Brandon Ingram’s GAME CHANGING impact & the case for Toronto Raptors optimism in 2025-26

Brandon Ingram’s GAME CHANGING impact & the case for Toronto Raptors optimism in 2025-26

On your Thursday episode of Locked on Raptors, Michael Peina of the Ringer is here to tell you why it’s okay to believe in your 202526 Toronto Raptors. You are Locked On Raptors, your daily Toronto Raptors podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Hey, what’s going on? and welcome to another episode of Locked On Raptors, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. It is Thursday, July the 31st, and I your host Sean Woodley. I’ve been covering the Toronto Raptors now for 11 seasons on various platforms. You can find all my work over on Blue Sky. You can find the show on Instagram. You can join us in the Totally Unhinged Locked on Raptors Discord server where definitely some people need to go outside. It’s okay to not obsess over RJ Barrett in the middle of July. I promise. Either way, come be among sickos in the Discord. is free. Link in the description of the podcast. We’d love to see you become part of our listener community. Today’s show is brought to you by our friends at Game Time. Download the Game Time app. Create account. Use the code locked in NBA for 20 bucks off your first purchase. And we’re off and running here on your Thursday edition of the show. Last show of the week as we bring in one of our faves, Michael Pina from the Ringer, who last week on the Zack Low Show did something you don’t often hear around the, you know, national media circles these days and uh expressed mild optimism about your Toronto Raptors going into 2025 26. He wrote about this as well last week or a couple weeks ago in the ringer. I don’t know what time is. Uh who knows, but Michael is here. Pea, how’s it going, pal? Nice to have you back. Thanks so much for having me, Sean. I’m super excited to uh join you as the co-chief exec of toxic positivity. Uh yeah, so we are going to get into a handful of reasons why it is okay for you, the Toronto Raptors fan, in the middle of the summer to feel all right about the prospects for your Toronto Raptors coming into this upcoming NBA season. Uh we’ll talk about Scotty Barnes, R.J. Barrett, Emanuel Quickley kind of assuming new roles. We’ll talk about the youth. will talk about uh frankly the uh just misshapen state of the Eastern Conference and how it could help the Raptors cause. Uh Pina as a uh Celtics guy very much knows all about how the East is looking this year. But let’s start with Brandon Ingram, Mike, because you mentioned Ingram on your show with Zach last week, and I I thought it was interesting because I haven’t really heard anyone outside of frankly like Toronto Raptors media podcast, you know, that that that small tiny universe here talk about Brandon Ingram as a basketball player in like 18 months. It’s all been, well, he stunk in the playoffs against Loot Dort. Yeah, he was injured, but who maybe we’ll handwave that away because it sounds more fun if we say he stunk. Uh there was like the bad Team USA appearance that he had. There’s the not playing very many games for a very bad Pelicans team. There was the trade and the will he won’t he actually play and should the Raptors even trade for him and then the contract extension and now the Raptors sort of salary cap sheet seems to be the topic dour for people who like to examine the Raptors state of affairs as well. The actual basketball player Brandon Ingram we haven’t seen play for the Raptors yet. don’t know what level of health he’s going to be at, though it seems as though he’s been fully cleared and has fully recovered from the ankle thing he suffered. Um, you dubbed yourself one of the foremost believers, perhaps the foremost believer in Brandon Ingram, the basketball player on this show with Zack. Mike, tell us why. I there’s a lot of reasons and I think you did a really good job of outlining exactly why his reputation and kind of the perception versus reality situation we find ourselves in when we talk about Brandon Ingram all of the bad stuff that has happened recently to him going from World Cup uh various injuries suffered in a just a dystopian New Orleans Pelican situation where his co-star Zion Williamson can never stay healthy and he has no three-point shooting to support him. uh gets traded to the Toronto Raptors while hurt and they sign him to this threeyear $120 million extension that makes everyone want to pull their hair out pull their hair out. Um I just think he’s a very good basketball player who situationally has never been in an ideal spot. uh has made the most of pretty much all of his surroundings when healthy throughout his career and now finds himself surrounded by I think if you’re just t even if you’re talking about a couple of guys off the bench maybe the sixth and seventh Ben Grady Dick and like respectable three-point shooters next season I think he has space to operate I think he will not be defended by the primary defender the best defender on the other team most nights. I think that his twoman game with Scotty Barnes, with Jakob Purle, uh with Emanuel Quickley can really pop. And I guess like when I really just kind of zoom in on his game, this guy can work off ball. He comes off pin downs, very comfortable. I think he’s a good spot up three-point shooter, and he has shown in his career. Uh it was a while ago, but it happened when he was a capable pretty high volume three-point shooter for a couple seasons. Um he is, you know, DHO’s out of the corner. He’s uh crosscreens on the block. He’s pretty much unguardable when he gets to his spots. when you I was just watching before I came on because I’m a total psychopath a bunch of his drives last season just kind of the offensive sets that uh originated where how he got to his spots. Um and it was just like we’ll throw the ball to Brandon Ingram on the left wing and we’ll kind of wait for help to come but we don’t really have anything cooking and he just made stuff out of nothing. I think his vision is uh incredibly underrated. I think his if you look the numbers his assist rate at his position has always been 90 low 90th percentile. Um he is a willing passer. He can throw pretty much any pass. Uh his he keeps his eyes open when he takes off for the rim. Um throws the skips, throws the pocket passes. is I think Jakob Purle will eat uh when they run high pick and roll together. Get him, you know, pretty good looks at the rim and you know, set him up for the push shot. Uh, and he is so I think like one of the more important parts of his game and another I guess reason why he is a little bit underrated is the shot selection and just like his shot diet because his shot quality is always like bought the worst in the NBA. He’s a main haven. He takes really tough contested shots. Um, and the thing about him is he’s had stretches in his career where he has been the best like KDesque mid-range shooter. Like he’s just impeccable touch from like 10 to 16 feet, gets to his spot at will, has really good handle. Um, and I just think he’s like one of the more special, like I’m not going to say he’s like one of the best offensive players in the NBA, but I wrote this piece at the end of the 2022 23 season. Post all-star break, he was literally like he was one of the best high you his usage was like 40% or something. His true shooting was over 60%. He was averaging 27 points, like seven boards, six assists, something like that. like he was incredible with no help. And so I’ve seen it like I’ve seen him be an excellent all-star caliber player. And I think that him if you just like combine the anti-analytics portion of his game, which I think is a little uh I would debate that a little bit with the fact that he’s like been to the playoffs twice. um he like his reputation is just shot and people don’t understand why he was paid as much money as as he was and I think he’s just a really good basketball player and you mentioned the Celtics earlier so I have to say like he is to me like if he was in a situation like the situation Jaylen Brown was in we would look at him in a completely different light and uh I think he’s awesome and I think he will have a very good season and I would not be surprised at all if he made a second All-Star team. Yeah, I I think all very well laid out. I I think, you know, to sort of go on the um the anti-analytics of his game a little bit, too. I mean, that honestly like it’s kind of a thing the Raptors could use. They’re a team that gets a ton of looks at the rim. They’re a team that ranks, you know, since Dark Yakovic came in very highly in overall shot quality. They just never make the shots they take. they don’t really take mid-range shots because they don’t really have anyone you feel comfortable taking those types of looks and so their offense is very much geared towards all right we’re just going to try to like funnel everything towards the rim make this as easy as possible for everybody and yet they’ve still had a hard time converting I think Ingram you know he’s a good rim finisher we talked about the three-point shooting like I I I’m with you like I think he is someone who you know I buy I believe a lot in the sort of effect of leaving the Pelicans and coming to a team that is not the Pelicans and Dark Oriakovic’s ability to kind of elicit buyin, which I think has been one of his best strengths as a coach so far in two years on the job in context where the team was winning 27 and a half games on average too, right? Like I think y if the team is like pushing towards something, I think the ability for Darko to elicit that buyin is only going to get easier. And with Ingram, you know, he’s talked a lot about it being like a fresh start. He’s he’s happy to be here. He picked Toronto over Atlanta when it came down to the two teams that he might end up with. Like I think if there is going to be a time at which Brandon Ingram buys into being more of a spot up guy, happily taking those catch and shoot threes to infuse some shooting and space into an offense that badly needs it while also bringing in the stuff you talked about the sort of working from the elbows and and just like the sort of anti-analytic stuff that runs counter to the way the Raptors run their stuff. I I think like yeah, there there’s a lot of opportunity for him to really shine here. We’ve got more on the cascading positive effects of Brandon Ingram for the Toronto Raptors coming up in just one second here with Mike Pina. But first, today’s show is brought to you by Game Time. We’ve all been there. Logging on early and waiting forever for concert tickets to go on sale only to lose your spot for a show you’ve been dying to see. Live music should be about making memories, not dealing with the stress of ticket shopping. That’s where Game Time comes in. Game time gets makes getting concert tickets faster and easier than ever. prices actually drop as it gets closer to showtime. And you can save up to 60% off with their killer lastminute deals. One of the last shows I went to prior to uh going off on paternity leave was MJ Lenderman over at the Danforth Music Hall. It was awesome and I got those tickets on game time for very cheap because they’re great for getting concert tickets. Of course, if you’re a baseball fan, you can get your Blue Jays tickets as they return to the dome this weekend as well post deadline. All there for you to go check out. Take the guess work out of buying tickets uh for concerts and shows and sports with Game Time. Dial the Game Time app. Create an account. Use the code locked in NBA for 20 bucks off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account. Redeem the code lb for $20 off. Download Game Time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. The thing that I am most intrigued by with the arrival of Ingram on top of just like watching him play basketball because he’s a fun watch is to your point about Scotty quickly R.J. Yes, they’re going to help him, but I also think his arrival is really going to benefit those three guys who let’s like we can be real about it. They really struggled last season. They lost their minutes together handily. The BBQ trio did not work. They got cooked. And so, you know, I I think there’s this sort of you look at those numbers, which again, it’s like a tiny sampling. They played 10 games together last year because it was such a just disjointed season and by the time everyone got healthy, they were, you know, mix and matching who was even playing in the interest of tanking. And so, I I don’t know how like legible any of the data really is, you know, but still they they got waxed in their minutes and I think it’s fair to say they were all a little overextended in the jobs they were asked to do. My question to you, Mike, is, you know, Brandon Ingram comes in, everyone presumably gets knocked down a little bit a spot on the totem pole in the hierarchy on offense. You know, I think Scotty becomes more of this sort of play finisher type as opposed to this create from the top guy where he really struggled with that. The pull-up three-point shooting wasn’t there on top of the catch and shoot stuff, but the pull-up stuff was just a disaster. You know, he found some success with like, you know, the turnaround in the post and all of that. And I’m sure there will be space for that. But I think now he gets to more sort of operate in the sort of in between spaces of the offense where he’s gonna get to finish a lot more. And I I think he’s proven himself a pretty capable finisher on top of I think one of the more undertalked about development stories of any player in the league last season was Scotty Barnes becoming just like an allworld level defensive player as well. And I think he’s going to get to shine further there. On top of that, you get Barrett who, you know, like you mentioned, that back part of the season after the trade was excellent in a very sort of streamlined um, you know, low touchtime running off of curls type of role. There wasn’t a whole lot that he was doing. It was a pretty simplified, you know, base offensive load for him and it all worked out pretty damn well. I think he gets to move back towards that with Ingram on the team. quickly obviously, you know, struggled last season when he um, you know, first to stay healthy and then there was in-n-outs and I think he really finished strong, but it was also, you know, it was the Chicago Bulls thing of, hey, you’re doing really well in March. Good job. Uh, you know, let’s see it against real competition in the bulk of the season. It’s when he played, so it’s all we have to go on. Of those three guys, who do you think stands to benefit the most from the arrival of Brandon Ingram? I think it’s Scotty. Yeah. Uh, pretty easily. Um, you nailed it with just the responsibility he had on his shoulders that was perhaps a little unfair. I mean, you watch some of those clips like his pick and rolls last year, and just like the how defenses treated Toronto, which was like one of the worst and lowest uh three-point shooting teams in terms of rate and accuracy. And um there’s just there was no need to be on the perimeter. You could help aggressively, be in the paint. Um and you know, he I thought he did a decent job based in the circumstances and like you watch some of the shots he took and you’re kind of just like I I get it. What was what was the other option here? Um some of them were forced. Absolutely. Some of them were very difficult. Um, and it’s also just like you were saying, I don’t know in a season like that what is to be gleamed as real and what is to be gleamed as um, you know, just a product of the circumstance. Bad team noise. Yes, 100%. Um, and I think like Brandon Ingram has pretty much always been or just like you know the past few years when healthy a highly efficient player out of isolation and pick and roll when uh a defense either shows help or hard doubles or soft doubles or uh just rotates to him in an aggressive manner. And I think that either he’s gonna get that and he’s gonna find, you know, I think Scotty Barnes has a opportunity to be in the dunker in small lineups when he plays the five. I think that, uh, you know, we’ll see how those lineups can stand defensively, but I think those are really intriguing offensively. Um, I think that his postups, he’ll have a lot more space to operate. talking about Scotty Barnes. I think when Brandon Ingram has the ball and he isolates and he’s got room to do stuff like he’s been someone who’s like his strides with his legs have been like Giannis like I it’s like a blasphemous statement but it’s true when you watch him like he can get by pretty much anyone because his legs are so his like waist is like it’s like where his rib cage should be. So he can step by pretty much anyone, get an advantage, draw help, and he will find that’s the beauty of his game and and his his skill set is just like once that happens, um he’s capable of making a tough shot off balance, but he’s also really willing to pass and feed teammates, and that’s like a that’s why I like him so much. Uh, so I think Scotty will benefit in a lot of different ways if Scotty cuts. Um, and is just generally around the basket. I don’t think, you know, him necessarily spacing is the right call, but you could have Scotty be setting, you know, wide pin downs for RJ Barrett, who was like awesome when he was getting to his left hand off DHO’s last year at the start. Um, so I just think there’s a lot of different ways that, you know, the offense can diversify when you have a talent like Brandon Ingram and you don’t need to be as predictable as you were with someone like Scotty Barnes last year. And there’s just a lot of different things that that you can do. Um, and I just I think that those two will develop a chemistry. It won’t be right away. I think those two will develop a chemistry because they both are uh just like really good passers for their position and that always helps. Yeah, we uh we’ll come back. We’ll get into a few more things. I want to talk about defense a bit because we talked a lot through the lens of the offense and how Ingram’s going to help it, but I I do think you know the defense was maybe the story of the team in the second half of the year. We’ll get into the sustainability of that. We’ll talk about the youth on the bench and the possibility for internal growth. The week east, a little bit more coming up as we close things out on the uh look at reasons for optimism for your upcoming Raptor season. We’ll do that in just one sec. All right, continuing the look at the case for optimism for the 202526 Toronto Raptors with Michael Peina of the Ringer. Uh Mike, defensively last year, you know, basically in any minutes where Scotty Barnes and Yaka Purle played together, the Raptors were an excellent defensive team. I believe they graded out at what would have been the second or third best defensive rating over the course of the full season and about 2,000 possessions together. And this was with, let’s be real, a lot of very bad defenders around them. Emanuel Quickley obviously wasn’t around for the first half of the year and I think took a little bit of time to kind of get acclimated to the Raptors very high pickup point annoying brand of defense. I think RJ Barrett you could make a case is one of the worst defensive starters in the NBA at this point. Grady Dick was playing heavy minutes. We know his defensive liabilities and they obviously were rolling out four rookies heavily last year. Rookies are bad at defense for the most part even when they’re good at defense like Jamal Shed. Um, I think you know the the numbers where they were like a top 10 defense for the second half feel a little bit fools goldie to me just because of the quality of competition although they were doing very well in that regard in like January February before things got super fake. So I think there’s some reason for optimism there. Ingram obviously doesn’t come in as like this lock down wing defender by any means. I’ve kind of maintained I just think his like functional length at the three next to Scotty and Yak is going to be helpful in a way that you know they just haven’t had that in terms of like functional size. They’ve been so 65 coded uh in recent years with the guys you know playing at the two and three. Um if you had to sort of put a just a guess on it, where do they what what unit finishes higher in the league rankings for the Raptors, offense or defense? And and and I guess sort of what do you think is the upside for either? Yeah, it’s a really good question. I I I think Brandon Ingram is uh he’s got the physical tools to be an above average defensive player in a lot of, you know, his time with the New Orleans Pelicans. I don’t think that there was like a ton of I guess motivation to play up to his I guess try as hard as he probably should have. And then also he had someone like Herb Jones on the court with him a ton. Um and uh just like questionable lineups and it was talking about just like really hard to to gauge this sort of stuff. I think he can be a pretty good defensive player. Um, you mentioned Scotty Barnes, Chucka Purle, those are above average defensive defensive players and and really solid at their position. Emanuel Quickley when healthy is uh and has been pretty awesome and tenacious and annoying on the defensive end. Uh yeah, I guess to answer your question, it’s like I I think I’m more optimistic about like I think I’m more optimistic about the offense actually. Sure. Partially because it was so bad last year and I just think like you get someone like Brandon Ingram to improve that side of the ball like primarily. I think that and I think he will and I think and there’s like a compounding effect of having five pretty good offensive players all playing together, right? 100%. Um like I hope this isn’t another like blasphemous comparison. I don’t think it is. But bring it on. When you have like like I was covering the NBA Finals last year and Rick Carile constantly preached like the importance of having lineups. People would, you know, praise Tyresese Hallebertton and he was unbelievable. But Rick Carlau would constantly talk about the benefit of having lineups that had like three, four capable ball handlers. You could run pick and roll. You could grab and go off a defensive rebound. It was just like this unpredictability that really made it, you know, creating mismatches all over the floor constantly. Um, and I think that there’s, you know, to play that way that fast is really hard. I don’t know if the Raptors will do that, but I think just having the ball handlers on the court makes them a little bit harder to guard. So, I I you know, we’ll see with the shooting. It’s that’s like kind of the sticking point still. I’m a little higher on RJ Barrett getting the looks that he should. We’ll see. I think like two years ago, Scotty Barnes was actually a a pretty good spot up three-point shooter. Um last year was just uh not as not as um disaster, frankly. Yeah, wasn’t great last year. I think he’ll get better looks also off of the the attention that Brandon Ingram draws. And I think Brandon Ingram’s just like an elite or can be an elite shot maker from all three levels. So, we’ll see with that. Um, I’m interested. I mentioned this a a little bit before, but the different lineup combinations uh when they go small and you add a dick to the court and you add Abbaji and hopefully Agaji can be as effective, you know, knocking down corner threes as he was last season. And I think that Grady Dick is also someone not only you can’t leave him alone in the perimeter, but has a little more juice to his game off the bounce that we we we should see that could open things up for everybody else. Um, so those are two shooters who I mean it this is where like the defense is just that’s where it gets like really curious and I’m kind of I’m with you. like they finished second in defensive rating last year after the All-Star break and I I you know I don’t know I can’t say that that’s like super real. They tried like they played hard that was awesome. Not everyone they are tryh hard bastards kind of. Yeah. Like it’s that’s kind of their whole thing which is they won more games than you know their the organization probably would have liked for draft reasons. And speaking of the draft, I have like no idea. I don’t know anything about the rookie who’s coming in. I if he is a solid defender who’s able to contribute right away as a rookie, that’s that’s that’s great. He has size, that’s that’s promising. More rebounding, that’s terrific. Um, but I think like if you are around league average, they finished 15th in defensive rating last year, I think. if you’re around league average defensively and then like you know up and down like like we’ll see what the three-point shooting is for them offensively, but if you’re right around like 12 to 15 to 16 offensively in the East, you’re like that’s a playoff team. You’re going to win a lot of games. Like if you’re steady in average, like that’s that’s where you want to be. And I think like your ceiling in your best case scenario is Brandon Ingram’s an all-star, Scotty Barnes is an all-star, Emanuel Quickley looks, you know, he’s shooting 42% from three and RJ Barrett has, you know, he’s shooting 38 or 39% from three and his assist rate is still high and he’s actually able to like carry the offense for stretches when Ingram and Barnes are on the bench. Like those are your best case scenarios. Um, and then we’ll see what what happens with with the second unit and and the steps that kind of the younger players who are more unproven and and uh have upside what they were able to offer. But I’ve mostly been focusing on the starters and that’s maybe the reason why I’m going to be wrong about the Toronto Raptor. I don’t know. But I’m bullish on uh they intrigue me and I’m bullish because of the impact that Ingram can have offensively. And then the last thing I’ll say real quick is when you have capable offense that is organized and uh efficient and just, you know, allows you to get back in transition and doesn’t turn the ball over that helps your defense. So all these things are connected and I think that uh that part of it should should help them defensively. Yeah, I I think uh to your point of the bench, I I think you know there was a lot of excitement watching the Raptors in summer league as guys who were probably just going to be the bench for the Raptors this coming year were uh harassing opposing ball handlers and Jacobe Walters getting seven steals and all of this like and I’m not here thinking like they’re all going to make gigantic substantial leaps in your two summer league means literally nothing to me. But I do think if you sort of subscribe to the idea that the Raptors with Dark Aryakovic and their coaching staff with Jamaala and the rest of the the crew they’ve got built here have kind of tapped back into their developmental magic of era’s past which you know I think most of the players who are on the team have gotten better at basketball since Darko arrived two years ago. I think there is something there. I I I think you can safely pencil in at least like a couple of those guys kind of making meaningful leaps and kind of popping off the bench and kind of and this is we’ve talked about it. This is not going to be a team that just like runs hockey changes like the 2017 18 Raptors did where you had the bench mob and it was like this uh once in a generation killer fiveman bench look. They’re going to stagger heavily with the starters that we’ve talked about who you know we’ve we’ve gotten into it a little bit. You know, the fit’s not maybe the cleanest or most obvious between the starters and they will stagger quite a bit, I think. And that’s where guys like Grady Dick and Jacobe Walter and Colin Murray Boils can kind of be additive pieces. You know, Ochiabaji in there as well. I think it kind of fits in any lineup. And I think that’s where the sort of strength of the team can be found. And I think if you have two or three of those younger dudes kind of pop just in like the really reliable seventh and eighth men types of ways, I think a that helps kind of clean up the concern regarding the salary structure of this team because all of a sudden you’ve got some youthful dudes on rookie contracts giving meaningful contributions. And then it also just lengthens the rotation in a way that I think can really pay off over the course of a full season. We haven’t even talked about like Jonathan Mo who um you know he’s got to learn how to hit twos and maybe he doesn’t but like there’s a lot of defensive promise there. Jame Battle just feels like a guy who is going to be on NBA floors for 10 years banging threes and maybe not doing much else but the dude can shoot. And so yeah, I I think there’s reasonable optimism I think that a couple of those guys can kind of hit and give them the type of length in the rotation you kind of need to rack up wins in what will be a pretty weak and Eastern conference. And that’s where I want to finish this off. Mike, just a straight up question for you. What heights within the East standings would the Raptors have to reach in order to leave you shocked at season’s end? Would you be shocked if they were fourth? Would you be shocked if they were top six? Would you be shocked if they finished in the top three in record in the Eastern Conference? At what point would you say, “Oh, wow. That is well beyond my wildest uh, you know, expectations for what this team can do.” Okay, I’m going to look at the tears. my tears list that I had. The east is just so bad. Um, I had them We need to normalize saying, by the way, instead of tiers when we’re ranking the East, it’s T E A R S. Uh, just because of how sad it is. Anyway, carry on. Fair, fair, fair. So, I had them in this class when I did a podcast with Zach um, called the middle class with a puncher chance. And I had the Pistons heat 76ers and Raptors. And I think the Pistons are are like they’re going to be really good and they’re kind of in a uh a different class maybe than the Raptors. I would be a little surprised if the if the Raptors finished above them, but those other two teams like it wouldn’t like I think the Raptors could finish sixth like not not easily, but I you know I’m completely out of the Milwaukee Bucks. I’m I think that the Celtics and the Pacers to a lesser extent will treat this season like a gap year and it would behoove them to do so. Um the Hawks are this wild card that could I don’t think that they will be bad. I don’t think that there’s a scenario where they’re bad in the regular season. I think that adding as much three-point shooting as they did was really smart and they could be extremely dangerous, but they’re just this wild card and so I’m not 100% sure what that is. Um, so and then I think like the top three are not maybe not set in stone, but I would be a little surprised if Magic Cavs Knicks were not top three at the end of at the end of the the regular season. So like fourth would be I think technically possible. Um but I would not bet money on that. I would say I would say like top of the plan is the expectation. Um, and my expectation. Mhm. And a six seed is definitely like in the cards and something that you know in the last because you know how it is like the last two three weeks of the regular season the last few years like the games have really mattered in that morass of the standings in both conferences where teams are you know there two losses are separating the third seed from the 10th seed or whatever. So, I think that they’ll be in there. And just competing for a uh just a a top six seed, like an actual playoff spot, I think is is realistic. Yeah. I mean, we saw it the last time they made the playoffs, right, back in 2022. God, so long. Uh when they went on that run and ended up being the fifth seed against the Sixers, despite, you know, not really seeming like that quality of team until they went on a heater in the last 30 games. Um, but yeah, man. I I uh look, I have to be optimistic because I’ll go insane if I do a daily podcast about the team and I’m just a doomer all the time. So, I’m inclined to lean towards the uh you know, sunshine and roses end of things. But, I do genuinely think that, you know, obviously health providing and everyone being on the floor, which has been a problem for this team in recent years, there is a reasonable case to feel pretty all right about where the team can go. Maybe not if you’re the type of person who views championships as the only goal. Sure, I’m not that kind of person. I am still very much in the I have beaten Ganon and I am walking around Hyrule just doing side quest uh stage of fandom after the Raptors won a championship. I am very all right with just watching some cool fun basketball after five years of watching very little of it. And uh I think that’s very much possible and maybe even likely for the Raptors this coming season. Also likely is Mike Pina offering very good stuff over at the Ringer. Mike, thanks so much for coming on the show, man. It was great to have you. Anything you want to promote for the good people out there? Uh, no, Sean, thank you so much for having me. I’m uh taking it easy right now. The last time I said that on a podcast, my editor hit me up almost immediately and asked for a story. So, I don’t I know I just jinxed myself, but trying to take it easy and relaxing for the next uh few weeks at least. Oh, yeah. I look forward to the incoming uh 3000word Brandon Anger deep dive you were going to be uh forced to do. So I can’t wait. Thanks so much, man. Uh everyone, thank you for rocking with the show. Follow, subscribe, rate, review, tell a friend, all that good stuff. Join the Discord link in the description of the podcast. As always, 100% free to do. And we’ll back again next week as we’re going to uh you know continue the offseason. Big V will be back after a much earned week off after carrying the show for six weeks. You’ll talk with VC about fun lineups. We want to see the Raptors deploy in what should be a very staggerfilled season. That should be a fun one. And uh yeah, we’ll get some mailbag action. We’ll get Katie Hindel back on the pod. Uh all that good stuff. Thank you so much as always for uh rocking with the show. We’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

A healthy Brandon Ingram should transform the way the Toronto Raptors play offense, and the case for optimism in the 2025-26 Toronto Raptors isn’t all that hard to outline as a result. In Episode 1919, Sean Woodley is joined by Michael Pina (The Ringer) to talk about the impact a healthy Brandon Ingram can have on the floor for the Raptors despite his damaged reputation around the league, how his skillset will ease the burden on Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett, the upside for the Raptors’ offensive and defensive units this year, why some youthful bench contributions could have an outsized impact on the team’s quality, and how the Raptors stack up in the busted Eastern Conference. Off the top, Sean and Michael get into why Michael views Ingram more favourably than most national media folks, and why the quality of his ability as a player has gotten clouded by a rough run of circumstances. Next, they dive into the impact Ingram will have on Quickley, Barnes and Barrett, all of whom figure to have their games simplified by Ingram’s arrival. Plus, can the Raptors’ defense sustain its late-season success? How will the likes of Gradey Dick, Collin Murray-Boyles, Ochai Agbaji and Ja’Kobe Walter help round out the rotation? And what would be the highest the Raptors finish within the East that would outright shock Michael?

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