Raptors’ championship push – making haste slowly

A Raptors fan’s worst nightmare: year after year of getting close to a title, only to be topped by Cleveland. Is this fate inevitable?

For my own amusement, I hunted through some reputable NBA sites to get a sense of where others think the Toronto Raptors are positioned for next season. I wasn’t in the least surprised to learn that Masai Ujiri’s moves (draft picks, free-agent pickups & dropouts) produced a collective yawn.

I’ve selected this site, which issued a “C+” grade to our team, as providing the most representative comments.

More from Raptors Rapture

• Scottie Barnes talks Raptors expectations after bumpy 2022-23
• Raptors’ Dennis Schroder completes Cinderella story, wins FIBA World Cup with Germany
• 3 players Raptors could replace OG Anunoby with at trade deadline
• NBA insider praises Raptors’ hiring of “star” Darko Rajakovic
• Raptors fans will love Markquis Nowell’s insane confidence on Instagram

We have a long weekend to savour here in Canada, so we can take a long view. The Cleveland Cavaliers are indisputably the best team in the NBA’s Eastern Conference heading into the 2016-2017 season. They performed the seemingly impossible feat of winning 3 straight games against the defending champion Golden State Warriors to claim the NBA title, and all their critical players are returning (OK, so LeBron James hasn’t signed a contract yet – he will).

Let’s face it, Raptors fans: the 2015-16 season and playoffs were the most successful in the team’s history, by far. Yet our guys ran up against a Cavaliers juggernaut and fell short. Are we on a treadmill? Is our team fated to make another memorable run to the EC finals, only to be brushed aside once more?

To answer my own question – that’s the most likely outcome. If the Raptors and Cavaliers, as currently constituted, met in Game One tomorrow, I wouldn’t put our chances of winning four games before they did at better than one in five. But I’m confident GM Masai Ujiri and coach Dwane Casey are mulling this matter day and night.

There are some reasons for optimism. By the time the playoffs roll around, LeBron will be 32. While he’s aging gracefully, there’s no doubt coach Tyronn Lue will carefully monitor his meal ticket’s minutes. LeBron averaged 35.6 minutes per game in 2015-16, which is his lowest usage rate ever. James has started an absurd 986 regular season games, and 199 more in the playoffs, in the 13 seasons of his Hall of Fame career to date. That’s a lot of wear and tear.

The Cavaliers have a deep roster, but it’s surely no deeper than the Raptors’. Cleveland is backfilling the losses of Matthew Dellavedova and Timofey Mozgov with Kay Felder and Chris Anderson.

Is Kyrie Irving ever going to play a full season? He’s been in the league since 2011-12, and has yet to play more than 75 games. He’s a superb player when healthy, and speaking as a basketball fan, I’d hate to see his career wrecked like Derrick Rose’s has been due to injuries.

None of these preceding paragraphs negate my belief that the Cavaliers are a better team on paper than the Raptors. But the games aren’t played on paper, or on a computer.

The Raptors don’t have the flashy star power of the Cavaliers. What they do have is a sound team with experience and depth. The situation is far from “Groundhog Day” with live actors.