Toronto Raptors: were having so much fun, until they weren’t
The vibes were SO fun for about a week, and now were are back into injury purgatory as the team made a quick trip to Charlotte.
Remember winning against the Philadelphia 76ers? The vibes being so good? The youth movement kinda working?
That was SO last week... cause we are back to sad hours.
Yup, Scottie Barnes catching a Nikola Jokic elbow to the face in the Raptors’ loss to the Nuggets on Monday was not a flop. In fact, his face is now broken — well, fractured.
Barnes suffered an orbital fracture on his right side, which basically means some of the face bone around his eye/cheek area has cracked. With things like orbital fractures and broken noses, where you can’t do much more harm to them by playing with a cool batman mask, return to play estimates are short. A couple days, a week at most. Yet, because the team announced that Barnes will be re-evaluated in three weeks, it has led this doctor to believe that means he will undergo a surgical procedure:
With this timeline, would suspect he is for surgery. Non-surgical treatment would allow a faster return to play. Surgery is done to repair muscles/nerves/vessels between the broken bones & help with vision changes (ex. double vision). NBA players return on average in 13 games. https://t.co/iU6Mc757zu
— Ali Rendely, MD (@alirendely) October 30, 2024
Not ideal, obviously.
We already knew Scottie would not play in the team’s Wednesday trip to Charlotte, since he did not travel with them. Luckily Barrett has returned to play, and Quickley isn’t far out, but it still sucks that we will have to wait LONGER now to see the Barnes, Barrett, Quickley core that the team has now invested a lotta cash into.
Other than Charlotte, the Raptors’ upcoming schedule is also HARD. So, getting a dub to store away was of importance to this young team, especially after losing their lead and therefore the game in that overtime bout against Denver on Monday.
Well... the game against Charlotte did not exactly start out that way. The Raptors opted to replace Barnes in the starting lineup with Jonathan Mogbo, maybe the best available option. With all the missing players, the Raptors fell 30-16 in the first quarter to the Hornets.
After trailing 51-28 partway through the second quarter, the corrected themselves big time. It was near the end of the 3rd quarter they finally evened up the score and got ahead of the Hornets. Yet, it was not enough to secure them the win, and the Raptors lost 138-133.
The biggest story of the night was by far Gradey Dick securing yet another career high. He did that the other day with his 25 points, and then beat it again tonight with 30 points on 11-17 shooting from the field. It’s clear he is playing at another level this season.
RJ Barrett, the lone big 3 member standing at the moment, had 31 points on the night, and continues to impress despite coming off a shoulder injury he suffered in the preseason.
Ochai Agbaji is another name that has been floating around so far. After being traded at last season’s deadline and not impressing too much through the end of a rocky season for the team, he’s turned it around big time. He looks like a completely different player out there, and seems to be developing into the prospect the team hoped he would when they got him from Utah.
It’s so hard to see where the chips will fall with this team, and what their potential is. With Scottie now out for a few weeks and their schedule extremely hard, it may be too late for them by the time everyone is healthy. Sure, that probably doesn’t matter too much in a rebuilding year, but it would be nice to see if the blueprint is at least going in the right direction.
For now, at least the younger players who are seeing minutes are doing really well. This team is ultimately fun to watch.
The Raptors will be back for a home back to back Friday and Saturday for the Vince Carter festivities.