Reasons to be optimistic — and pessimistic — about 2023-24 Raptors

After a sparkling pre-season that saw them go a perfect 4-0, it’s time for the real thing to get started for the Toronto Raptors.

As just about everyone will tell you, the exhibition season doesn’t mean anything, but there’s no denying how good Toronto has looked in its four pretend games, finishing with a net rating of plus-22.4 (for context, the Boston Celtics had a league-best regular season net rating of plus-6.7 last season) as the team looked eager to put last season’s dismal showing behind it.

New additions like veteran point guard and FIBA World Cup MVP Dennis Schröder and rookie sharpshooter Gradey Dick have appeared to give the Raptors a different look than before, and brand new head coach Darko Rajakovic, with his new coaching and support staff, has looked keen to put his own stamp on the squad.

A new era of Raptors basketball is upon us. Whether this will end up being good or bad is still anyone’s guess, but through their four preseason games the Raptors offered glimpses of what could be, for better or worse, when things get going for real starting Wednesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Reasons for optimism

Scottie Barnes has looked spectacular

If you’re looking for a reason to get excited about the Raptors coming into the season, then look no further than the preseason Scottie Barnes has had.

Still only 22 years old, Barnes has looked like he’s entering his third season in the league on a mission after going through a sophomore slump.

The former rookie of the year averaged a team-high 18.5 points per game on 62.8% shooting and even looked to have his three-point stroke working, going 7-for-14 from deep across all exhibition competitions.

Toronto is banking hard on Barnes eventually taking an all-star turn or more for both its present and future success and he has apparently responded to that challenge after coming into camp looking fitter and stronger than ever before.

As a result, during the preseason, Barnes has been rewarded with having the ball in his hands more than ever and acting as the point forward-type player he’s always more naturally been.

This could be a big season for Barnes.

Raptors are entering the season healthy

Though it didn’t start that way to begin training camp, by the time the last preseason game rolled around on Friday, the Raptors looked like they had all their key pieces available to them at long last with Jakob Poeltl, Precious Achiuwa and even Otto Porter Jr., suiting up and playing in Toronto’s preseason finale against the Washington Wizards.

Though Christian Koloko remains out indefinitely with respiratory issues, the Raptors have nearly all of their key pieces available to them, something particularly important for the way Rajakovic wants to deploy his rotation.

The new Raptors coach has mentioned going 10-deep in his rotation, something that simply wouldn’t be possible if both his key centres (Poeltl and Achiuwa) and a veteran floor-spacer like Porter wouldn’t be available to begin the season.

With nearly all of his cards available to him now, Rajakovic will be able to spread minutes out more and utilize different lineup combinations, such as keeping at least one starter out there with a second or third unit, as has been shown during the exhibition season.

And, most importantly on the Raptors’ health front, is it looks like Barnes will be OK after he left Friday’s game in the third quarter with a sprained right foot.

“He’s fine,” Rajakovic told reporters after Friday’s contest.

Entering a new season with mostly everyone accounted for and available is never a bad thing.

The new offensive philosophy has appeared to be bought into

One of the biggest reasons why the Raptors opted to let go of Nick Nurse is because there was a sense of selfishness in the way the team played last season.

By bringing in Rajakovic, Toronto’s front office believed it could solve this matter, and so far the results have been there.

During the preseason, the Raptors averaged 30.3 assists per game, assisting on 71.2% of their made field goals.

A miniscule sample size in games that don’t count notwithstanding, this is a marked improvement over the 23.9 assists the Raptors averaged per game last season that also saw them drop a dime on only 57.1% of their made field goals.

Throughout training camp and the preseason, Rajakovic has stressed ball movement, body movement and for guys to look to make not necessarily the extra pass, but the pass that will lead to an easy basket — be it a three-pointer or something in the paint.

The new offence has appeared to be working, and having it coupled with the expanded rotation from the Nurse years and with what Rajakovic has shown to want to do has resulted in a more joyful-looking Raptors team out there on the court.

Basketball can be a whole lot more fun if everyone is touching the ball and trusts their teammate to make the right decision whenever they give up the ball, and it looks like that trust was successfully being developed during the preseason.

Reasons for pessimism

Hard to say if Raptors will stick with offence if things start to go south

As much fun as an egalitarian offence can be for players — especially sparsely-used guys in years past like Malachi Flynn who looks like he will finally get a real shot this season — if the Raptors end up getting off to a slow start to the season, one has to wonder if those old, bad habits from last season might return.

Pascal Siakam is still the best player on the team, and though it may go against the coaching staff’s philosophy, it’s easy to see him going off script and trying to make things happen by himself should the team struggle again, particularly because he has a lot of incentive to make an All-NBA team this season to try to become supermax eligible this coming offseason.

This same selfish motivation can also apply to the likes of O.G. Anunoby and Gary Trent Jr., who are both on the hunt for contract extensions.

Trent, in particular, may find his role unsatisfactory for his personal career goals as he came off the bench through all the exhibition games he played. From a coach’s perspective, a microwave scorer like Trent makes sense to have coming in as a bench gunner, but if you’re starting then you will command more value, something Trent and his agent certainly know.

Essentially, things can always look great in the preseason, but can change drastically when actual wins and losses are on the line.

Going 10-deep may not be the best way to earn wins

As great an opportunity as it’s going to be for a guy like Flynn or the rookie Dick, using a large rotation doesn’t necessarily equate to wins.

For all the criticism Nurse sustained for how much he would play some guys over others, he was very successful outside of last season.

The strategy of playing your best players as much as possible is probably going to give you a better chance of winning games than spreading out your best players’ minutes to give other guys opportunities.

And judging by the way Masai Ujiri and his front office have consistently talked about the team, there doesn’t appear to be much interest in going through a rebuild and just trying to develop young talent.

An equal-opportunity rotation may not be the best way to earn those victories the Raptors look to be chasing.

This is still largely the same team as last season

Lastly, if you want to be down on the Raptors coming into the new season, all you have to do is take a quick look at the roster and you’ll see a lot of familiar faces.

Sure, Schröder is someone new, and there’s the new coaching staff, but the core players who led the team to a 41-41 record and squeezed into a play-in spot only to miss 18 free throws and lose in the play-in are still here.

In fact, from a talent standpoint, you can probably say the Raptors got worse as they lost de facto leader Fred VanVleet in free agency to the Houston Rockets.

Considering how things went last season, even with a new coach and a new offensive philosophy, if the personnel is basically the same, how much different can things be?

It’s not a happy thing to contemplate.