By admin 
TORONTO – One year ago Monday, the Toronto Raptors traded OG Anunoby, marking the unofficial start of the team’s rebuild. While the Pascal Siakam deal that came a few weeks later more clearly showed the path the Raptors would follow, it was the first decision the Raptors made for themselves that further moved them away from valuing wins above all else.
Fred VanVleet’s departure in free agency last summer was the first indication the Raptors would do this, but the Anunoby deal signaled acceptance. The Raptors had a hybrid plan: not exactly shameless tanking, and certainly not placing a premium on winning in the short term. Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett, acquired in the Anunoby deal, would surround Scottie Barnes with players of similar age, and Siakam’s return would kick off the Raptors’ attempt to build a group of supporting players based on of rookie deals behind that trio and Jakob Poeltl in an effort to avoid falling into losing years.
The Anunoby exchange took place in late 2023. Their 136-107 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday was the final home game of 2024. It was a turnover-filled offensive embarrassment, two days removed from a deep defensive shyness. The calendar year ends with a matinee affair in Boston on New Year’s Eve. The quiet days of November, when the Raptors achieved moral victories, are long gone.
“Right now we’re hitting a wall as a team,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said. “We hit a wall. It’s very simple.”
“We just can’t afford to get to this point and have teams score 130 points or more every game,” Barnes said. “For the last three games that is simply unacceptable.”
In fact, they have given up 430 points over the last three games, or more than 143 points per night. Who counts?
Including the last few games, this year was the year the Raptors finally took the medicine they only picked up at the pharmacy when they had no other real choice left.
As the year comes to a close, there was some slight irony to be found in the fact that Bruce Brown made his season debut against the Hawks. The Siakam trade was never about Brown himself; the Raptors hoped, and continue to hope, that they could get something for the veteran in a trade. Brown’s salary was the vehicle through which the deal became CBA compliant. The Raptors believed that Brown, while in Toronto, could be a unifying factor to help the Raptors progress on the court.
Due to a one-time knee injury that ultimately required offseason surgery, Brown played just 35 games for the Raptors in 2024, all but one last season. In his absence — and the extended absences, at various times, of Barnes, Quickley, Barrett, Poeltl, Kelly Olynyk and others — the Raptors have had to throw out a number of lineups that strain credulity as legitimate NBA lineups.
It’s possible the Raptors have unearthed some gems, with Ja’Kobe Walter and Ochai Agbaji, acquired via the Siakam deal or in a subsequent deal, looking particularly promising. Yet it is difficult to know what an individual achievement has meant.
“You are always looking for continuity for your team and that your people are available and healthy,” says Rajaković. “Only when you have that, do you have the opportunity to see and assess it. If a reserve player has a starting role, it completely changes his role. He goes against (a different) kind of talent. He plays several minutes. He plays a different role in the team.”
They didn’t get that. Instead, they have absorbed many, many losses. The Hawks’ loss gave the Raptors their second losing streak of 10 or more games of the year.
The loss leaves the Raptors at 20-61 in 2024. Five teams, including the Raptors themselves, are on track to finish with a worse record this season, while only two finished under the win total last season.
Whether it’s intentional or not, they’ve been one of the worst teams in the league, period.
There are a lot of expectations for 2025, but all those losses that led to a high draft pick in June are at the top of the list. Forgetting all the trades, the biggest thing that happened to the Raptors in 2024 was a number lottery balls don’t bounce their way. Had they stayed at No. 6 or moved up in the lottery last spring, they would have kept their pick in June’s draft. They would still have owed one, possibly this year, to the San Antonio Spurs to complete the ill-conceived Poeltl trade. Instead, they lost their pick, with the eighth selection heading to Texas.
That medicine also had a bad aftertaste, but it was necessary. Imagine a 2024-2025 season that played out more or less like this, but without a guaranteed draft pick in June. Yes, the Raptors would have a player like Portland’s Donovan Clingan or Minnesota’s Rob Dillingham, Memphis’ Zach Edey or Utah’s Cody Williams, and any of their rookie years would be interesting to follow in Toronto at this point. If they were healthy, they obviously would have had access to a ton of NBA minutes. But that draft seemed short on superstars at the time, and nothing that happened in the first eleven weeks of the season made that seem wrong.
The 2025 draft has that kind of potential, and that’s exactly what the Raptors need: a player who can reach a high level quickly and help the team’s young core take a step forward with a financially sustainable payroll.
That’s the hope that will sustain the Raptors and their fans through the first half of 2025 and perhaps beyond. For now, the Raptors can only hope that this medicine will eventually cure what ails them.
Comments
• Brown checked in midway through the first quarter and played in a bench-heavy lineup led by Barnes. He looked like a player fighting his way through his first game in a long time, but who needed to test his knee and get his teammates excited at the same time. He got better as his performance went on, finishing with 12 points and three rebounds in 19 minutes.
THAT’S OUR COWBOY pic.twitter.com/fm5k77X7gg
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 29, 2024
“I felt like myself. That was just the best part,” Brown said. “Last year I played on one leg. I can move. You’ve all seen me running, trying to give it my all. That wasn’t the case last year.”
Brown said he expected to be back a few weeks ago, but the swelling after surgery didn’t completely go away. Adding another credible creator to the bench groups would allow Barnes to act as a screener more often while not putting the ball in the hands of the Raptors’ non-shooters at guard Jamal Shead or Davion Mitchell too often.
• The Raptors turned the ball over on each of their first five possessions and on six of their first seven. A few of them were home run passes that would have led to easy layups, but still. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a surge in sales to launch a game.
The Raptors finished with 31 turnovers, one shy of a franchise record, while Barnes single-handedly had a career-worst eight. Some of them were ugly And/or careless.
“We have to take it much more seriously than this,” Rajaković said. “This has been an ongoing issue with our sales this year. We have to do it much better. I have to do my best to hold the boys accountable to the standard.”
• Barnes’ jumper looks questionable from many places on the floor, but his outer paint turnaround jumper has been silky smooth lately.
• This was probably the first Canadian-to-Canadian buzzer beater in Raptors history.
BONNNJOOOUUUUUURRRRR pic.twitter.com/0p0tlprCft
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 30, 2024
• Walter has good basketball sense for a newcomer who played only one year in college. The Hawks aren’t the Detroit Pistons of the mid-2000s, but he quickly recognized a zone found Olynyk for a gift.
(Photo: Frank Gunn / The Canadian Press via AP)