The Toronto Raptors are in all kinds of trouble right now.
For the first time since Jan. 10-22, 2012, when they lost eight in a row, the team’s dropped seven straight and are a dismal 1-9 in their last 10 games.
This has resulted in the Raptors tumbling down the Eastern Conference standings to 11th place and 1.5 games out of what’s quickly turning into a coveted play-in tournament spot for the team.
This fall is almost entirely because of COVID-19 paying an unwelcome visit to the team and gutting it just enough that key players were forced to miss games, yet not enough for games to be postponed as the Raptors still had a sufficient number of healthy players to field a team.
There’s been good news this week, as the team’s finally back to full strength, but the lingering effects of those players being out of commission for about three weeks are still apparent.
However, the Raptors will keep chugging along and try to capture some momentum to get right again when they take on the Cleveland Cavaliers Sunday evening at 7 p.m. ET on Sportsnet and Sportsnet ONE.
Here’s a look at three things to watch for as you take in the game.
Prove themselves
The NBA’s trade deadline is this coming Thursday, and with the team struggling the way it is, a natural question to ask is whether the Raptors should look to be sellers at the deadline — particularly with expiring contracts like Norman Powell and Kyle Lowry on their books for this season.
There are some problems with doing those deals, however, deciding to sell doesn’t necessarily mean the team will actually get bad enough to be a real player for one of the top-five picks in the draft.
Not to mention, there’s also the fact that head coach Nick Nurse and this group as it’s currently constructed want to be given a shot to show what they can do as they are right now.
That means trading a player like Powell, who has become a revelatory scorer since he was inserted into the starting lineup full-time, would drastically weaken their chances.
After all, as mentioned before, the Raptors are still only 1.5 games out of a play-in tournament spot and just 3.5 games back of the No. 6 seed — the spot they’d need to be in to guarantee a playoff spot without having to go through the play-in tournament.
So as bad as they’ve been of late — and it’s been bad, make no mistake — they aren’t so completely buried that they can’t turn things around.
However, just presenting the theory as to why this team should be kept together for at least the remainder of the season and actually proving and showing why are two different things. The Raptors need to prove the latter over their next three games before Thursday’s deadline and it begins with Sunday’s encounter against the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team that’s inferior to them from both a record and personnel perspective.
Raptors Newsletter
The future has to be the present
The core of the Raptors’ future is clear with Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet and OG Anunoby all locked up long-term.
For the most part, all three have been strong this season — with VanVleet, in particular, taking a step towards stardom.
But, for as bright as their future potential is, that doesn’t help the Raptors much now, and if this club is really going to prove to the front office that they’re worthy of a shot as they are this season, then all three need to step up and start playing like that promised future with them leading the way right now.
Yes, they’re all recovering from COVID-19 protocols — and in VanVleet’s case, the virus itself — but the NBA is unforgiving and the only way to get yourself out of a hole is to simply play better.
That means Siakam has to start hitting clutch shots at the end of games, Anunoby has to more aggressively hunt for shots when he’s in a rhythm — as he so often is — and even VanVleet needs to find ways to be more efficient on the offensive end.
Need more production off the bench
Of course, this need for the team’s biggest guns to give more wouldn’t entirely be required if the Raptors had any semblance of true bench productivity.
The Raptors rank fifth-worst in the NBA in bench scoring this season, getting just 32.7 points per game off the pine, with Chris Boucher making up the brunt of that with his 14.4 per-game scoring average.
Outside of him, no other bench player averages more than 7.5 points per game, leaving Toronto coach Nurse no choice but to go frantically searching for any semblance of an offensive spark off the bench on a night-to-night basis.
For years, one of the Raptors’ calling cards has been their impressive depth, but that has seemingly all but abandoned them this season as Nurse scrambles to find the right combination of secondary and tertiary players who can just keep a game dead even while the starters sit for a spell.
Nurse is often juggling between bench players who can either play a little offence or defence, but not both.
For example, as good as Boucher is offensively, he can hurt the Raptors defensively because he’s such a poor defensive rebounder. The blocks are great and all, but most possessions are going to end with a missed shot and oftentimes Boucher just doesn’t have the size nor strength to battle for those defensive boards with other NBA bigs.
Another example is the combination of Stanley Johnson, Yuta Watanabe and DeAndre’ Bembry, players Nurse has relied on in the past because of the defensive effort and chops they bring on that end of the floor, but offensively they handicap the Raptors.
The same can be said, but vice versa, for the likes of Terence Davis and Matt Thomas. They can provide some offensive spark, but it’s usually not enough for how much they give up on the defensive end.
Basically, Nurse is caught in a Catch-22 with his reserves and unless these guys all suddenly start playing much better than they have, he’s going to be stuck with this dilemma for the rest of the season.
