Toronto Raptors: 3 reasons why the Raptors shouldn’t be slept on

2. The Bench

The Toronto Raptors have always been known for their amazing bench (remember the Bench Mob days?). With the Toronto Raptors starting lineup pretty much set in stone with Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, and Aron Baynes. The bench will give the Raptors plenty of options with guys like Norman Powell, Terence Davis, and Chris Boucher. Then there will be guys like Matt Thomas and Malachi Flynn who are making a name for themselves.

Last season Norman Powell and Terence Davis were the only current Raptors who came off the bench as regulars and they both did a very good job at it — Powell was putting up potential starting shooting guard numbers.

In the 2019-20 campaign, Powell put up a stat line of 16.0 PPG – 3.7 RPG – 1.8 APG  which would be seen as starting shooting guard numbers on most teams. Along with Powell, the Raptors had rookie Terence Davis coming off the bench who put up a pretty decent stat line of 7.5 PPG – 3.3 RPG – 1.6 APG which are pretty average bench numbers for a player, especially a rookie.

Within the last four seasons, the Toronto Raptors bench has averaged at least 30 points a night. Although it doesn’t rank them high based on points, given the amount of time the bench players are seeing, it’s pretty remarkable with them putting up these numbers while averaging 17 minutes off the bench throughout the four seasons.

The more minutes you give the bench, the more they’ll produce, but if you give them around league average minutes they’ll still produce at a very efficient rate.