3 Raptors who deserve blame after disheartening play-in exit

1. The Front Office

Ujiri and Bobby Webster bet on continuity in the offseason, hoping that retaining essentially the same team that won 48 games would give them an edge. Unfortunately, their rivals all got significantly better while the Raptors either didn’t address their big needs or plugged those holes with puzzling fits.

They needed more backcourt shooters, yet re-signed both Chris Boucher and Thad Young to multi-year contracts. Christian Koloko is a terrific young center, but that pick could have been used on a potential backup point guard. Otto Porter Jr. was their big offseason fish, but he can get out of bed funny and miss six weeks. He only played eight games this season.

The Toronto Raptors’ front office must do better.

It’s easy to rip on Nurse for being inflexible and running his stars into the dirt, but what other choice did he have? In a true rock/hard place scenario, Nurse either had to take his best players off the court in order to create a balanced rotation, or leave them on for insane amounts of time. He has many flaws, but he was dealt a bad hand.

Ujiri is a fantastic executive, but he can’t keep preaching patience and bringing back the same roster year after year. If he has learned from the failing this season has brought on, 2023-24 could be a much smoother ride. If he doesn’t, get ready for more tanking talk.