Raptor’s young core shines in loss to Hornets
To start this season, there were two potential paths for the Toronto Raptors to take. After a 138-133 loss to the Charlotte Hornets Wednesday, and some bad Scottie Barnes injury news, they are being pointed in the spookier, albeit probably more sensible, direction.
The first of the two paths, is being a good, plucky, upstart team that puts in determined efforts against teams like the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets, and maybe even wins some of those types of games too when things break the Raptors way. In this scenario, they are fighting to get to .500 through the early stages of the season, make some noise in the NBA cup, build momentum, and ultimately end up in the mix for a play-in spot.
When the Raptors play the way they did through the middle of this game, it’s easy to envision.
After facing a deficit as large as 23 early in the second quarter, they came storming back with a flurry of activity from Jamal Shead, RJ Barrett, and Gradey Dick. Shead fired passes all over the court on the way to eight first half assists, finding Dick in the corner, Poeltl in the paint, Boucher with a hit-ahead, and picking Tre Mann’s pocket and finding Dick again for a transition slam. Barrett touched the paint at will, Dick scored from everywhere, and by halftime the Hornets’ lead was down to five.
But, the Raptors 1-4 start and daunting schedule for the first quarter of the season makes this kind of optimistic outcome very difficult to achieve. Of their next 15 games, 10 are on the road and 12 are against teams that finished with 46 or more wins last season. In fact, this was Toronto’s first game this season against a team that didn’t make the 2023-24 playoffs.
It also doesn’t help that the Raptor’s season has been a slasher movie so far, with their best players dropping one-by-one. First the team’s top pick Ja’Kobe Walter was apparently taken out on a wild close-out in practice by Barnes. Immanuel Quickley fell to his (pelvis’s) demise. Barrett was crunched by friend-turned-foe Jonas Valanciunas in game one of the preseason. And now the Raptors hero, Barnes, has been incapacitated by an adversary just as intimidating as Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, Nikola Jokic.
Wednesday’s starting lineup continued to feature Davion Mitchell at point guard, while Jonathan Mogbo took Barnes’ place. Both Mitchell and Mogbo played a high level of on-ball defence. But, without the All Star’s inside scoring punch, the gravity that brings, and his ability to exploit it with great passing reads, advantages will be harder to come by on the offensive end. The Raptors, particularly Dick, Barrett and the guard tandem of Mitchell and Shead did their best to ameliorate this, working to create for themselves and others.
Barrett finished with 31 points and eight assists, and continued to show the ability to distribute as a pick n’ roll ball handler, finding Jakob Poeltl rolling to the basket twice and Mogbo with a dump-off underneath. Dick scored a career-high 30 on some efficient shot making and spectacular finishing at the basket. Poeltl stuffed the stat sheet with a 20-point 16-rebound double-double. Shead and Mitchell played the traditional point guard role, finishing with nine and 11 assists, respectively.
However, there was also some ugliness. The Raptors had seven first quarter turnovers, and were bit again after two more costly giveaways to end the third. They lead the league in turnovers per game (19.0) and are 29th in turnover percentage (18.2). Both rotations and transition defence were sloppy at times, allowing the Hornets to rain hell-fire from 3 and put together momentum-killing runs. Ultimately, all of Dick’s marvellous finishing and Mogbo’s stout defence couldn’t get the job done.
That leaves them with the second path, one where the Raptors lose a lot at this early stage of the season, further incentivizing them to take their foot off the gas down the stretch and position themselves to select in the lottery in what is a stacked 2025 draft class.
Nothing is set in stone yet. But if the Raptors do end up losing a good number of games over the upcoming stretch without Barnes, or even for the rest of the season, the question becomes how to they do that optimally.
The answer continues to be games like this, an acceptable loss where they play hard and there is notable development from their young players.
The other obvious goal is to get a good look at BBQ once they are all finally healthy. The 680-possession sample size of the three of them playing together last season – not including minutes played with Pascal Siakam – is promising. Yet there is so much more to be gleaned from seeing the trio play big minutes together this season.
Even if the Raptor’s core develops well together later (add Dick to that mix as well, he only played 34 possessions with BBQ last season) they are trending towards the dreaded T-word. With each additional loss and injury, we pay heed to Masai Ujiri’s words on media day:
“We all know what reality is in this league, and the draft is a way for us to build teams and acquire players.”
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