Don't look now, but the Raptors are legit. Who saw that coming?

The Toronto Raptors' season is only 18 games old, and yet it feels like it has several distinct parts.

Games 1-6: Hmmm, still pretty lousy. Games 7-11: Wait, maybe they're sort of OK. Games 12-15: Haha, what? Games 16-18: This is officially getting silly.

At 13-5 after another win over presumptive Eastern Conference favorites the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night, the Raptors have reached a level that - I think it's fair to say - no one anticipated outside of general manager Bobby Webster's wildest dreams.

The Raptors are off to a significantly better start than the Cavs, Knicks, 76ers, and Bucks, four teams that were widely expected to be above them in the standings. They trail only the Pistons, who are also running shockingly hot, in the East.

It's early days, but Masai Ujiri must be wearing quite a grin, if only because each Toronto victory will drive up the former team president's salary for his next NBA job.

For much of the past two years, there were questions in NBA circles about whether Ujiri had lost his fastball. The guy who could do no wrong while turning the Raptors from irrelevant franchise to NBA champions made some questionable choices after the wreckage of the COVID season that landed them Scottie Barnes.

There was the 2022-23 team that lacked a true center. There was the panic trade for Jakob Poeltl to try to salvage a season that was going nowhere.

And then, instead of the aggressive teardown that's typical of NBA teams entering a tanking phase, Ujiri's Raptors never quite committed to bottoming out, a strategy best exemplified by trading for Brandon Ingram when everyone expected them to sell at last season's deadline.

Toronto came into this season with a roster that was expensive but also lacking a clear All-NBA talent. Ingram, who didn't play after the trade last year while he recovered from a leg injury, was an interesting offensive addition but an uncertain fit in coach Darko Rajakovic's movement-heavy system.

By the time Ujiri left the organization after ownership changes at MLSE, it was hard to know exactly what he (and Webster) had built. How was this going to work? And how high was the Raptors' ceiling in a league that is driven by superstars?

That last question is still a long way from being answered, but the roster that Ujiri left behind seems to be working just fine.

Ingram, averaging better than 20 points per game, is such an effective mid-range shooter that he's been like Drano for the Raptors' perpetually clogged half-court offense. They've gone from a team that couldn't score unless it was in transition to one that's actually quite good at scoring.

And while there were concerns that Ingram and Barnes might find it difficult to coexist, the former's presence has instead freed up the latter to play the kind of roam-around, do-everything role that best suits his skills.

The added offensive punch hasn't come at the expense of Rajakovic's frenetic defense, either: The Raptors are sixth in the NBA in offensive rating and sixth in defensive rating. And fifth in net rating.

They are ... good, actually?

It's a little bewildering. When the Raptors finished last season with 30 wins and then didn't get any luck in the draft lottery, it seemed like they might aspire to finish just above the play-in tournament spots. Injuries in Boston and Indiana changed the calculus in the East, but Toronto still had a preseason Vegas over/under total of 39.5 wins.

Those priors are rapidly being adjusted. A healthy Ingram gives the Raptors the kind of half-court scorer they haven't had since Kawhi Leonard and, before him, DeMar DeRozan. It turns out having one of those players is quite useful.

Let's wave the "It's Still Early" flag one last time before noting that this Raptors season began just as the Toronto Blue Jays were finishing a deep playoff run that seemingly came out of nowhere and went all the way to Game 7 of the World Series. There are some parallels: Like the Raptors, the Blue Jays had some talented pieces and a lot of question marks. But after a slow start, the baseball team started to collectively play well, and suddenly the vibes were off the charts.

A similar thing appears to be happening with the basketball team. Everyone is talking about playing hard every night and doing whatever is asked of them, and there are no worries about usage or minutes or whether someone's not getting enough shots. Ingram, after a few seasons in the basketball purgatory of New Orleans, seems like a player reborn. Barnes, who never quite warmed to the role of primary scorer, looks energized by no longer having to be one.

It might not last, and there are surely some bumps in the road ahead. But the Raptors are fun to watch again. It turns out that Ujiri fella might have known what he was doing.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.