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The Toronto Raptors shook up their roster in a major way during last season, parting ways with both Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby. That signaled a potential rebuild for the organization. Although Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley, and RJ Barrett are decent players, they're young.
Ahead of the 2024-25 season, president Masai Ujiri made it clear that a rebuild is certainly in the cards, but he's also confident the Raps have a clear path moving forward.
Via Sportsnet:
“I would use the word rebuilding, that's the right word, I think we have a clear path now going forward,” Ujiri said. “Young team, growing team, I think we set a path, went into the draft last year, got a couple of young players, and wanting to continue to grow and build this team around Scottie who is just 23 years old, so just want to continue to grow as a team. In sports you always want to be competitive and you play to win, but it is a rebuilding team, I think everybody sees that.”
The presence of veterans is almost non-existent on this current Raptors roster. Kelly Olynyk, who is Canadian, is the oldest player at 33. Toronto made another move this summer as they traded Jalen McDaniels to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for draft capital and two young players in Davion Mitchell and Sasha Vezenkov.
Barnes leading Raptors rebuild
As Ujiri voiced, Barnes is now the clear-cut building block for the Raptors, which has been expected for a couple of years now. It's part of the reason the franchise moved on from Siakam and Anunoby, who were fantastic players. Now, they four new players joining the squad from the 2024 draft in Ja'Kobe Walter, Jamal Shead, Jonathan Mogbo, and Ulrich Chomche. 2023 first-rounder Gradey Dick will also be looking to improve after Year 1.
Ujiri is focusing on seeing growth from each and every member of the team:
“I think the growth and progress of all our players,” Ujiri said, when asked about how he'll measure success in a rebuilding year, via Sportsnet. “The progress of our players is going to really tell. You'll be able to see. Young teams find it difficult to win in this league. That's just the way the league is. But we want to really build on this.
“We'll continue to try and compete every night, and we'll see where progress will be.”
The Raptors finished with a poor 25-57 record last season, putting them in 12th place in the Eastern Conference. Head coach Darko Rajakovic is completely on board with the rebuild, but he'll be making sure everyone is held accountable:
“This year we have a clean slate and we're going to start building our foundation,” said Rajakovic.
“There are going to be some non-negotiables,” Rajakovic continued. “I'm going to keep everyone accountable, including myself, to develop.”
Barnes also knows he needs to take on a new role as the clear-cut leader for the Raptors:
“I've been working on my communication skills, just trying to step into that next role of growing into a leader,” said the 23-year-old. “Just trying to bring these guys together, we didn't have a full season under our belt. We've got a lot of new faces, a lot of new people, so it all started this summer just building this chemistry with our team.
“Everything starts off with winning. We win and everything else just comes into place. All those other goals, and things that's great to have: being an All-Star, being All-NBA, we win first and all of those other things come into play.”
Toronto begins its campaign on October 23.
