For the past few years — even pre-Kawhi Leonard — the Toronto Raptors continually blew past pre-season expectations. Year after year the prognosticators under-shot Toronto’s win total, often by significant amounts. And year after year, despite Toronto piling up wins, those same pundits refused, in-season, to take the Raptors seriously as Eastern Conference contenders.
However, the hard truth is, except for arguably the 2015-16 season, those prognosticators were ultimately right. The DeMar DeRozan-led Raptors of yesteryear did have a ceiling they couldn’t burst through. (Call it the LeBron ceiling if you want.) Year after year Toronto fans wailed, gnashed their teeth, and rended their jerseys into purple and black ribbons to try to soothe their wounds.