As top-end talent returns, efforts of ‘other’ Toronto Raptors can’t be overlooked

A team with unbreakable spirit

This was supposed to be the nightmare scenario for Toronto: Everyone gets hurt, things start unraveling amid a tough early schedule, it becomes apparent that a deep playoff run isn’t possible, and the front office sells Gasol and Ibaka for whatever value they can get at the trade deadline. The Raptors flounder, they maybe grab the No. 7 or 8 seed in the East, and they have a quick playoff exit. It’s the weakest title defense since the 2011-12 Mavericks.

And yet. And yet, and yet, and yet. At every turn, the Raptors have shown the same resilience and mental fortitude that made last year’s team impossible to count out. Same leadership, different supporting cast. Far less talent, but just as much heart.

The Xs and Os matter. Nurse’s brilliant risk-taking and unconventional defensive schemes matter. The lack of an elite isolation scorer on the wing, eventually, will matter. Sometimes, though, all that matters are sheer desire and an unwillingness to give in to what’s “supposed” to happen.

For this Raptors squad, those things are a given.