{"id":178772,"date":"2025-09-29T23:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T23:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/178772\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T23:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T23:21:07","slug":"still-awaiting-his-debut-brandon-ingram-spots-the-elephant-in-the-raptors-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/178772\/","title":{"rendered":"Still awaiting his debut, Brandon Ingram spots the elephant in the Raptors\u2019 room"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Toronto forward Brandon Ingram, who was acquired back in February, has yet to play a game with the Raptors because of a serious ankle injury.John E. Sokolowski\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Having won the city\u2019s only big-time championship in decades, the Toronto Raptors<\/a> rested. Like God. <\/p>\n

The bible doesn\u2019t tell us exactly how long that original rest lasted, but I\u2019m guessing it wasn\u2019t six years. Yet here we are, entering the basketball team\u2019s seventh season post-NBA title, and the Raptors are still taking it easy. <\/p>\n

On Monday, the team laid out its vision for the campaign ahead. The mission statement came from head coach Darko Rajakovic \u2013 \u201cMy focus is on winning and on developing at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a bit like saying your focus is on driving and sleeping at the same time. One gets in the way of the other, sometimes fatally. <\/p>\n

GM Bobby Webster preaches patience ahead of Toronto Raptors season<\/a><\/p>\n

The big difference between last year\u2019s 30-52 roster and this year\u2019s is forward Brandon Ingram. The former second overall pick was injured when the Raptors traded for him last February \u2013 an ankle problem. He hasn\u2019t played since. <\/p>\n

Ingram says he\u2019s better, though one couldn\u2019t help but notice on Monday that he took the two steps up to the podium like he was walking a vertical balance beam. Maybe he\u2019s just especially careful where he steps now. <\/p>\n

Everyone else on the team knows the drill in this city. You don\u2019t need to promise anything. You just have to sound confident. Some are better at that than others. <\/p>\n

R.J. Barrett was raised here, so he knows that Toronto will believe anything if you look it straight in the eyes while you say it. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Having grown up in Toronto, Raptors forward R.J. Barrett knows how to placate the media.Cole Burston\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cExpectations?\u201d Barrett said. \u201cWe\u2019re here to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\/Lingering stare. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Jakob Poeltl is a bit more of a I-chopped-down-the-cherry-tree type. He cannot tell a lie. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe gotta have one of those young-team-breakout years, where we might surprise some teams,\u201d the Austrian said.<\/p>\n

Translation: don\u2019t worry too much if you haven\u2019t started saving up for playoff tickets. <\/p>\n

Ingram is the X factor here. He was raised in the basketball factories of North Carolina. He was the main man at Duke. He was the next big thing in L.A. It hasn\u2019t worked out like he\u2019d hoped, but the air of \u2018any day now\u2019 still attaches itself to him. <\/p>\n

For Ingram, coming to Toronto must feel like a hockey player ending up in Columbus. Every city pays the same, but not every city stirs the blood. <\/p>\n

Like so many athletes born to stardom, Ingram is aggressively laconic. His tone is so relaxed that even though he\u2019s sitting up, he sounds like he\u2019s lying down. <\/p>\n

The only big reaction he had at the mic was when someone suggested that he, Scottie Barnes and Barrett would \u201cwork together as a threesome,\u201d Ingram fell into a fit of giggles. <\/p>\n

He had the same patter about winning and improving and learning, like getting paid eight figures in the NBA is a sort of finishing school for the unusually tall. But there was a small moment of unscripted wisdom. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Bobby Webster was given the title of Toronto Raptors general manager in 2017, but it is only now, following the summer departure of president Masai Ujiri, that he really has the job.Cole Burston\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ingram has spent six months doing nothing but observing \u2013 the team, his teammates, the organization, the way it\u2019s coached, the style of play. What has impressed him?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most impressive thing for me is seeing every seat in the arena filled up \u2026 doesn\u2019t matter if we\u2019re winning or losing,\u201d Ingram said.<\/p>\n

That, right there, is the Toronto problem. It takes a newcomer to spot it. As much as executives and coaches talk about the pressure to win, there isn\u2019t any until there is some. And there is no pressure \u2013 zero \u2013 on the basketball team. Certainly not when compared to the other thoroughbreds in the Rogers\u2019 sports stable. <\/p>\n

Halo\u2019d by 2019, the Raptors have figured out that they don\u2019t have to try too hard, as long as they keep repeating that they are trying really hard. <\/p>\n

Their corporate bosses got sick enough of the team\u2019s direction \u2013 lose to win \u2013 that they fired the sainted creator of that championship team, Masai Ujiri, over the summer. Then they promoted his prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Bobby Webster, to general manager. To be clear, Webster has had the title for years, but now he has the job. <\/p>\n

Toronto Raptors general manager Bobby Webster to take over basketball operations<\/a><\/p>\n

If you want things to change, you change them. If you think things are okay the way they are \u2013 not great, but alright \u2013 you pretend to change them. The Raptors chose the second way. <\/p>\n

Why risk setting an expectation right now, when no one expects anything? That will come later. Might as well save your PR bullets until then. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to blame the club for feeling no urgency. Like Ingram said, the room is full most nights. The TV numbers are about the same as they\u2019ve always been, and the guys on the roster seem happy. The tide in the NBA is always rising. Even the teams that aren\u2019t trying that hard are the beneficiaries. <\/p>\n

The WNBA Tempo start playing in eight months, which means a little less attention just as the team is missing the playoffs again. You\u2019ve heard of a perfect storm? The Raptors are in the middle of the perfect lull. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The Toronto Tempo, a WNBA expansion team, will being play next year.HO\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t Milwaukee or Philadelphia \u2013 other formerly ascendant Eastern Conference teams \u2013 where the main guys are always making noise about how the team has to get better right now. <\/p>\n

In Toronto, everybody\u2019s happy with the way things are. Many of the starters have recently negotiated massive new deals. All they have to do for them is show up to work and say they feel good. Once things go bad, say they feel bad. Then say they\u2019ll be better next time. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to be better than a 30-win season, but it is incredibly difficult to become a genuine contender in the NBA. The huge space between the two is where the Raptors will be this season. And next season. And maybe the next season.<\/p>\n

Eventually, it will once again become fashionable to rip on the Raptors. That\u2019s how they got good in the first place. Ownership was so frustrated that they green-lit Ujiri\u2019s vision to start over from scratch. Fear of the fans and media prompted them to eject a beloved player like DeMar DeRozan and okay the hiring of a live wire like Kawhi Leonard. <\/p>\n

It all worked out. And as so often happens in such cases, everyone learned the wrong lesson. No more risks. No more wild swings. Just season after season of the same old thing, until risk becomes unavoidable again. But don\u2019t worry \u2013 that\u2019s a problem for another year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Toronto forward Brandon Ingram, who was acquired back in February, has yet to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,2922,82,8023],"class_list":["post-178772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-noastack","tag-sports","tag-topstory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}