Raptors hoping lottery luck can raise long-term ceiling

TORONTO – So far, the NBA playoffs have not disappointed.

Surprising upsets, massive comebacks, iconic performances, and game-winning plays on both ends of the floor… and for the fourth time in five years, the Toronto Raptors can only watch from home. But if everything goes according to plan, that is about to change.

With their young core under contract and the addition of a (presumably) healthy Brandon Ingram, this is a team that figures to make a jump next season. At minimum, a spot in the play-in tournament should be within reach. If everything falls into place, maybe a top-six seed in the Eastern Conference. But where to from there? Incremental growth is the plan in the short-term – they’ve only just graduated from the early stages of a rebuild, after all. But the long-term vision hasn’t changed. They’ve made that clear.

“Our goal is not Play-In, not playoffs, the end goal is to win a championship,” Raptors president Masai Ujiri said just a few days after his club closed the book on the 2024-25 campaign. He used the word championship nine times during his 45-minute press conference. 

“That’s why all these teams play, and that’s our goal. So, whatever jump we can make, honestly, we feel like this is our jobs. We need to put the team in this position.”

When was the last time a team won the title without a generational star at the top of its roster? You probably need to go all the way back to the 2004 Detroit Pistons. Having a top-five calibre player is basically a prerequisite to compete on that level. Unless Scottie Barnes blossoms into a bona fide superstar or the Raptors can get their hands on that type of player elsewhere (if the Milwaukee Bucks decide to make Giannis Antetokounmpo available this summer they’ll surely be in the mix), it’s hard to see this team’s ceiling reaching that stratosphere. The best and most realistic way to find that guy, especially in a market like Toronto, is in the draft.

With that in mind, it’s not hyperbolic to call May 12 the most important day of their season. It’s their most important day in three or four seasons. This year’s NBA draft lottery could be franchise changing for each of the 13 teams that will have a shot at landing the first-overall pick and selecting Duke phenom Cooper Flagg – the talented young forward who is widely regarded as one of the top prospects in recent memory. For the Raptors, a team that doesn’t plan on being back in the lottery anytime soon, it could raise that long-term ceiling substantially.

At 30-52, Toronto finished the season with the league’s seventh-worst record. That, in and of itself, was a bit of a disappointment for fans and members of the organization alike. They didn’t do everything in their power to lose games, opting against shopping centre Jakob Poeltl at the trade deadline or sitting Barnes down the stretch, but it’s not like winning was their top priority. They rested at least one of their starters in each of the final 20 contests and never truly considered debuting Ingram, their prized deadline day acquisition, even if his injured ankle would have allowed for it.

Alas, the NBA’s easiest end-of-season schedule and a roster that proved too good to completely bottom out prevented them from catching the league’s most egregious tankers. They came out of the season feeling good about the culture they’ve started to establish, the chemistry they’ve built and the continued development of their young players. If all that came at the expense of a few extra lottery balls, so be it.

“I was really happy with the way these guys played,” Ujiri said. “Yeah, we tried to attack the odds in the lottery and see what we can do. It's a good draft. And honestly, wherever we fall, we feel very confident. Our guys have done a lot of work all year. We're extremely excited.”

When the draw takes place in Chicago on Monday evening, the Raptors will have a 7.5 per cent chance at earning the top pick and a 31.9 per cent shot of moving into the top four. At 34.1 per cent, their most likely landing spot is eighth, factoring in the odds of a team below them moving up. They have a 19.7 per cent chance of holding steady at seventh and can’t jump to fifth or sixth, as the league only draws for the top four.

The team with the seventh best pre-lottery position has moved into the top four in four of six years since the NBA flattened the odds, including Toronto, who went from seven to four and selected Barnes in 2021. The Raptors have won the lottery twice in their 30-year existence – in 1996, when a league rule prohibited expansion teams from drafting first overall and cost them future hall-of-famer Allen Iverson (they selected Marcus Camby second), and then in 2006, a draft class without a consensus No. 1 pick (they chose Andrea Bargnani).

This year, Flagg is a lock to hear his name called first on June 25, regardless of who is making the pick. The 18-year-old, who should have just graduated from high school, averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks as a freshman with Duke last season, leading the Blue Devils to a Final Four finish. He shot 48 per cent from the field and 39 per cent from three-point range. There’s no such thing as a can’t-miss prospect, but he’s as safe as it gets. He’s a versatile player with a two-way skill set and, by all accounts, his work ethic and drive match the level of his immense talent. He’s mature beyond his years with plenty of room for growth. The sky's the limit, as they say. He’s this draft’s ultimate prize, which explains the unusually competitive race to the bottom of the standings this past spring. 

Positionally, he wouldn’t be a natural fit next to Barnes and Ingram, and his rookie scale salary (roughly $14 million) would push the Raptors into the luxury tax, as currently constructed, but those are problems they would be happy to inherit if they’re fortunate enough to win the lottery.

In almost any other class, dynamic combo guard Dylan Harper – son of five-time NBA champion Ron Harper and brother of former Raptors two-way player Ron Harper Jr. – could make a case for the top pick. There are some questions about his shooting range, but the Rutgers product has great size, skill, athleticism, and pedigree. His college teammate, Ace Bailey, a polarizing but high upside forward, and Baylor guard V.J. Edgecombe, who might be the best athlete in the draft, are projected to go third and fourth in either order, with a perceived drop off after that.

That’s not to say that there isn’t talent to be found outside of the top four. Texas guard Tre Johnson and Flagg’s Duke teammates, big man Khaman Maluach and guard Kon Knueppel, among several others, offer varying levels of upside and NBA readiness.

The last time there was a highly regarded big four at the top of the draft, the Raptors went off the board and chose Barnes over Jalen Suggs, a decision that has certainly aged well. They recently found four quality rookies – Ja’Kobe Walter, Jonathan Mogbo, Jamal Shead and Jamison Battle – without having a top-18 selection in a much weaker 2024 draft, so there’s confidence that they can hit on their pick, regardless of where it falls. Still, a little bit of luck could go a long way. 

They have $173 million committed to 11 players for next season, leaving them with roughly $10 million to sign their first-round pick and fill at least two more roster spots before exceeding the projected tax line. 90 per cent of the payroll ($156.5 million) is owed to their starting five of Barnes, Ingram, Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, and Poeltl, so they’re more or less locked into their core. This is their last chance to add inexpensive high-end young talent to that group.

There’s a lot riding on those Ping-Pong balls Monday night.