If you enjoy what you read today in the NBA sports section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Subscribe now

The Toronto Raptors are smack dab in the middle of the Eastern Conference. At 39-29, Toronto would be the No. 5 seed in the NBA Playoffs if the season started today. The Raptors are likely to finish with their best record since their 2021-22 squad that won 48 games and lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Raptors under Darko Rajakovic have gotten a little bit better each of the last three seasons. It’s a similar rise to that of former Raptors head coach Dwane Casey, who went on his first three seasons at the helm after replacing Jay Triano. Toronto went from 23 to 34 to 48 wins in those first three seasons under Casey. Interestingly enough, the Raptors’ Net Rating in Year 3 under Casey was +3.5, and it’s now +2.2, good for 12th in the NBA. Casey guided those Raptors teams in the mid-2010s to 48 or more wins for five consecutive seasons. Is history about to repeat itself in Toronto?

Subscribe now

The Raptors’ preseason win-loss projection was 39.5, and with 14 games remaining on their schedule, Toronto should clear that number with ease. Coming into the year, Toronto had finished the regular season with a winning record just once in the last six seasons. The preseason expectation was more in the Play-In Zone, but to Rajakovic’s credit, the team has exceeded preseason expectations and could certainly make it out of the first round in the East for the first time since 2020. Toronto is 6th in the NBA in defensive rating, and their Expected W82 is 47.4, so right at that 48-win total, the 2021-22 Raptors team hit.

Toronto had two players make the All-Star team this year in Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram. Barnes and Ingram, along with Jakob Poetl, Immanuel Quickley, and RJ Barrett, are all signed through next season. That’s important, as the five-man unit that’s totaled 647 possessions together is +10.7. In fact, Toronto’s top-6 lineups in possessions played all have positive plus-minuses. It’s a solid team across the board. The Raptors are a solid professional basketball team that is also having a very solid season in the NBA.

Share

It has to be a bit of a sigh of relief for Bobby Webster and Toronto’s front office that the Raptors are playing at the level of a team pushing for fifty wins in the East, per CleaningTheGlass. We already knew the team nailed the Scottie Barnes selection years ago. In three of the last four seasons, Barnes has been in the 80-plus percentile in Efficiency Differential. Barnes is a winning player in so many ways, but he is shooting 29 percent from three this season, his second-worst percentage in his young NBA career. However, he also has the best eFG% of his career this season. Through five seasons, his shot diet has never included enough threes to account for 30-plus percent of his overall attempts. Barnes is just a very unique best player to have on a very solid team in 2026.

It’s fair to wonder with this team if they can be the Detroit Pistons of next season. The Pistons won 44 games a season ago and sit at 50-19 with thirteen games remaining in the regular season. The key difference is the ceiling, particularly on offense, between the Pistons’ star Cade Cunningham and Barnes. So there are some obvious similarities and some key differences between the two franchises. The Raptors’ calling card is their defense. Both are top-10 defenses this year, but the Pistons are right on the line of having a top-10 offense. It’s imperative to be in the top 10 in both to be a serious contender, as the Raptors were fifth in both metrics when they won the title in the 2018-19 season. The biggest wonder this year has been if the Pistons could get into the top-10 in offensive efficiency, and I suspect the same will be true for Toronto if this season is the start of another great run in Raptors basketball. You know they can defensively, but, as of right now, you have to really squint to see a top-10 offense in their immediate future.

Give a gift subscription

Perhaps a lot of it comes down to the development of Ja’Kobe Walter, a 2024 first-round pick. Or maybe it’s their 2025 Lottery pick out of South Carolina, Collin Murray-Boyles. The latter has been a plus-player in the 5-man lineups he’s played the most with this season. He’s played with two five-man lineups that have amassed more than 100 possessions together this season to a final total of +13.6. Murray-Boyles’ shot chart is significantly different than Poetl’s and is likely a big factor in where Toronto’s offense can go in the next couple of seasons, particularly next to Barnes at the 4. Similarly, Walter’s development in the backcourt is also important. With a modern shot-chart diet of threes and shots at the rim, what he ultimately evolves into on the offensive end matters for Toronto. 61 percent of his shots this season are threes, and he’s shooting better than league average at 37 percent. He’s shooting a super-efficient 44 percent on corner 3s, too. RJ Barrett will be an expiring contract next season, so Toronto needs to find out what Walter is or could be sooner rather than later.

Early returns on Murray-Boyles and Walter have been good. The Raptors have seemingly advanced out of the Lottery for a while, which makes Murray-Boyles and Walter, too, extremely important over the next several seasons. Ingram has been a success story and an All-Star in Toronto. Quickley and Barrett have been excellent in their increased roles. Poetl’s a seemingly Forever Solid big. It’s been a surprise to see Toronto be firmly out of the Play-In conversation this season, but the Raptors are in the middle of the East now. It can get old fast for fanbases to be stuck there, just as it can get old fast for fanbases to be stuck in the Play-In. Toronto probably needs some development luck with Murray-Boyles or Walter to move out of the middle, or maybe it’s just Barnes reaching another unexpected level offensively. Either way, the Raptors are a good team that figures to be good for the next couple of seasons. There is nothing harder in sports than going from good to elite, and that’s now the big question that faces Toronto this season and beyond.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today in the NBA sports section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Subscribe now

The Detroit Pistons fell on the road to the San Antonio Spurs last night. The team has now lost back-to-back games for the first time in 2026 and just the third time overall this season. The Pistons are tied with the Boston Celtics for second in point differential at +8, only trailing the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. Detroit can only lose six more times the rest of the way to reach the 60-win threshold. The team that lost sixty-plus games two seasons ago may very well win 60-plus this season. The Pistons haven’t won over 60 games in the regular season since the 2005-06 team that made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. The Pistons won fifty or more games for seven consecutive seasons between 2001 and 2008. Every Pistons fan is hoping for a similar run this season as the team closes in on fifty-plus wins.

Give a gift subscription

With so much attention on the NBA’s tanking problem of late, it’s easy to overlook all the great stories around the Association this season. Charlotte Hornets fans should be overjoyed about both their present and future. Toronto Raptors fans should be pleasantly surprised. New York Knicks fans should be thinking about a championship. In a season that hasn’t included one minute of Jayson Tatum, the Boston Celtics are still bona fide contenders, in what fans may have assumed might be a gap year. Out West, the aforementioned Spurs have arrived. The Phoenix Suns are eight games over .500 in mid-March. The Houston Rockets are still a top-4 seed without Steven Adams. The list goes on and on. There are great stories in so many places around the NBA.

But none better than the Pistons. Particularly if you’re a fan of the team. Former No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham looks to be a lead guard who will push to be in the MVP conversation for years to come. Another former lottery pick, Jalen Duran, made his first All-Star team this season. This franchise’s Expected W82 was 18.3 two seasons ago, but it skyrocketed to 59.7 this season. As of this writing, the Pistons are No. 2 in defensive points per possession, per Cleaning The Glass. If that number holds, it’d be their best team defense since the ‘07-08 Pistons. That run of excellence in the early 2000s was defined by Detroit being a consistently top-10 defensive team. With a defensive nucleus of Duren, Ausar Thompson, Isaiah Stewart, Cunningham, and Ron Holland II, you don’t have to squint too hard to see head coach J.B. Bickerstaff maintaining this level of defensive production in the years to come. When the Pistons won the 1990 NBA Finals, the team was second in defensive rating. They were second the last time they won the NBA Finals in 2004. They’re second in the NBA right now in defensive rating.

Share

The Cade Cunningham part of the equation is fascinating. His offensive scoring numbers are down, but the team has never been better. His 50.4 eFG% is in the 43rd percentile in the NBA, per CleaningTheGlass. However, he’s in the 96th percentile in assist percentage for his teammates in the NBA, per CleaningTheGlass. He’s been a league-average shooter from deep and at the rim, but he’s still distributing the basketball at an elite level. Cunningham is in the MVP conversation at 24 years old, despite not being a super-efficient scorer. His season-long plus-minus of +415 is sixth-highest in the NBA, where he’s surrounded by winning basketball players like Derrick White, Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, etc.

The pressure is on teams like the Knicks and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East. The Pistons haven’t won fifty-plus games in nearly 20 years. Knicks and Cavs fans saw this season as the year to get out of the Eastern Conference if they were ever going to do it, with no Tatum, or so they thought, and Tyrese Haliburton standing in the way. The Knicks made a coaching change and seemingly have the most pressure to break through of the bunch. The Cavs traded for James Harden ahead of the 2026 NBA Trade Deadline. Donovan Mitchell has been excellent in Cleveland for a while now. How do Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen fare this postseason? And yet, the Pistons sit atop the conference, in a prime position to spoil the party for both franchises.

Subscribe now

This is not to say the Pistons fanbase won’t get antsy in the years to come if they are winning fifty-plus games but never reaching the NBA Finals. However, Detroit has a lead guard who can be the best player on a championship team. The Hornets and Raptors are great stories, but they don’t have a player like that. Most teams in the League do not. Their ceilings don’t feel the same as Detroit’s with Cunningham and Duren. Some Detroit fans, I’m sure, hope this season ends with a championship, and it very well might, but the hope is that this is just the first of many runs atop or near the top of the Eastern Conference. They can dream about another seven-year run like the team enjoyed in the early 2000s. New York and Cleveland fans are thinking about the now. Boston fans have been there, done that. Detroit fans haven’t been here in twenty years.

Detroit is the party-crasher in the East this season, and it’s the best play to be for any fanbase in the NBA right now.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today in the NBA SRM section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Subscribe now

I don’t know if the Cleveland Cavaliers will win an NBA championship this season. I do know that they have continued to make moves that put them in a great position to. As of this writing, the Cavs are 33-21 and just a game-and-a-half back of the Boston Celtics for the 2-seed in the Eastern Conference. If the NBA Playoffs began today, Cleveland would play the Toronto Raptors, which could be a major problem, as the Raptors are 3-0 against the Cavs this season. The Cavs have won four straight games and have won nine of their last 10 overall. Cleveland is also 14-8 against Western Conference teams this season. There is a reason for hope and optimism for the Cavs right now.

Share

The Cavs took a big swing by sending Darius Garland to the Los Angeles Clippers for James Harden ahead of the 2026 NBA Trade Deadline. Cleveland included a second-round pick in the deal, too, and then the 11-time NBA All-Star was a Cav. The Beard has played in two games for Cleveland, the Cavs have won both, and Harden has posted a line of 23/8/6. The Cavs are fifth in offensive rating, trailing four other title contenders, the Denver Nuggets, Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, and Oklahoma City Thunder, in that order. Garland has appeared in just 26 games this season, while Harden has nearly doubled that output with his 46. At 36, Harden is still routinely available. He plays 35-plus minutes a night and is averaging his highest PPG since the 2020-21 season, a year he was an All-Star and finished 13th in MVP voting. Harden’s addition to Cleveland was a worthy gamble, and one all NBA fans could win come playoff time with three of the top five offenses in the NBA residing in the East.

Share

Before Harden, the Cavs made a bigger swing for Donovan Mitchell. The former Louisville star is 9th in the NBA in WS. He is sixth in VORP. Mitchell has been a fantastic player for the Cavs. Mitchell has been an All-Star every year in Cleveland. His numbers across the board are remarkably consistent from the time he got to Cleveland to now. The Cavs gave up a lot to acquire Mitchell in 2022. It included three unprotected first-round picks that went to Utah, two pick swaps, Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton, and Ochai Agbaji. The Jazz have not qualified for the postseason since the Mitchell trade. Cleveland has won 65 percent of their games since the start of the 2020 NBA season. They could clear 100 wins combined over the last two seasons if things continue to trend in the right direction for Cleveland this season.

Subscribe now

It was obviously a disappointment for Cavs fans to get bounced in the Eastern Conference Semifinals last season after finishing with the best record in the East. We’re coming up on eight years since the Cavs last made the NBA Finals, much less the conference finals. But that could change this season. The East is wide open at the top. Cleveland, Boston, New York, and Detroit all have compelling cases to make the NBA Finals this year. None would be a major surprise.

The Cavs have continued to do the little things well, too. J.B. Bickerstaff was a good coach for Cleveland for a long time. They replaced him with Kenny Atkinson, who should be a good coach for a long time. Cleveland sent DeAndre Hunter to Sacramento for Keon Ellis and Dennis Schroder, two guards who should really help them. They’ve drafted role players well of late. They’ve missed on guys like Hunter and Lonzo Ball, but they addressed both before the trade deadline this season. Cleveland’s front office has done a whole lot more right than wrong for a long time now.

They just need some luck, as so many other teams not named the Oklahoma City Thunder do, too. Nobody really believed in Cleveland last year, even as the team accumulated 64 wins. After that second-round exit, nobody will believe in the Cavs again this postseason.

A first-round date against Toronto is something the team should want to avoid. The Raptors not only have the Cavs’ number, but they are playing with fool’s gold based on where folks thought they’d be before the season.

The Indiana Pacers made it out of the East last season. The Cavs could make it out of the East this season. With a top-10 offense and a top-10 NETrtg, the Cavs are in the mix. They did what they were supposed to do and got better at the NBA Trade Deadline. That does not mean they’ll end their Eastern Conference Finals drought this season, but they have done the most important thing you want to see as a fan – lead with boldness and try.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

There are lots of bad teams in the NBA right now. You have the Indiana Pacers, the Washington Wizards, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Brooklyn Nets, the Utah Jazz, and the Sacramento Kings. All different, but all bad nonetheless. The latter now owns the worst record in the NBA at 12-40. The Pelicans also have 40 losses on the season, but they have notched one more win than the Kings. The tremendous trio made up of Monte McNair/Wes Wilcox/Mike Brown in Sacramento basketball already feels like a lifetime ago. As doom and gloom as it is right now in Sacramento, the Kings do have their first-round pick in this year’s draft, which is not something another team with 40 losses in the West can say. In fact, the Kings own their own first-round pick the rest of this decade.

Subscribe now

That’s something, right?

Just take a gander at the starting five for the Kings on ESPN’s Depth Chart page. Those names include Russell Westbrook, Zach LaVine, DeAndre Hunter, DeMar DeRozan, and Domantas Sabonis. That’s 20 All-Star appearances among those five names – only Hunter has never made an NBA All-Star team. The former Virginia wing is also the youngest in the group at 28 years old. With Keegan Murray out due to injury, what stands out most about this 5-man unit is that all should not be on the Kings past today’s NBA Trade Deadline.

Share

But the Kings just traded for Hunter, which I will get to later on in this piece. The Kings have their own pick in what looks to be one of the best NBA Drafts in a long time. But they need to do more. Murray doesn’t project as a multi-time All-Star, and although he’s 25 now, he could easily integrate into the next timeline for Sacramento if they were to pivot that way starting after the 2026 NBA Draft. For everyone else in that temporary starting lineup, they should be somewhere else. The collection of Westbrook, LaVine, DeRozan, and Sabonis could all help lots of teams going for it right now, and yet all of them may be with Sacramento past today’s NBA Trade Deadline.

Share Sports Renaissance Man

The Kings have made one quasi-major move ahead of today’s trade deadline, trading Dennis Schroder and Keon Ellis to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Hunter in a three-team deal. Reserve veteran big man Dario Saric was sent to the Chicago Bulls in the trade as well. It was an uninspiring deal for the Kings, as Ellis was maybe the team’s best trade chip, outside of Murray and Sabonis. Moving off Schroder is fine, but moving off Ellis, too, without getting a young guard in return like Sam Merrill, Tyrese Proctor, or Jaylon Tyson is a bit sad if you’re a Kings fan, I imagine. Ellis seems like a perfect complement to James Harden and Donovan Mitchell when the Cavs stagger their two star guards at different times this season. For the Kings, Hunter doesn’t fit their timeline, or at least he shouldn’t, and you moved a guy seemingly everybody else in the NBA Media Conglomerate likes as a throw-in to get a guy who will be an unrestricted free agent after next season.

Give a gift subscription

I think a lot about GMIB’s Tom Ziller and his piece on his Kings fandom at SB Nation from half a decade ago now. It’s got to be just as dispiriting as ever for a franchise that looked as though they were finally turning the corner as a stable organization with McNair, Brown, Wilcox leading the way and a core of quality NBA players in Sabonis, Murray & De’Aron Fox. The Kings won 48 games in the 2022-23 NBA season and made the playoffs for the first time since Rick Adelman was the head coach in 2005-06. One playoff appearance in two decades is brutal. Just brutal.

That 2022-23 Kings squad was No. 1 in the NBA in ORtg. First! Now, this year’s Kings are on pace to have their worst DRtg in franchise history at 120.6. It’s the third-worst figure in the NBA this season. They also have the second-worst offense in the NBA this season. The Kings are a bad basketball team, but they are also both a bad AND old basketball team. It’s just not where you ever want to be in the NBA. The saving grace, though, is that the Kings have their first-round picks through 2030. There is still time to move guys like Sabonis and LaVine. If you’re general manager Scott Perry, you look at what the other bad teams in the West have done: Utah, Memphis, and Dallas are all making moves. Different kinds of moves, with the Jazz readying to compete next season while Memphis and Dallas are shifting their focus to their young guys in Cooper Flagg, Cedric Coward, and Zach Edey. Ja Morant has been linked to the Kings, but Morant does not make any sense for the Kings.

Get more from Chase Thomas in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

So we’ll see what the Kings do today and later this summer. We’ll see where the ping pong balls fall in the lottery. The Kings could wind up with a Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa, or Cameron Boozer, and things look a lot better sooner rather than later. Look at how fast things deteriorated from that 2022-23 playoff squad to now. The same could theoretically happen the other way. It starts with moving Sabonis and LaVine. Maybe DeRozan, too. It continues with some lottery luck. It could all happen, but, man, I understand if you’re a Kings fan reading this and don’t expect it to happen.

Leave a comment