Simulating 50 2025/2026 Raptors Seasons

 This post is peak offseason content, so buckle up! I wanted to take a second to shout out my favorite free sports related game, BasketBallGM. They have real NBA rosters that you can load and they're decently accurate in terms of player ratings. To do this experiment I loaded the Raptors in 2025/2026 50 times in a row and then simulated the entire season. There were different player progressions in each one and the AI made its own moves. For the Raptors, I left them untouched other than signing Sandro Mamukelashvili to start each season. I let the seasons play out how they played out and there were some interesting, maybe discouraging results. The important thing here is to remember that this doesn't really matter at all. It's a simulation based on what the game thinks players will be like next year, so it certainly isn't perfect. Lets dive into the results!

The Overall Data

• Average W/L record: 39/43

• Most Wins: 51

• Least Wins: 28

• Times made playoffs: 27

• Times won a round: 1

• Champions:

• Thunder - 25

• Magic - 8

• Cavaliers - 8

• Rockets - 5

• Timberwolves - 1

• Knicks - 1

• Pistons - 1

• Nets - 1

What does this tell us? To me the first thing that sticks out is that the Raptors winning a round is as likely as the Nets winning the championship, lol. Overall though this just means the Raptors on paper project out to be a .500 team. I will say that the game drastically underrates guys like Jakob Poeltl and Brandon Ingram in my opinion while overrating Scottie Barnes. There was a season where Scottie actually won MVP, which would be amazing but very unlikely. The disappointing thing here is that in the Raptors best regular season they only win 51 games and their best playoff run is barely winning the first round. I guess for a team coming off 30 wins, a 9 win improvement on average isn't terrible, it just clashes with my optimist view of the team. The other thing that stands out is that the Brooklyn Nets have a scenario where they win the title next year. I thought this outcome was hilarious and we'll be diving into the story of that season below for sure. Overall, pretty close to the outcomes I'd expect the majority of the times, even if a lot of them were disappointing for the Raptors. 

The Best Raptors Seasons
In exactly 1 simulation the Raptors win a playoff series. This wasn't their best regular season, they actually only went 43-39, but they snuck in as the 6th seed meeting the 3 seed Pistons in the first round. After getting down 3-2 the Raptors win game 6 to force a game 7 in Detroit. In real life, a Raptors Pistons playoff series would probably be really fun considering how close the 2 cities are. Raptors fans tend to invade the Pistons arena whenever they play so I'd love to see how that plays out in the playoffs. In game 7, Scottie Barnes goes off for 37 points, 9 assists and 10 rebounds to secure a tight victory. The Pistons somehow acquired Santi Aldama who was their best player for some reason in this one with a 19/11/11 triple double. Better luck next year Detroit, you ran into the Raptors!

In 1 simulation, Scottie Barnes emerged as the best player in the world taking home the MVP. Scottie averages 24/9/9 this season which for some reason was considered better than Shai's 30ppg, Jokic' 25/13/10 and Cade's 33/7/8. The Raptors are the 6 seed again and meet up with the Pistons again in round 1 of the playoffs. Unfortunately for our Raptors Scottie Barnes suffers an injury that keeps him out of this series. Without the MVP of the league the Pistons sweep the Raptors in 4 games but go on to lose to the eventual champions, the Cavs. 

The Worst Raptors Seasons

The least encouraging season I simulated was a year where there were barely any injuries, but the Raptors still only managed to win 28 games, 2 fewer than last year. Scottie took a step back as a scorer only averaging 17.6 ppg in a year where they needed him to take off. Brandon Ingram and RJ Barrett average 18 and 19 ppg respectively, but neither of them score efficiently and it leads to poor offense. The Raptors take the fewest 3s per game, and shoot the lowest 3 point percentage in the league demonstrating how desperately they need a spacer in the starting lineup. Without reliable ball handlers, the Raptors are second in the league in turnovers. Finally Jakob Poeltl falls off a cliff leaving them without anyone to play the 5 reliably. A disaster class of a season. 

Another strange one is a season where Scottie makes a definitive leap into superstar status averaging 27/10/9 while playing all 82 games, but the Raptors still only with 29 games and miss the playin tournament. Everyone not named Scottie Barnes takes a big step back, with the biggest one being Brandon Ingram. BI hijacks the Raptors offense and takes 15 shots per game on absolutely terrible efficiency. I can only imagine this causes drama in the lockerroom as the Raptors fall to a bottom 8 defense in the league. At least the fans have superstar Scottie to look forward to as we enter another retool. 

The Brooklyn Nets Championship

The moment we've all been waiting for. I was hoping that in 1 of the 50 sims the Raptors would be the random team where everything goes right and they win a chip. That didn't happen, in fact it was hard to get any success out of the Raptors at all in this exercise. The Nets however have a scenario where they shock the world and not only win the title, but sweep the OKC Thunder to take it home. In this season, the Nets swing a trade with the Bulls to get Coby White who pairs with a drastically improved Cam Thomas to form the best backcourt duo in the league. Cam Thomas improves enough as a playmaker while still being an elite scorer putting up 28ppg and 5 assists per game all season long. The Nets have a deep team that nobody expects to be good this early and they shock everyone by winning 57 games and taking the 2 seed in the East. 

In the playoffs they sweep Miami in round 1, easy series clearly the improved Brooklyn Nets are too overpowered for the lowly Heat. They take care of the Cavs in 5 games in round 2. Makes sense, the Cavs are frauds as we all know and losing in the second round is par for the course for them. They have a tough task facing the 1 seed and league MVP Franz Wagner and the Orlando Magic in the conference finals. The Magic easily win the first 2 games of the series, but in game 2 Franz suffers a herniated disk that sidelines him for the playoffs. The Nets make quick work of the next 4 games to make the NBA finals. The finals are just pure vibes. The OKC Thunder are fully healthy but are just no match for Cam Thomas and the Brooklyn Nets. Cam takes home the finals MVP after averaging 32ppg in the series and showing everyone why Brooklyn is a force to be reckoned with. 

Ok that's that! As you can see this is just a silly exercise, but with enough simulations we probably get pretty close to what the actual outcome of the Raptors season will be on average. I can see it too. In a worst case scenario they win about 30 games in a frustrating season. In a best case scenario they win about 50 games and have a tough series in the first round. Mostly though this was just an exercise to maybe get a reader out there to try playing basketball GM, it's a great way to pass the time!