If you’ve seen the comments Darko Rajakovic made during the Raptors’ 2024-25 end-of-season press conferences, you might remember him saying that he cannot please everyone on the team with consistent minutes. In fact, Rajakovic himself said: "If I wanted to keep people happy, I would be selling ice cream, I would not be a basketball coach. My job is not to keep people happy."
Now here we are, just before the start of a new season, and Raptors Media Day 2025 has wrapped up. Rajakovic was once again in the spotlight as he spoke with reporters.
The topic of Toronto's rotation outlook moving forward came up again when a reporter asked Coach Rajakovic: "Bobby [Webster] was talking the other day about the how the league is kind of going to like deeper teams, that sort of thing. Do you see things changing? Like you could play a deeper rotation. Do you have like a set number of guys you think every night you might want to get in?"
Darko Rajakovic believes deep roster will benefit the Raptors
"Well, I believe that this year, we do have a deeper roster. And we have more guys that can contribute night in and night out. And that's a dream for every coach. You know, it's not going to be easy to make those decisions night in and night out, but that's the problem I'm looking forward to have — to decide who are the guys going to be out there, who's going to be competing. I think it's going to really help competition inside the team, that guys got to stay constantly on and constantly like pushing each other to play better. And I think it's really going to help us. "Darko Rajakovic on Raptors' rotation
"I like to play 10 guys and even 11 guys in rotation. Everybody. They need to be ready at any point of time. As I said, we have a deep roster and I think all of those guys at some point of a season, they're going to be huge for us to help the team."Darko Rajakovic contd., Sep 29, 2025
From a logical perspective, playing that many guys consistently could create some issues, since certain players might hit a ceiling or their contributions could plateau simply because there isn’t enough minutes to go around.
But, referring back to what Rajakovic emphasized in his end-of-season media session, he's basically reiterating that no one’s spot on the team is guaranteed. Sure, the starters are pretty much locked in, but if one, or even two or more players get injured or miss time, who’s going to step up in their place? That’s why Rajakovic said, "They need to be ready at any point in time."
It’s actually a good sign for everyone on the roster because it means there will be opportunities for every player to make an impact. You can’t play everyone over an 82-game season of course, but when the chance comes, who will rise to the occasion?