Boy, was I wrong about this team. After the Toronto Raptors lost Kawhi Leonard this past summer, I saw them as a 5 or 6-seed in the Eastern Conference, at best. I figured their aging roster coupled with their lack of star talent would drop them out of contention and that the Raptors would even potentially consider moving off some pieces at the trade deadline.
Instead, Toronto has entered the All-Star break second in the East with a record of 40-15 and just had its 15-game winning streak snapped by the Brooklyn Nets (of all teams).
Pascal Siakam has developed into one of the best two-way players in the NBA, Kyle Lowry has bounced back after a tough year last season and guys like Fred VanVleet and Norman Powell have taken dramatic steps forward.
You also have to really appreciate the job that Nick Nurse has done with this group, as he has gotten the most out of a club full of role players and has made sure to maintain the team's championship pedigree.
Yet, it's still very difficult to buy into the Raptors as legitimate title contenders.
Look: we have seen Toronto do very well during the regular season before, only to fold in the playoffs. As a matter of fact, the Raptors made a living out of doing just that between 2014 and 2018.
To be fair, a big reason for Toronto's yearly playoff failures during that stretch was because it ran into LeBron James three times in those five years, but even in the Raptors' non-LeBron series, it was clear that they simply were not the same squad during the postseason that they were during the regular season.
We can say that Toronto broke the curse last year, but again, Leonard was on the roster at the time. Yes, the rest of the team is still in tact, and surely, the Raptors' run to a title last spring will be very valuable from an experience standpoint as they make it through the rest of the year, but let's be honest: firepower is an issue here.
Siakam is terrific, and Lowry is a proven veteran, but is VanVleet really a No. 3 option?
I'm just not sure that VanVleet, Powell and Serge Ibaka will provide enough support for Siakam (who, for as good as he is, probably isn't a true No. 1 option to begin with) and Lowry.
As for Marc Gasol? He has been in and out of the lineup with injuries this season, and when he has been on the court, he hasn't given Toronto a whole lot. At least not on the offensive end of the floor.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I am certainly not the only one who feels this way about the Raptors. For all of the regular-season success they have been enjoying, it's rather difficult to envision them having the same type of success in the playoffs, especially in an Eastern Conference that features Giannis Antetokounmpo's Milwaukee Bucks, a Boston Celtics team that has four guys who can drop 30 points on any given night and Philadelphia 76ers and Indiana Pacers clubs that have more overall talent than the Raptors (the Miami Heat are probably on par with Toronto).
Generally, talent wins out in the playoffs. Of course, there are some occasions when it doesn't always manifest that way (see: 2004 Detroit Pistons), but more often than not, the team that has more talent from top-to-bottom (or more elite talent) is the team that wins the playoff series.
Don't get me wrong: experience does matter, and these Raptors are just eight months removed from winning a championship. So, in tight games in the postseason, Toronto can pull from last year and grind out some wins, but the Raptors have to get to that point in order to do that, and even then, it's hard to win in the playoffs when you are at a disadvantage in terms of pure talent.
Maybe we are all just underrating Toronto's roster. I haven't even mentioned how well OG Anunoby has been playing after a disappointing season last year, and rookie guard Terence Davis looks like a terrific find.
Even guys like Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Patrick McCaw and Chris Boucher have given the Raptors some solid minutes, so Toronto actually is deeper than most of the other contenders in the conference, and that holds value.
But it just feels like the Raptors are just a collection of a bunch of really good role players rather than a team that is legitimately loaded.
Put Leonard on this team and it's a different story, but Kawhi isn't walking through that door anymore.
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