Raptors vs 76ers

02/21/2025 08:30 AM

TORONTO — It was a leading question, admittedly. 

Guilty.

But it felt necessary to ask Toronto Raptors star Scottie Barnes how he squared his determination that the team finish the season on a strong note, versus the excitement in some corners of the fan base (and not wholly unopposed by the organization) that the team do all it can to finish an otherwise lost season with the best draft lottery odds possible.

"They can be excited (about the draft lottery)," Barnes said, after the Raptors practised in advance of hosting the Miami Heat on Friday, Toronto's first start since the All-Star break. "I don't really give a damn about it. I'm trying to go out there and win games, try to possibly make something happen. So, they can try to be excited for that, but my mindset's on a different place."

You would expect Barnes — or any player, honestly — to feel the same way. 

But it felt like it needed to be asked because the underlying tension that has been bubbling barely beneath the surface of the Raptors' season is at risk of bubbling over as the team reconvenes after a nine-day break for a 27-game sprint to the finish line.

The Raptors have a 17-38 record, which would be good for fifth-best lottery odds if the season was over. But the easiest portion of the Raptors season is staring them right in the face, providing a buffet of winnable games and, perhaps more concerning, plenty that will be hard to lose.

The Raptors' remaining schedule is as soft as a heated donut and the easiest in the league. In total, they play the rest of their games against teams with a cumulative winning percentage of .398, but it falls off the table in the last 20 games, as those opponents have a cumulative winning percentage of .308. 

Which could be a problem. 

Ever since team president Masai Ujiri declared the 2023-24 season a rebuilding one with an eye on positioning for the 2025 draft as a source to add some much-needed and hard-to-acquire star talent, the question has always lingered: Was this team too good to be bad enough to do it? 

At times, the answer has been definitively not. When the Raptors lost 11 straight and 16 out of 17 games from Dec. 5 to Jan. 11, they gave every appearance of a team giving itself the best odds possible to get the No. 1 pick at the NBA draft this coming June. 

By the time that nightmare stretch was over, the Raptors had an 8-31 record and were tied for the second-worst record in the league. 

Their reward, had that trend continued, would have been a 14 per cent chance of picking first overall and a guarantee of picking in the top six. 

But the Raptors never seemed exactly that bad. They played hard. They passed the ball. They remained — apart from an illness, injury, travel and holiday-infused low-point in late December and into the new year, when the Raptors lost four games by an average of 32 points — mostly engaged. 

That the Raptors found themselves wallowing at the bottom of the standings seemed in large part due to circumstance. 

Heading into the regular season, the Raptors were projected to land somewhere around 29 wins. Nothing spectacular, but too many wins to get into the top three of the draft lottery odds, typically.

But injuries hit hard — the Raptors have had their core of Barnes, Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett and Jakob Poeltl fully available for only six games — and they had the most difficult schedule in the league before the All-Star break.

So, even as the losses were mounting and the wins were few and far between, you could still convince yourself that this group was more competitive than its record. 

Barnes certainly believes that. It was just before the break that the fourth-year wing played one of his best games of the season, if not in his career, as he put up 33 points and grabbed 10 rebounds and added three assists, two blocks and a steal while setting career marks for free throws made (12) and attempted (15) as he bullied the Philadelphia 76ers on the road.

He's got all the motivation in the world. If Barnes can finish the season on a tear, help the Raptors compete for a play-in spot, there's an outside chance that Barnes could earn all-NBA honours, which could bump his $225-million contract extension closer to the $269-million Supermax, depending on the details of his contract and which all-NBA team he qualifies for. It's a long shot, but it could happen. More relevant, for tanking purposes, it also makes sitting Barnes for long stretches unlikely, as he needs to play 23 of the Raptors' final 27 games to get the 65 games he needs to qualify for any appropriate post-season awards. 

Whatever the scenario, after warming his bones at an undisclosed location over the break, he's ready to pick up where he left off. 

"I look at the standings every day. We're still in that fight. We still could make something happen. That's my motivation," said Barnes. "When I look at it, I see that we still have a chance. The team, we feel like we still want to win. We feel great going into every single game with the mindset and focus of trying to get better and trying to achieve that goal of winning."

The crazy thing is Barnes isn't entirely wrong. 

The Raptors are just five games behind the Chicago Bulls for 10^th place in the Eastern Conference and the final spot in the play-in tournament. Normally, you'd figure that's too much ground for a bad team to make up in the space of 27 games, but this isn't a normal situation. 

The Bulls have lost four straight and traded their best player, Zach Lavine, at the deadline. They're likely going to be jockeying for lottery position. Lying between the Raptors and the play-in are the Brooklyn Nets, who have had their eye on the draft lottery since trading with Phoenix to get control of their own draft pick back before the season, and the hapless, lifeless, injury-plagued 76ers. Philadelphia is not the Finals contender many pegged it for before the season began (duh) and at some point you have to wonder if it doesn't pull the plug and try to hang on to its draft pick, which it will otherwise owe to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it falls outside the top six of the draft. 

And like we said, the Raptors aren't terrible. Since hitting their low point last month, the Raptors are 9-7 and are sixth in the NBA in defensive rating, after being last through 39 games. 

Veterans Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown and Davion Mitchell — all since traded at the deadline earlier this month — had a role in the Raptors' resurgence, to be sure, but the signs of Quickley returning to form, Barnes getting on his horse, continued strong play from Barrett and good health from Poeltl could offset those losses. The continued improvement of the Raptors' pool of rookies could help, too. 

But by far, the largest factor is the Raptors' schedule. There are still some hurdles to overcome — the Raptors host Boston and are on the road against Indiana and have two games against Orlando, which presumably should be finding its early season form now that it’s back a full strength — but the last 20 games of the schedule could see the Raptors win on the floor but lose badly when it comes to lottery position.

Whatever the opposite of murder row is, the Raptors will be facing it. Somehow, Toronto will still have three games remaining against the Wizards (9-45), two against Utah (13-47) and two against Charlotte (14-39). The best team the Raptors have left on their schedule after March is Dallas, and it just traded Luka Doncic and has all three of its big men — including newly acquired Anthony Davis — out with injuries. They play the San Antonio Spurs twice, and it was announced Thursday that emerging superstar Victor Wembanyama will miss the rest of the season due to a blood clot in his right shoulder. 

Losing enough games against that level of competition will take a certain level of commitment.

Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic sounds like he's planning to give his rookies big minutes as an investment in their future, so that might help. An “injury” to Poeltl, the team's only experienced NBA centre, would help even more. 

It might not be what Barnes is gunning for, but adding some significant talent at the upcoming draft — maybe even presumed No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg — would do more for his chances of winning in the future than any run at the play-in tournament this year conceivably could.

The Raptors' rebuilding season has gone well so far, favourable lottery odds are within their grasp, but now comes the easy part.