Toronto Raptors 2016-17 player grades: The bench

With the 2016-17 NBA season now over for the Toronto Raptors, it’s time to look back on the performances of each player. Moving from the youngsters to the bench to the starters, we’ll grade each player’s 2016-17 season and evaluate his future with the franchise.

Earlier this week, we gave grades to each of the Toronto Raptors’ end-of-the-bench youngsters. For this next group of player grades, we’re looking at true rotation players.

Toronto head coach Dwane Casey built some patchwork starting lineups throughout the regular season and playoffs, but the five players graded here comprised his core bench unit.

Toronto’s bench was actually quite productive throughout the regular season and playoffs. Four of the five players had positive on-off plus-minus ratings, meaning Toronto posted a better rating with them on the floor.

So here goes. We’ve got three veterans in Patrick Patterson, P.J. Tucker and Cory Joseph, and two youngsters in Lucas Nogueira and Norman Powell.

Each of them will get an admittedly arbitrary grade that represents their progress and performances in 2016-17. These grades – and I cannot stress this enough – are relative to preseason expectations.