Head coach Darko Rajakovic was requested to evaluate how his group was doing after 41 video games — the precise center of the Raptors’ 2025-26 season — after Toronto’s 115-102 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday. Though the Raptors have a 24-17 report and are fourth within the Japanese Convention, half a recreation up on the Sixers, Rajakovic stated he didn’t need Toronto’s younger gamers to lose sight of their growth course of.
“That is one of the best league on the earth, so we’ve acquired to be continuously hungry and humble on the identical time,” stated Rajakovic on Monday. “I believe that’s the important thing for us: to be hungry and humble on the identical time.
“We’ve simply acquired to proceed pounding the rock and our purpose is to enhance week by week, month by month, and to play our greatest basketball on the finish of the season, and hopefully the post-season.”
Toronto had a 30-52 report within the 2024-25 common season, ending eleventh within the Japanese Convention, 11 video games again of the Chicago Bulls for the ultimate play-in spot. They’d the seventh-worst report within the NBA however slipped to ninth within the draft order after some dangerous luck on the Draft Lottery.
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Expectations had been greater for the Raptors heading into this season, largely because of the arrival of ahead Brandon Ingram, with bookmakers setting their pre-season over/below at 39.5 wins.
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With 41 video games left within the season, it’s extraordinarily possible that Toronto will surpass final season’s 30 wins and really potential that it’ll hit the over on 39.5 wins. BasketballReference.com offers the Raptors an 89.2 per cent probability of reaching the playoffs, with a 4.3 per cent probability of successful the East and a 0.7 per cent chance of successful the NBA championship.
Rajakovic has repeatedly stated that Toronto continues to be in a rebuild, and so he’s nonetheless centered on growth.
“Gamers, individually, are getting higher. There are a number of causes for us to look again and be glad with what we obtain, however that doesn’t change the truth that we have to go one other 41 video games, and each evening is a tough matchup for us.”
The 2 brightest spots for the Raptors up to now this season are Ingram and Scottie Barnes.
Ingram is having a bounce-back marketing campaign after he missed most of final season with a sprained left ankle. He’s averaged 21.7 factors, six rebounds and three.7 assists per recreation, on par together with his profession numbers.
Barnes is arguably having one of the best season of his profession, averaging 19.3 factors, 8.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.3 steals, all above the averages of his five-year profession.
Each are within the operating to make their second all-star look, with Ingram eleventh within the Japanese Convention after the second spherical of fan voting and Barnes 14th.
An ongoing difficulty for the Raptors, nevertheless, has been accidents to swingman RJ Barrett of Mississauga, Ont., and centre Jakob Poeltl. The pair are two of Toronto’s finest inside scorers with Barrett’s drives to the web protecting opposing defences trustworthy and Poeltl’s deft contact across the rim serving to on poor taking pictures nights.
With out Poeltl’s seven-foot, 253-pound body within the paint, the Raptors have needed to put comparatively small lineups on the court docket and depend on rookie Collin Murray-Boyles — their first-round decide from this previous summer time’s draft — to fill Poeltl’s considerably bigger footwear.
The six-foot-seven Murray-Boyles stated on Jan. 7 that it hasn’t been too troublesome to regulate to the NBA.
“It’s only a completely different stage of basketball, velocity, the physicality. It’s simply incomparable in terms of faculty, for actual,” he stated after main Toronto with 15 rebounds in a 97-96 win over the Charlotte Hornets. “It’s quite a bit to soak up, particularly as a first-year participant; it’s a must to be taught an entire new system.
“It’s a must to be taught entire new refs and all that. So simply figuring all of it out, studying the do’s and don’ts of the league, going across the league, particularly with the gamers and stuff like that, was essential.”
The Raptors go to the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday, host the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday, after which embark on a five-game West Coast highway journey beginning Sunday. The NBA’s commerce deadline — the place Toronto may deal with its depth at centre — is Feb. 5 at 3 p.m. Japanese.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 13, 2026.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
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