Raptors Share Their Vision of Toronto's Identity This Season

The Toronto Raptors say their team identity will be a team that plays tough, gritty basketball and tries to outrun opposing teams on the court

Oct 11, 2024; Washington, District of Columbia, USA; Toronto Raptors forward Scottie Barnes (4) dribbles the ball as Washington Wizards forward Alex Sarr (20) defends in the second quarter at Capital One Arena. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

The Toronto Raptors want to bring back toughness.

For so long, that’s what Toronto was known for. If you played the Raptors, you knew it was going to be a long night. No lead was safe because Toronto was going to bring it for 48 minutes come hell or high water.

Last year, though, that seemed to change.

When Toronto got pushed, it folded.

They blew lead after lead and that feeling that at any moment the Raptors would go on a run vanished. The old Raptors mojo was dead.

Toronto wants to change that this year. The goal this season is to compete, to get better every single day, and to begin building a sturdy foundation for the future of this organization.

“Defense, playing hard, outworking people, being scrappy, running, playing together,” said RJ Barrett on what Toronto’s identity would be this season.

To a man, it seems everyone is on the same page.

“Tough, gritty,” Immanuel Quickley said. “I think fans can expect that. I think the league can expect that, that we’ll be one of the harder playing teams around the league.”

Those are easy things to say, but Toronto has taken steps to make it a reality this season. The organization talked about improving its on-ball defense over the summer and then added two ferocious point-of-attack defensive point guards in Davion Mitchell and Jamal Shead.  

“I think that playing aggressive on the ball and having ball pressure makes it hard on the opponents,” Raptors head coach Darko Rajaković said. “I think it’s physically taxing on the opponents and I think it’s our best way to develop our habits of playing hard, playing together for each other.”

Last season Toronto ranked as about a league average team in terms of steals and deflections. Their on-ball defense was never particularly good and if someone broke through the first line of defense, the Raptors didn’t have the size or strength to stop teams inside when Jakob Poeltl wasn’t around.

The Raptors are hoping improvement from Barnes as an off-ball help defender and a healthier season from Poeltl will allow everyone to play more aggressively. And when Toronto does get stops, Rajaković wants to push the pace and rely on his team’s youth to outrun its opposition.

“We’ve got a lot of young guys that we can be able to play fast and try to get aggressive on defense,” Barnes said earlier this week. “Defense has to be elite, rebound the ball, so we can be able to push the ball.”

Based on how Toronto’s schedule looks, it’s going to be hard to rack up very many early-season wins. The Raptors play virtually all the league’s best teams within the first two months before the schedule finally opens up. The goal, though, is to compete with those teams to the best of their abilities while developing toward something bigger in the future.

“(We’re) a young team that's working hard, like we're going to be playing free, which is going to lead to a lot of learning experiences,” Poeltl said. “We're still trying to figure each other out, but once we do figure it out, I think it's going to be hard to guard because we're playing hard, playing fast, playing like unpredictable.”