Raptors Fan Vote Reveals MVP, Future Stars and the Team's Most Chaotic Personalities
We asked, you answered, and now, we can officially reveal the results for the Toronto Raptors' batch of year-end awards!
Shout-out to everyone who participated. You played a pivotal role in helping us dole out invaluable hardware. From the Raptors' MVP and most underrated player to their best trash-talker and zombie apocalypse savior, you covered all the most important bases.
So, who won each category? Let's get to the big reveals.
Stats accurate as of Sunday, April 12. Contract data via Spotrac.
Who Is the Most Valuable Player?
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Winner: Scottie Barnes
Scottie doesn't know that...he received 86 percent of Raptors fans' MVP vote. Including Fiona's.
There is perhaps room for debate between Barnes and Brandon Ingram (10 percent). Ingram is the Raptors' leading scorer and go-to guy down the stretch, giving him a certain caché.
Any debate shouldn't last long, assume there's one at all.
Barnes is the team's preeminent two-way force and has established himself as one of the league's most dominant defenders, a systemic force unto himself who can blow up possessions away from the ball (especially around the basket) or as an individual stopper. His transition into more of a playmaker and play-finisher role on offense has served both him and Toronto well, making it easier—possible, even—to incorporate Ingram, RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley.
Who Is Most Underrated?
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Winner: Sandro Mamukelashvili
Sandro Mamukelashvili looks like a traditional big man, spaces the floor like a stretch 4 and has the pump-and-drive game of a wing. That seems pretty good. He's bounced around the league anyway. It sure sounds like he's worth the 40 percent of votes he received!
Solid stuff from Raptors fans on RJ Barrett, the runner-up with 28 percent of the vote. He catches a lot of crud for all he's not—and for what he's paid. But he's among the primary catalysts for the Raptors' transition machine.
Who Is the Best Athlete?
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Winner: Scottie Barnes
Did I expect Scottie Barnes to get more than the 69 percent of first-place votes he received? Yes. Is he such an obvious choice that he needs to do the dunk contest anyway? Also yes.
Alijah Martin (13 percent) has thrown down some pretty gnarly jams in the G-League. He doesn't have leap-out-of-the-building explosion but sports just enough bunnies to catch bodies. (Do I sound young and hip?!) He even seems like he'll decelerate ever so slightly in transition or going downhill just for the opportunity to immortalize someone on a poster. Listed at 6'2", that's saying something.
RJ Barrett tied Martin for the silver medal with 13 percent of the vote. His athleticism can be subtle. Then, it hits you like a brick when he's beelining on the break or getting serious extension on his one-handed jams.
Who Is Most Likely To Be a 1st-Time All-Star In the Next 5 Years?
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Winner: Collin Murray-Boyles
Collin Murray-Boyles' victory, with 59 percent of the votes, needs little justification. His defense verges on dominant, and he's an excellent playmaker out of the short roll.
Upping the scoring intensity will be the swing development. The three-pointer has fallen at a higher-than-expected clip (pre-injury), but he needs to be more aggressive inside the arc. That'll be the difference between him remaining a starry role player and becoming an actual star.
Ja'Kobe Walter felt like the safest runner-up option, but he nabbed just 5 percent of the vote. Instead, 29 percent of Raptors fans went with RJ Barrett.
Who Has the Best Contract?
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Winner: Collin Murray-Boyles
Nailing your draft picks remains a cheat code. Collin Murray-Boyles is proof. He will earn under 5 percent of the salary cap through 2028-29. That he didn't receive more than half the votes (41 percent) is a touch surprising.
Ja'Kobe Walter (18 percent) is in the same boat—and even cheaper. He has two years left on his rookie scale, which will pay him a combined $7.5 million. That averages out to around 3 percent of the cap. Hence my slight surprise, again, that he finished third instead of second.
Jamal Shead locked up the second spot with 33 percent of the vote. He has another team-controlled season on his contract that pays a whopping 1.4 percent of the salary cap.
Who Has the Worst Contract?
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Winner: Jakob Poeltl
Two players stood out in this category from the jump: Jakob Poeltl and Immanuel Quickley. It ended up being no contest. IQ garnered 25 percent of votes. Poeltl grabbed 70 percent.
Quickley raking in $97.5 million over the next three years clearly makes some Raptors fans queasy. Yet, even if he's overpaid, his spot-up and off-the-dribble shooting scale to any situation. Relative to the current roster, he remains a necessity.
The four years and $103.6 million left on Jakob Poeltl's pact are more of a headache. Rocket scientists are still trying to figure out why Toronto extended a somewhat injury-riddle non-spacer who shot north of 65 percent from the charity stripe just once and will be 34 in the final season of the deal.
Make no bones about it, Poeltl does a lot of things the Raptors need. His screens, in particular, are their own form of spacing. But while Toronto has larger pacts on its books, Poeltl's is a troubling meld of overpriced and without an end in sight.
Who Is the Best Trash-Talker?
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Winner: Sandro Mamukelashvili
This is one of the tighter races we've had across any team. Sandro Mamukelashvili led the way with 33 percent of the vote and was closely trailed by Immanuel Quickley and Gradey Dick, who each received 27 percent of first-place selections.
Mamu has trolled Giannis Antetokounmpo. And Victor Wembanyama. I can't tell whether he is brave or has a death wish. It's probably both. That makes him a viable winner.
Quickley used to be known for talking smack to Dukies. Now, he's just a normal guy liable to say and do something midgame that draws the ire of Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla.
His last name being what it is and the troll jobs it incites, we have no choice other than to assume Gradey Dick is an elite trash-talker. This inadvertently or deliberately NSFW jersey swap suggests he has what it takes to hold up his end of verbal sparring.
Who Is Most Likely To Have a Burner Account?
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Winner: Scottie Barnes
Scottie Barnes is online enough to know about and sometimes publicly comment on narratives surrounding the Raptors and their demeanor. That's how trips down the burner rabbit hole start. Just ask Kevin Durant.
As a general rule of thumb, players who take to social media almost immediately after getting traded are the consummate burner-account candidates. So, we're looking at you, Immanuel Quickley, who received the second-most votes.
Garrett Temple didn't choreograph this routine after serial-scrolling through social media dance crazes using one of his own accounts, that's for sure. Conventional wisdom dictates Collin Murray-Boyles used a burner to decry his teammates' decision to waste perfectly good popcorn.
Who Are You Taking With You Into the Zombie Apocalypse?
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Winner: Scottie Barnes
To be honest, I'm a little disappointed Scottie Barnes racked up "only" 52 percent of your votes, Raptors fans. This dude does a multitude of things that make him an ideal zombie-apocalypse running mate, the most important of which is depicted above: His upper-body pump and harrowing roar makes for a FAFO combo not even the undead will want to test.
Jamal Shead (13 percent) was robbed of second place in my book. He plays with the air of someone who would tear a zombie limb from limb with his bare hands and then peel off their skin and wear it to carry out the rest of the mission incognito.
Having spent time guarding Victor Wembanyama, Bam Adebayo, Bam Adebayo, etc., Collin Murray-Boyles (14 percent) is intimately familiar with what it takes to foil superhumans and aliens. He's welcome to come with me to the end of the world as well.
Sandro Mamukelashvili ended up in second place with 20 percent of the vote. He is a sniper from both beyond the arc and on his drives. That accuracy and mobility will be integral when we're outrunning zomboids while simultaneously aiming our plasma guns at 'em.
Who Is Most Likely To Be Playing Overseas In 2 Seasons?
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Winner: Chucky Hepburn
Jonathan Mogbo and Trayce Jackson-Davis were the highest-profile players worth pondering for this superlative. Plenty of it was given to TJD, who finished second with 34 percent of the vote.
Chucky Hepburn edging him out is no surprise. Players on two-way contracts across the league have formed a monopoly over this award.
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