After a brutal, winless six-game western road trip, the Wizards are back home in Capital One Arena.
They’ve finally got a shot to win a game and end their 14-game cascade of losing ... or so you’d think. The Raptors, by all reasonable metrics one of the worst teams in the NBA, have picked up wins in six of their last seven games. In that stretch they took down the Warriors, Hawks (twice), Magic, Pelicans, and Celtics (by double digits!).
Now, don’t mistake this for me christening the Raptors as a play-in contender — they are still firmly lottery-bound. It’s just that when it comes to winning streaks, the Wizards are merely the stuffing that fills the opposing team’s win column.
I’ve got you covered with all the numbers, narratives, and notes ahead of the game.
The rebuild is under way
The Raptors are in the early stages of a rebuild, having finally traded Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby mid-season last year. Now they’re led by All-Star Scottie Barnes, a “jack of all trades, master of none” type of player who is posting a stat line of 20 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists this season.
Here’s a little tidbit of expert analysis for you here: the Raptors actually have a lot of good players. It just happens that they’ve assembled the Avengers of coming off the bench: RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Jakob Poeltl, Kelly Olynyk, Gradey Dick, Chris Boucher, Bruce Brown, and Ochai Agbaji are all solid players best suited as bench mob pieces on a good team.
Several were at one point, in fact. Brown was arguably the key reserve on the 2023 champion Nuggets, the same year Quickley nearly won the Sixth Man of the Year. Olynyk was a bench piece on the Bubble Heat, who stormed all the way to the NBA Finals. Boucher has been getting run off the bench for the Raptors ever since their 2019 championship season.
Wizards’ outlook
Considering the Raptors managed to down the Celtics last week, something tells me they may not be particularly afraid of the Wizards. The Wizards are coming off one of their worst losses of the season where they trailed the Dallas Mavericks by a full 30 points at halftime.
In that game, Bilal Coulibaly and Jordan Poole combined for 31 points on 30 shots. The Wizards’ individual plus-minuses were dizzyingly awful, headlined by Kyshawn George’s -35. Side note: -35 sounded like it could be an all-time low for any player, but I was so so wrong — poor Scoot Henderson was a -58 in a game against the Heat last year.
Anyway, the Raptors are acting like a winning team all of a sudden, and I sincerely doubt the Wizards are the ones to change that. Take in this roster while you still can, because the trade deadline is next week.
Wizards versus Raptors tips off at 7 p.m. EST Wednesday night.