After a disappointing 2024-25 season in which the Toronto Raptors won just 30 games, they entered the 2025-26 campaign with a stern focus to make the leap as a collective. After all, they have one of the most expensive payrolls in the league, and they brought in Brandon Ingram back in February to add to their burgeoning core. And now, the Raptors have indeed been doing what they set out to do, as their 140-110 win over the Washington Wizards on Friday night's NBA Cup action moves them to 11-5 on the season.
That 11-5 record has the Raptors in second place in the Eastern Conference at the moment, which has them surpassing even the most optimistic of expectations of them heading into the new campaign. Just to make things even better for the Raptors, this latest win over the Wizards moved them to 3-0 in NBA Cup group stage action.
Since they've already won against the Cleveland Cavaliers, their closest competitor in the group (2-1 record), regardless of their result against the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday, they will now be heading to the knockout stage of the tournament by virtue of clinching Group A — a huge win for a team that was purportedly rebuilding.
This Raptors team is growing right before our very eyes, and they've been winning as a team. On Friday, five different players scored in double figures, and of those five, four of them scored 23 or more points. They have been rolling their fellow Eastern Conference teams, and their next five games will be coming against intra-conference teams — giving them a huge chance to extend that six-game winning streak of theirs even further.
Raptors punch their ticket to Vegas
The NBA Cup may not be all that prestigious of a tournament, but it remains an important one for them to vie for considering how much money is at stake. The cash prize per individual may not matter as much to those who signed supermax contracts, but it matters very much to the team's staff and other players who are hanging on to a roster spot for dear life.
Considering how well the Raptors have been doing against the East as of late, do not rule them out as a potential representative for the conference in the NBA Cup Final.
