While the Raptors remain a deciding question mark in the Eastern Conference with the Kawhi Leonard trade still on hold, there’s no doubt about how strong the competition has become. However, there’s a difference as to whether that strength will translate into playoff success or just a lot of regular-season wins and an early playoff out.
CBS Sports’ Sam Quinn noted on The Third Apron Podcast on July 25 that he would divide the top teams in the Eastern Conference into two categories: regular-season win machines and teams that may not show up as their best selves until the playoffs. The Raptors fell into the latter category, assuming that Kawhi Leonard will play for them next season.
“The Knicks being number one, I would then split the East into kind of two buckets where you have Philly, Toronto, and Indiana that I look at as teams that are probably not going to really stack regular-season wins because there are injury concerns, because there are changes they’re going to have to adjust to,” Quinn said.
He continued, “And I look at the regular-season wins teams, like Detroit won 60 games last year. They’re going to win a ton of regular-season games…The Celtics are gonna win a lot of games…Orlando is a great regular-season team. Atlanta, I think, has a chance to be a really good regular-season team. But that group doesn’t have that much playoff equity to me. So, you have to divide the East into these two buckets where we might go into the first round and look at three of the four series and say, ‘yeah, the lower seed seems like a bigger threat to me to actually make the finals.’”
The regular season will be a delicate balancing act for the Raptors if Leonard joins the team
Adding a veteran superstar player like Kawhi Leonard to a young roster is no small feat. There will be an adjustment period for everyone involved.
The Raptors will have to balance giving everyone enough reps and time on the court together to be confident that things are running smoothly enough to win playoff games with not overtaxing Leonard in the regular season. Leonard is 35 years old and has rarely gone through seasons without any injuries. He needs load management, as the Raptors don’t want to trade for him only to watch him go down with an injury and be unavailable in the playoffs. Trading for Leonard isn’t about regular-season success as much as it is about winning in the postseason.
Of course, the Raptors still need to win enough in the regular season to get to the playoffs, but they may value resting Leonard as much as possible more than chasing a high seed—which can be risky, considering how important homecourt advantage can be in the playoffs. The home team won every game in the Raptors’ series against the Cavaliers. Of course, a healthy Raptors team with Leonard will have a much better chance to win on the road than last season’s young team without Immanuel Quickley for all seven games and with Brandon Ingram not fully healthy either.
Stacking wins in the regular season is nice, but fans shouldn’t be alarmed if the Raptors don’t do it right away.
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