The Toronto Raptors Are Shocking Themselves

The Toronto Raptors Are Shocking Themselves

more than a quarter of the way through the season. And while the Raptors are shocking the NBA, given they’ve won 14 of their last 17 games as of this recording, it has to be noted that the Raptors are also shocking themselves. Flashing back to June 27th, 2025, and the Raptors let go of Messiah Jury, parting ways with the team president that slowly built them up into a title-winning team in the 2010s and ultimately led them to a championship in 2019. While current team president Bobby Webster was foundational in assisting Messiah as the team’s general manager throughout that span, Messiah being let go signal that Toronto’s ownership felt URI was in the midst of a failed rebuild in the post Leonard Lowry Sakum era. It’s crazy because the Ingram trade, which Messiah was there for, actually led to both the Pelicans and the Raptors getting rid of team presidents. The Pelicans fired David Griffin 2 months after the Ingram trade and the Raptors fired Euguri 4 months after it. No one believed in Brandon Ingram. Not the owners who fired their team president for trading him. and certainly not the mainstream analysts who ranked him as the 77th and 55th best player. All of this rightfully put a chip on the shoulder of this soon to be seventime 20 plus point per game scorer in BI. Scariest part is while Ingram’s the Raptor’s leading scorer who’s played in all 22 games and is averaging over 21 points on over 47% shooting from the field, we’ve yet to see the former Pelican and Laker get close to his best in terms of what he can provide offensively. People have criticized Brandon for his defense, but despite some bad moments, like when he left Coniple open for a game tying three, Ingram has been beyond solid on the defensive end. Evidently putting in the work for Coach Darko and his teammates, Ingram ranks sixth among small forwards in defensive rating, tied with Miami’s Andrew Wiggins, who I talked about yesterday in a Heat video. Brandon’s been in a mini slump offensively as of late, which included twisting his ankle and shooting under 39% from the field and under 31% from distance over his last three outings. Scotty Barnes, or as some like to call him, Scotty’s Barnes, helped salvage one of those three outings where Ingram was struggling. And like the durability and for the most part, aside from a bad three-game stretch, the consistency of Brandon Ingram, the development of Scotty Barnes has shocked both the basketball world and the Raptors organization to its core because Scotty B is posting careerh highs in points, blocks, and steals per game to go along with field goal, three-point, effective field goal, and free throw percentage. to truly detail how much Barnes improved his game over the 2025 summer with his underrated work ethic to relentlessly try and improve the base and release point of his jumper. Scotty’s combined increase from any other season in a field goal, three-point, effective field goal, and free throw percentage is a ridiculous 21.6% jump. As Darko once said, Scotty Barnes is going to be allstar. he’s going to be the face of this league. And Scotty’s displaying that on both ends of the floor. He’s becoming one of the best two-way players the NBA has to offer. In addition to that statistical increase offensively, Scotty’s leading the NBA in stocks as he’s posted 67 combined steals and blocks through 22 outings. Barnes has also posted four blocks in the clutch this season, which leads the NBA, as Scotty’s defense is both fundamentally sound and just as importantly, timely. The Raptors went 4-0 in the NBA Cup group stage, which sets Toronto up to host the New York Knicks in the NBA Cup quarterfinals on December 9th. They did take an L to the Knicks after taking a brutal L to Charlotte with both losses coming on the road. Nevertheless, Toronto has won eight straight at Scotia Bank Arena. And they’ll look to increase that home winning streak to 9, 10, 11, and 12 games when they take on the Lakers on Thursday, the Hornets on Friday, the Celtics on Sunday, and then of course the Knicks. These games will test the consistency of everything we’ve talked about so far, being Ingram’s defensive production and dependability, plus Scotty’s jump shooting confidence and consistency. I couldn’t not mention in this video that there’s no doubt this Raptors team has desperately missed the services of Missaga native RJ Barrett as Toronto’s record points per game, assists per game, field goal percentage, and free throw attempts have all taken a hit with RJ out of the lineup. It’ll be tough to take down teams like the Lakers, Celtics, and Knicks, and even a team you’ve already taken a bad L2 in the Hornets without RJ. So, we’ll see if Toronto can get Barrett back in the near future. Meanwhile, off the pine, the Raptors depth has been a silver lining over a stretch where they’ve lost two of their last three. Ninth overall pick in 2025 out of South Carolina, Carl Murray Boils has posted consecutive double figure scoring performances. Sophomore Jamal Shed won a Naymith defensive player of the year trophy in 2024 for a reason, as despite his lack of size, his scrainess, hustle, and heart make up for that and then some. against the Portland Trailblazers. Shed posted a career-high five steals, and Jamal’s stolen the ball a ridiculous nine times over his last two games. Offensively, Jamal’s passing continues to shine bright, as most notably, he dropped the game-seeking assist to BI, who made a great cut to the basket at the back end of the shot clock. A man who never gets enough credit for what he does in terms of his screen setting, rebounding, layup finishing, general inside scoring, paint protection, and leadership is Jakob Purle. This man always brings it up front for the city of Toronto. As you can tell, he reps the six with how hard he goes and how passionate he is. Purle ranks seventh in the association in total screen assists only trailing DeAndre Aton, Alex Sar, Nicole Joic, Ysef Nerk, Nick Claxton, and Rudy Gobear. Here were Quickley and coach Ryakovic on their center postame against the Blazers. We’ve always had really good chemistry, but you know, when he’s setting those step up screens for you to get inside the paint and make reads, uh, how easy is it to play with a guy like that who’s like so willing to set those screens for you? It’s unbelievable, man. Um, I got to give a shout out to Yaka. The the screens he’s he sets are just like he’s one of the best screen setters I play with and he’s uh such a unselfish uh player. Uh putting his body on the line defensively. He does so much stuff for us uh on the defensive end that probably don’t show up in the stat sheet. So you got to give a lot of credit to Yakob. And then just like the screening uh it’s a it’s a act of unselfishness uh for your teammates. So uh we appreciate him a lot. assists aren’t like the the craziest most awesome stat in the world, but Jacob is near the top of the league when it comes to screen assist. How important is he when it comes to, you know, opening up the game for quickly for Scotty for BI in terms of the screens that he sets for them? He he’s the guy that can can do a lot of things, but at the end of the day, he really wants to help the team, whatever that means for the team. If they’re setting screens and freeing up his teammates, he’s going to do that. if he needs to get the ball in his hands and from him him to playm make and find guys on cuts he’s going to do that as well defensively we know what he brings to the table so uh he is very very important player for us we need him on the court overall the Raptors still have a long way to go before they prove themselves as true contenders this season but they’re definitely headed towards the playoffs if they can stay healthy with how they’re resembling one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference as of this recording it’s safe to say the Raptors are shocking their ownership with how they’ve developed and bought into coach Darko Ryakovic’s system following a rough first two seasons under coach Darko. Let me know your thoughts on the current state of the Raptors down below. This was your boy D Flow and I’ll see you next

Masai Ujiri was the one who traded for Brandon Ingram and is responsible for the acquisitions of nearly every player on this 25-26 Raptors roster. It’s evident the Raptors ownership is being shocked by the product being put out there in front of them, as Toronto’s not only waking up the NBA, but their own franchise.

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The Toronto Raptors Are Shocking Themselves