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No. 6: Toronto Raptors
Last Season: 49-33
4th place in East; Lost 4-0 to Washington in Round 1
The 2014-15 Toronto Raptors set a franchise record with 49 wins, won their second consecutive Atlantic Division title and galvanized a nation behind them. Yet when the Raptors sputtered in the second half and were swept out of the postseason by the Washington Wizards, none of those accomplishments kept the campaign from feeling like a failure.
In hopes of a better ending this time around, Toronto general manager Masai Ujiri retooled the roster this summer with an emphasis on defense. The Raptors made a bold splash in free agency by stealing forward DeMarre Carroll away from the East rival Atlanta Hawks and also brought home native son Cory Joseph to lead the second unit. But the health of point guard Kyle Lowry will probably go further in determining whether Toronto can win a playoff series for just the second time in team history.
The Raptors began last season by picking up where they left off in 2013-14, when they went 20-10 after the All-Star break. They reached Thanksgiving at 13-2, and even an adductor injury suffered by 2014 All-Star DeMar DeRozan the following game couldn't slow Toronto down much. The Raptors were 24-8 and battling the Hawks for the top spot in the East as of New Year's Day.
Beneath the surface, however, warning signs lurked. Toronto was winning despite having slipped to 16th in defensive rating the first two months, per NBA.com/Stats, down from ninth the previous season. The Raptors had grown reliant on an unexpectedly potent offensive attack that ranked second in the league on a per-possession basis despite DeRozan's absence. While the addition of Sixth Man Award winner Lou Williams gave Toronto additional perimeter firepower, the team couldn't keep it up.
The single biggest change was Lowry's injury-related regression. Voted an All-Star starter on the strength of his 8.1 wins above replacement player before the All-Star break, good for fifth in the East, Lowry posted just 1.3 WARP thereafter while battling a bad back. The Raptors were still strong offensively down the stretch, but their defense actually got worse as the season went along and the team won just half its games in calendar 2015.
Toronto was able to rally slightly down the stretch, winning seven of its final 10 teams to secure home-court advantage in the first round. However, any good vibes quickly disappeared against the Wizards. Led by Raptors nemesis Paul Pierce, whose move to power forward Toronto never found a way to counter, Washington won three close games to start the series and finished off the sweep with an embarrassing 31-point win in Game 4.