Toronto Raptors

Toronto Raptors

While the Tempo have been unable to draft a team due to ongoing CBA negotiations, they have hired veteran WNBA head coach Sandy Brondello to lead the team through their inaugural season. Brondello comes to Toronto following a decade of success in the WNBA, as she previously led the Phoenix Mercury (2014) and the New York Liberty (2024) to WNBA championships.

Last week, when news broke that the all-time great Chris Paul was acquired by the Toronto Raptors in what was essentially an Ochai Agbaji salary dump trade, I'll admit I held onto a sliver of hope. Maybe, just maybe, the masterful playmaker would don Raptors colors for one last hurrah in the NBA. My fellow Raptors Rapture colleague, Daniel O'Connor, shared this feeling, and we both speculated about how even a 40-year-old Chris Paul could still bring value to this squad.

In Wednesday night's 115-101 win over the Indiana Pacers, Gradey Dick recorded his first career double-double with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Dick, who has struggled in the first half of the season, turned a new leaf in game 42 and had his best game of the year against the Pacers. His performance tied a season high in points and set a career high in rebounds.

The Raptors go from a big team to a small team faster than maybe any other team in the NBA. When they start Jakob Poeltl they're huge. When Poeltl exits the lineup (and with Mo Bamba recently released) the Raptors immediately shrink to a squad without a single player taller than 6-foot-9. Even the Hornets, without their gargantuan rookie Ryan Kalkbrenner, can pivot to Moussa Diabate if they so choose.

Peas are as polarizing as they are populous, with people's opinions on the vegetable often boiling down to one thing: perspective. My wife, for instance, loathes the voluminous green bulbs because of the taste and texture, which "feels like pimples popping in your mouth," and the fact that she hardly ate them growing up, as her mom didn't like them either.

We're back for the second week of the brand new series of Top Ten Raptors Plays of the Week. Let's get into it, as this week's games covered five matchups that went from the Trail Blazers game last Tuesday to obviously last night's showdown against the New York Knicks.