It\u2019s one of the worst weeks in the NBA calendar\u2026 and right as the NBA Trade Deadline is about to expire, the Toronto Raptors have back-to-back games. Lovely.<\/p>\n
The Raptors started (and probably ended) their trade action Wednesday afternoon with a small deal to move Ochai Agbaji to Brooklyn in a three-team deal that also brought Chris Paul to Toronto. Chris Paul won\u2019t report, and the move was to offload Agbaji\u2019s salary and bring the team under the tax. A bookkeeping thing. Toronto will either move Paul before tomorrow\u2019s deadline or buy him out after.<\/p>\n
This also now means it\u2019s likely the Raptors won\u2019t make another big move. I could be wrong, of course, but it doesn\u2019t seem likely that a trade involving RJ Barrett or Jakob Poeltl will happen.<\/p>\n
Now, I try not to let internet comments get to me, but some of the stuff people were tweeting in reaction to the Raptors\u2019 moves (or lack of)\u2026 we need to talk about. Why are you all so pressed? Chill, fam.<\/p>\n
The Raptors were a lottery team literally less than a year ago. While they\u2019ve definitely outperformed expectations this season, they aren\u2019t about to go on a championship run \u2014 they were never expected to. Trust the process a bit more. I saw someone say the Raptors are going to be \u201cthe saddest 1s round exit\u201d this season\u2026 okay? It\u2019s their first playoff appearance in years. What do you expect? Anything more would be a great time, but it\u2019s year one of building up again\u2026 they aren\u2019t about to win a ring.<\/p>\n
This is all why playing a back-to-back right when the trade deadline is happening is a little weird. It\u2019s a little overstimulating, it\u2019s oddly emotional.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also why people are going to overreact to this Raptors loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves\u2026 a lot. After leading by a wide margin, the Timberwolves got a few stops and closed the gap. They got some good shots in, and won 128-126.<\/p>\n
Some of the over reaction to tonight is warranted, of course. The Raptors dropped a 15-point lead in the third and fourth quarters to lose a game they should have won. They lack depth in the center position. Their shooting can be hot and cold.<\/p>\n
Games like this are just part of the process, though. It\u2019s almost a stark reminder how early on this team is when it comes to building. Is it tough to see them lose a game like that? Yeah, they could have and should have won. Are we going to catastrophize about it though? People will, and it\u2019s a waste of energy.<\/p>\n
Back-to-backs have the positive though, of forcing us to forget about things quickly. There is no time to sit here and lament about the loss, what they could have done different, etc. The team itself doesn\u2019t even have time to do that, they won\u2019t even be able to really look at film before tomorrow\u2019s game. All you can do is forget it and move on.<\/p>\n
There also isn\u2019t much chance this loss affects what will happen at Thursday\u2019s NBA trade deadline. Can\u2019t wait to forget about that and move on, too. The Raptors are back tomorrow night, against the Chicago Bulls. By the time they tip off, the deadline will have passed, this team will be (mostly) locked in for the season, and we can stop prophesizing and catastrophizing. Maybe. Maybe not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s one of the worst weeks in the NBA calendar\u2026 and right as the NBA Trade Deadline is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3770],"tags":[7,6,681,53472,680,476,3820],"class_list":{"0":"post-607667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-raptors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-raptors","11":"tag-raptors-scores","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-raptors","14":"tag-torontoraptors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116084681562922659","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}