Toronto Raptors: Top 5 best individual seasons of all-time

The Toronto Raptors are embarking on a period and time where they seem to be in rebuild mode starting this season. The Raptors have made up some ground, but their 2-8 start has Pascal Siakam’s team on the outside looking in with regards to the playoff picture. Kawhi Leonard isn’t walking through that door anytime soon.

After seven seasons of playoff basketball, 2021 might be just a shortened 72 game schedule with no meaningful games in the spring. Still, Fred VanVleet tried to keep Toronto in the hunt with a brilliant performance setting the franchise’s single-game scoring mark, on Tuesday, with 54 points in a win over the Orlando Magic.

It broke a record 52 points from former Raptor DeMar DeRozan in January 2018. Prior to that, both Vince Carter and Terence Ross had scored 51 points apiece.

While VanVleet is having a fine season that could put him in the All-Star game, time will tell if he will be able to carve out one of the five best individual seasons in the short history of the Raptors.

These are the 5 best seasons in Toronto Raptors history

Toronto Raptors best individual season No. 5: Vince Carter 1999-20

In June 1998, the Toronto Raptors used the draft to acquire the first true superstar to provide the franchise with some of its first NBA success. It was limited success, but the athletic Carter proved early he was a franchise-changing talent.

The Raptors had drafted Carter’s college teammate at North Carolina, Antwan Jameson. The Golden State Warriors then selected Carter, but a deal was struck at the draft to swap the two Tar Heels, and the Raptors’ fortunes changed.

Carter would play six and a half seasons in Toronto, which provided the franchise with awe-inspiring feats of athletic excellence. His 1999-00 season, in particular, was outstanding. During that season, he played in all 82 games averaging 25.7 points, 3.9 assists, and 5.8 rebounds per game on shooting percentages of 46.5 from the field and 40.3 on 3-point shots.

Not only is the stat line impressive, but it came from a sophomore who lead his team to its first playoff appearance in franchise history. It was also the Raptors’ first-ever winning season at 45-37, and the first time they had ever won 40 or more games in a season. However, the Raptors were swept 3-0 by the New York Knicks that April.

Even with that loss, his exploits in 1999-00 earned Carter an All-Star appearance, where he won the Slam Dunk contest with some unreal gravity-defying dunks, including hanging by the elbow on the rim after a dunk.

He was Toronto’s first-ever superstar and earned the nicknames “half-man half-amazing ” or “Air Canada” as expressed during broadcasts of the team’s games by then play-by-play broadcaster Chuck Swirsky every time Carter did something special on the basketball court.