The Whiteboard: Can we say the Raptors are serious title contenders?

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With wins over the Heat and Lakers, the Toronto Raptors are now 2-0 in the NBA bubble, outscoring opponents by an average of 9.4 points per 100 possessions. So far, only the Magic and Clippers have posted a better point differential since the NBA restart, but Orlando’s wins came over Sacramento and Brooklyn; the Clippers lost to the Lakers and then ran up the score on the Pelicans. The Raptors, on the other hand, posted that impressive mark against the No. 1 seed in the West and the team that currently has the fourth-best record in the East.

The Raptors have sort of existed in a weird alternate reality all season. They’ve been incredibly successful — across the entire season, only the Lakers and Bucks have better win percentages; those two teams and the Clippers are the only teams with better point differentials. Toronto’s offensive efficiency has been only slightly above league-average but they’ve had the second-best defense in the league, trailing only Milwaukee.

The Toronto Raptors have the statistical profile of a serious contender

However, everything they’ve accomplished this season has been colored by what happened last year — winning the first title in franchise history with Kawhi Leonard leading the way. The line of reasoning seems to have been that they needed Leonard to break through and win a title, and since he’s no longer on the team, there’s no way they could realistically repeat, no matter how strong their statistical indicators are. They are frisky, not dominant. Spunky, not dangerous.

I find that line of reasoning crumbles a bit if you stretch it back at least one more season. In 2017-18, the Raptors won a franchise-high 59 games and secured the No. 1 seed in the East by a decent margin. They were top-5 in efficiency at both ends of the court (second on offense, fifth on defense) and were real and viable title contenders. When the playoffs started, FiveThirtyEight gave them a 17 percent chance of winning the championship, the best odds in the East and the second-best odds in the NBA.

And they got to that point without Kawhi Leonard.

You probably remember how that season ended for the Raptors, though. LeBron roared. DeMar DeRozan regressed. The Cavaliers won four straight games and galloped back to the Finals.

What we’re left with, then, is this tangled web of conditionals. That 2017-18 team was a serious contender but they couldn’t get it done because they were metaphysically and spiritually cowed by LeBron. They won in 2018-19 because they had Kawhi. But they also didn’t have to play LeBron. Maybe they could have won without Kawhi, simply because LeBron was in the Western Conference. Maybe someone else could have sank the buzzer-beater over the 76ers, or maybe someone else playing Kawhi’s minutes could have meant that buzzer-beater wasn’t even necessary.

It’s true, the 2018-19 Raptors don’t have Kawhi Leonard but they also don’t have to play LeBron to get to the Finals. And for however much they are shaded as plucky overachievers, this team could be as good as that 2017-18 team. Their SRS (strength-of-schedule-adjusted-point-differential) is not as good as that season, but it’s the second-best in franchise history. It’s better than the SRS of seven of the nine teams LeBron has taken to the Finals. It’s the eighth-best mark of the last decade in the Eastern Conference.

What’s in front of Toronto is not easy. But the numbers, the Milwaukee Bucks are a historic juggernaut and the Celtics have the tools to challenge everyone. Even if they make it out of the East, both Los Angeles teams would probably be rightly favored over Toronto. And the Raptors have flaws, weaknesses that can be exploited. But so do the Bucks, Lakers, Clippers and Celtics. So does every other team in the playoffs.

Probabilistically, the Raptors probably won’t win back-to-back titles. But they could. And if they do, it will be a well-earned title by a talented and deserving roster, not a miraculous Leicester City run.

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