The Toronto Raptors have had an avalanche of injuries to start the season.
RJ Barrett missed all but the first few minutes of preseason action and the first three games of the season for Toronto. Immanuel Quickley was injured in the season opener and hasn't been back since. Kelly Olynyk and Bruce Brown Jr. have been out all four games thus far, with Olynyk still days away and Brown weeks. First-round pick Ja'Kobe Walter missed all of preseason and the start to the regular season before being sent to Mississauga.
Now it gets worse; just as Barrett is returning, Scottie Barnes is going to miss at least one game and potentially more with some sort of eye injury. Dr. Ali Rendely laid out that the time Barnes miss could span a couple of days or up to a month.
As a result of all of these injuries to rotation players, the Raptors have had to reach deep into the roster to field a team and compete. They have 15 players on the roster and everyone one of those who are healthy have stepped in for rotation minutes at some point, plus one of their two-way players in Jamison Battle.
The third-string Raptors looked outmatched in their first game, a 30-point home loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, but have bounced back to look respectable in the last three games. They beat the short-handed Philadelphia 76ers, hung tough with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and took the Denver Nuggets to overtime.
Who has impressed enough by stepping up that they deserve to factor into the rotation even when the Raptors get back to full strength? Let's look at three players, ordered from "deserves a look" to "you have to play him."
No. 3: Jamison Battle
It was somewhat surprising at the end of preseason for the Raptors to waive undrafted center Branden Carlson; he didn't have a particularly impressive preseason, but his skillset of a shot-blocking big who could space the floor made a lot of sense for this roster. Instead, the Raptors signed another undrafted rookie, Jamison Battle out of Ohio State, to take his place.
Battle has not been anything more than what he needs to be, which is a solid 3-and-D wing. The Raptors appeared to be short of those heading into the season, and a modern roster needs as many as they can get. He is playing 15.5 minutes per game thus far, hitting 38.5 percent of his 3-pointers and playing active defense.
The Raptors will benefit from sprinkling in a few minutes for Battle as it opens up the lineup combinations across the roster. They can get 50 games out of him, which means a lot of opportunity to deploy him, especially early on this year.
No. 2: Jamal Shead
Of the Raptors' five rookies on the roster this season, it's not particularly a surprise that Jamal Shead appears to be the most NBA-ready. The Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year is 22 years old as a rookie and has appeared to translate all of those defensive skills to the NBA.
Shead is everywhere on defense. He is a sublime one-on-one defender, perhaps not quite as glove-like as backcourt partner Davion Mitchell but certainly a menace on opposing ball-handlers. Where he excels in a way that Mitchell does not is as a team defender, leaping into passing lanes and stunting onto opposing players. He is even a competent weakside shot-blocker and, were he to become a full-time rotation player, is likely to rank among the league leaders in blocked shots for a guard.
The question mark for Shead was always going to be his offense, and whether he could be competent enough on that end ot justify rotation minutes. His shot is nothing to write home about, as he has hit just three of his 10 attempts from deep this season, but he is a perfect 5-for-5 from the free-throw line and his motion doesn't appear broken. It's not unreasonable to think he could improve his accuracy over a larger sample size.
Where Shead has excelled offensively is in transition, pushing the pace when he has the ball and when he doesn't. He is also very comfortable with the ball in his hands and is averaging 4.8 assists per game despite playing just 20.3 minutes per game. Not only does he lead the rookie class in assists, but of players averaging fewer than 25 minutes per game he ranks second in assists behind just Ben Simmons.
Shead is an impact defender and a steady playmaker who jiuices the Raptors' pace when he is on the court; they need to find a spot in the rotation for that sort of player even when Immanuel Quickley returns.
No. 1: Ochai Agbaji
Last season, the Toronto Raptors took a flier on second-year wing Ochai Agbaji. He had an up-and-down start to his career in Utah, but as a companion to Kelly Olynyk in a trade he was worth a late first-round pick to the Raptors to see whether they could resurrect his career.
The early returns were absolutely terrible. Ochai Agbaji couldn't hit the water shooting from a boat, hitting just 21.7 percent of his 3-pointers and shooting a barely-better 43.2 percent on 2-point shots. He had 30 turnovers and just 36 assists and was not particularly impactful as a defender. It was extremely fair to wonder whether the Raptors would move on this summer or even decline his fourth-year team option for 2025-26.
If rookie Ja'Kobe Walter wasn't hurt to start Training Camp, Agbaji may not have received the chance he needed; if RJ Barrett hadn't been hurt, Agbaji certainly wouldn't have received the heavy minutes he was given to start the year, including a spot in the starting lineup.
Yet the third-year player did receive those things, and he took full advantage. He has played 27.8 minutes per game in four appearances and averaged 12.3 points on 45.5 percent shooting from deep. He continues to crash the boards on both offense and defense, and his 1.5 steals per game have been key to the Raptors' defensive effort.
RJ Barrett is back, and Bruce Brown Jr. eventually will be as well, but Ochai Agbaji has earned a full-time spot in the rotation as the backup small forward. He unlocks a variety of lineup combinations, and if his shooting can continue, he looks like the kind of player who deserves a role on this team through this season and beyond.