Latest injury news reveals the Raptors' season was doomed from the start

March 1, 2024.

Stephen Curry hit seven 3-pointers to lead the Golden State Warrios to a win over the Toronto Raptors. RJ Barrett led the way with 23 points for the Raptors, while Immanuel Quickley had 11 assists and Scottie Barnes had 10 points and six rebounds in 15 minutes before exiting the game with a hand injury.

That game is noteworthy because it is the last time all three of those players suited up in the same game for the Raptors - preseason or regular season. Since that moment, when Jonathan Kuminga's foot struck Scottie Barnes' hand and fractured it, the Raptors have gone 4-24.

The Raptors' stars can't get on the court together

Barnes was late to Training Camp due to the birth of his son, and by the time he debuted in preseason, RJ Barrett had already injured his shoulder. Before Barrett made it back, Immanuel Quickley fell hard and hurt his lower back and pelvis; he hasn't played since the opener. Now Scottie Barnes is going to miss at least 3-4 weeks due to a fractured orbital bone around his eye after Nikola Jokic inadvertently nailed it with his elbow.

Perhaps all three players will get onto the court together by Thanksgiving. More likely, it will be mid-December. That is, unless Barrett picks up another injury, or Immanuel Quickley gets suspended, or Scottie Barnes decides to play Olympic volleyball instead.

That's how things feel around the Raptors right now -- that this season was always going to be doomed. If a bad thing is going to happen to the Raptors, it will. We haven't even mentioned that Bruce Brown Jr. had knee surgery less than a month before the season began and isn't anywhere near returning. Or that Kelly Olynyk was traded for despite being old, and is now dealing with a bad back and hasn't played this season. Neither has first-round pick Ja'Kobe Walter, who missed all of preseason with a shoulder injury and is now in training camp with the Raptors 905.

The injuries keep coming for the Raptors, when this was supposed to be the season they were all healthy. Last year was the injury-riddled one, where Barnes and Jakob Poeltl missed the last quarter of the season due to injury, where Barrett and Quickley and Olynyk were in-and-out of the lineup. Where the Raptors were signing guys off the street and sticking them into the rotation mere hours later. Where two-way centers somehow thought they could get away with gambling on their own games by checking themselves out with mystery illnesses.

This season is already lost

This season was going to be different. We all heard the stats about what a lineup with Barnes, Barrett, Quickley and Poeltl did to teams last year. We watched Barrett ball out for Team Canada and got excited for the future. We knew Barnes' box score stats last year were literally historic and dreamed about another leap forward. We fearsomely defended Immanuel Quickley's contract and ignored the fact that Jonathan Mogbo was drafted because he was Barnes' friend just as much for his untapped potential.

Now the hope for this year is extinguished, and it apparently was all a facade to begin with. The Raptors are 1-4 after a loss to the moribund Charlotte Hornets. Their next seven games are against teams who had a winning record last season, including a five-game road trip. It's not going to get any better for a long time - if it ever does.

The Raptors aren't making the playoffs, they almost certainly aren't making the Play-In Tournament, and any plan to see what this core can accomplish has been dashed from the start. It usually takes longer than seven days for a season to fall apart, but for Toronto, the pain of a lost season has already arrived.