The Toronto Raptors aren’t new to pleasantly surprising seasons.

Their franchise mythology was baptised in it, if you want to look at it that way. The Raptors were just two years removed from a 16-66 disaster in 1997-98 when Vince Carter lifted Toronto to a 45-win season — the first winning season the Raptors had known to that point — and a playoff date vs. the New York Knicks in 1999-2000. They lost in three games (first-round series were best-of-five at that point) but with Carter emerging as a superstar and rookie Tracy McGrady looking like he had the potential to follow, the afterglow outshone the disappointment.

Seven years later, it was Chris Bosh with help from TJ Ford, Jose Calderon and — yes — Andrea Bargnani who helped the Raptors jump from 27 wins in 2005-06 to a team-record tying 47 wins in 2006-07. A competitive six-game loss to the New Jersey Nets, led by Carter and Jason Kidd, gave hope that something sustainable was building in Toronto.

Seven years after was perhaps the most surprising turnaround of all, as a team that was slated to be disassembled with an eye toward rebuilding through the draft somehow found their feet just as surplus parts were being identified and went on to win a (then) team record 48 games, fueled by Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan and … Greivis Vasquez.

Then there was the team that went 48-34 in 2021-22, which is a little bit of an outlier in that the core of the club had helped win a championship in 2018-19 and posted the best winning percentage in franchise history in the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season a year later. The season the team spent in Tampa in 2020-21 and tanked their way to the No. 4 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft — the Scottie Barnes pick — was, at the time, considered an exception. The bounce-back performance in 2021-22 sparked in part by Barnes’ rookie-of-the-year production, welcome as it was, seemed more like a return to form rather than an out-of-nowhere mini-miracle.

Still, individually and collectively, they represent some of the most enjoyable seasons in franchise history. In each case, teams blew past expectations and pulled the franchise out of the bleakness that preceded them.

And here we are again.

The 2025-26........

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