{"id":186602,"date":"2025-07-22T03:10:42","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T03:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/186602\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T03:10:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T03:10:42","slug":"the-toronto-raptors-are-still-fueled-by-your-doubts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/186602\/","title":{"rendered":"The Toronto Raptors Are Still Fueled By Your Doubts"},"content":{"rendered":"

FOH<\/a>. F SI\u2026#ProveEm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Toronto Raptors finding slights from the media, from simulations, or from the public at large has become an annual tradition of sorts. Leading the charge is DeMar DeRozan, forever underrated by the SI or ESPN or Name Your Outlet Top 100, forever indignant, and who constantly uses a perceived lack of respect as further motivation to return, year after year, even better than the theoretical ceiling he reached the year prior. <\/p>\n

This is par for the course for the Raptors, a franchise that until recently had little familiarity with success or upward momentum. It was a fledgling organization that Damon Stoudamire bolted quickly, that only milked one playoff series victory from the early career peak of their greatest talent, Vince Carter, that spent two decades mired in mediocrity, and couldn\u2019t even bottom out properly when the time came for it. That part of the franchise DNA and identity have been a large part of the argument for the Raptors remaining good even without a true championship window and continuing to build important organizational equity. Winning is no longer a best-case here, it\u2019s an edict. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur expectation is to win,\u201d team president Masai Ujiri said in late September. \u201cEvery season we go into. I think as a basketball team and being competitive, our expectation is to win. I think the guys know that, the coaches know that, we as an organization, I think we all know that.\u201d <\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a sense the skepticism should have stopped by now, that the work Ujiri, head coach Dwane Casey, and now-perennial All-Stars DeRozan and Kyle Lowry have put in over the last four years\u2014unquestionably the best four-year stretch in team history by measure of victories, playoff performance, or any other scale of preference\u2014should have cleansed the team of some of the sins of earlier eras. DeRozan is now a three-time All-Star and All-NBA honoree, as is Lowry, and the Raptors have won more games over the last four seasons than any other Eastern Conference team.<\/p>\n

Still, there has been cause to take umbrage. DeRozan was once again unhappy with his ranking from Sports Illustrated, and now he\u2019ll look to turn the conversation about his potential as a playmaker and functional part of a more democratic offense on its head in response. He was also quite unhappy with a projected ESPN simulation dropping the Raptors to sixth in the conference and winning fewer games than they have since Before The Rudy Gay Trade. Again, it\u2019s old hat for DeRozan and the Raptors.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot too much surprised, especially guys who have been here. We\u2019ve always been counted out, always been looked over, whatever you want to call it,\u201d DeRozan said last month. \u201cIt\u2019s on us to use that as motivation. We\u2019ve been using it as motivation over the years, now it\u2019s time to just add that on top of everything else. As a competitor, you want that, you don\u2019t want the easy route, you don\u2019t want everybody to be bragging about you. It pushes you to dig deeper and find something in you that you didn\u2019t know you had.\u201d <\/p>\n

The ESPN simulation was on the lower end of projections for the Raptors, but there aren\u2019t many instances of predictions\u2014human or simulation\u2014where Toronto is considered a legitimate threat to the East power structure. They\u2019re generally in the three-to-six mud, winning somewhere between 43 and 50 games, a part of the meaty middle with Washington, Milwaukee, and sometimes Miami, but a beat behind Boston and Cleveland.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same story as it\u2019s been the last four years,\u201d DeRozan said Tuesday, the day the 2017-18 NBA season kicks off. \u201cNothing changed. Same old thing. For us, we\u2019ve got to go out there, worry about ourselves and at the end of the day, it don\u2019t matter what we do, pretty sure they\u2019ll say the same things.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same old story, and the Raptors have more or less accepted it. For newcomer C.J. Miles, though, the contrast is striking, going from a playoff opponent who looked at the Raptors as a high-end team to being inside and noticing the public perception may not match his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a guy who\u2019s a fan of the game and watches games and watches everybody play, I looked at them as an elite team. And when I walked into the arena they felt like an elite team when you played against them,\u201d Miles said Tuesday. \u201cI never really paid attention to what was or wasn\u2019t written about them. And then now you see it and it\u2019s like, wow, you look when somebody writes something and they don\u2019t say anything about the third team in the Eastern Conference?\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"When you see the projections. Photo by Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n

Fair or otherwise following whirlwind offseasons for more than a few teams in the East, the Raptors are once again in a position where they need to affirm themselves as a team in the 48-to-56 win range\u2014the second tier, as it were\u2014where they\u2019ve lived for four seasons. In their minds, they haven\u2019t done anything to show they\u2019ve dropped off. They\u2019ve only lost to Cleveland in the postseason, after all, even if some of the wins to get there have been unsightly. And none of the East\u2019s other teams have a flawless claim to being a full step ahead of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everything motivates you in some way,\u201d Lowry said recently. \u201cYou take all the negativity that they say and you just try to outgrow them or prove them wrong. You just go out there and do it. DeMar\u2019s ranking, it is what it is. He improves it every year. I think they just add fuel to his fire every single time they do that. It\u2019s somebody\u2019s opinion. It is what it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t won the championships. If we\u2019d won the championship, the conversation would be completely different. Until you do, and even if you do, there will always be criticism. That\u2019s a part of the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Raptors have made a habit of beating projections for the regular season, suggesting there\u2019s something in their anatomy that is going uncaptured. That they\u2019ve regressed in the playoffs and played closer to their baseline speaks to that some, too. The changes promised at the offensive end\u2014and the preseason was quite encouraging in terms of ball movement, if not shooting\u2014are aimed to level out that quality of play.<\/p>\n

Between those changes and a very young, somewhat inexperienced roster outside of five players, there\u2019s a tacit understanding that these Raptors may hit a few regular-season roadblocks they haven\u2019t in the past. That\u2019s relatively normal adversity, the kind that can forge growth but is more difficult to see, feel, and get riled up by. Outright disrespect, or reasonable enough predictions that can be perceived as such, are far more useful as a motivational tool, the type of us-against-them adversity that can hang on whiteboards, be barked out in the gym in the late hours of offseason workouts, and make random nights in an 82-game slough theatre for sending a message.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it, I love the fact people underestimate us,\u201d Casey said during training camp. \u201cThey\u2019ve done it every year and we end up winning 50. It\u2019s not about regular season, it\u2019s about us pushing through in the playoffs and getting over Cleveland, that\u2019s who\u2019s been our nemesis the last couple of years. I like the fact they slight us. We should be playing with a chip on our shoulder, we\u2019re that little team up north that they don\u2019t respect and we\u2019ve got to get that and earn that. Get it back again, we did it last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeMar took whatever that ranking was\u2014I don\u2019t even know what outlet it was but said he was 36th or 40th or whatever it was, it\u2019s not even important\u2014he took that and used it as motivation. I don\u2019t know how you go from second to sixth and you have your same starting unit back. I don\u2019t know how they disrespect you that much. We\u2019ve got to use that as motivation, just to prove to the league, come out with a chip on our shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Raptors aren\u2019t being slept on in the sense that they\u2019re not listed as championship contenders. They\u2019re not, and this season is as much about learning whether they have the supplementary pieces to get closer within this three-year window<\/a> as anything. LeBron James and the Cavaliers are what they are, and beyond them are the Golden State Warriors, inevitabilities in a league predicated on uncertainty. But the Raptors feel they\u2019re being overlooked as the gaze shifts a little further down the ladder, that they have to look a little too far to find their names, that they\u2019re not among the biggest threats to the established power structure.<\/p>\n

Right or wrong, the Raptors clearly love it this way. They are a team built on responding to this type of contempt and of fighting up hills. They\u2019ve led the league in double-digit comebacks in two consecutive seasons. DeRozan\u2019s entire career has been one long #ProveEm adventure. Lowry was quit on more times than perhaps any eventual All-NBA star. Casey has had public calls for his job almost annually. Norman Powell has said the words \u201cmotivate\u201d and \u201cgrind\u201d more through two seasons than any player in NBA history. Fred VanVleet carries the same quiet fire as an undrafted free agent. Alfonzo McKinnie was playing in Luxembourg two years ago and paid to try out for the G-League last year, and so on.<\/p>\n

The Raptors weren\u2019t even supposed to get good in the first place, and they\u2019ve built a remarkably successful long-term marketing campaign around being the other. Around being the NBA\u2019s slept-on outpost. It\u2019s hard to be North Over Everything if everyone\u2019s in on the north. <\/p>\n