Raptors' chances of making play-in slim
The schedule might indicate there are 21 games remaining, but this Raptors season ended last Friday night in Toronto.
When a wincing Scottie Barnes headed to the locker room to get his aching left hand looked at during the second quarter of an eventual loss to the Golden State Warriors, there was still some hope of a run at the last play-in spot in the Eastern Conference. But when imaging showed the all-star and new face of the franchise had suffered a fractured finger that was a wrap.
The Raptors collapsed without Barnes against the Warriors. Heading into Sunday's game against Charlotte, the team was not in a position to make up enough ground, four games behind Atlanta.
Minus its best player and even with the remote chance Barnes plays again before next October, he certainly will miss the vast majority of the remaining games this season, at a minimum.
Fractured metacarpals take time to heal, longer if surgery is required (it's not yet known whether Barnes will require surgery), but long enough either way. Plus, why would the Raptors rush Barnes back at this point? Even if the finger heals quickly, by the time he ramps himself back up for game action, the off-season will be just about upon the Raptors. Best to just shut him down and take the time he needs to be ready for a hard summer of work as he chases down another all-star selection next season.
So, what now for the Raptors? No Barnes is going to mean all the shots Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett and Gary Trent can handle. It's likely going to lead to increased minutes for rookie Gradey Dick, who has made significant strides over the last week. Bruce Brown could well replace Barnes in the starting lineup. The positive there for the Raptors would be Brown will have a chance to rebuild his value to where it was when he was acquired from Indiana in the Pascal Siakam trade. Brown has a good track record, but has struggled mightily as a Raptor.
Head coach Darko Rajakovic has talked about trying to find some minutes for rookie guard Javon Freeman-Liberty, one of the best players in the G League this season. Freeman-Liberty's two-way contract was converted to a standard NBA deal on Friday and DJ Carton's 10-day contract was upped to a two-way deal on Saturday.
It's never good to lose your top player, but now Toronto is in a really tough spot. The play-in odds are remote, but so are the chances of the Raptors keeping their own first-round pick. The bottom five teams this season are basically set in stone in some order. It will be all but impossible to be worse than Washington, Detroit, Portland, San Antonio or Charlotte. The sixth-worst record (Memphis) is in play, but the Grizzlies aren't expected to have three of the team's best five players the rest of the way, so catching them record-wise is no guarantee either.
Toronto would have to end up with one of the first six picks in next summer's NBA draft following the May 12 draft lottery in order to keep the pick. If the Raptors find themselves seventh or lower after the lottery, the pick is heading to San Antonio from the Jakob Poeltl trade.
All is not lost, if Toronto has the seventh-best odds on lottery day, there's still a 32 per cent chance the team jumps into the top four (37.2 per cent if they end up with the sixth-best odds) and even if they are eighth-worst in the NBA, they'll still have a 26.3 per cent chance of jumping into the top four. Of course, there's also 54.1 per cent odds they fall and lose the pick if they end up with the sixth-worst record in the NBA before the lottery and a 68 per cent chance they lose the pick to San Antonio if they stick were they are right now in the standings (seventh-worst).