When you try to describe something, to truly understand it, what do you start with? Not its qualities, surely. Not what a thing is, but what it means. And there might be no thing with a bigger gap between constitution and meaning than the 2024-25 season of the Toronto Raptors.
This season, defined by injured players and lost games, largely went to plan.
If you had traveled from today to the past, to the day before the season began, and guaranteed this year to Bobby Webster and Masai Ujiri, I’m sure they would have been pretty pleased knowing this was on the way. Oh, sure, there were plenty of bumps in the road, hiccups in the throat. There were countless injuries to Immanuel Quickley, Scottie Barnes, Ja’Kobe Walter, and others to start the season. Then many more to Barnes, Gradey Dick, and others to end it. There were losses and trades. But overall (and outside of the injuries), that was more or less what the team wanted.
The Raptors wanted to be bad. And they were. (Not maybe as bad as they had wished.) At times the team went a little too far with its finger on the scales of intentionality in losing. But the players were always there to pull the team out of its doldrums, hitting game-winners to save the franchise from staid placidity. Ja’Kobe Walter drilled a circus game-winner, and Jamal Shead’s fingernail stopped him from snatching another only a few nights later. Plenty of youngsters big scoring nights, triple doubles, and other meaningful moments. No matter who was on the court, the team was virtually always a good watch. That matters.
And the Raptors as a result have a 7.5 percent chance at Cooper Flagg. All the pain is worth it for that shot. There are other projected-to-be-great players at the top of the draft even if Toronto doesn’t horseshoe its way into Flagg.
There were plenty of other reasons this season was worthwhile besides. Our own Es Baraheni ably covered some of the positives of the year, and I’m not going to repeat too much of his excellent work. The front office turned in a mountain of excellent work. It started with the 2024 draft, with was terrific for the Raptors, with all players added having a shot at being in the rotation next season when the team wants to win. Getting four (maybe five) productive, promising players in one draft class is a huge win. The front office did great work around the edges, shedding Jalen McDaniels for Davion Mitchell and picks (one that became Shead), then later flipping Mitchell for yet another pick at the deadline. And, of course, the Raptors traded scarce assets for former All-Star Brandon Ingram. Even though there is plenty of risk in trading for Ingram, he should do a huge amount to help the creation and scoring punch of the team — and particularly aid its best player, Scottie Barnes.
There are other benefits I didn’t initially consider in acquiring Ingram. Jakob Poeltl mentioned how pleased he is with Toronto’s commitment to speeding up its rebuild and looking to contend by next year. It is important to keep Poeltl engaged and involved, coming off a career year in 2024-25 and clearly ready to anchor a good team as a starting center.
Barnes’ game did seem to plateau this year, with plenty of added touches leading to fewer points, fewer assists, and a sizable drop in efficiency. But as Barnes himself admitted in his exit interview, this was a year of experimentation, of him seeing what works and what doesn’t. He said that for him to succeed he needs to “dominate” physically going forward. That is a good lesson to take from the year, on top of some modest gains in his mid-range game.
Immanuel Quickley showed that he still needs to add plenty to his game in order to be a star, but the hope has to be that with Ingram seeing more of the ball for Toronto, Quickley’s weaknesses can be ameliorated.
If you compare the 2024-25 season to the one previous, this year was one of stability. No players intentionally throwing games. No lawsuits with rival NBA teams. No trades of longtime leaders and champions. Instead, Toronto stayed the course and even implemented a defence that — despite very poor signs midway through the year — ended up working quite well. The team finished 14th in defence after finishing 27th last year despite playing arguably the same or lesser defenders. Barnes, especially, has emerged as one of the league’s best on that end, night in and night out. The offence at least generated good shots, even if it didn’t convert them.
If you look at the Raptors’ 2024-25 season in totality, at all the pieces, you would probably be left shaking your head in disgust. A boatload of losses (52 to be precise). Regression from the two would-be co-stars in Barnes and Quickley. There’s no wonder that outside media members criticize the season. But this was the point of the year. The season was what it had to be. Wins weren’t the point.
Now it’s going to be time for Toronto to be judged almost entirely on wins. This season now passed had symbolic value no matter what happened on the court. The start of the rebuild, the picking of a lane. Next year, for better or worse, the constitution and meaning of the year will almost assuredly be one and the same. So I hope you enjoyed these nebulous days of choosing your own meaning. They, mercifully or mercilessly, are finally over.
