1 week Ago By Michael Grange
The Toronto Raptors ' biggest win this season has been the progress of their youngest players. It’s a big reason that, even though they were never in the playoff picture and made a point of not being in the play-in tournament, they can go into this final weekend of the season — a pair of truly meaningless road games in Texas, starting Friday night against Dallas and finishing Sunday afternoon in San Antonio — and feel good about the year in general. “It's a testament to our guys.
They're really invested into each other. They're spending a lot of time off the court together, same generation, all of the guys, like more or less the same age, the same interests, playing video games together and all of this stuff,” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic was musing earlier this week. “So, you know, it starts with that, but also, guys are very coachable.
They keep each other accountable. And when you do that, when you have that, then you have another team chemistry.” Which doesn’t automatically mean the wins follow.
Playing a motivated Dallas Mavericks team who are finally getting healthy (after losing Kyrie Irving to season-ending knee surgery and Luke Doncic to a franchise-altering trade, you may have heard) and hoping to host their play-in tournament match-up, the Raptors were easily brushed aside, 124-102 in a game the Raptors trailed by 10 points after 12 minutes and by as much as 38 points midway through the third quarter. A bright spot was Ochai Agbaji as the third-year wing had 17 points in the first quarter on perfect 6-of-6 shooting. He finished with 24 points and tied his career-high with six made threes on seven attempts.
Scottie Barnes added 26 points and nine rebounds. The Raptors shot 40 per cent from the floor and 11-of-39 from three. The Mavericks shot 55 per cent from the floor, 44 per cent from three and were led by Anthony Davis, who finished with a triple double with 23 points, 13 rebounds 10 assists and added seven blocks.
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-noon ET. Last season the Raptors limped to a 2-19 finish that was made worse because of season-ending injuries to Barnes and Jakob Poeltl, and bereavement leaves that kept Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett (who were out along with Poeltl last night) out of the lineup for extended stretches. As well, the Raptors weren’t in control of their own draft pick — in the end they finished with the league’s sixth worst record and slipped back to eighth in the draft order after the lottery, conveying their pick to the San Antonio Spurs to close the book on the Poeltl trade from February 2023.
And in terms of prospects, the cupboard was bare. Gradey Dick was their only rookie of note, and his first-year season was uneven at best, though he at least finished strong. Agbaji, included on the trade that brought the Raptors Kelly Olynyk from Utah, had struggled in his first two months as a Raptor and didn’t seem like anything to be excited about.
Jontay Porter briefly seemed like a G-League find until he got banned for life for betting against himself and the Raptors. Agbaji’s progress alone this season has given the Raptors a development win they didn’t have this time last season — his hot shooting night bumped him over 40 per cent from three for the season — but there’s much more than that. It’s hard not give the bulk of the credit to the five rookies the Raptors left training camp with and have individually and collectively exceeded expectations.
“We got some dogs on our team. These young guys, they come on the floor every single day and you see something new. You see Jamal [Shead] picking up full court getting eight-second violations each and every game now at this point,” said Barnes the other day.
“You see his assist numbers, him being able to attack downhill, creating offence for us, has been unbelievable. “Ja'Kobe [Walter], when he's out on the floor you see him scoring at a high rate right now, playing defence. His defence has improved tremendously.
I don't think I seen this coming. I don't think our team seen this coming. But when he steps on the floor, he's ready to guard.
He's ready to go out there and put pressure on whoever's bringing the ball up the floor. He’s taking that challenge each and every single day. “Jon (rookie forward Jonathan Mogbo ), you see him growing into himself, being more comfortable on the floor.
It's going to take some time. He's getting more comfortable every single day when he's out on the floor, rebounding, pushing it, playmaking doing the things that I've been seeing him do for a little while,” said Barnes. “These guys just continue to grow every single day.
Jamison shooting lights out. We know what Jamison [Battle] does. Yeah, these guys are amazing.
And they're going to be really instrumental to our team.” Barnes didn’t mention Ulrich Chomche, the rookie centre who was the youngest player taken in the draft and who spent most of his year in the G-League before spraining his knee and ending his season, but reports from Raptors 905 were universally positive on the progress being made on the raw prospect. This weekend had the possibility of being a special one for both Walter and Shead, who have roots in Texas.
Walter is from a suburb of Dallas and was expecting a big crowd at the game — more than 60, he told me — including a big group from his church, former coaches, teachers, and family and friends. “Everybody’s coming,” he said, allowing that was a bit strange to have to wait until the 81 st game of the season have his NBA home debut. Unfortunately Walter was held out Friday due to a hip strain, an issue that — along with a shoulder problem — has limited him to just 52 games this season, the only blip on a promising all-round rookie season for the 20-year-old taken 19 th overall in the draft.
Shead will get his moment in front of his ‘home crowd’ on Sunday in San Antonio, which is just a 90-minute drive from his hometown of Austin. He has a lot to be proud of as well as Shead will end the season as the Raptors leader in games played, second all-time among Raptors rookie leaders in assists and fourth in the NBA for rookies, all of which is pretty impressive for a player taken 45 th overall in the 2024 draft. The wait to play in front of a big crowd of friends and family will be worth it, he said.
“It’s a bit weird to wait this long,” said Shead, who will want to play better than he did against Dallas, as he finished with nine points and five assists on 3-of-12 shooting, including 1-of-9 from deep. “But it was definitely worth the wait. Now it’s the end of the year, I'm expected to be out there more.
I think that it would be more fun for my family, they’ll love it.” Grange for three: 1. Size matters: For all the enthusiasm around the Raptor finish — albeit against the NBA’s softest schedule — there have been glimpses when the gap between them as they stand now and a quality NBA team are considerable.
Even if Poeltl had been playing, the Raptors' lack of size beyond him is glaring. Not every team can roll out three bigs the quality of Anthony Davis, Derrick Lively and Daniel Gafford, but there are plenty of good teams with at least two mobile, athletic paint protectors and after Poeltl, the Raptors have none. If they’re lucky it will be something that can be addressed in the draft.
2. Congratulations to AJ Lawson: The 24-year-old from Brampton got his two-way deal converted to standard NBA contract for the rest of this season with what is — I’m told — a non-guaranteed deal for 2025-26. It’s a nice opportunity for the well-liked Raptors 905 alum who was undrafted out of the University of South Carolina in 2021 and has shuffled through three other organizations — Atlanta, Minnesota and Dallas — before joining the Raptors.
The deal for this year is just for Saturday and Sunday but gives him a little extra cash than he would make on his existing two-way and having him under contract for 2025-25 likely gives the Raptors the opportunity to have some guaranteed money kick in during the summer and at training camp. He’s still got a ways to go to have his deal guaranteed for next season, but it’s a start. Lawson finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds against the Mavericks.
3. Tough break for Olivier-Maxwell Prosper: The Montreal-born forward has had a hard time gaining traction in the Mavericks rotation, understandably give the Mavericks veteran depth at forward. But he was beginning to get some minutes earlier this season — from early December through early March, Prosper appeared in 40 straight games for Dallas, playing 13 minutes per game including four starts.
But he injured his wrist and had to have season-ending surgery. The Mavericks remain high on him, liking his combination of size, mobility and willingness to embrace his role, but next season will be a big one for him..
