Will the Raptors make the playoffs next season as Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes say?

Will the Raptors make the playoffs next season as Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes say?

The latest is that Brandon Ingram, first off, fully clear. Thank thank goodness. But he says, “We’ll make the playoffs for sure.” Well, let’s go down the table. Let’s get your thoughts on this. Alex Wall, do you agree with Brandon Ingram on the rap? He’s going to make the playoffs for sure. Playoffs. Are we talking top six or top 10? We got to talk with the mic closer to your mouth, buddy. Like this? Yeah, I think that’s good. Top six or top 10 though? You know, I that’s a good question cuz like I I I don’t actually count the play in as playoffs. Let’s say top six. Yeah. Top six. Would you get the Raptors top six? Well, I got the Wizards ahead of them. Uh I got the Knicks. Okay. Cavs. That’s two. Who else? Sixers maybe. Who am I missing? Pistons. The Magic. Magic. Okay. Bucks. Trust. Bucks. Maybe. Bucks. Maybe. So, I would say Hawks. I would Yeah. Hawks Kaka. I would say the Raptors are going to be outside of the top six. Okay, good. We got your micro. Outside of the top six. All right. For me, it’s it’s pretty simple. I think that they can win playing games and probably seven or eight and that they’ll be there. Well, no, you know, and they can win playing. Yeah, they can win playing games and maybe Yeah, that’s funny. I I think that they can I’d be surprised a little bit if they were a top six seed, but not not totally surprised. It’s it’s doable, but there’s also a lot of health concerns on the roster. They need a healthy season. A lot of other teams have like dependable guys who create 45 wins just by stepping onto the court basically. And the Raptors if they prove it then like hell yeah, they’re playing great basketball. They’re playing healthy. But probably I think the playoffs just threw the play in into it. Okay. Yeah. I I think like playoffs for sure. I I would be I think it’d be a major disappointment if the Raptors don’t make the playoffs in general. like top six they’re corn kind of in that glut of Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta, and them. And like I wouldn’t say any of those those three teams are like outright better than them. They just need obviously good help from Brandon Ingram and Scotty Barnes to take another step to being like the best player on the team. So I think it’s fairly doable. Okay, nice. There’s three teams that are in weird spots in the East that are not the Raptors and that’s the Pacers, the Sixers, and the Celtics just because injuries and you don’t know if they’re going to end up being top teams or bottom feeders, right? Um depending on those situations, I could see them being a top six team because that really like to your point about Detroit, Atlanta feels like those are the teams that are going to establish themselves as a top six. I could see the Raptors doing it. We’re pretty optimistic on 45 wins though. So 45 wins is we’re we’re OD though. We we believe I think the the lines came out I think they had the raps at like 36. Was it 36? I’ve seen 34 somewhere too. 36 feels kind of low for That’s an easy over. I thought I saw some but I think this is at least a 500 team unless unless it gets disastrous. Okay. So if you’re saying if it’s at least 500, you could at least easily get four more wins out of a healthy season, you know. There you go. That’s my pitch. Sure. So the way Brandon was explaining it was based on what he’s seen obviously because he hasn’t played with them yet. What he’s seen the defense he feels like they already solved it. They already got the defensive identity. Now they got to form a new offensive identity. Obviously Brandon’s going to be a big part of that. Do you agree with that state? Is the defense solved? Is the defy the way we just saw them force 34 turnovers? Yes. Against the Bulls who suck. No. I think why is Brandon Ingram talking like he’s a DH in baseball? He’s just going to come in and play offense. Does kind of sound like it. It’s like when the J sign, yo, you guys got the defense. I’m just going to get buckets. Do you think is that not the vision though? Like do the rap have the Raptors figured out their defensive identity just cuz they beat a bunch of teams that weren’t trying the second half of last season. I don’t know if I believe that. Samson, do you believe in the defense and to what degree? They have an identity to be certain. They know what they want to do. The efficacy is maybe more in the air than people think. the end of the season can be fool’s gold, but I’m going to lean on the side of optimism for their defense. I think that, you know, the summer league, I don’t think, is a a bellweather for what the big team is going to do. Let’s all go home then, man. Exactly. It’s Vegas, too. We’re just lying to people. I uh I think that they can be a top half defense and if things click, there’s potential to be, you know, punch up at top 10 potentially. Okay. Yeah. I I think their defense should be fairly good. like maybe not top 10 like it was back half of the year, but in terms of like their front court like defensive talent like Scotty and YaKob is like a high tier of defense and Scotty showed like defensively that he can he can bring up the level of the entire team. So I think that continues next year and and added added leaps from like Grady Jamal Shed showing his defensive level just like yesterday. Y I think it’s like fairly fairly doable and they could be like the 12th best defense in the league. I think if you see the way the league is trending with ball pressure uh and high pickup points like the Raptors have built a team especially off the bench where they’re going to be as aggressive as possible on defense. So there is a possibility they could be a top 10 team defensively. But the question I guess is how much you rely on those young guys to actually be effective right consistently on the defensive end cuz I agree the starting five because of the length because of the size that they have there’s a way for them to win on the defensive end. But if you start plugging out those pieces for younger guys can you still keep up that sustainability? Can I also say Yeah. Go ahead. Brandon said that he hasn’t led an offense like this before. Like I’m paraphrasing. Yeah. That doesn’t make sense to me. He He had so much of the ball in New Orleans. Like probably about the same amount point guard. So yeah. Who’s the Raptors point guard? Scotty Barnes. Scotty I Yaka run some point. This is what I was wondering about because I I don’t know if his role is going to be so dissimilar in usage to what he was doing in New Orleans as well. You know, I did like what he was saying cuz he was like, you know, I want to showcase that I can score off ball. I can shoot more threes. It all sounds good cuz I think we everyone knows Brady could score. It’s just about how do you make that the most efficient thing possible. I do agree with you though. It is kind of like a DH situation cuz you got all these other guys really really scrambling, playing hard on defense. Obviously, there’s some players on the team that aren’t necessarily two-way players, but you know what that’s look I I I think especially with the young guys and what they’re showing you right now, like this is the vision, this idea. Whether they can pull it off again or not, we’ll see. That’s like to be honest, none of us can tell you the future of this team, but at least with the idea in mind, I think it’s gonna be pretty

The Hello and Welcome and Raptors Republic roundtable discusses if the Toronto Raptors will be a playoff team in 2025-26 and how they can achieve the goal set out by Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes.

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