The Bench Mob is back! It hasn’t been impacting things like it was last season, when it was a key component of the Raptors successful season that culminated in… getting swept by LeBron. But forget about that part. Regular season success is way more fun to think about, and their collection of odd-but-somehow-tightly-fitting semi-scrubs accounted for a lot of wins.
Not as much this year. It hasn’t mattered, because Kawhi Leonard is way more impactful than DeMar DeRozan and can lead the starters to bigger leads. And Kyle Lowry (ever notice how those two have the same initials… also Kevin Love OMG conspiracy) is beasting as well. It’s nice to have a functional bench rotation, but for this team, it isn’t necessarily necessary anymore.
Fred VanVleet was a very high ranking player on some very important advanced stats last year. No one knew how or why, and implied that the stats were at fault, but there’s no denying he was great. The eye-test showed some flaws (he’s short), but advanced stats don’t lie. Usually. And they’re telling the truth again this year: he’s not as good.
UNTIL TONIGHT! EMPHASIS!