You can never count out the spirit of a truly devoted Raptors fan. No matter what hole they might find themselves in, there are certainly some fans out there in Raptors Nation who never seem to steer off course, even if the situation looks bleak.
I'll give those people credit because I can truthfully say that the Raptors have often put me in some of the most head-scratching and puzzling existential crises, if you will, haha. But at the end of the day, I think a lot of it — regardless of which end of the spectrum you find yourself in — stems from the passion and desire to see the Raptors succeed.
And success — or rather, the hindrances that result in a lack thereof — was the focus of a very striking ESPN piece by writer Zach Kram, titled "All 30 NBA teams' biggest roster mistakes since 2020." As the article title suggests, the Toronto Raptors are included in the list, falling into Kram's second-tier category of teams that paid a high price with little reward. He refers to their biggest mistake as "repeatedly trading first-round picks for role players (2022-2025)."
Raptors have paid an expensive price for mediocre return investments
Trying to look at it from a double-sided perspective, I've certainly tried to hear out the positives and negatives of many of these deals, but more often than not (at least on paper), these player acquisitions have caused many to grapple with the question of what exactly is trying to be accomplished.
As Zach Kram states in his piece:
"At each of the past four trade deadlines, the Raptors have dealt a first-round pick despite not being a playoff team in three of those years and not having home-court advantage in the fourth. Here's the list of those acquisitions:Zach Kram, July 22, 2025
2022: Thaddeus Young (pick landed at No. 20, Malaki Branham)
2023: Jakob Poeltl (pick landed at No. 8, Rob Dillingham)
2024: Ochai Agbaji and Kelly Olynyk (pick landed at No. 29, Isaiah Collier)
2025: Brandon Ingram (pick belongs to Pacers in 2026)
It's not as if those picks have landed any can't-miss prospects, but the opportunity cost for Toronto is steep. And none of the players the Raptors acquired has boosted them into contention. Young, who joined the Raptors for their only postseason appearance since 2020, averaged 3.3 points in 14.5 minutes per game in those playoffs."
It's one thing to simply like a player or praise them for their contributions and skills, but it's a totally different thing when discussing a player's effectiveness in contributing to a team's winning culture. Unfortunately for the Raptors, they haven't been able to establish consistent winning ways despite being aggressive in acquiring some of these names in hopes of salvaging a winning season.
And like Kram said, it's not that Toronto is beating themselves up over any of the prospects taken with their surrendered picks (I just mentioned in a recent piece about the ironic turn of events with Malaki Branham), but it's the mere willingness to give in to that mentality that is a concern nonetheless. Who knows where they could've been had Toronto just stayed the course and utilized those picks to their advantage.
I guess the silver lining is that Toronto might not be in that deep of a hole where they seem hopelessly doomed, but then again, many analysts already view the Raptors as one of the bleakest teams in the league over these next five years ... and that is never a label you want to hold in the NBA landscape.