2014-2015 Raptors Power Rankings

[Joey]

Training Camp Power Rankings

http://espn.go.com/nba/powerrankings...r/2015/week/-1

#1 - San Antonio Spurs

#2 - Cleveland Cavaliers

#3 - Chicago Bulls

#4 - LA Clippers

#5 - OKC Thunder

#6 -Dallas Mavericks

#7 - Golden State Warriors

#8 - Portland Trail Blazers

#9 - Washington Wizards

#10 - Raptors - ESPN Forecast-ers had trouble choosing between the Raps and Wiz for No. 3 in the East. The Wiz get the slight edge here, but Toronto feels understandably good about its prospects after comfortably re-signing Kyle Lowry and seeing productive World Cup trips for DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas.

4th in the East. 10th Overall. I accept this.

Anyone ahead of us you see that we can pass? Will we finish the year at 10?

[Joey]

Raps were also #10 on NBA.coms Mid-Summer Power Rankings.

http://www.nba.com/powerrankings/

#10 - Toronto (48-34)
Pace: 94.4 (23), OffRtg: 105.8 (9), DefRtg: 102.4 (9), NetRtg: +3.5 (9)
Key addition(s): Continuity
Key question: Were those contract-year bumps?
Kyle Lowry had his best season last year, and Patrick Patterson and Greivis Vasquez were also big off the bench. All three are re-signed and Dwane Casey can build on top-10 marks on both ends of the floor. Another year of development from (and more touches for) Jonas Valanciunas would do the trick.

[Scraptor]

I think it's just about right. I do think we'll be better than Washington, but I'm not sure about Houston. Even with their losses, Harden and Howard are a pretty formidable duo, and Terrence Jones should continue to improve.

Dallas is a couple spots too high and Denver a couple spots too low. Other than that it's fine.

Whether or not we crack the elite depends entirely on how much our youngs develop, and whether we can stay healthy. If Val really beasts and Ross plays elite wing D while nailing his threes, we could kick some serious ass. But they might not really hit their full stride till next year.

5th/6th/7th best teams in the league won 54 games last year, 8th won 51, 9th won 50. It's not scientific but I'd say to get into that elite group we need to pace for 51-55, which again will be very tough given the East's improvements.

[enlightenment]

Fine. Ill take it. Still think we are better than Washington.

[007]

I think we'll do better than the Wizards again.

And we are pretty much locks for top four (as we're in the worst division in the league)

[lilmamba_]

Everyone has us a spot behind the Wizards, its going to be close, but I see us in the 3rd spot
can't wait to get the season started

[WJF]

Training Camp Power Rankings

http://espn.go.com/nba/powerrankings...r/2015/week/-1

#1 - San Antonio Spurs

#2 - Cleveland Cavaliers

#3 - Chicago Bulls

#4 - LA Clippers

#5 - OKC Thunder

#6 -Dallas Mavericks

#7 - Golden State Warriors

#8 - Portland Trail Blazers

#9 - Washington Wizards



4th in the East. 10th Overall. I accept this.

Anyone ahead of us you see that we can pass? Will we finish the year at 10?

I am not sold on the Dallas roster, Dirk is Dirk, but it will be interesting to see how the other pieces fit this year, 3 new starters to start the season. Washington has depth issues, but their starting 5 is nice. Portland will be in a dogfight all year in the West, I could see us having a better record than them.

[white men can't jump]

Training Camp Power Rankings

http://espn.go.com/nba/powerrankings...r/2015/week/-1

#1 - San Antonio Spurs

#2 - Cleveland Cavaliers

#3 - Chicago Bulls

#4 - LA Clippers

#5 - OKC Thunder

#6 -Dallas Mavericks

#7 - Golden State Warriors

#8 - Portland Trail Blazers

#9 - Washington Wizards



4th in the East. 10th Overall. I accept this.

Anyone ahead of us you see that we can pass? Will we finish the year at 10?

I don't really have a problem with their rankings, but it's hard to guess such a thing so early.

I expected Cleveland and Chicago to get the highest spots out of East teams, and the Spurs, Thunder and Clips to get the top spots of the West teams, making up roughly a top 5.

After that, not sure how much stronger the next batch of West teams is over Toronto and Washington. I like what Dallas did this offseason, but they've had pretty major changes, so we'll see if/when they find a rhythm. GSW, Portland and Houston would also be clustered together in roughly the same range. And Toronto, Washington and Charlotte the likeliest teams from the East to match/better the success of those teams.

So basically, I'm cool with 10, and think that around 6th is probably the highest spot the Raps could finish at. Of course, these are just power rankings, and I wouldn't care if Toronto is 15th as long as they finish atop their division, and hopefully 3rd seed for the playoffs. I'd be ok with 4th too, if the team still plays as well as hoped, but someone (WAS/CHA or another) just plays crazy good (and obviously assuming Cleveland and Chicago round out the top 4, but that's far from a given too).

[white men can't jump]

I am not sold on the Dallas roster, Dirk is Dirk, but it will be interesting to see how the other pieces fit this year, 3 new starters to start the season. Washington has depth issues, but their starting 5 is nice. Portland will be in a dogfight all year in the West, I could see us having a better record than them.

I'm sold on Dallas' roster being better than last year, but I'm not sure I'm sold on them being a contender. And I think they've had so much change that there's at least some chance, possibly a high chance, that they start kind of slow until they work out rotations and chemistry. If it takes them too long, they could struggle to match last year's success (where they barely made the playoffs), but if they click fairly quickly I can see them being a top 4 team in the West.

[Day One]

Training Camp Power Rankings

http://espn.go.com/nba/powerrankings...r/2015/week/-1

#1 - San Antonio Spurs

#2 - Cleveland Cavaliers

#3 - Chicago Bulls

#4 - LA Clippers

#5 - OKC Thunder

#6 -Dallas Mavericks

#7 - Golden State Warriors

#8 - Portland Trail Blazers

#9 - Washington Wizards



4th in the East. 10th Overall. I accept this.

Anyone ahead of us you see that we can pass? Will we finish the year at 10?

I'm not ok with it, we are better then Washington and we proved that. Their team did not improve at all this off season. Chi town at number 3 is a complete joke, i still have no clue why everyone thinks this team will be so good. The expectations of D Rose after his last injury laughable. Remember how he injured it, yeah same shit as Brendan Roy the guys done. I see 3 teams on that list that i think we would not be able to beat in a 7 games series San Antonio, The clippers, and GSW

[YoungGunRaptor]

I'm not ok with it, we are better then Washington and we proved that. Their team did not improve at all this off season. Chi town at number 3 is a complete joke, i still have no clue why everyone thinks this team will be so good. The expectations of D Rose after his last injury laughable. Remember how he injured it, yeah same shit as Brendan Roy the guys done. I see 3 teams on that list that i think we would not be able to beat in a 7 games series San Antonio, The clippers, and GSW

Washington did upgrade their bench with younger role players whilst also retaining Gortat and bringing in Pierce. They also have some young talent on their roster who they expect will make improvements this season. (Glen Rice, Otto Porter).

But what if Pierce cannot fill the gap left at the 3 spot by Trevor Ariza? What if the Wizards' young talent does not meet their expectations? What if Gortat gets injured? What if Blair and Humphries do not perform well off the bench?

Questions like these can be posed for every team, and for that reason, we have to wait until the season starts to find out.

As for Chicago, last year's roster somehow earned the 4th seed in the East despite having a lacklustre offense. Not only did they lose Derrick Rose 10 games into the season, they traded away Luol Deng before the trade deadline. Adding Pau Gasol, Mirotic, Mcdermott, and Brooks while also getting a healthy Derrick Rose back definitely puts them in contention for the top spot in the East because they addressed their need for players who can score and make plays for others.

But like I said, we will only know for sure once the season has started.

[Miekenstien]

Fine. Ill take it. Still think we are better than Washington.

I think we'll do better than the Wizards again.

And we are pretty much locks for top four (as we're in the worst division in the league)

Everyone has us a spot behind the Wizards, its going to be close, but I see us in the 3rd spot
can't wait to get the season started

i see beal as the big question mark for the wiz. i see us being better than them but i can also see beal bringing it bigtime and wall/beal is way better

[Joey]

and wall/beal is way better

Wall/Beal is way better than Lowry/Derozan? Hmmm, that's an interesting comparison.

[MACK11]

This upcoming season Wall/Beal aren't better than Lowry/DeRozan. The Wiz are gonna start Paul Pierce and he cannot guard 3's anymore and they have otto porter behind him who's an unproven player. I like the Wiz starting 5 but there bench isn't good enough.

[Joey]

This upcoming season Wall/Beal aren't better than Lowry/DeRozan. The Wiz are gonna start Paul Pierce and he cannot guard 3's anymore and they have otto porter behind him who's an unproven player. I like the Wiz starting 5 but there bench isn't good enough.

Ya they're a mystery to me. I think they have potential to be better than us, but I think a lot of things need to go right.
Mind you, a lot of things need to go right for us to have repeat success.

I agree that #6 is possible, with it mostly being "also rans" after the top 4 or 5.

Golden State should be healthy this year and looking to make some noise however, so we'll see how Kerr does with them.

Portland are just as mysterious to me as the Wizards. They could be awesome, or meh.

Dallas has a nice starting 5, but they're old. Jose, Monte, Parons, Dirk and Chandler are going to win some games though.