As decided by you, the readers, it’s time to dive into the 10 most-read editorials of the season at Raptors Republic. You can find the full top-10 list of released articles for 2024-25 (as each one is released) here. We did a similar list at New Year’s Eve, which is also available here, but shockingly there’s no crossover on the lists.
I limited the list to editorials because news items and other pieces can often have more clicks than columns. (People really like reading about Giannis Antetokounmpo trade rumours, it turns out.) But columns and editorials — and I’m including post-game pieces — are the ones that take the most work, and in my eyes have the most value. So they’re the ones included in this list.
The 2024-25 season was a strange one for Toronto. It was the first of the Scottie Barnes era, but it was defined perhaps most of all by injury than anything else. Second-round rookie Jamal Shead played in the most games of any Raptor last season. Meanwhile none of RJ Barrett, Jakob Poeltl, or Gradey Dick played in 60 games, while Immanuel Quickley didn’t reach 40. There was development across the roster despite the losses piling on top of one another, and the new era of course culminated in the addition of Collin Murray-Boyles. In many ways, wins and losses mattered little last season. The actual results meant a whole lot less than the strides individual players took on their games.
Our coverage at Raptors Republic largely reflected that. Not to link everything — there’s too much — but every detail of every player’s game was pretty much analyzed in comprehensive detail. There was plenty about which to be optimistic even if win totals didn’t reflect that. And yet next year, finally, the Raptors are about to try to win again. I think the readership numbers reflect how much fans want that; the pieces about the big picture largely were more popular than those about the micro.
Without further ado, the No. 4 most-read story at Raptors Republic of the 2024-25 season: “After passing Vince Carter, Chris Boucher reflects on his Raptors journey” by Will Lou.
Boucher isn’t the oldest Raptor – he doesn’t have greys in his beard like Garrett Temple – but he is the last remaining member from the 2019 championship.
To put that into perspective, when Boucher lifted the Larry O’B, Scottie Barnes was in high school, Gradey Dick was too young to drive, and Ulrich Chomche was a kid working on the family farm in a small Cameroonian village (a partial list of his crop: beans, bananas, cocoa, coffee, and sweet potatoes).
You can read the rest of the piece here. And thanks for reading! We couldn’t do this without you. Truly, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for such a successful year at the site despite a season full of losses and injuries from the actual team. Love you. We could not be more excited to get into the basketball again.
