Highs and Lows of the Toronto Raptors’ 30th Anniversary Season

With the Raptors’ last home game of the season come and gone, we reflect on what went well and what did not for the Raptors.

Well Raptors fans, we are (almost) at the end of this season. On Wednesday, the Toronto Raptors played their last home game of the 2024-2025 season, fittingly on their stunning purple Vince Carter court. They’ll hit the road to close out their season, with no chance now of making a play-in tournament push. Instead, it’s right into draft talk for the Raptors, who have locked in the 7th best odds in the NBA Draft lottery.

Before we look ahead at the future, there is still some reflection to do on how the 2024-2025 fits into the tapestry of this franchise as a whole. It’s 30th season, not filled with wins so much as what felt like baby steps towards a future with (hopefully) more wins. Luckily (yet anyway, there is still a few days left) there were no lawsuits, no betting scandals, and it’s safe to say the overall vibe was better this season than last.

The Raptors have seemed to decide on a vision to focus on, did well drafting some solid projects to continue investing work in, and made a splash during the trade deadline. Yet, all of those are future moves and not now moves. The “now” product was… a work in progress.

“Before I talk about the team, I have to talk about our fans. We do have the best fans in the world. We’re going through rebuild and every single night 18,000, 20,000 people come to support us. It’s outstanding. We go on the road and sometimes we play against teams that are going through the same process. That’s not what we experience when we’re on the road. To see that kind of love and support, it really proves that this is a very special place.” – Darko Rajakovic

It wasn’t 100% bad though this year though, so let’s take a look at a few highs of the season:

Trading for Brandon Ingram

The moment the vision started coming together. With the addition of Ingram, the Raptors path seemed plenty clearer, especially when his contract was extended so soon. He wants to be here, now he just needs to get healthy.

Before Wednesday’s win against Charlotte, Darko told the media that while Ingram won’t play in any of the Raptors’ remaining games, the prognosis seems good on his ankle. While the team was in Brooklyn, they went with Ingram to see an specialist doctor who told them his recovery was going well. He was given a platelet rich plasma injection this week, which will help speed up the recovery of his ankle as well. Darko noted that he should be healthy enough to participate in the Raptors’ offseason training schedule, and the hope is that he will be playing and back in good health by the time next season starts.

So trading for Ingram was a next season move, but the Raptors have a guy they can not only depend on but one with high ceiling. Ingram is a scorer — as he proved once by scoring a 40-piece on the Raptors. Him healthy alongside Scottie Barnes and the rest of the lineup will be a huge boost for the Raptors. Next year, anyway.

Team Chemistry

If we couldn’t have wins, at least we had vibes. The team was filled with great energy and the players genuinely loved playing together. With that genuine connection came a lot of growth from them as leaders.

Scottie Barnes especially grew into his role a lot. On the TSN broadcast it was reported that Barnes hosted several team dinners throughout the season, and worked on both his leadership skills with the team while also training to represent the team better. That meant going through training to do better in media speaking engagements and making sure he was involving himself in the community.

That obviously trickles down into the younger players as well. Players like Jamal Shead and Ja’Kobe Walter already came to the team with reputations of being good teammates and good people, but this environment has helped them along. Walter is now the team ambassador for MLSE Launchpad, a charity that helps underserved youth through basketball programming. Shead is making addresses to the fans before games.

Leading this team off the court is of course Garrett Temple, who has been credited time and time again as the voice inside these guy’s young ears. Whether it’s about the on-court development or just life, Temple seems to be the guy to go to when you need to chat. It proves the closeness of this team.

Temple stated after Wednesday’s game that he wants to come back and play next season. He turns 39 in May, and despite that shows great hustle on the court. There does not seem to be any reason to not re-sign Temple this summer. His deal is fairly cheap, and his impact on the core players is incalculable.

The team owns their lottery pick this time

Last year, among the tanking discourse, the Raptors didn’t even own their own pick. It was top-6 protected, but similar to this season, the team ended on the edge of those odds. On top of that, they ultimately fell to the 8th pick and lost it anyway. This time that’s not an issue, because the Raptors own their lottery pick no matter what.

That’s a bonus. Of course the pick would have been better if the team had embraced the tank, but right now they have the 7th best odds. Who knows, they could make a leap, but it’s still an improvement. They have a 31.9% chance of leaping into a top-4 pick, and a 7.5% chance of getting the No. 1 overall pick.

Time to leave the purple season behind us

Keep the purple though, and the Vince Carter court. Please.

The Raptors will end their season on Sunday evening in San Antonio. From there, players, Darko and Masai Ujiri will likely speak to the media next week to give end of season remarks before heading into the offseason.

The plan, Darko outlined Wednesday evening, is to balance individual work with rest and team training. Last summer, the Raptors took many chances to get the entire team together — including a full team retreat in Spain. Darko says the plan is to do similar things this summer, allow the players to get together in groups on their on as well, and send out coaches to meet up with players wherever they are to put in work as well.

For the coaching staff and front office, attention now turns to the draft, and soon after free agency. The Raptors have already locked up all their biggest players and likely won’t be big players in free agency this season. Ingram, Barnes, RJ Barrett, Jakob Poeltl and Immanuel Quickley are all under contract for next season. Gradey Dick and the rookies (Shead, Walter, Mogbo and Battle) will likely be returning.

Maybe the biggest question is Chris Boucher, whose contract is expiring. The sole remaining member of the 2019 Championship team has been out of the rotation this season, playing sparse minutes. His last appearance was in late March, and when asked if Chris would take to the Raptors court one last time this season — possibly his last time ever in his home country jersey — Darko said it “wouldn’t be fair” to Boucher to make him play after he had sat for four weeks.

So other than a trip to the Lone Star State this weekend, the Raptors season is coming to a close. While many parts (mostly the purple parts) were great, there won’t be many people too sad to see this season in Raptors history come to a close.

The goal next season is to be competitive, so hopefully in a year we aren’t saying “have a good summer” to our Scotiabank Arena colleagues in April (when it snowed that morning) and instead prepping for a playoff push.