Predicting The Raptors Rotation For 2025-2026 | Who Won’t Get Minutes?

Predicting The Raptors Rotation For 2025-2026 | Who Won’t Get Minutes?

By the end of the offseason, the Raptors will have up to 18 players on their final roster, but only 9 to 10 of those guys can actually get consistent play time. So, who are those players going to be? And who will be the players that miss out on those rotation spots? Let’s get into it. Welcome back everybody. This is Amateur Sports, the YouTube channel that is dedicated to giving you Toronto Raptors content and videos like this and live streams on the channel. Make sure you do smash that like button if you enjoy this video and make sure you subscribe for more content just like it because today we are investigating what the rotation is likely going to be for the Toronto Raptors. I’ve said it in a lot of videos that I’ve done recently where I feel like this Raptors bench goes pretty deep. Like in the end, like if AJ Lawson makes the roster and he’s the 15th guy on the roster, like that’s a guy I can like kind of trust with NBA minutes and that’s like the bottom of the rotation it seems for the Raptors. They’re like almost seemingly going to be 15 players who I wouldn’t mind getting minutes in the NBA. Whereas like there’s been other years for the Raptors where we go into the season and it’s just like, “Hey, can you play competent NBA basketball?” No. Okay. Hey, well, we need your position, so you’re in rotation. Like, it’s been such a scrap to even find enough players to actually fit for the bench to get NBA minutes, but this year, it kind of feels like it’s going to be extremely competitive to get some of those final spots. Like I said in the intro, the Ravs can have up to 18 players on their final roster. They can 15 players in their main roster. Then, they can have an additional three players on two-way contracts. Those two-way contracts are already accounted for, and those guys probably not really going to be threatening the rotation. If they were, they wouldn’t be on 2A contracts. They would likely be on standard contracts. Then I say up to 18 because they could choose to leave that final roster spot empty for further flexibility for finances and further flexibility for trades because if they have a roster spot open, they can take two players back and give one away in a trade. And there could be some sort of trades that materialize, which we’ll touch on over the course of the video. But we’re going to investigate basically what I think will be the nine or 10man rotation for the Raptors this season. We’re going to be pretty quick when it comes to the starters because the starters I think is going to write themselves. I don’t see any argument about which players can dethrone any of the players in the current starting five for the Raptors. The point guard is going to be Emanuel Quickley. I beyond point guard and center. I honestly wouldn’t really worry about positions too much. A lot of positions are interchangeable. There’s a lot of, you know, schemes where players will be in different roles. Don’t read too much into positions over the course of this video. Basically, we’re trying to find the nine to 10 guys that are going to be playing the most. As it will be listed, I imagine RJ Barrett will be listed as the shooting guard. We’ll have Brandon Ingram at the three, Scotty Barnes at the four, Jakob Purle at the five. Like, these are the obvious players that are going to start. Like, Brand Ingram, no debate. Scotty Barnes, no debate. Obviously, Yaka Purle, no debate. Emanuel Quickley, I I’ve seen people try to create a debate, but really there should be no debate here. The backup point guard right now is Jamal Shed. I like Jamal Shed. He’s not challenging Emanuel Quickley for the starting spot. You could move Scotty Barnes to point guard and put somebody else in the starting five. That’s clunky. No, I mean, what are we doing here? Emanuel Quickley the starting point guard. And the one I’ve seen the most people try to make a case for is RJ Barrett. You know, could Grady Dick go into the starting five to add on additional shooting? Could Jacobe Walter go into the starting five to add additional shooting and maybe additional defense to the team? Interesting theories, cute theories. RJ Barrett, if he’s on the team, if he’s on the roster, I imagine he will be. I mean, there’s a certain possibility he’s traded before this video comes out. I don’t think so, but it’s possible. RJ Barrett is a 20 plus point per game player. He’s going to add a lot of scoring punch to the team. We’ll see if he’s worked enough on his three-point shooting and his defense and all that, but he’s going to be a starter out of the gate. I think the starters pretty simple. These five players kind of write themselves. They are going to be in the starting five. The bench is where we have a little bit more of a discussion that needs to take place. Point guard, I’ve kind of already pointed it out. It’s going to be Jamal Shed. Looked pretty good at summer league. Seems like he’s progressed his game a little bit from his rookie season in the NBA where he kind of made this role his. He came into the league as a 45th overall pick. David Mitchell was traded for to be essentially the backup point guard for the Raptors, but David Mitchell wasn’t fantastic for the Raptors. I I know he’s been good for the Heat, but he wasn’t very good for the Raptors. Jamal Shed was playing quite well and kind of dethrone David Mitchell for that position. So much so that there were quite a few, not quite a few, but there was definitely a few did not play coaches decisions for David Mitchell before he eventually got traded at the deadline to give Jamal shed this role. Not a lot of competition for the backup point guard role. that spot is his. Now, when it comes to the other spots here in the rotation, this is where like the wings, it is a log jam of players that will be vying to get playtime. So, it’s complicated to pick guys to get in. I think at this point, not enough players have risen up to take away this backup role. I’ll put him at shooting guard for Grady Dick. Obviously, his shooting is going to be pivotal to the Raptors. They lack shooting. They lack spacing. Grady Dick can provide a lot of that. Last season, Grady Dick in his in his starting role in a very large role for the team really did bring in a lot of scoring punch, especially the early stages of the NBA season kind of faded away more and more as the season went on. But Grady Dickin is ascending player. Took a really big jump last season. He’s in his third year after getting selected 13th overall. Like we could stand to see another jump coming this season for Grady Dick. He’ll have to do it in a backup role. What is going to stop Grady Dick from being in rotation is pretty much enough guys have to outplay him and his defense would have to be so poor that the Raptors wouldn’t be able to use him in these spots. I don’t see that happening. Hopefully he is working on his defense. Hopefully is up to like just passable like just just so it’s not bad just so it’s not inhibiting what the team is trying to do. That’s where I’d like to see Grady to get to. Not sure if that be will be this season, but I still feel confident he is firmly locked into the rotation. Now it gets dicey. Now it gets complicated. I think those two are pretty comfortably going to be in rotation for the Raptors. Now it’s tough. Next up, I have actually going to go I’m actually going to go with Jacobe Walter in this spot. If you asked me to make this video before Summer League, I might have said that I might even made a video where Jacobe Walter wasn’t in this 9 to 10 man rotation. Summer League kind of changed that. He looks like a much more confident player and honestly a much more talented player from what I saw in summer league. Now it is summer league but like still you you saw the developmental strides that have taken place for Jacobe Walter. He looks like a much more confident three-point shooter and he looks like a much more confident defender. Every team especially with guys coming off the bench needs shooting and needs defense. Jacobe Walter seemingly is going to provide both of these things and honestly had a pretty promising rookie season for the Raptors. There were some issues with efficiency for sure, but always seemed to me like an intelligent player who played within himself, who played for the team, and and I just think like if he’s enhanced his three-point game and his defense game, that’s going to be important for the Raps to have on their bench. I’m going to go with him in this position. Now, we get to what I have as the power forward. This is where I haven’t quite made up my mind, but I will force myself to make up my mind by the end of the video. So naturally, what you would like to see is your first round pick, your ninth overall pick, Colin Murray Bulls take on this backup power forward spot. From summer league, he showcased himself to be a very talented defender, very intelligent defender, occupies so much space, disrupts passing lanes, good help defender on defense. Could we see maybe even a little bit of small ball five out of Colin Murray Bulls? Perhaps that’s something that we can explore in the NBA with him. But this would be the guy you want to see here for his defense and for his, you know, development. That’s your first round pick. You want to see get play time. However, I’m concerned about the offense perimeter shooting wise, like it’s not there. He’ll get ignored on defense a little bit. They’ll be able to help off him a little bit. Will he be skilled enough as a score against bigger, better NBA defenders? Perhaps not. So if that’s not the case, I could see the Raptors going with Oce in this position, which is really, you know, playing him above his size to play him at the four a little bit. But we saw like honestly quite a bit of that last season. He’s played this before for the Raptors. Not the ideal role for him, but there is so many players kind of vying for these spots. The only thing will be is I think Oabaji is good enough to be in rotation. I just wonder if there’s enough space. First of all, I think like he’s good enough to get in regardless. But the further issue is the Raptors can’t really afford him. As of right now, they’re over the luxury tax threshold. They don’t need to get under that before the season starts. So sometime during the season, they may move a player to do that. The obvious candidate is Oabaji because he’s doing an extension at the end of the season that the Raptors can’t really afford. So maybe out the gate it’ll be like Colin Murray Boils in this spot just to see him and then maybe they switch to Otabaji and then they trade him and they switch back to Colin Murray Bulls as he gets better. Maybe that’s going to be how things go down. That will be my prediction here. So it’s going to be a bit of a combination of Abaji and Murray Boils. I think by like by end of season Murray Boils let’s give the prediction he’ll be firmly in this rotation for the Raptors. At least that’s what we hope to see. But I I’ll make that prediction. I’ll make that call here. Which leaves a backup center position. And there’s a couple of candidates to take this spot. Uh Colin Castle is not one of them. I don’t know. By the time this video comes out, I wonder if he’ll even be on the roster. Maybe maybe they’ll still have him for training camp. I don’t imagine make the final roster. Anyway, not Colin Castleton. Could be Jonathan Mo here. I wasn’t super impressed by him at summer league. So, I think the Raptors will go for the player they just signed on a two-year contract, oneplus one deal with a player option in Sandrew Mamu Kellish Vely. So, had some decent games last season with the Spurs. Overall, has been a pretty consistent three-point shooter in his time in the NBA. This just adds a little bit of something different for the Raptors off the bench. not like traditional center the way you know size-wise but I think that we will see some creative lineups where you know even off the bench Murray Boils and Mamu Kellish Villi as the bigs in those lineups you know you can play K Murray Boles more as an interior centric big because that’s not Mamu Kellish Vile’s strong suit but on offense he can provide spacing he is a three-point shooter that I don’t think is going to get ignored by opposition defenses so I will go for Mamu in this position here just bring something different. We could even see lineups in tandem with Purle where Mamu Kilage is playing as the four, Jakob Purle’s playing as the five because he has that spacing. That’s something that was pretty important for the Raptors to pick up. We’ll see if he is good enough to lock down this rotation spot, but I don’t think Jonathan Mobo is knocking on the door of taking it away from him. So, I will make the prediction that it is Sandro Mamu Kellis really taking this spot. That would be my 10-man rotation. Now, you won’t I mean the positions again, don’t worry about them too much. You’re not going to have, at least you really shouldn’t, Darko, a full benchman lineup where like this is going to come to play. I want to see staggered minutes. I want to see bench players integrated into lineups with starters. I don’t want to see four or more bench players on at one time. I want to like maximize like maximum three bench players on the floor at once. Probably not going to happen because Darko loves to do four bench players with Scotty Barnes. We’ll see like with Brand Ingram if things change this season. I don’t know. But that would be the 10-man rotation. If we were to whittle this down to go to a nine-man rotation, and typically what Darko has done, he has gone for to start the season 10-man rotation to just, you know, get a better look, bigger look at 10 players instead of nine. And then as we get more comfortable, we see what we’re dealing with, then it kind of goes down to nine. When it does go down to nine, my prediction is Mamu Killers will have to work to get back in rotation. They’ll feel confident with what they have in the other four positions there. So, what do you think? What would you change?

The Toronto Raptors have some incredibly difficult decisions to make for the season regarding playtime. So who will get in rotation and who will miss out on minutes?

✅ Shop The Merch: https://www.kijiji.ca/o-profile/1006686825/listings/1

➡️ Become a channel member to access exclusive content and perks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMwXNsmiYEOqzP0whnslrFg/join

🏀 PayPal: paypal.me/jacobgramegna
🏀 Subscribe to my Live Stream Highlights Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AmateurHourReactions
🏀 Join the Amateur Hour Discord: https://discord.gg/2NgdqRJSrg
🏀 Follow Jacob Gramegna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jacob_gramegna

0:00 – Who will be in rotation for the Raptors? Who won’t get minutes?
2:08 – The starting 5
4:01 – Backup point guard
4:49 – Shooting guard
6:06 – “Small forward”
7:13 – Power forward
9:38 – Centre
11:09 – Switching to a 9 man rotation

This is Amateur Hour Sports. On this channel, Jacob Gramegna analyzes and breaks down the latest on the Toronto Raptors NBA team from trade rumors to post-game reactions, analysis, and much more. By subscribing to this channel you will be there first to watch and enjoy 3-4 videos a week all focused on this team and on game days Jacob goes live on the channel for a watch party where he interacts with chat, answers your questions, and analyses the game as it happens with play by play and commentary. Join the Amateur Hour Army today by subscribing and consider becoming a member to give extra support to the channel and help create better content more often.

See you again next time

#raptors #torontoraptors #NBA