Raptors: 3 unbreakable per game records in Toronto franchise history
By Mike Luciano
The Toronto Raptors have not been around very long as a franchise, but they can still claim to have littered their organization with some quality players that helped set the foundation for what this team became in the future.
While most of the Raptors’ success in the standings has come in the last few years thanks to the likes of Kyle Lowry, Kawhi Leonard, Nick Nurse, and a host of others too numerous to list off, plenty of the franchise’s records are held by players who plied their trade during that franchises’ infantile years.
Hidden amidst all the losing and unusually bold jerseys were some of the finest players who ever suited up for the franchise. Despite the fact that they may not have had the longest tenures, they still qualified for the Raptors’ record books, and they put him some marks that it might be hard to top on the modern NBA.
These 3 records aren’t going to fall anytime soon, as what these players accomplished during their short tenure in Toronto might be difficult to replicate over the course of multiple seasons.
3 unbreakable Toronto Raptors franchise records.
3. Doug Christie, steals per game (2.1)
Doug Christie is known to plenty of younger fans as a key member of Rick Adelman’s high-octane teams in Sacramento, but he made his name in the NBA as a member of some of the earliest Raptors teams ever. He was one of the best perimeter defenders in the league in his prime.
Christie held the steals record for the franchise until Lowry overtook him. Considering Lowry played almost a decade in Toronto and Christie only had four fulls seasons north of the border, that speaks to how he was able to impact the game. On a per-game basis, he’s not getting topped anytime soon.
With 2 steals tonight, Kyle Lowry passed Doug Christie for 1st on the @Raptors all-time steals list with 665 steals. pic.twitter.com/r29o5BksMP
— NBA.com/Stats (@nbastats) October 30, 2018
Doug Christie is one of the best defenders in Toronto Raptors history.
The player most likely to overtake Christie is probably going to be Fred VanVleet. He has averaged 1.8 steals per game in the past two seasons, but he will need to increase his steals per game number by almost a full pilferage per game, and then sustain that clip for several seasons, to overtake him.
If you averaged 2.1 steals per game, you would’ve been ranked at either No. 1 or No. 2 in the NBA every year since the 2014-15 season. To then top that and sustain that production for as long as Christie did is no small feat. Those early Raptors teams were fraught with issues, but No. 13 was not one of them.