Who are the Toronto Raptors biggest competitors for seeding this season?

Boston Celtics

The Celtics have shipped out their biggest star in the offseason and retooled, and this Kyrie-less Boston squad looks like they’ll be neck-and-neck with the Raptors all season long.

In many preseason look ahead’s and predictions the Celtics, were expected to finish ahead of the Raptors in third, and a lot of that is due to the acquisition of Kemba Walker. The Celtics guard has made an immediate impact with his squad, and when you combine him with Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward you can create some terrifying lineups.

So far this season they’ve rotated their squad quite a bit, and are playing good basketball, but as the season progresses it will be interesting to see how they shorten up their rotation and where their minutes are distributed.

With the Eastern Conference being the way that it is at this moment, the Celtics are a team that could make a surprise run and shock the league, but could also be another installment in a generation of Celtics basketball that continues to come up short.

The Verdict: The Celtics and the Raptors will likely be a toss-up, with both teams closely competing with each other for the third seed in the East this season. In all probability, the race for the third will come down to the cohesion and chemistry of Boston’s starting unit versus the continued growth of Toronto’s young stars and their bench.

One thing is for sure, it will be a close race that will need to be monitored for the entire season to determine either teams probability at a second round upset.