Opinion | Even if Kevin Durant doesn’t land in Toronto, optimism abounds with Raptors. But is progress in tougher East realistic?

You can understand why optimism abounds in Raptorland this summer. It’s not just the uneasy excitement that comes with bookmakers placing Toronto among the favourites to ultimately win the Kevin Durant sweepstakes.

It’s the notion that, assuming the Raptors are firm in their reported refusal to entertain including Scottie Barnes in Durant talks, Barnes seems to be possessed of the requisite savvy and guts to climb aboard a developmental rocket-ship to imminent all-star status.

It’s the idea that the acquisition of Otto Porter Jr. ought to improve Toronto’s three-point shooting percentage, which was below-average during the regular season (ranked 20th of 30 teams) and downright woeful in the post-season, when the Raptors’ 30 per cent gunning ranked 14th of 16 playoff teams.

It’s the hope they might get something significant out of Christian Koloko, the 33rd-overall pick in the NBA draft, even if the safe bet is that he’ll need some G-League seasoning before he’s fully prepped to be a prime-time contributor.

And it’s the idea that Toronto’s commitment to a position-fluid style of game, with a roster heavy on long and versatile athletes, has the potential to evolve into something special.

“Playing against a whole lineup with (players) 6-7 to 7-feet, that’s hard to play against,” Porter, who’s six-foot-eight with a seven-foot-one wingspan, was saying this week. “I think this team is capable of going very far in the playoffs. I think this team is definitely ready to get back to the finals.”

That’s the optimistic view from the mouth of a guy only weeks removed from celebrating a championship with the Golden State Warriors.

It’s enough to make you forget a not-so-inconsequential detail: Specifically, that the Raptors failed to win so much as a playoff series this past season, and that they needed to overshoot expectations by a considerable margin to find their way to a 48-win campaign that gave them the Eastern Conference’s fifth seed. It’s enough to make you forget that a lot of things had to break right for the Raptors to easily exceed their Vegas pre-season win total of 36.5, and that there’s no guarantee that next season will be better.

As for Porter, as indispensable as he proved to be to Golden State’s run to their fourth title in the past eight seasons, last season wasn’t exactly another in a line of clockwork campaigns. It was only a few years ago that Porter Jr. was a max-salary underachiever in Washington who was shipped to Chicago in an acknowledgment that he wasn’t providing value for the money. Last season he was a veteran-minimum salary role player. In between, he battled injuries to his foot and back, not to mention the perception that he was disinterested.

“Things happen. You can’t control that at all. Injuries happen. Things happen. You can’t regret anything,” said Porter Jr., asked about his Washington days. “You’ve just got to move forward and hope for the best with a new opportunity.”

That’s the right attitude. And there’s no reason to believe Porter Jr., at age 29, is some walking Band-Aid who was lucky to stay healthy with the Warriors and earn a two-year deal in Toronto worth a total of about $12.4 million (U.S.).

Still, a cruise to the finals isn’t exactly the logical next step for Toronto. While Brooklyn’s dysfunctional limbo is an obvious wild card that could swing things, the Eastern Conference is showing few signs of getting worse. The NBA finalists from Boston strengthened their position with the addition of the playmaking skills of Malcolm Brogdon. The 2021 champions from Milwaukee, who went out in the second round to the Celtics, would have likely gone further if not for an injury to Khris Middleton. The Eastern finalists from Miami figure to be a factor, especially if fat-shaming Kyle Lowry is a recipe for him to report to camp ripped and motivated. And as for the team that eliminated the Raptors in the playoffs — the Sixers will be a tough out so long as Joel Embiid is relatively healthy and pushing.

Along with the additions of Porter Jr. and Koloko, the Toronto plan, sans Durant, is to bring back the band and bank on internal improvement. Toronto’s record of growing its collective skill set is formidable enough to make a competitive leap a reasonable expectation for Barnes, not that there aren’t top rookies who’ve regressed in Year 2.

Other core players, mind you, clearly don’t have Barnes-esque headroom. Fred VanVleet had a career year before he was literally run into the ground in the post-season, and given his status as the club’s conscience and beating heart, it would only make sense to sign him to the extension for which he’s eligible this summer. Still, the team would enter into that deal knowing there probably isn’t major upside remaining in VanVleet’s performance, especially considering head coach Nick Nurse’s tendency to lean on him so heavily.

Pascal Siakam is coming off a powerful bounceback season that put him on the all-NBA third team. But it’s worth remembering that the last time he received an all-NBA nod — a second-team honour in 2019-20 — it was followed up by a season of considerable regression, albeit a regression complicated by the pandemic.

Gary Trent Jr., whose player option for next season means he’s entering what could be a contract year, was a reliable scorer and a defensive revelation last season as the starting shooting guard. But Trent Jr.’s defence hasn’t always been a given. And he wouldn’t be the first player to prioritize offence with the potential of a more lucrative payday in a league that forks over most of the booty to those who get buckets.

Another unknown: Will OG Anunoby bounce back from an injury-marred season that saw him drop in the club’s pecking order amid whispers he’s unsatisfied in his role? As for Chris Boucher, whose three-year deal worth $32.5 million was announced on Thursday, while he eventually found a niche in the rotation last season, there were early moments when he was deemed unplayable. The Raptors can only hope that version of Boucher has been purged from existence.

Optimism abounds this summer because the Raptors have a track record that makes year-over-year progress assumed. But progress, though it’s more than possible, is far from guaranteed.

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