I get the Raptors were down Brandon Ingram and Immanuel Quickley, but to put things quite bluntly, you cannot afford to lose to a team like the Sacramento Kings and especially at home. These matchups are essentially ‘gimme’ games meant to be that buffer in contrast to those tougher tilts on the schedule, but when you cannot even push past that level of competition, it raises some serious questions about the Raptors’ true chances and ceiling with this present core. <\/p>\n
Have the Toronto Raptors overachieved and then some? Absolutely.<\/p>\n
At the same time, given all the factors and components at play, the Raptors were obviously built to win. I don’t know about raising the Larry O’Brien trophy come June, but when you’ve spent so much to invest in this nucleus and after adding Brandon Ingram \u2014 it would’ve took some seriously bad luck to have Toronto only put up a mere 30 wins or less once again. Injuries and road blocks have come in their way all season long and yet the Raptors have rallied through, finding the right avenues to remain competitive in the interim, and they’ve tallied a 42-34 record as a result. <\/p>\n
As much as that current record clears many of the preseason chatter, the Raptors now find themselves in the dreaded play-in territory, sitting as the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed. The Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers have passed them by, occupying the fifth and sixth seeds that Toronto was trying to cling onto with a vice grip for much of the year. <\/p>\n
Raptors teetering in the perilous dead zone that is play-in territory<\/p>\n
If the season ended today, the Raptors would be matched up with the Hornets in the play-in, a team that has looked completely reinvigorated since the new year. The up-and-coming Charlotte squad is no joke and very much dangerous, considering they’ve already had Toronto’s number twice this year, and while the Raptors also have two wins over them \u2014 they just merely squeezed by. <\/p>\n
We can celebrate the Raptors’ historic dismantling of the Magic<\/a> not too long ago, but I was more so concerned about how Toronto could follow up on that momentum against the Cade Cunningham-less Pistons and the lowly Kings. Yet, Toronto dropped both affairs and while there was a level of accountability upheld in the post-Kings presser by Darko Rajakovic<\/a>, you could also tell that the fears of a brutal reality have settled into their minds. <\/p>\n