TORONTOR RAPORTS
LATEST UPDATE: Five reasons to keep an eye on the Raptors during the second half of the NBA season
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There is 30% left in this Raptors season. If the current winning streak of two games isn’t a mirage, there might be more. The Raptors finished 21-36 in the first seventy percent of the regular season, good for 12th place in the Eastern Conference. However, if you were disinterested in Toronto’s retool following the blockbuster transactions, here are several reasons to give it another look:
1) Scottie Barnes’s development: An all-star who is unquestionably a top talent, Barnes is the new face of the team. He’s going to reach his full potential. Barnes will decide. He has the potential to be one of the greatest Raptors ever if he can maintain concentration, develop into a more reliable dominant player (taking over games rather than just one or two quarters), and improve his handling of poor refereeing. Although Barnes has been packing the stat sheet in recent games, his three-point shooting hasn’t yet back to what it was before his early breakout seasons. Be cautious if it does.
BONUS: Is the pick in or out? Toronto sits seventh from the bottom of the NBA standings. If that holds at the draft lottery, the San Antonio Spurs get Toronto’s first round pick from the Jakob Poeltl trade. Toronto only keeps the pick if it lands 1-5. Memphis (20-37) and Brooklyn (21-34 before Saturday’s game) appear to be on the downswing and it seems highly unlikely the NBA’s bottom five teams are catchable (they are dreadful and already at least five games behind Toronto). Even if Toronto can get to sixth from the bottom, there are no guarantees the pick will be retained since the team with the sixth-best odds of winning the lottery has 30% odds of dropping to seventh and 20.5% of dropping to eighth (and just 8.6% of staying at six and around 9% each of jumping into the top 4).
Though it will be intriguing to observe if the Raptors prioritize a run to the play-in, as Rajakovic has stated they will, or start experimenting in the hopes of maintaining their pick. This is especially true for those who enjoy the drama that comes with following the standings.
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