Barring any unforeseen changes, there are only 39 days left in the Toronto Raptors regular season.
The team has nine home games remaining this season and 20 total before the end of the year.
While much of the first half of the season raised questions about whether Toronto would commit to a rebuild, the four trades the team’s front office concocted earlier in the year made it clear responded to the path traveled by the team.
But while the team works to revive its franchise off the field, it appears there is still a lot of work in progress on the field.
Four and a half games out of the final Eastern Conference play-off spot, Toronto hasn’t exactly had the most memorable season to date.
To add insult to injury, the team is coming off a 139-98 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night, marking the worst home loss in Raptors franchise history.
With Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl both undergoing hand operations this week and a series new players arriving in recent weeks, Toronto’s lineup is almost unrecognizable since the start of the season. Among Toronto’s five starting players Tuesday night, only Gary Trent Jr. started the season with the franchise.
And given Toronto’s current injury crisis, the team may simply not have enough talent to compete with most players in the NBA on any given night.
Since starting their first three-game winning streak in late February, they have lost three of four games and gone no better than 5-5 in any of them Series of 10 matches this season. With Barnes and Poeltl both out indefinitely, it appears Toronto is destined for a bit of a tank for the remainder of the season, unintentional or not.
From a strictly business standpoint, the most important date for Toronto is the May 12 draft lottery, where they will see if they keep this year’s first-round pick, if he goes into the top six , or if they trade him for San. Antonio, if he lands seventh or later.
Toronto will play four games on a four-game road trip starting Thursday night in Phoenix and ending in Portland, Denver and Detroit. While fans will be watching what happens on the field, they will likely be just as tuned in to see if the franchise increases its lottery chances along the way.
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