The Toronto Raptors have been an unstoppable force in the Orlando bubble but it shouldn’t be a surprise. There are three reasons it’s time to buy in on them.
Rarely in NBA history has a defending champion been given up on as quickly as the Toronto Raptors. After defeating the mighty (but injury-ravaged) Golden State Warriors to win their title a year ago, Canada’s team lost Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green to the west coast of the United States.
It was a brutal subtraction with not much to replace them. Some unserious talking heads in the media predicted they’d end up in the lottery, but that was never in play. They had a record just as good without Kawhi last season as they did with him, so while surely there would be a dip, there’s no way they would be outright bad.
We’re still waiting for that dip.
The 49-18 Toronto Raptors are the second seed in the Eastern Conference and can clinch it with a victory over the Boston Celtics on Friday night. They sit 5.0 games behind the Milwaukee Bucks and have an expansive 4.5 game lead over the third-place Celtics.
While we shouldn’t be surprised that the Raptors are once again very good, we have every right to be astonished at just HOW good they’ve been. As a squad that has proven repeatedly that they can hang with any team in the NBA, we’ve got three reasons why it’s time for you to buy in on the defending champion Toronto Raptors.