When considering a full NBA season, should expectations be static or fluid?

If static: The Toronto Raptors’ regular season has been a success. They will finish in the mid-40s in wins. Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram were both All-Stars, and Barnes will be on an All-Defense team and have a shot at All-NBA. Ingram has been largely healthy. The team defence has been very good, while the Raptors have gone from bad to mediocre on the other side. Ja’Kobe Walter and Collin Murray-Boyles, young players with two and three more seasons left on their contracts, respectively, look like rotation-level players, if not more. The Raptors have developed an identity and are now building out their roster.

If fluid: The Raptors never lived up to the promise of their early-season nine-game winning streak. They have hovered around .500 since then and have fallen in the standings in the process. The defence has been exposed against top competition, while the offence has cooled off dramatically since the Raptors feasted on bad competition in November. Ingram and Barnes have been good, but not so good that they present an obvious roadmap for the future. While the youngsters popping has been nice, a few high-paid veterans struggling with injuries and efficiency make it feel as if this team is stuck.

It’s on you to pick a philosophical lane. It will impact how you feel about the 79 games in the Raptors’ rear-view mirror, with three left to determine their postseason fate. Before we get lost watching the standings, it seems like a good time to revisit the highs and lows of the 2025-26 Raptors regular season.

Play of the year: Scottie Barnes denies the city of Portland (and surrounding areas), Jan. 23

Blocks are the coolest. To wrap up the Raptors’ win in Portland, their third win in four games on a Western Conference road trip, Barnes dominated the Trail Blazers, who could not find a way to the rim. He first spiked rookie Yang Hansen’s attempted bank shot off the middle of the backboard. The ball bounced back to the Blazers, with Caleb Love attacking. Barnes said nope again. The shot clock went off, and the game clock was all but over, too, keeping Portland stuck at 98 points — two shy of earning a free sausage McMuffin (with any purchase of $2 or more). The game was already over, but this was a good enough exclamation mark that Barnes yelled in celebration. Clearly, he was loving it.

Nominees: Barnes chases down Jalen Green, Barnes throws a Nikola Jokić-like pass around Jokić, Barnes hits Ja’Kobe Walter with a 75-foot over-the-head pass to beat the buzzer, Barnes finds Brandon Ingram, passing it over his own head

Best individual performance: Immanuel Quickley becomes an efficiency deity for a night, Jan. 20

There are a lot of great Barnes performances that have a good case. However, when someone has the most-efficient 40-plus-point game in league history, I’m going to lean in that direction. Quickley took 24 shots against the Golden State Warriors and missed just two — one from 2, one from 3. Other than that, Quickley hit seven 3s, four from inside the arc and all 11 of his free throws. Altogether, that was good for a true-shooting percentage of 1.121, which no player has ever topped when scoring 40 points or more. Quickley ended up with 40 on the nose, plus 10 assists as the Raptors put up 145 in San Francisco. It was close to a perfect offensive game.

Nominees: Barnes puts up a 23/25/10 in overtime against the Warriors, Barnes dominates in an early-season statement win in Cleveland, Barnes leads a rampage over the Magic, Ingram comes through repeatedly versus Phoenix

Worst individual performance: Brandon Ingram and Jakob Poeltl highlight a Raptors no-show in the desert, March 22

The Raptors had a few concerning blowout losses to end the season; this one might have been the most egregious. With Dillon Brooks out of the lineup, the Suns’ defence still overwhelmed Ingram, who nearly had more turnovers (five) than points (six). Meanwhile, the Suns exploited the Raptors’ defence, spreading the Raptors out and catching Poeltl flat-footed. As such, Poeltl played just 17 minutes — and didn’t manage a single point or rebound. That’s hard to do.

Nominees: Wemby and the Spurs expose Poeltl’s back injury, Ingram and Walter contribute to a brick fest against the Hornets, Barnes sleepwalks in Brooklyn

Best individual performance by an opponent: Victor Wembanyama does what he does, Oct. 27

There were gaudier stat lines posted against the Raptors than Wembanyama’s 24 points, 15 rebounds, four assists and one block in the season’s fourth game. But if you were paying attention, this was a game in which the Raptors never had a chance, with Wembanyama owning every second of the nearly 31 minutes he played. San Antonio won those minutes by 35 points, with the likely Defensive Player of the Year patrolling the paint and beyond. Per NBA.com, the Raptors had a 71.9 offensive rating when Wembanyama was on the floor in this game, so far below a run-of-the-mill poor offensive output that it’s not worth trying to add perspective.

Nominees: Austin Reeves goes for 44 as LeBron’s streak ends, Giannis looks like peak Giannis, Cade Cunningham orchestrates a Pistons blowout

Best game: Raptors come back to steal overtime win against Warriors, Dec. 28

Every appearance from Steph Curry in Toronto should be treasured. We don’t know how many are left. He didn’t disappoint here, with 39 points for a flawed Warriors team. But this was one of the gutsiest Raptors showings of the year. They trailed by 12 in the fourth quarter and by seven with 1:43 to go when a Curry 3 gave off strong “night night” vibes. The Raptors kept going, though, scoring seven quick points to tie it, forcing two turnovers in a display of their defensive ethos. Barnes tied the game with a tip-in with 24 seconds left, and Jamal Shead made sure Curry couldn’t win it in regulation by putting his face in between the superstar’s elbows, drawing an offensive foul. The Raptors dominated overtime, capping a ridiculously fun evening.

Nominees: Raptors beat 76ers in overtime, LeBron scores eight points in Lakers win, Ant takes over in Wolves victory

Best victory: Raptors throttle Pistons to (temporarily) quiet murmurs that they can’t beat a good team, March 15

The Raptors won in Oklahoma City this year. Any time you beat the best team in the league on the road, you’re going to remember that. However, a lot of that had to do with the Thunder missing some open shots — the Thunder went just 11-for-43 from deep. The win over Detroit was the second of two consecutive victories over genuinely good teams. The Raptors needed those, as they had gone 0-9 after the Thunder win against teams over .500. And they really hammered the Pistons, coaxing four turnovers out of Cunningham, getting a season-best effort from Poeltl and running away from the East’s best team with a dominant third quarter.

Nominees: Winning in Oklahoma City, winning in Cleveland despite Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen all playing, opening-night deconstruction of the Hawks 

Worst loss: The Raptors are your April fools, April 1

If there were some magical system that calculated the worst performance of the year, the Raptors’ home loss to the Sacramento Kings probably wouldn’t top the list. They didn’t have Ingram or Quickley available, plus Poeltl was playing on a back-to-back for the first time since October. Context matters, though. Since the trade deadline, there have been just 17 instances when a team missing the postseason (save for the Pelicans, who don’t have their first-round pick and therefore have no incentive to tank) has defeated a team heading for the postseason. The Raptors went 7-1 in those games. This was the one. That DeMar DeRozan led the Kings to a win added insult to injury, drawing foul after foul down the stretch. Allowing 19 offensive rebounds, including 11 to old pal Precious Achiuwa? The most shameful of all, especially given how close it was to the end of the season, was giving the Raptors a keen understanding of how much this game mattered in the standings.

Nominees: The Raptors get blown out in D.C., Raptors score 81 points in Brooklyn, a fourth-quarter collapse against the Spurs, no showing in Phoenix, getting punked in New Orleans

Most pleasant surprise: Brandon Ingram’s health

In the eight years between Ingram’s rookie season and this one, Ingram played in 64.4 percent of his regular-season games. On average, he played in 53 games per season. Even if last year’s weird one tilted things further, with Ingram playing just 18 games because of a few injuries and perhaps some ulterior motives from both of his teams, skepticism was warranted. Well, Ingram played his 70th game in the Raptors’ 73rd contest. With three games to go, he has played in 74 games. That is a dream for the Raptors, and for Ingram, who has been very important to the team’s success. Finding a way to repeat it will become the challenge for both.

Nominees: Barnes is a defensive game-wrecker, Murray-Boyles is a contributor from the jump, Sandro Mamukelashvili is a steal in free agency, Walter’s late-season surge

Least pleasant surprise: Gradey Dick’s lost season

The Raptors stuck with him as long as they could, but the third-year Raptor could not take advantage of the long leash. Since a hot start to last year in a bigger role, Dick has not shown that he deserves minutes. While he flashes as a playmaker off the dribble and has gone from bad to passable on defence, Dick doesn’t do the thing he was drafted to do: hit shots. He is at 29.7 percent from 3. He didn’t shoot better than 34 percent in any month. The Raptors are short on shooting and were counting on Dick to give them another dangerous pull-up threat. Instead, he hasn’t been able to nail down the easier catch-and-shoot opportunities, a shade under 30 percent on those. As is, his top-scoring game of the year came on opening night, and he fell out of the regular rotation in February.

Nominees: Poeltl’s back woes following his contract extension, Ochai Agbaji’s shooting regression, Darko Rajaković’s challenge management

Amir Johnson award for most underappreciated Raptor: Immanuel Quickley

The talk surrounding Quickley’s contract became so loud last year that it is almost as if the player ceased to exist. Whatever you think about the money he is owed, Quickley is incredibly important to the Raptors. He is the only accurate high-volume shooter on the roster and provides secondary playmaking while limiting turnovers. All of that is very important to an offence without much punch. It would be great if he could get more 3s up and avoid injuries, but Quickley is a good NBA player. The Raptors need as many of those as they can get.

Moment of the year: Barnes blocks Jalen Green from behind to help close a Raptors win, March 13

Green is on the short list of the best athletes in the NBA, which means he’s on the short list of the best athletes in the world. He gets into the air in a nanosecond. With 43 seconds left and his Phoenix Suns trailing by four, he beat Barnes off the bounce cleanly. The Raptors, trailing for most of the game and nursing a significant losing streak against good teams, had just gone ahead a few possessions earlier. Barnes didn’t give up on the play, as Green rose and cocked the ball behind his head. Mistake. Barnes swatted his right arm at the ball, smacking the ball off the backboard and into the hands of Walter. For good measure, Barnes found RJ Barrett for a dunk to effectively end the game. It was a signature moment in maybe the greatest defensive season any Raptor has ever put together.

Nominees: Ingram’s winner gives the Raptors a nine-game winning streak, Quickley sinks the Hornets at the buzzer, Ingram and Barnes have clutch blocks to help beat Charlotte, Raptors do nothing as Dejounte Murray preens over Jamal Shead in New Orleans