All-Star forward Scottie Barnes has suffered an ankle injury, which will sideline for multiple weeks, adding to Toronto's injury woes this season.
Barnes, who has played just 14 games this year, has looked much improved averaging 20.6 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 7.4 assists in what is unfortunately a small sample size so far.
He isn't the only one who'll miss time. Immanuel Quickley, who signed a five-year deal worth $175 million in July, has played in just three games.
At no point this season has Barnes, Quickley, and RJ Barrett played together, as Barrett missed the early part of the year as well.
Then there's Bruce Brown, who's yet to even play at all this season due to a knee injury, who could have offered the Raptors a two-way bench presence.
In short: It's been a bad year for Toronto from a health perspective.
But, in some ways, the silver lining to it all is pretty big when you consider the production of the players who's had to carry the responsibility of the offense.
Both Gradey Dick and Jakob Pöltl have been outstanding. Dick, a second-year shooting guard out of Kansas, is scoring 17.9 points per game, through a wide variety of different shots.
While his efficiency hasn't been great (41.3% from the field, and a pedestrian true-shooting of 55.5%), his production needs some context.
With Barnes and Quickley both out, Dick has had to play in a featured role he was never meant to be in this season. If anything, the 6'6 guard was supposed to be the fourth or fifth scorer this year, so he can in many ways be forgiven for not living up to first-option expectations.
As for Pöltl, who's been covered before, he's simply taken a step up. 15.9 points, and 11.6 rebounds, with strong interior defense to boot, has shown himself to be a major player.
The evolution of both bodes extremely well for Toronto, when everyone is back healthy. A starting lineup of Pöltl, Barnes, Barrett, Dick, and Quickley appears to be quite potent, and with Brown off the bench as the primary bench scorer and playmaker, the Raptors have something.
And all that's before including Ochai Agbaji (11.2 points, 4.2 rebounds), and Jonathan Mogbo (5.6 points, 4.4 rebounds), who have proven themselves as legitimate rotation players.
Although Brown is likely to soon end his days in Toronto as a trade chip before the trade deadline, the Raptors have every reason to be optimistic as they head into the 2025 offseason.
They're currently projected to land the fourth pick in the draft, in what should be a strong class, and could find themselves on incredibly strong footing as they head into next season.
So, how should the Raptors proceed for the rest of this season?
It doesn't make a lot of sense to sacrifice their draft pick positioning. And with both Quickley and Barnes out, that's probably not going to become an issue.
Perhaps, then, it's time to focus on salary cap optimization.
As mentioned before, Brown could be used as a trade chip before the February 6th trade deadline, as his salary of $23 million is expiring.
With Barnes' extension kicking in next season, the Raptors won't have money to spend as they're also paying Barrett and Quickley a lot of money.
Losing Brown's salary slot won't necessarily become an asset for them, meaning trading him for someone on a longer deal - pending said deal is attached to a player who can help them - wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Of course, they'll have to manage the luxury tax, but that's a summer problem.
For now, the Raptors should simply focus on giving themselves future trade flexibility, and not rush players back to the court. In the end, they could be better off by it.
Unless noted otherwise, all stats viaNBA.com,PBPStats,Cleaning the Glass orBasketball-Reference. All salary information viaSpotrac. All odds courtesy ofFanDuel Sportsbook.