The Toronto Raptors are fun. There’s no denying that. In fact, they’ve pretty inarguably been the most fun bad team in the league through 25 games. Almost all their games are competitive, the team is bought-in and laying it out there, youthful flourishes are hinting at a thrilling future, and the team’s play style is a joy to watch. What’s not to like!
Well, there is one thing. And considering the history of the franchise, it’s an off-character foible. The Raptors don’t dunk the damn basketball, and it’s keeping them from achieving Max Radness.
This is a franchise steeped in a rich history of rocking rims. You could argue it’s the thing they’ve done best apart from, you know, winning the literal NBA Championship that one time. From VC and DeRozan to Terrence Ross and Jamario Moon, the Raptors have been to sick jams what the Warriors have been to the three-pointer, both in-game and on All-Star Saturdays. Hell, they’ve got a dunk-inspired court and jersey this year!
It seems, however, that in the year the Raptors are celebrating their history, one of their long-time defining traits is stuck in a fallow period.
Getting to the rim ain’t the issue. Toronto is third in the entire league in the frequency with which they take shots at the cup, and sit closer to the first-place Nuggets than the fourth-place Magic. And yet, they were 27th in the league in total dunks through the end of Monday night’s action. Their 79 slams outpace only the Bulls, Nets and Suns, cowardly squads afraid of poster glory. Atlanta, the league-leaders, who I’m now obliged to love, have more than doubled up the Raptors with 163. Giannis Antetokounmpo has dunked it 91 times on his own.
This all begs the question: why are the Raptors such a lay-up pilled bunch?
An exodus of dudes with big ups certainly hasn’t helped. Between his reverse chin up joints off cuts or the handful of coast-to-coast uncontested jobs he’d get per game, losing OG Anunoby has been a big blow; his 47 this season are more than double that of any Raptor. His brother in getting traded, Precious Achiuwa, didn’t do much by the end in Toronto, but he was always good for a nightly attempt to dislodge the rim from the backboard. Replacing those two with Immanuel Quickley, he of just 18 career dunks, and RJ Barrett, married to his delicate lefty off-glass finishes, is one of the biggest strikes against the quality of that trade.
Jakob Poeltl has found an economical workaround to his lack of hops with his ever so deft push shot; shooting as well as he does in close with just five dunks on his ledger is actually kind of impressive.
Acrobatic lay-ups are cool and all, but in essence, they’re just dunks that failed. Gradey Dick could stand to take more direct routes to the highlight reel than he presently does; he’s thrown it down just twice all season.
Scottie Barnes would have more than 10 had he not missed so much time, but less than one a game feels like a colossal waste of his power/athleticism mix. Ochai Agbaji and Barrett each have nine, Bruno Fernando — owner of the team’s loudest dunk all year — has seven, and Jamal Shead has just one.
Unbelievably, two guys are responsible for FORTY-FIVE percent of all Raptors yams to this point. Chris Boucher’s always had the dunker’s spirit within him, so his second-best 17 aren’t a total surprise. But it’s Jonathan Mogbo, 10th on the team in minutes and 12th in field-goal attempts, who leads the way with 19 rim meetings this season — and you all wonder why I’m so in on this dude.
There’s some merit to the idea that this team should be going out of it’s way to dunk more. Yes, they get to the rim at a top-three rate, but their finishing in close has been kind of piss-poor considering how deeply rim pressure is baked into their style of play. Only 62.1% of the Raptors’ rim attempts have found bottom, 24th-overall, and more than 10 percentage points behind the league-best Grizzlies, who are 4th in dunks, by the way.
So, is there a turnaround coming? Without a healthy Barnes, it’s hard to see a path to climbing the charts in a substantial way, though there are some glimmers of hope among the guys the team has on hand.
We’re on a two game run of Mogbo-Poeltl two-man game yielding big boy jams for the rookie, and with Barnes out, there’s a real chance we see more of those two playing together, which excites me very much.
I’ve also got an eye on Ja’Kobe Walter. A branded shooter, he’s got some real rim pressure upside despite still being on the hunt for his first career slam. Norman Powell’s dunking shoes haven’t really been filled since he was sent to Portland for Gary Trent Jr., which in retrospect, is the day the dunks began to die. Walter, with a lightning first step, has the best chance of any recent addition of living up to Norm’s great accomplishments in posterizing fools while wearing Raptor fatigues.
Frankly, it’s astounding the Raptors have maintained this high a Fun Quotient through a third of the season while being so bad at the single most fun thing a basketball player can do. And in keeping with the general tone of this newsletter, I’m choosing to view their dunk deprivation through an optimistic lens. They can only go up from here, literally. If they can find a way to turn some of their fancy pants lay-ins into stone cold jams, the good times are gonna roll harder than ever. And it just might earn them a few extra Ws along the way.
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Today on the podcast I fielded some listener questions about Ja’Kobe Walter’s ceiling, how close this roster is to being a winner, new 2-way signing AJ Lawson and more! Enjoy the show.
