No love from oddsmakers for struggling Raptors

The Toronto Raptors can’t win on the court these days, and even though there have been worse versions of the team over the years, Vegas seems to respect this group less than those ones.

Toronto was a 15.5 point underdog when they hosted Western Conference leading Oklahoma City on Friday, the biggest underdog the Raptors have been at home in the 29-season history of the club, per Sportsnet’s Blake Murphy.

Early on it appeared the oddsmakers had made a huge mistake — Toronto got off to a 35-28 lead and trailed by only seven at halftime — but eventually things turned around as Shai Gilgeous-alexander and his far more talented and deep team took control. The Thunder led by 11 after three quarters and won 120103.

Toronto recorded 27 turnovers, the most by a Raptors team since 1997.

A game earlier marked the first time since 1998 that Toronto had been an 11-point underdog at home. It had happened nine times previously, all in the rough early days of Damon Stoudamire and before the Vince Carter era.

It’s at the point where a Washington Wizards team that came into Saturday’s game with the NBA’S worst record was actually favoured against the Raptors. Washington was a six-point favourite, the most that dreadful team has been favoured all season and only the seventh time all year they were favoured at all.

Toronto nearly pulled the game out, but lost by three. There were a whopping 26 lead changes.

Brooklyn is a 5.5-point favourite in Toronto on Monday, even though the Nets are barely ahead of the Raptors in the standings.