Toronto Raptors Mailbag, including who is the best Raptors bench player?

Believe it or not, the Toronto Raptors are more than 25 games into the season. We decided to take your best questions in this week’s Raptors Mailbag.

The Toronto Raptors are off to the best start in franchise history, they’re the best team in the NBA, and they 3.5 games up in the Eastern Conference.

But you still have questions. So I gathered the best questions from Facebook/Twitter and gave them undisputable answers.

NBA Player Scout (@NBAPlayerScout) – Who is the Raptors best bench player?

That can be answered in one of two ways. The one who has played the best this season is unquestionably Jonas Valanciunas.

However, if we are projecting future performance, I believe Fred VanVleet is still the Raptors best bench player. His shooting struggles won’t last for an entire year, and once they end, it will open up the rest of his game. FVV was a Sixth Man of the Year candidate just a year ago. I’m not ready to give up on him yet.

@TorontoRapsBR – What do the Raptors mostly need to improve?

Despite their 21-5 record, this is still a loaded field. Three things jump off the page to me:

1. Defensive Rebounding: The Raptors rank 26th in the NBA in DREB%
2. Three-point shooting: The Raptors rank 21st in three-point shooting and are shooting 1.4-percent worse than they were last season
3. The play of the bench: After being the best bench in the NBA, Toronto has one of the worst units this season.

I’ll say the bench unit is the team’s biggest problem. Luckily, it also has the best chance for improvement. This team is extremely deep, and with a couple of rotation changes, the unit should be able to land back on track.

Try a little kindness(@4everaptor) – Should Kawhi Leonard play the game in San Antonio?

Absolutely. The crowd will be hostile, people will say mean things, but at the end of the day, it’s a basketball game. Keeping Kawhi out of the game in San Antonio will only make it a bigger deal. LeBron played when the Heat returned to Cleveland. Kawhi’s departure was messy. It wasn’t that messy.

Paul (Direct Message) – I know he’s killing it, but should Pascal Siakam move back with the bench unit?

Maybe. Bringing your third best player off the bench is rare, but not unprecedented. He’s playing about 30 minutes per game right now, and it would be tough to keep him at that number in a bench role but not impossible.

The more likely outcome is that Pascal continues to start, but plays the majority of his minutes with the bench unit. Give him the first six minutes of the game, let him sit for six, then bring him back to start the second quarter.

NBA Player Scout (@NBAPlayerScout) – Other than Lowry and Leonard who is the one player on Toronto who can’t get hurt for a long stretch this season?

As I said in the previous question, I think Pascal Siakam is the third-best player on the Raptors. However, the most irreplaceable (Other than Lowry and Leonard) is Serge Ibaka.

If Pascal misses time, OG Anunoby has proven he can handle a starter’s load. The rest of the powerforward minutes can be eaten up by other small forwards or even an Ibaka/JV combo again. If Ibaka misses time, Greg Monroe will be given rotation minutes. That’s not good. No offense to Monroe, but defensively he just isn’t able to hang with the modern-NBA. An injury to Serge (or JV really) would be devastating.