Darko Rajakovic isn’t going anywhere. The Toronto Raptors and their head coach agreed to a multi-year contract extension Thursday morning, locking him in through the 2028-29 NBA season according to sources who spoke with ClutchPoints. The team officially announced the extension but didn’t disclose specific terms.
Rajakovic, 47, took over the Raptors bench in June 2023 as the 10th head coach in franchise history. He replaced Nick Nurse, who left for the Philadelphia 76ers job. It wasn’t an easy handoff. The Raptors were coming off a 41-41 season and a play-in tournament loss, and they weren’t exactly loaded with future Hall of Famers.
His first two seasons were rough. Toronto went 25-57 and then 30-52. There were questions. Some wondered if the front office had picked the right guy for a rebuild that didn’t really have a clear direction yet. But Rajakovic kept working, kept developing players, and the front office kept believing.
The Payoff Came This Season
This past season, the Raptors flipped the script. They went 46-36 and made the playoffs for the first time since 2022. That’s a 16-win jump from the year before. They drew the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round and pushed them to seven games before falling. It wasn’t a Cinderella story, but it was evidence. Evidence that the program was building something real.
General manager Bobby Webster and the front office saw enough growth — in the team’s identity, in the young core, in how the roster competed night after night — to offer Rajakovic a new deal before he even entered the final season of his original contract. That vote of confidence means something, especially in a league where coaches get fired for losing the locker room long before they lose enough games.
Rajakovic’s overall record in Toronto now sits at 101-145. Not pretty on the surface, but context matters. The first two years were a tear-down. Year three was the build-up. The extension suggests the organization believes the best basketball is ahead, not behind.
This is a developing story and more details are expected soon.
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