Sean Woodley here, the host of the daily Locked On Raptors podcast, with your daily Locked On Raptors newsletter. Each day we bring you the biggest stories about the Raptors and the NBA, including the hottest links to other stories you need to read. Plus, Josh Lloyd delivers daily fantasy notes to crush your league.
Toronto Raptors get a reality check during tour of L.A.
Nov 9, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; Toronto Raptors guard Immanuel Quickley (5) reacts after hitting a 3-point basket against the Los Angeles Clippers to tie the game with 38 seconds left at Intuit Dome. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images|Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
I don’t think you’ll find many people who aren’t completely fine with what the Raptors have done to date. They’ve blended, beautifully, the excitement of watching development-first basketball with the future-forward accrual of losses in the lottery race. This is what most fans wanted.
The harmonious fun-bad balance probably won’t hold all year, though it’d be nice. Either the team is gonna burst through their late-game issues, their internal steps flipping some of their narrow losses into Ws, or, they’ll stay mired in the cycle of staying close but not having the juice to finish, until the natural atrophy of repeat tries and fails leaves them coming up incrementally further short.
This weekend we got a look at just how challenging it’ll be for the Raptors to accomplish the former. Youthful exuberance is great, but its effects wear off in crunch time. Experience widens margins, and the Raptors don’t have it yet.
You can see the signs of progress. Saturday’s game against the Clippers featured some of the best late-game offense we’ve seen from the team this season, in no small part because Immanuel Quickley was back in the mix. Down the stretch we saw the power of having a real string-pulling guard. He was incisive and bursty getting downhill, all the while pulling the top off the Clippers’ defense with his shooting threat. A pocket-pass dime to Bruno Fernando, a live-dribble feed to Chris Boucher cutting baseline, the at-the-buzzer possession-saving drive by Derrick Jones Jr. for the delicate high-glass finish over Ivica Zubac, his catch-and-shoot game-tying triple running through a maze of screens — these are things the Raptors crummy late-game offense have sorely missed from their guards in crunch time with Quickley sidelined.
It wasn’t enough. Darko Rajakovic’s self-admitted blunder on the back-to-back hack-a-Jak situations to close the Clippers loss highlighted why IQ’s juice alone won’t flip this team’s fortunes. They’ve got a coach who’s learning, pushing through his first stretch of serious basketball as this team’s coach. Like his players, he’s going through a development arc himself. His control of the late game knobs and levers hasn’t been ideal early on, but he’ll be better for it. There’s also only so much agency coaches have over the action once the ball gets inbounded. Players shape results. And the unfortunate truth is the Raptors are still punching up in the talent department.
Jakob Poeltl’s pretty emblematic of this. It’s inarguable how essential he is to the Raptors; a guy without whom the team would be a developmental wasteland. He’s indispensable. And yet, there’s a reason one of the running bits on the broadcast this season has been “man, Jak keeps playing against really good big men, huh?!” There’s no reprieve coming for Poeltl in the matchup department. Most starting bigs rock. Nights like Saturday where he just gets punked are gonna be part of the deal even as he puts together a career year.
RJ Barrett had a similar reality check this week. Still tasked with being the load bearer-in-chief for this team, the limitations of Barrett as a leading man have bled through after his red-hot start guiding the team in the first few games after Scottie Barnes went down. As the apple of the opposing defense’s eye, the spaces are tighter, the finishes more contested. A week of 17.5 points a game on 44.2% true shooting isn’t just a fall back to Earth — it’s a crash landing. With Quickley back (and hopefully looking much better than he did in the back-to-back against the Lakers), and Barnes hopefully not too far off, Barrett should re-assume his role as an efficient off-ball play-finisher soon, evaporating the faint wisps of ‘Knicks RJ’ we saw cloud his game this week.
This is the push and pull of a young team figuring it all out. Steps forward, steps back, few wins, many lessons. The tide will shift eventually. Process wise, things have been too sound, and the Eastern Conference remains hella butt. But the path from bad to respectable is an arduous one, and the Raptors have barely broken a sweat yet.
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Today on the podcast I take a look at the Raptors’ 0-2 trip through L.A., Immanuel Quickley’s hot and cold return and as always, the Good, the Bad & the Hmmmm from the weekend that was. Enjoy the show!
37 points, 18 rebounds, 15 assists. The first NBA player to reach these numbers in a game, and Nikola Jokic did it on a Sunday night in Denver, snowy pockets of flurries settling over the city. I wish I’d been collecting these stat lines all along, or had thought to make a note on the calendar when they happened. I’d like to see if there’s a pattern, though I’ve got a hunch that the dates would come to mean less than what the volume of them proves: in Jokic’s hands, the unprecedented becomes routine.
It starts with his skill, we know this. But let’s zero in on how he carries himself around the floor, how he moves. Jokic lopes, jogs, shuffles, occasionally bops, tends to move laterally more than he does in a direct line. It all serves to create an illusion that he’s slow and behind the pace. It’s why so many have a difficult time categorizing what it is he’s doing — he doesn’t work the way a basketball player does, tends to be the refrain. It’s because he looks, most of the time, relaxed
He can also appear pressed, like there’s someplace else he’d rather be. This is not the kind of approach we like to see from our stars. If they don’t look dialled in, if it doesn’t look strenuous at least some of the time, we tend to distrust their effort and skill. But Jokic’s arduousness is some of my favourite in the league, because it presents at our expense. And indeed, it must be exhausting to prove nearly every night that you can manipulate the game at every level.
Katie Heindl is a credentialed NBA and WNBA writer, her bylines have appeared with The New York Times Magazine, SLAM, The Athletic, Yahoo Sports, Dime, Rolling Stone, among others. She writes the bestselling Substack, Basketball Feelings and is working on a book of the same name.
Home and Away
Recap The Raptors struggled in the second half, falling to the Lakers 123-103. Key players couldn’t keep up with the Lakers’ intensity, leading to another tough loss. (Raptors HQ)
Recap Crunch time woes haunted the Raptors again, as they lost another close game to the Clippers. Missed opportunities in the final minutes have been a recurring issue. (Raptors HQ)
Chet Holmgren’s Injury: What It Means for the Thunder and Fantasy Basketball Managers
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren (7) holds his leg after a hard following a play against the Golden State Warriors during the first quarter at Paycom Center.|Photo by Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images
Chet Holmgren’s Injury: What It Means for the Thunder and Fantasy Managers
Sunday’s NBA action took a concerning turn for the Oklahoma City Thunder as Chet Holmgren, their promising young centre, suffered a hip injury just five minutes into the game against the Golden State Warriors. This incident has left both the team and fantasy managers in a state of uncertainty, as Holmgren’s presence on the court has been pivotal.
The Impact of Holmgren’s Injury
Holmgren’s injury occurred during an attempt to contest a dunk, resulting in a hard fall that left him limping off the court. The Thunder have since reported it as a hip injury, but the full extent and severity remain unclear. Given Holmgren’s importance to the Thunder’s lineup, any absence could significantly impact their performance, especially considering their current lack of depth at the centre position.
Potential Replacements and Adjustments
In the wake of Holmgren’s injury, the Thunder may need to rely on a smaller lineup, as they did against the Warriors. This could mean increased minutes for players like Aaron Wiggins and Cason Wallace, who might see more court time and opportunities to contribute. In deeper leagues, Ousmane Dieng could also be considered for a temporary boost, though none are likely to replicate Holmgren’s production. Fantasy managers might consider these short-term pickups, but it’s crucial to temper expectations, as the Thunder’s rotation could remain fluid.
Don’t let these episodes pass you by — stay locked in with the latest Locked On Raptors podcasts.
Thursday — Would you rather be the Raptors or Sixers for the next 5 years? w/ Trill Bro Dude Sean is joined by Trill Bro Dude from the You Know Ball podcast to talk about the Raptors and Sixers, both near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, but with very different outlooks both now and in the future.
Wednesday — What’s More Likely?! featuring Hot Take Heindl Sean is joined by Katie Heindl (Locked On Newsletters) to play a few rounds of our favourite parlour game: What’s More Likely?! We get into either-or questions about Jakob Poeltl’s future in Toronto, how the Raptors stack up with the Bucks and Sixers, and who will start more games to close the season between Ochai Agbaji and Gradey Dick. This episode also features the debut of Hot Take Heindl, the greatest take artist to ever live.
Tuesday — RJ Barrett plays closer vs. Pacers; Raptors snap 7-game losing stream Sean and Vivek Jacob (Raptors in 7, Sportsnet) talk about the Raptors’ 130-119 win over the Pacers, RJ Barrett’s masterful work on the ball and where it fits into the team when Scottie Barnes comes back, Jakob Poeltl’s heater and The Good, The Bad & The Hmm from Monday’s game.
