Back on the day after the Toronto Raptors playoff run ended, star shooting guard DeMar DeRozan looked ahead to the potentially tumultuous offseason to come and put his faith in the organization, leaning on the recent past for assurance.
“When the organization understands winning and wants to win, you don’t have to worry about that,” DeRozan said. “I just try to worry about myself and understanding I need to be better for whatever the next season brings. But I understand it’s going to be a team that’s going to try and compete to try and win, not to just figure it out or wait until next year. We showed it this year, winning 50+ again, and always being counted out.”
That DeRozan mentioned 50 wins was not an accident. While an arbitrary round-number cut-off, 50 wins has long been considered the line of demarcation for NBA teams that want to consider themselves good, ma significant distance from the middle of the pack. Whatever goes into that number – over-performance, under-performance, injury, variance, luck, and so on – reaching it is difficult, and maintaining it even tougher.
A new level for Raptors
To wit, the Raptors had never won 50 games in a season until 2015-16, when they went 56-26. Following two years of climbing to new levels of respectability with 48 and then 49 wins, the Raptors blew through the benchmark and into the league’s second tier. A year ago, they took a small step back but still won 51 games, locking themselves in as one of the more longer-tenured teams in the league when it comes to sustaining a certain level of success.
This, despite the constant doubts DeRozan notes. Some of this has been a little overblown as the Raptors look to keep a chip on their collective shoulder, but the Raptors have often out-performed team-level expectations. The team’s beaten different projection systems by small handfuls of wins with regularity, the perfect prove-em fuel for the othered engine the team likes to tout.
Bookmakers, however, have been a little more accurate. A year ago, they came very close, pegging the Raptors for 49.5 wins. That’s close enough, though still a hair low. Looking at how the Las Vegas lines and early projections line up can give us an idea of where the Raptors figure to be slated come October. It doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot, but it’s at least a little informative for calibrating expectations and, if the win total over-under seems particularly out of line, it’s an opportunity to make some money as a reward for your faith in the team.
What are the odds saying this year?
Furthermore, many of Canada’s top casinos online would seem to suggest the Raptors are pegged for another small step backward, with an over-under of 48.5 wins. You can find them as low as 47.5 and as high as 50.5 if you look hard enough, but 48.5 would come out as roughly the mean and modal total.
That seems reasonable. The roster, on paper, is a little worse than last year before pricing in internal development. The Raptors have one of the youngest supporting casts in the league, so that could mean the win total either undershoots their potential or overstates their floor. We won’t know until the three or four or even five young guys slated for larger roles hit the floor. The top of the East is a little better, the ow-middle a little worse, and the Raptors somewhere in between. You can probably safely cast a 45-to-55 band right now and look reasonable anywhere within it.
Missing the 50-game mark wouldn’t be the end of the world so long as the team remains firmly in “good” territory, but you can bet they’ll be aiming for it if it’s on the table late in the year.
