Toronto Raptors Roster Overhaul: Can Scottie Barnes Carry Toronto?

Toronto Raptors Roster Overhaul: Can Scottie Barnes Carry Toronto?

It’s time to talk about our Toronto Raptors. Rainbows, daisies, puppies, all the good things in life. Michael Bolton. Thanks, Josh. It’s Michael Bolton here and it’s time for another episode of the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast. Let’s get to it. Let’s get to it. Indeed. You are Locked On Fantasy, your daily NBA fantasy podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast brought to you by Basketball Monster. My name is Josh Lloyd and Tim Hortons sucks. I’m also the lead fantasy analyst at basketball.com and today’s episode is brought to you by Fanul. Football season is around the corner, so visit the FanDuel app today and start planning your futures bets now. Thank you also for making Lockdown Fantasy Basketball your first listen every day. We are free and we are available on all platforms. So get ready to double bang, not a single bang, always going to be a double bang. Let’s talk Raptors. All right, we’re talking Raptors, of course. To do that, I’ve got to bring in the host of the Lockdown Raptors podcast or one of the hosts of the Lockdown Raptors podcast. Shan Woodley is back again for the 10th 11th year in a row as we talk about this Toronto squad who continues to confound and confuse at times, especially especially me. Um, I’m sure it’s I’m not alone. Although I know I know exactly what’s going to happen here, Sean, you know what’s going to happen. There’s going to be people here that are going to be just all accusatory saying how much I hate Toronto and how unfair I am and how unbiased I am. So I just look, let’s just get that we’ll get all that out of the way. Let’s get to the first question. Why does Toronto and Canada suck so much? Like what what is what’s your problem? Why are you guys so bad? Why is it just an absolute disaster of an area? Like what’s what’s happening up there? What do you mean? It’s like it’s everything. Where do you want to start, man? We got wildfires. We’re of course uh the lesser of the two countries that occupy this continent or the northern part of this continent. Uh yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, we are terrible. We’re brutal. At least you know At least you know your place. That’s at least you know where you sit. At least you know how everything and that gives us a whole like it’s an undercoat for talking about this Toronto team which nobody respects, nobody covers, nobody talks about, everyone hates, everyone’s disgustingly down on at all points. Let’s talk about though some real basketball stuff because they’ve got a team that is very strange. We’ll talk about there’s four guys who I expect are going to start. Like I know people have this idea that maybe they they don’t and maybe they do, but I I believe it’s going to be Quickly. It’s going to be Barrett, it’s going to be Ingram, it’s going to be Barnes. We’re going to talk quickly in a sec. I think he’s an interesting thing. But like all of these guys need the ball. Like they all need the ball to be successful. Some of them Brandon Ingram have shown an an ability to be really bad offensively when they don’t have the ball in their hand. So how is this going to work? Is Scotty Barnes going to be ramped way down and just be a distributor? Is RJ Barrett going to decide to be a spot-up shooter? That sounds disgusting. Where does Ingram fit in? Like, how how do you obviously Ingram’s been on this team for seven months. We’ve never seen him play. How does how do you think the offensive hierarchy works? I think it’s going to require some give from everybody, but I think the way the Raptors play, they play play pretty egalitarian style. And I don’t know if like one guy is going to be the clear usage king on this team. I think it’s going to be pretty balanced and I think it might depend night toight on who the opponent is, what are the matchups and I think yes, it’s a weird team. The fit is strange. RJ Barrett in particular, I’m sure we’ll talk about is a strange fit at the two in particular just because of the lack of shooting. The defense is actually more of a concern for me with RJ. Um I think he showed signs after the trade in 2023 24 of being a pretty damn good offball player. He shot like 39% on threes and more more than anything else he was like eager and willing to take the wide open threes that came to him. And on top of that, he basically played this just like low touch stream like low touch time streamlined game where most of his buckets came as a result of getting a pin down from the corner, catching at the nail with a head of steam and driving to the bucket with some space around him and scoring. And that was awesome. He had a career best finishing rate at the rim and all of that. And then that changed last year when the team was horribly injured. Emanuel quickly missing the first 50 or 40 games or so matters. Like I like I know people like to do this thing where bad or injured equals bad, but I’m sorry like he was injured. He’s not bad. And I do think Quickly is kind of the guy who’s going to stir the drink for this entire team. I know I spoke very optimistically about him with you last year and obviously things didn’t work out. Um I I think he’s in for a big season if he can stay on the floor and my guess is a guy who averaged 73 games a season before this past year where a whole bunch of freak injuries befell him. He fell on his butt in the first game of the season and missed a bunch of time. He suffered a baseball injury. He had like a torn UCL at one point. Like he had a weird season and then the team was actively trying to lose down the stretch. I think Quickley is going to be the guy who kind of sets the table for this offense. And I think of all these guys is the one who is most capable of making things happen away from the ball. And I think that means he’s going to be a pretty integral part of making this offense make sense. I agree. Now, we were both pretty high on quickly last season. I think with good reason. it it made sense and you’re right like he busted his ass first game of the season, took a while to come back and had multiple injuries. I thought down the stretch in the games that he did play, even though it was, you know, he was playing on a part-time basis, I thought he looked pretty good. Now again, I just wanted like I think people don’t really understand what he is as a player cuz I had someone suggest to me like that they just won’t start quickly. They Barnes will be the point guard and they’ll start Dick to get better spacing. You realize that Quick is a better better shooter than Dick? Yeah. Like he’s actually the best shooter on this team by a considerable margin and taking him out of the starting lineup makes the spacing way worse. like he is integral. Look, he’s Yeah, Barnes is probably the best passer, but Quickley is pretty close. Barnes is Quickley is very clearly the best shooter. And you’re right, being injured. Yeah. Having being undercut and busting your hip open is not you being bad. And that’s what he played. What did he play? 28 minutes a game. Lucky he’s not going to play 28 minutes a game. I It is going to be harder for him to have a a as large a share of the ball as what he could have had last season just because of Ingram being there. But I I agree. I think that he is vital to what they do because if they don’t have him, uh if he’s not doing that, then I like who else does it? Like who is there’s no point guard who can shoot realistically on this team at all? Like it’s it’s him. And then we run into some uh run into some problems with figuring that out. I I guess all this then brings us down to Let me just say Josh like to to the point you made about the point guard thing, Scotty Barnes is not a point guard. Like he’s not a point guard. He is a playmaking forward wing type who can play some small ball five. He’s not a point guard. Those who keep on saying Scotty Barnes is a point guard. You’re living in 2021. He’s a damn good player and I think he’s going to be pretty effective playing next to Brandon Ingram on this team and I think we saw some positive strides for him playing with Emanuel Quickley last year in terms of their two-man game chemistry. But Quickley is the point guard full stop. If there’s someone who’s not starting, it’s RJ Barrett. I think he’ll start from the jump. But if someone’s going to lose his job this season, it’s 100% RJ Barrett, the one guy in their starting five who they are not committed to long term. Yeah. And that’s that’s going to lead us to what we talk about later in the show about the the long-term commitments on this team because it is a weirdly constructed team. Like Barnes um had that big breakout two years ago where his rebound rate, his three-point shooting numbers, his block rate all went through the roof and they all fell back to earth last season. So I I don’t know. You probably feel this way to a degree. I’m not sure that the Raptors fans do, but like I still really don’t know what he is. Like I still don’t like which one is he. He’s like the realistic answer is like it’s somewhere in the middle between all of that. But he had these big highs of like wow he’s shooting 37% and he’s blocking every shot under the sun. He’s grabbing 10 boards a game. And then you know it it came to a more reasonable like you seven seven rebounds and you one block instead of 1.8 or whatever it was. And you obviously 27% from three is terrible but like I don’t really know where where he’s at. And it is hard to judge considering the last 30 games of the season were against the worst teams you could possibly have seen and they tried their best to lose and they couldn’t but they they tried their best by you playing AJ Lawson and Jameson Battle 35 minutes a night. So Barnes is an interesting one but I I’m glad you said that about him not being a point guard. He’s a playmaker but they’re not his dribbling skills aren’t that level. His shooting is obviously not that level. He’s not that sort of a player. I do want to quickly talk Brandon Ingram in this segment here because I don’t know he’s he’s a player that annoys me to a large degree because of he’s one of these guys that the ball is in his hands and you go he’s going to get 25 five and five go that’s great that’s really good it means your team’s bad if he’s getting that but then you put him in a different role and I don’t really know how he actually succeeds because we’ve saw him play on team USA with a bunch of good players and he was lost like he just couldn’t do it and when he has to play off ball to Z Williamson he was sort of lost and he couldn’t do it and then he had to ramp up He’s like he’s just a weird player and I don’t I don’t really get you you mentioned it. You said I think that him and Scotty would fit well together. I’m not sure how that I’m not sure that works. I want you to convince me how does it how does it make sense? I I don’t get it. So I think Brandon Ingram does a lot of the things that Scotty Barnes doesn’t do so hot like a lot better than Scotty does. And I think it’s going to push Scotty into more of like a play finishing role where he can work off of Ingram who like say what you will about Brandon Ingram. Dune is a good passer and I think he’s going to be someone who can draw attention in a way that no one on this offense really outside of Scotty has shown a capacity to do and I think that’s going to free things up for Scotty as the sort of secondary finisher type. I think Scotty’s going to probably be like the two two-way type guy in this offense alongside Quickly with Ingram kind of being like again I don’t think it’s going to be that he is creating all of the time or anything like that. And I do think, like I said, there’s going to have to be some give here and some adaptation. And I think what we’ve heard Brandon Ingram say, you know, in his few media availabilities since coming to Toronto, I I do think he’s like genuinely open to playing a different brand of ball. And I do think there have been times in his career where you look at, you know, way back when he was an all-star where he has operated as an offball player, been an eager three-point shooter, and he’s a damn good three-point shooter when he does it. like when he hits his threes like most of them are coming in the form of catch and shoots and he’s an accurate shooter and I do think like this isn’t going to work unless he’s willing to play ball. But I think the way again the Raptors play offense is this sort of egalitarian style where it’s really all about the system there like the closest to the Warriors system you’re going to find. It’s not Warriors quality players playing it, but I think the way they play is very similar. And it’s really just about what’s the best shot we can create and how do we leverage the skills of all these players to create the shot for whomever it is. We don’t really care who’s getting the shot and yeah, Ingram is going to have to change his ways a little bit to be a part of that. But I do think we have to bake in the escape from New Orleans factor here a little bit. That franchise is a disaster. It’s a nightmare. It’s been like totally off the rails for years. I think Ingram was excited about a fresh start in Toronto. He chose Toronto over Atlanta when it came down to the two places he could have gone to sign for his new deal. And yeah, he wasn’t like loaded with options of where he was going to go, but he chose Toronto over Atlanta. And I think Darko Ryakovich, look, it’s a big year for Darko. It’s a massive year for him. If it doesn’t go well, he could be out of a job by a season’s end. But I think if there’s one thing he’s shown during his time with the Raptors, it’s that he’s able to elicit buyin from his players to do the things he wants them to do. He’s a very like affable guy. And I think there’s a chance that he’ll be able to get through to Ingram and just have him be the best version of himself. It’s not going to be a 255 and guy 25 and five guy, but can he be someone who’s putting up 225 and six as this sort of supplemental creator within within the team who can bail them out late in games when they need a shot, which has been a huge weakness for them in the past when the system breaks down. I think he’s going to help them finish a lot more of the pretty good shots they tend to create. uh you know they were top five in the league in shot quality last year. They just couldn’t hit anything. They were bad in defic effective field goal percentage because the guys taking the shots were not good players. I think Brandon Ingram is someone who is a good player who hits tough shots and will get some good looks within the system as well. That’s how this works. I understand the skepticism for sure and I was pretty down on the trade when it first happened. But thinking about it more and just sort of thinking of the human factor here with Ingram, it’s kind of his last shot really to be a star in the NBA. I do think we’re going to see some adaptation. I do think he’s going to help the rest of the team kind of level down in their level of responsibility, just kind of do the things they do best without having to be spread too thin. It’s very easy to look at the trade and go, they didn’t give up anything in order to get him, which is true, right? They didn’t give up hardly anything to get in, which is which is fair. Again, if you look at every trade on a microtransactional level, cool, it’s a great trade. You got a you got a good player and he is a good player for nothing. My thing is like, okay, but it might take away the ceiling of some of your other players there. Does it add anything to it? We’ll see. But like how and then you then you have future constraints in terms of salaries. And that’s where the the problem with the trade is where I had it. It was not like a you know, hey man, I’d rather have Bruce Brown or Kelly. It’s not the way that I’m looking at that. It’s more like now you’ve got him. So you’re committed to this situation and I’m not sure the fit is perfect. We’re going to come back and talk about someone who is a real lynch pin on this team and and a key uh figure. We’ll talk about Yaka Purle in a sec. Today’s episode though is brought to you by Fanul. August the 26th is officially Fanul Futures Day, a brand new holiday for football fans who live for bold predictions and pre-season hunches. And for just 24 hours, FanDuel is giving you the deals on NFL season predictions. So whether you’re calling your MVP, you’re eyeing a longshot division winner, or you’re ready to crown your Super Bowl champ before week one even kicks off, this is your moment. You might be looking at Josh Allen as a back-to-back MVP. Well, you can do that on FanDuel Futures Day. You might want to crown your champion. Maybe you’re going to go all Buffalo. You go the Bills for the champion or you want to parlay your division winner darkh horses. Maybe the Miami Dolphins will knock off the Bills in the AFC East. I don’t know. Maybe you can put that in on FanDuel futures day. So visit the FanDuel app today and start planning your futures bets now because futures day is one day and one day only. Fanul play your game and don’t forget to gamble responsibly. Sean, last year at media day, Yak Purle did everyone in the fantasy community a giant favor. He came out and said, “Yeah, we’re not going to try. Uh wins aren’t important. We we don’t care. We are going to be actively losing down the stretch.” And they went, “You sure about that?” No, they’re good. No, they’re good. And he said, “No, no, no, no, no. We’re going to be bad. We’re deliberately going to be bad and we are not going to care.” And that is exactly what happened. We talked about this last season saying that like Jakaple is not the best player in this team. And I the contract they gave him, I’m very iffy on what they did with that. But again, he is incredibly key on this team because they have some centers I guess like Jonathan Mo is you know 6’8 or whatever he is like he looks somehow smaller in person. They drafted Colin Murray Boils who maybe plays center but also incredibly small and as we also saw last season when Yaka Purle is not there things uh they take a they take a bit of a dive Sean. So Purle on that you know they’ve committed to the contract. I’m not saying he’s a great player or anything like that. He’s a good player. He’s a very good player, but he has to be key again because the depth behind him does not really again make sense with all the other players on their team. Like he’s the guy that makes sense next to those other players, but there’s a lot on his shoulders. Definitely. I mean, I think he can handle it. He was really good last year. Had a career year. I I don’t think he’s going to play quite as much in terms of just like per minutes as he did per game minutes as he did last year because I do think we are going to see a lot of Scotty at the five. I know I mentioned that before, but if you go back to some of the most successful parts of Scotty Barnes’s early career, it was a lot of him playing at center. And I do think that’s a way to kind of overcome some of the spacing concerns this team has. And I do think a sort of way this team is going to play is going to be very stagger heavy. We talked about the weird starting five. I think they’re going to be a ton of lineups where they just kind of roll out maybe like quickly with Yaka Purle and a bunch of shooting in between them and then a lot of Scotty Barnes at the five with Brandon Ingram and other guys kind of filling in. And and I think that like they’re gonna be some unorthodox looks here. But yeah, there’s no doubt about it. If if like I think they can survive games just fine and piece together 48 minutes a night of solid center play with Purle healthy. If ever he goes down, it gets real tricky because you’re playing Mamu a lot of minutes and you’re asking Jonathan Mobo to do a whole lot where you know I’m a Jonathan Mobo freak. It’s it’s one of my great personal flaws of course. Um but like there’s there’s some stuff to like with him and I think he showed some stuff defensively last year that’s like genuinely very impressive. offensively. We’ll see if he can like, you know, figure out how to dunk again and stuff like that. But yeah, after Yaka Purle, any long-term injury, it’s trouble. If he’s in the lineup for 65, 70, 75 games, I think what they do behind him at center is actually going to be kind of fun and interesting and kind of give them a different flavor as a team. Backup centers stink, Josh. And I like Scott, take give me Scotty Barnes at the five. Over 95% of backup centers in the league. I think that’s going to be a totally fine way that they fill in minutes. And yeah, when Purle’s out there, he really is the lynch pin. He’s like the anchor of the defense with Barnes. When those two are on the floor last year together, by the way, they were an awesome defensive team, even with some pretty bad defenses defenders around them. Um, they had a defense in all Barnes plus Ple minutes, which was like 2,000 possessions worth of tape last year, that would have ranked number two in the NBA over the course of the full season. And they were playing a lot with Grady Dick and a lot of rookies. uh 25% of this team’s minutes last year were played by rookies. I just think Purle as a backline for for for the defense, as a play finisher, as a short roll passer, as an elbow hub, just a really effective player. I think you can expect maybe not the same total output because there’s more mouths to feed this year with Ingram on the team and you hope that they’re going to be healthier, but I do think you’re going to see him put up really solid, dependable nightly numbers for sure. Yeah, like he just has to like they will be the backup situation and running some of those smaller guys and Robo and Murray Boils and those sort of guys is is is interesting. Like it’s useful and Scotty Barnes playing that role is is totally cool. Like it’s fine, but if you run into a situation where you’re starting Mamu again can be productive. Like it does turn everything else into a real show. It makes it really tough to get by. And we’ll see if Yakob has had any more media training or what he says at um media day this season about the direction of the team. I’m sure they weren’t too pleased with what he said, but like it’s refreshing to have some accuracy or some honesty in in what uh what people are saying. How do you view what Murray Boils’s role is going to be for this season? Obviously, he’s a rookie, top 10 pick. He has some um let’s say iffy shooting ability. Um defensively really good, but he is undersized. Uh I would expect he’s in the rotation opening night in that sort of backup four and five role. Like how how are you seeing that? Yeah, that’s basically how I see it, too. I think like off the bench he along with Grady Dick, Jacobe Walter, and Ochaya Baji are kind of the first four. We’ll see where Jamal Shed fits in. He’s a guy who had a nice rookie season, but you know, I think your mileage may vary on just how good a player he’s going to be. I think he’s like your classic fine backup for a few years type of guy. Um, you know, Jameson Battle I think will probably see some run just because he’s such a good shooter that he just gets on the floor as a result of it. Kind of in the Sam Merrill vein a little bit. Um, but yeah, I think Murray Boils, you know, there could be some ups and downs, you know, in terms of his level of favor within the rotation, but I don’t really see him being someone who’s going to get like extended G-League time. I think he’s going to be someone who plays some backup five, plays with Scotty in four, five looks, plays next to Purle when Scotty’s sitting, that type of thing. Um, again, going to be a lot of fun, interesting transitional lineups this year between for the Raptors where they just kind of stagger in guys. Um, you know, I think we’ll see a lot of like Quickly plus Grady Dick plus X shooter, maybe Jameson Battle plus Murray Boils and Purle or Barnes where they kind of, you know, you don’t have a bunch of two-way guys necessarily, but you have guys so tilted towards one end and the other that you find balance across your five. I think that’s where we’ll see Marie Boils. I do think, you know, this is not the the Raptors of a few years ago where it was like Gary Trent Jr. and nobody else shooting threes. they have some actual shooting on the roster even though it’s maybe not, you know, sort of loaded up in the starting five and I do think we will see some lineups where he’s able to kind of work with space Marie Boils and he can kind of do his thing as a driver and a garbage bucket guy and a transition player. I’m pretty excited about him. I know the Raptors are very excited about him. He was someone who I was worried about the fit with the Raptors and why he wasn’t top of my board for the team, but pure talent-wise, he was probably the best guy on the board when the Raptors pick at nine picked ninth. And I I think there’s a good chance he has a pretty, you know, productive rookie season, even though there will surely be some offensive growing pains. We’re going to talk a little bit more about the the team and the direction of the team. And some of that will be Murray Boils related in a sec because there are some changes on this squad. Sean, obviously, Messiah Jiri gone. um Bobby Webster in line I guess to take over that main decision-making role with the team but it doesn’t feel like much sort of change in terms of the decision- making or the direction because Mari Boils is the sort of pick that you know the Messiah Jiri le front office would have made that let’s grab you know operation 6ix9ine again and these guys who have some iffy shooting but they can it’s vision 69 Josh come on vision sorry vision vision 69 it’s it’s happening again and that’s what we talk about the the direction cuz my question I’ve got up on the screen is like are they pushing in this and you go that’s stupid. Are they are they going to win at all? Probably not. The East is weak. But like again with this team and the way that everything is structured, they are very expensive. They all of their players in the starting group are on second contracts. They’re not on rookie scale deals. They’re all on a lot of them on close to max money now. And they’re all paying a lot of money and they’re all older than you would expect for a team that’s as bad as they have been the last couple of years in their position in the lottery. like they’re they’re all you 26 or 27 or 28 or whatever they are and the contracts are there. So they’ve got to start to make these calls and again now you’re changing your front office and Darko’s on the hot seat. you know, if they are like I guess they are sort of they got no choice but to push in, but like if they don’t and if we get a yaka purle we’re not trying again sort of moment you what do they do like how who becomes expendable? What sort of what sort of things could happen this season if it doesn’t work out the way that an all-in team should work out? Yeah. Like I I don’t think you’re going to hear that from Yaka Purle day one. I think they want to win basketball games this year. I think that’s pretty clearly been stated and I think trading for Brandon Ingram and signing him to a new new deal was basically the indicator of that that they’re kind of done with this let’s be terrible thing. Um you know there is a lot writing on it right like if they’re bad then you end up being a team that just performed poorly again with a bunch of guys on long contracts and how much are you getting for Emanuel Quickley or Yaka Purle or Brandon Ingram at the end of the season if you really want a clean house you might not be able to get much back so you might be stuck. I think the guy to look at here is RJ Barrett. Um, look, I think your mileage, I know the mileage varies on him quite vastly across the fan base, across the league. I think he’s a fine player. I think he’s someone who probably doesn’t contribute a whole lot to winning at a very high level. And I think he’s pretty obviously the odd man out on this team if things don’t work out. You see this team again quickly locked in for the next four years. Barnes is just starting his new Max deal. Ingram just got signed. Purle’s on the team through 2030. That leaves you with RJ Barrett who they’ve pretty clearly telegraphed that they don’t think they’re going to pay the next contract to him, right? Like he’s in trade rumors all summer long. And I do think there’s a very good chance that he’s moved by the deadline if things don’t work with this team on the floor. I’m not ruling out the the chance that they do kind of work because I just think collective talent has has a way of sorting things out. And I do think I’m pretty high on Grady Dick taking a bit of a jump this year. I’m pretty in on Jacobe Walter as a two-way player down the line. I think Colin Murray Boils is good. Oabaji is like a perfectly solid eighth man. I think there’s enough here that in a bad Eastern Conference, even though the fit’s not perfect, I think there is a team here that can win somewhere in the mid-40s and find themselves in the top six of what is not a good conference. And if that happens, amazing. If they’re a playing team, I think they’ll probably notch it as like a step in the right direction. And you still got to figure out exactly what the long-term pieces are going to be. Ultimately, I think their vision is very similar to what it’s been under Messiah Jiri and Bobby Webster for years, which is let’s just be relevant. Let’s play pretty good basketball and then eventually playing enough good basketball gets us to the point where we can trade our players for better players along with picks. They have all their picks going forward. They now have a bit of a a sort of stable of young dudes that could throw into sweeteners and in trades. I think we’re we’re far from seeing the final vision of what this team is. wouldn’t be surprised at all if there’s a big deal at some point next summer if someone becomes available in a league where there’s maybe some more financial wiggle room and some more maneuverability for them, you know, or maybe they find a way to turn R.J. Barrett Plus stuff into just like a gamechanging fit, you know, addition to the team that really works. You know, I was really in on the idea of like Cam Johnson, for example, if they could find a way to flip RJ for him at some point just because the fit would have been so much better with this team than what R.J. provides. But that said, like they’ll be able to find bench looks with RJ Barrett playing with other guys. They’ll be able to stagger. They might not close every game with RJ Barrett. Just because they start doesn’t mean they’re beholden to playing those five guys 30 minutes a night altogether. That’s not how this works in the NBA over 82 games. And so it’s not a perfect fit. I think the Raptors, you know, fairly get a lot of crap because the way they’ve been built is kind of insane. But when you just look at the roster, it’s a team with a lot of good players. And if you have a lot of good players, you’re probably just going to win a lot of games because that’s just how it works in the Eastern Conference. And um so I do think they’re kind of being, you know, in this world where we fetishize good GMing more than actual good onc court basketball play. I think that they get the sort of raw deal of the projection because the good GMing has been few and far between. I I think though the team they have now is totally capable of winning some games and fulfilling the objectives of this team. And then of course you got to bring in the Rogers of it all now that they’re taking full control. Messiah got fired for quote unquote basketball reasons. Uh, all the people who made decisions under him are still here. So, I’m thinking there’s maybe something more there. Bit of a power trip, bit of an ego thing with Ed Rogers, Keith Py. You know, you never know when they might go like nuke mode if things don’t start well. Do they fire Darko? Do they not hire Bobby Webster to take over? Does this thing go in a totally different direction? But until Bobby Webster’s not running the ship, I do think they’re going to try to stay this course of be pretty good, be relevant, try to get back to the playoffs, which this team wants to do. This is Toronto. like being in the playoffs is a cash cow for any Toronto franchise. Ask the Toronto Blue Jays right now, owned by the same people who own the Toronto Raptors. I think they want to be back in the playoffs. And I do think um if that doesn’t happen, then yeah, heads are probably going to roll. But I just think there’s too much collective talent here. And guys who maybe not all in one collective compliment one another, but on sort of like two and three player basises do compliment one another that I do think they’ll rack up some wins. They’re also tryhards, which helps a lot in the regular season, too. It does. And we saw that with the Indiana Pacers and you’re right, like I I cop a lot of for my, you know, playful nudging about this Raptors team, but like the results are there. not good and they haven’t been good and they should be good and they’ve the team build is crazy and I disagree with so many of decisions that they’ve made but there are still individual good players here and there are they’ve got individually good depth and Abi’s a good bench player and guys like you Murray Boys can become that and Mo showed a lot defensively and Walter was you probably better defensively than I thought he would be but like you some of the offensive stuff that I was a bit worried about showed its head like there’s there’s players there it’s just where is the the vision of how it all makes sense and that’s what the question is going to be but there’s no question Sean about what the best Raptors podcast is because that’s Locked on Raptors and you’re going to be covering it all for us over the course of this season. So, everyone tune in to Locked on Raptors. And thank you again for coming on and talking about uh my favorite team, the Toronto Raptors. Anytime, brother. We love you up here. We definitely don’t uh yell your name going to bed every night, Josh. Never. Never. I’m a I’m a I’m a huge Toronto guy and I I I love everything about Canada at all points. Sean, thank you again. And that’s it. That’s the Toronto Raptors. You know what to do. You subscribe. You hit the thumb up. You leave the comments down below. Guys, we are done here. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. See you. [Music]

The Toronto Raptors have undergone a serious roster shakeup — but does it actually make them better for NBA Fantasy Basketball? Josh Lloyd is joined by Sean Woodley from @LockedOnRaptors to break down Brandon Ingram’s arrival, Scottie Barnes’ expanded role, and Immanuel Quickley’s importance as the lead guard.

They also dive into Jakob Poeltl’s defensive anchor role, RJ Barrett’s fit, potential small-ball looks, and how Toronto’s front office changes could shape their competitiveness this season.

Follow and subscribe on all major podcast platforms: Be a double banger, watch the video, then listen to the audio
🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOFantasyBasketball?sid=YouTube

Check out Locked On NBA League-Wide for comprehensive NBA coverage, including team insights, fantasy tips, draft updates, WNBA news and more:
🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNBA

Get personalized shout-outs, messages and more on Cameo:
https://www.cameo.com/josh_doezl9tzyg25?qid=163210364

Improve your fantasy basketball team with the latest on waiver wire moves, trades, adds, drops, and other essential strategies. Take advantage of these resources:

Projections: https://basketballmonster.com/projections.aspx
NBA Lineups: https://basketballmonster.com/nbalineups.aspx
NBA News: https://basketballmonster.com/playernews.aspx
NBA Schedule Analyzer: https://basketballmonster.com/weeklyteamschedules.aspx
NBA Fantasy Basketball Team Analysis: https://basketballmonster.com/teamanalysis.aspx

Intro music by:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAPWJaPqxcWTAn-l8JjHCVg

Connect with us on other platforms:

Website: https://basketballmonster.com
Apple Podcasts: https://buff.ly/2xQx1tw
Spotify: https://buff.ly/2RVJ1RW
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/joshlloyd.bsky.social
Instagram: https://instagram.com/lockedonfantasybasketball

Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!
5-Hour ENERGY
Time to fuel up and turn it up with 5-hour ENERGY®️ Transfusion! Go to https://5hourenergy.com today and use my promo code LOCKEDONGOLF to receive 20% off your order.This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders.

OpenPhone
Streamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at www.openphone.com/lockedonnba

Monarch Money
Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first year

Gametime
Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.

FanDuel
Right now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.

FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

0:00 – Introduction
1:08 – Raptors starting lineup discussion
3:12 – Offensive hierarchy and fit
6:33 – Immanuel Quickley’s importance
9:04 – Brandon Ingram’s role
15:13 – Jakob Poeltl’s impact
18:34 – Gradey Dick and rookies
20:21 – Front office changes
22:01 – Team direction and contracts
26:31 – Conclusion