On August 27, ESPN published a piece titled "NBA Summer Forecast 2025-26: Predictions for East and West conference standings," credited to various NBA insiders as the authors. As the article title suggests, it would cover those predicted to be at the top of the food chain, middle-tier (or play-in category), and finally the bottom five to round out the group, for both conferences respectively.
And unfortunately for the Toronto, it doesn't look like this crop of NBA insiders could justify placing them in a favorable category, as the Raptors were projected to be the Eastern Conference's 12th seed with a record of 33-49.
ESPN NBA insiders forecast another losing season for Raptors in 2025-26
ESPN's Tim Bontemps would explain the reasoning behind this sentiment with these remarks in the piece:
"After falling into the bottom of the East standings, these five cellar-dwelling teams can be sorted into three different groups.ESPN's Tim Bontemps, Aug 27, 2025
First, it's the team that has the potential to rise into the play-in group: the Raptors. Toronto didn't trade Brandon Ingram last spring and instead gave him a nine-figure extension. Teams sitting in the luxury tax don't expect to be projected to be at the bottom of the standings. If Toronto is eliminated from postseason contention, it'll be a major disappointment."
Now to be fair, Bontemps does give the Raptors some credit in this passage by mentioning they have the "potential to rise into the play-in group," but unfortunately, they might have sold Toronto a bit short in projections when you consider who's ahead of them in the predicted standings: the Chicago Bulls.
With a predicted record of 36-46, I’m not about to argue how much better the Raptors are than the Bulls, but when you consider one core featuring Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram, RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, and Jakob Poeltl versus Josh Giddey (when he officially re-signs), Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, Matas Buzelis, and Nikola Vucevic ... I'll leave it to the audience to decide that one.
Last year, the Raptors, amidst injuries galore and tumultuous setbacks after setbacks, managed only a final record of 30-52. Sure, last season is the most recent benchmark to reference for pieces like this, but just three extra wins in the Raptors' upcoming campaign — especially after all the hoopla surrounding the Brandon Ingram acquisition, the end of the Masai Ujiri era, and the beginning of a Bobby Webster-led outlook — would be an absolute catastrophe, as the ESPN article suggests.
33-49 is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the worst-case scenario for the Toronto Raptors if the guys at ESPN are to be correct. It’s just a prediction at the end of the day, but I’d like to think that this kind of outcome will only come into play if the Raptors find themselves chasing early, especially given their tough schedule, or if major players go down due to injury.