would have had a 52.2 percent chance of a top-four pick. We are getting worked up about a 15 percent difference.
Admittedly, that is slightly disingenuous. The worry isn’t so much about the games they have won, but what the wins portend — more wins. You remember the 1927 New York Yankees? (No? You’re not 109?) Well, the Raptors’ end-of-season schedule is the opposite of that team’s lineup, with three games against the Wizards, two against both the Jazz and the Brooklyn Nets (the latter is currently better than the Raptors, it should be noted) and seven more against teams currently out of the top 10 in their conferences. This version of the Raptors could run through that schedule at a Boston Celtics-like pace.
Well, if the front office decides it needs to have, uhhh, some better odds of having better odds, there are things to do about that. That Barnes, whose maximum-value contract is projected to increase by about $45 million if he makes an All-NBA team, is now just seven missed games from no longer being eligible for that honour is notable. That Poeltl, who is irreplaceable on this roster, has increased his trade value with a productive season, and could likely be convinced to have some back pain if he is still with the team in March as he is signed through next season, is as well. Sitting Poeltl proved effective in producing losses last year when the Raptors went 4-28 without him, and was once again on Thursday.
“He’s just a settling force for us,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said.
If the NBA doesn’t want teams thinking like this, it could do something drastic about its incentive structure instead of the half-measures for which it has opted. Yes, the Raptors would have serious competition in an effort to not give an all-out organizational effort to win those games, but there are levers to pull.
More to the point, draft positioning might be the most important thing in a rebuild, but it’s not the only thing. The Thunder, for example, got Chet Holmgren with the second pick in 2022 and flagrantly held Shai Gilgeous-Alexander out of action late in a few seasons. However, smart cap maneuvering and trading is the biggest reason they are on top. They have missed on a few of their lottery picks but gave themselves many chances to get it right, hitting on future All-Stars (Jalen Williams) or dynamic role players (Cason Wallace) in the late lottery.
No rebuilding team may ever do the above better than the Thunder, but in addition to RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley, the Raptors acquired the picks that led to Jonathan Mogbo, Ja’Kobe Walter, Ochai Agbaji, Jamal Shead and Davion Mitchell in the trades they have made over the last year. They have another second-rounder in 2025 and first-rounder in 2026 still to use from those deals.
Beyond even that, losing isn’t the only goal of a rebuilding year. Before the season, whether Barnes and Barrett could effectively co-exist in a starting lineup also including a paint-clogging centre was an open question. So, too, was the idea that such a centre was necessary. They are learning the supporting players who work around Barnes, and so long as they remain healthy, they will continue to gain information on that front.
Gaining that knowledge isn’t a bonus when rebuilding; it’s a necessity.
Which isn’t to diminish the importance of a high pick. Your record doesn’t determine only your odds at getting a high pick but also how far you can fall in the lottery if the balls bounce unkindly. The Raptors have been burned by winning a few too many games before. By the trade deadline and certainly the All-Star break, it is on the front office to make some tough decisions and honest conclusions about the potential of this core. Following the loss to the Thunder, the Raptors are 1-9 against teams with a record better than .500 before Thursday’s play. At their best, they have been good enough to beat some aggressively average teams. If the front office isn’t prepared to make those decisions, which could come with difficult conversations with players and coaches, it is not doing its job and should be held to account.
That bridge lies on this side of the horizon. For now, twisting yourself in a knot to determine whether the Raptors playing halfway decently is a good thing is a pointless enterprise. Enjoy competent basketball, and save your gawking at the reverse standings for March. Raptors fans have permission to enjoy positive developments.
(Photo of Scottie Barnes and Isaiah Hartenstein: John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)
