The Toronto Raptors are losing the NBA's tank race

New York Times

17-03-2025

Wednesday, the NBA fined the Utah Jazz $100,000. The penalty was for a violation of the player participation policy, with the Jazz holding out former All-Star Lauri Markkanen in a game against the Washington Wizards earlier in the month. The Jazz could have been dinged for doing the same thing several other times this season.
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Friday, the Jazz (15-53) responded by doing something that was, at once, shameful, audacious and laudable. In their second game since the penalty was announced, the Jazz played Markkanen for 18 minutes and 37 seconds. The Jazz outscored the Toronto Raptors by 10 points when Markkanen was on the floor.
All of that time came in the first half. Markkanen sat for the entire second half, which the Raptors won by 10 points, resulting in a 126-118 Toronto win. The Jazz also sat third-year starting centre Walker Kessler for the night, despite not listing him on the injury report. It was all part of their attempt to maximize their NBA Draft odds while, preferably, not incurring more fines.
Also of note from the game: Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley played nine minutes in the second half. The Raptors won that stretch by 15 points.
This is getting gross, as it often does in the NBA at this time of the year. However, from the Raptors' perspective, the situation has been clear for months, arguably since the season's first week, when Barnes and Quickley suffered injuries that cost them time. From a pure wins-and-losses viewpoint, this season was never going to amount to anything meaningful, and securing excellent odds had to be a priority, if not the only priority.
Instead, the Raptors (24-44) have not quite sunk to the depths of similarly positioned teams. No, a 'soft tank' was not enough. As other teams search for loophole after loophole to position themselves for May's draft lottery, the Raptors have continually come up short on a nightly basis. That changed Sunday in Portland, where the Raptors lost 105-102 to the Trail Blazers. In a decisive moment, head coach Darko Rajaković called a timeout with 5:23 left in the fourth quarter, to remove starting centre Jakob Poeltl. Portland won the remaining minutes 16-7.
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That was enough to lose against Portland, one of the more admirable and functional lottery-bound teams. For the Raptors, though, this approach will likely put them in the middle of the lottery in May, an undesirable outcome after they finished the first half with the league's fourth-worst record.
You can scoff at the concept of needing to lose in order to win, and point your finger at the league — I have — for teams being in the Raptors' position. It stinks for the players and coaches that the league has encouraged teams and their fans to think like this. Before Sunday's game, the Raptors had the third-best defensive rating over the previous two months. That bodes well.
Though the Raptors or any other team are free to take issue with that and push to change the rules in future offseasons, there was never any mystery about the assignment this time around. Teams such as the Jazz, Wizards and Philadelphia 76ers have committed to the bit and will be rewarded for it going into the lottery. The Raptors have done so in fits and starts and will be punished.
It is understandable and even predictable that the Raptors find themselves here, although that only makes it more frustrating. Before the season, the nature of the team's schedule was clear: tough to start, easy to end. Due to those early injuries, the schedule was even tougher to navigate, resulting in a 2-12 start to the season. When the Raptors got healthier in the middle of the season, they won eight times in 10 games, a run that included wins over good or at least competent teams such as the Boston Celtics, Atlanta Hawks, pre-Jimmy Butler Golden State Warriors, and Los Angeles Clippers. Clearly, the Raptors had higher potential than their early-season record indicated, as well as teams with similar records.
This part of the schedule, too, always lingered, with the 76ers' and San Antonio Spurs' collapses making it even easier than initially thought. The Raptors are 4 1/2 games behind the Chicago Bulls (28-39) for the 10th seed and final Play-In Tournament spot. They don't have the tiebreaker, which necessitates the Raptors winning five more times than the Bulls in the season's final four weeks to pass them. It is doable given the teams' schedules, if unlikely.
In that January run, the Raptors showed they had enough talent to be competitive in different NBA settings. The likes of the Wizards, Charlotte Hornets and defanged Brooklyn Nets could not claim the same. When those teams and their relative peers started to undermine themselves to focus on draft odds, a healthy-ish version of the Raptors would be reliably favoured to string together wins against them. After the loss to the Trail Blazers, the Raptors are 7-6 since the All-Star break but 4-2 against teams that will certainly fall short of the Play-In. They have nine such games remaining, including five in a row from March 23-30. The Raptors are seventh in the reverse standings right now, but the Spurs (28-38) will be without Victor Wembanyama and De'Aaron Fox for the rest of the season. The Trail Blazers (29-39) have a stiff schedule to end the season.
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To be fair to the Raptors, one team has to win these games — a hard-and-fast rule in the NBA — and Toronto has undercut its chances several times. Against Philadelphia last week, the Raptors played one starter, Poeltl, for just 17 minutes. The rest of their rotation that night, along with the team that those players have spent most of this season with: Jared Rhoden (Raptors 905), Colin Castleton (Memphis Hustle and Grizzlies on a two-way contract), Jamison Battle (Raptors two-way contract, converted to a standard deal in February), Jamal Shead (Raptors, 2024 second-round pick), AJ Lawson (Raptors 905), Orlando Robinson (Kings, Raptors) and Garrett Temple (Raptors, rarely used).
They won that game by 13.
More often than not, though, they have opted for half-measures: alternately resting Poeltl and Quickley; cutting, but not scrapping, the minutes of Barnes and his fellow starters. (Barnes clearly wants to get to the 65-game threshold to have a chance at All-NBA recognition, a complicating factor. Also, like Markkanen, he is a 'star player' under the player participation policy, meaning the Raptors must be careful in handling his floor time to avoid a fine). They have married the minutes of the starters so they can gain maximum chemistry while leaving some less-than-accomplished lineups for the rest of the game.
Most notably, they have repeatedly benched their starters down the stretch in close games, as was the case in Portland.
'I wouldn't call it bizarre,' Poeltl told The Athletic last week of the random rest he has been assigned. Before the Raptors, he played for the Spurs, who were also accepting losses at the end of his San Antonio tenure. 'It's a little bit backwards in how you think as an athlete. But I've been a part of it long enough to where I know what's going on. I understand the situation.'
The Raptors exist in an ecosystem in which the Jazz can be fined for subverting the rules and, just two days later, find a loophole to essentially say, 'Hey, Mr. Silver, what are you going to do about this?' It isn't compelling for fans or rewarding for players, but it is the reality.
Maybe the minutes the Raptors' starters play together now will help them get off to a good start next year. Wherever they land, assuming they don't make the Play-In and advance to the playoffs, the Raptors can certainly still get lucky in the lottery, as they did when they jumped from seventh to fourth in 2021, ultimately taking Barnes. The odds will be against them, but that is true for every team.
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If the Jazz slide from, say, second to fifth in the lottery, their top basketball executives will at least rest easily knowing they did everything they could to secure a top pick. The Raptors' brass won't be able to say the same. When your peers are shameless, ethics are an unaffordable luxury.
(Photo of Scottie Barnes: Alex Goodlett / Getty Images)