The Surprising Toronto Raptors

In Sports Illustrated’s preseason NBA basketball issue the Toronto Raptors were picked to finish in 8^th place in the Eastern Conference, the last playoff spot. By December 10^th even that modest prediction looked wildly optimistic. The Raptors were tenth in the Eastern Conference with 7 wins and 13 losses and had just traded their highest scorer, Rudy Gay, to the Sacramento Kings.

The conventional wisdom was that the Raptors management had given up on the 2013-14 season and were trying to have a bad enough record to make them competitive in the lottery for Kansas University’s freshman star, Andrew Wiggins, a Brampton, Ontario native who was expected to be the number one pick in the 2014 NBA draft.

As of the morning of January 9, 2014 things look very different. The Raptors have won 10 of their last 14 games and are in fourth place in the Eastern Conference with 17 wins and 17 losses, just one game behind the third-place Atlanta Hawks. If they were able to maintain that position, they would face the 5^th place team in the first round of the playoffs (currently the Washington Wizards) and would stand a good chance of moving on to the second round of the playoffs. The Raptors have not made the playoffs since 2007-2008 and have not won a playoff series since 2001-2002.

In the 14 games since December 10^th, with the exception of a loss to the seventh place Charlotte Bobcats, the Raptors have been defeated only by three of the four best teams in the NBA- the Indiana Pacers, the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs. All of those losses were away from home. During the same period they have defeated the Pacers in Toronto and another top four team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, at Oklahoma City.

They are doing it with a young lineup of Kyle Lowry at point guard, Demar Derozan at shooting guard, Terence Ross at small forward, Amir Johnson at power forward and Jonas Valanciunas at centre. Solid contributions off the bench have come from forwards, Tyler Hansbrough and Patrick Patterson and guards Grevis Vasquez and John Salmons. Patterson, Vasquez and Salmons were all obtained in the trade which sent Gay to the Sacramento Kings.

The team is both more efficient on offense and much tougher on defence and has shown lots of second half grit, regularly outscoring their opponents in the last quarter and the last half of games since December 10th^th.

Can it last? Only time will tell. But for now long-suffering Raptor fans are seeing an entertaining and hard-working team which may well be heading for the playoffs.