Toronto Raptors Season Preview
Team Name: Toronto Raptors
Last Year’s Record: 40-42
Key Losses: Chris Bosh, Hedo Turkoglu, Marco Belinelli, Antoine Wright, Rasho Nesterovic, Pops Mensah-Bonsu and Patrick O’Bryant.
Key Additions: Ed Davis, Linas Kleiza, Leandro Barbosa, Julian Wright, Solomon Alabi and David Andersen.
1. What significant moves were made during the off-season?
The biggest move of the summer saw the greatest player in the history of the franchise, Chris Bosh, go to Miami in exchange for a trade exception and a couple draft picks.
Ouch.
Sure, Linas Kleiza is having a great summer playing for Lithuania in the World Championships and Ed Davis showed flashes of his potential in Las Vegas, but the reality is the team lost two marquee players – yes, Hedo Turkoglu counts because he was paid like one and was a central piece of an NBA team that went to the NBA Finals in 2009 – and all they have to show for those two losses so far is Leandro Barbosa.
There’s still hope that Bryan Colangelo can work some magic during the season and cash in that trade exception to a team hoping to shed some salary, but unless that happens this team is in rough shape.
2. What are the team’s biggest strengths?
One thing the team has going for it is it’s youth.
The team has an impressive core in Jarrett Jack, Amir Johnson, Andrea Bargnani, DeMar DeRozan, Ed Davis, Sonny Weems and Linas Kleiza that are all under the age of 26.
If Colangelo is able to give these players a couple seasons to grow together while continuing to add talented pieces then the future looks bright.
3. What are the team’s biggest weaknesses?
The team is going to get torched in the paint and on the glass this season.
Last year the team averaged 40.4 rebounds per game and Bosh averaged 10.8 of those rebounds.
With over a quarter of those rebounds up for grabs it makes sense that Johnson, Bargnani and Davis will step in and gobble up the extra rebounds. However, that is far from being guaranteed as the numbers from last season don’t back up that assumption. In the seven games Bosh missed at the end of the season, Davis saw his rebounding numbers stagnate (4.8) instead of increase. Even more troubling is the fact those numbers were inflated due to two games which saw him snag double-figure rebounds. The scary part is in three of those seven games Johnson only managed to grab two rebounds.
Last season Toronto allowed teams to shoot 46.8% from the field and I can’t help but think that number will rise as opposing teams bully the slender Bargnani, Johnson and Davis around in the post. Toronto’s post players will routinely struggle to keep players like Yao Ming, Dwight Howard or Pau Gasol from sealing their spot on the low block.
While glancing at the teams roster I can’t help but think Toronto needs a gritty post player to compliment Bargnani, Johnson and Davis.
Sorry, Reggie Evans isn’t the answer here either.
4. What are the goals for this team?
I think all that fans are looking for this season is for the team to compete hard every night.
Johnson and Evans became a fan favorites last season due to their “hockey mentality” on the court and if the rest of the team can adopt a similar mentality the fans will be able to cheer for this team.
In regards to wins and losses, I would be happy if the team is able to pick up more wins than the Nets did last season.
5. Crash and burn, baby!
Last season I was misguided and believed the team would flirt with 50 wins. This year? I’m under no such misguided illusions. If anything, I’ve become overly pessimistic about Raptors’ chances.
Just how bad will the Raptors be? I think they’ll do worse than the New Jersey Nets did last season.
Last year the Nets had a great center in Brook Lopez and a point guard in Devin Harris who was an All-Star the previous season. Sprinkled in were some nice young player and a bunch of solid role players.
Sure, Harris was banged up for most of the season, but they had some solid pieces that could scare teams.
What do the Raptors have?
Last season we saw when Bosh was lost due to an injury that Bargnani was hesitant to be the focal point of the offense. When opposing teams would double or triple-team him late in the season his facial expresions resembled that of a deers caught in headlights.
Sure, he posted some nice stats over the final few games of the season, but those were in games that didn’t mean anything as the teams season was already over.
Scoring also looks to be a problem as two of their top four scorers last season (Bosh and Turkoglu) have left the team. As strong as Kleiza as played this summer in the World Championships I don’t see him averaging more than 15 points a game this season.
Things have sunk so low in Toronto that Sonny Weems, a player who was a bubble guy on the roster heading into training camp last season, is now proclaiming he wants to be the known as the face of the franchise.
Gulp.
I think statement that alone shows just how far this franchise has fallen over the past few months.
28 Comments on “Toronto Raptors Season Preview”.
Have Your Say:
Hey…I think it is very wrong to compare our team to last years NJ nets. I firmly believe that because these young players have no expectations being placed on them, they will shine. I’m talking 8th seed shine.
Linas Kleiza is capable of 20pt Avg. Even more because he’s lights out from beyond the arc.
Bargnani will get his 25pts & maybe 7rebs
We have Johnson and Davis to clean the rest of the boards.
In terms of other supporting offence, you forgot to mention that both Weems and DeRozan have extended their games to the 3pt line this summer.
We still have 2 amazing point guards in Calderon and Jack.
+Barbosa… Another guy that can come in and shoot the lights out.
I’m telling you that’s not even the end of our roster and there’s already so much talent.
They won’t be able to stop us this season. They can’t hold us back. We’re young and unstoppable. We are the young guns and we will prove all naysayers wrong!
Our team is in perfect shape. Mark my words the raptors will be in he playoffs in 2011.
September 15, 2010 » 8:31 PM »
Hi Allan,
Thanks for the feedback!
I love the fact you’re optimistic about the team but I have to admit I’m not in agreement with some of your stats.
First, Kleiza has averaged 8.3 points per game over his career and his career high is 11.1 points when he averaged 26 minutes per game. Sure, he played behind Carmelo Anthony in Denver which limited his minutes and touches, but even if he increased his minutes to 35 per game I don’t see him getting enough touches to average 20 points per game. I think 15 points per game is a more realistic average. As a player who has shot 44.9% from the field he would need more than 22 field goal attempts per game to crack 20 points and I just don’t see that happening. Even if he were to boost his field goal percentage to closer to 50% he would need 20 field goal attempts per game which I feel is unlikely.
Along those lines, Bargnani had the best year of his career last year as he averaged 17.2 points in 35 minutes of burn. For comparison sake, the biggest increase of his career (5.2 points per game) came in his third season when he saw a bump in his playing time by nearly eight minutes. I don’t see him playing more than 40 minutes this season and as such I think even as the primary option on offense I don’t see him getting more than 20 per game. Because of that I don’t see him boosting his scoring average by close to 10 points per game next season to the 25 points you anticipate.
I’d like to see Amir Johnson become a double-double machine this season, however after watching him play with Bosh out last season he seemed to focus too much on offense and lost some of his passion/zeal/energy on the defensive end.
Weems + DeRozan have talked about extending their games… but I’ll wait until I see them in game action to make judgment. Making opens shots in an empty gym is different from making them in the games. Just ask Joey Graham.
The point I’ll give you is the fact the team is locked at PG with Jack, Calderon and Barbosa. That is a strength I should have talked about more in this article.
For the record, I hope you’re right that Toronto sneaks into the playoffs as the eighth seed, however I have to admit I don’t see it happening.
September 15, 2010 » 9:25 PM »
Hey,
Your reasoning and explanations are solid.
However I believe that career stats won’t play that big a role this season for the Raptors. It is a new situation where there is a new 1st 2nd and 3rd option. Their all hungry, and it could be a situation like what the Thunder had last season.
Against all the odds, I remain optimistic about the Raptors this season. I even feel better about them this season than I did and the beginning of last season.
Demar Sonny Amir Ed Jack… Their swagger alone will win games. Add in the rest of the team and we have 8th spot locked up.
I want to see bloggers start blogging about what we want to see from the Raptors. Dream a little. I want a blogger to come right out and say something like “I want to see DeMar DeRozan posterize Chris Bosh” Be controversial.
Anyways.. good insight in your article. We’ll see who’s the next New Jersey. It definitely won’t be the Raptors though. lol.
September 15, 2010 » 10:22 PM »
I hope that if the Raps have the worst record in the league, unlike the Nets, that they actually get the 1st overall pick instead of 3rd. I also hope that they don’t screw up on the pick. I don’t want some kind of 2006 deja vu.
September 15, 2010 » 11:37 PM »
How about the team has a better record than NJ and Minnesota yet still manages to win the lottery secure the top overall pick?
September 16, 2010 » 7:32 AM »
Hi, Ryan.
When an optimist like yourself believes that things might have now sunk so long with the Raptors they SHOULD actually draw legitimate comparisons with the 2009-2010 New Jersey Nets – a team which won all of 12 games – it reflects a sad reality, as far this franchise is concerned. These are dark days, indeed, for a team which not too long ago was on the uptick in the NBA, operating under the direction/principal ownership of Mr. Steve Stavro.
September 16, 2010 » 10:17 AM »
Things are looking good. So long as Colangelo dumps Calderon and recognizes this season as a development year, we’ll be in good shape next summer with a top 5 pick and a massive TPE. The team could potentially land 2 all star caliber players to add to an already promising young core.
September 16, 2010 » 12:04 PM »
The only real issue I had with the article is that you said the Raptors last few games didn’t matter. However the Raptors were only beat out of the 8th seed by 1/2 a game by the Bulls. Which if the Bulls had lost their last game Toronto would have faced the Cavs instead
September 16, 2010 » 4:43 PM »
Bill – Yes, mathematically they were still alive, but after they lost to the Bulls on April 11th that was the culmination of a five-game losing streak that torpedoed their chances of making the playoffs. It was in the final two games that Bargnani lit it up.
September 16, 2010 » 4:57 PM »
Im sure turks numbers wont be hard to replace… and comparing the Nets too the Raptors sounds like a funny joke to me! I’ll admit that it won’t be the best season, but it most certainly won’t be as bad as who ever wrote this says.
September 16, 2010 » 8:00 PM »
Joel – I agree with you that those 11.3 points won’t be hard to replace. However, they did represent the fourth highest scoring average on the team.
When you combine his scoring with Bosh that represents over 30 points. When the team averaged 104 points per game those two combined for a nice chunk of the team’s scoring.
September 17, 2010 » 7:29 AM »
I can see how 30 points would be hard to replace, but consider if Demar and Klieza each scored approx 15 points per game, or even just three players like sunny, Demar and Klieza eaching raising their points per game by three. thats roughly around the 30 points missing. But If you look at games where Bosh was injured, the Raps still scored over a hundred points per game. So I would be more concerned about defence!
September 17, 2010 » 9:01 PM »
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September 17, 2010 » 9:05 PM »
Joel – I see your point – and trust me, I want to agree with your vision – but the problem is it assumes that a lot of people are clicking on all cylinders.
It’s possible that Jack, Bargnani, Amir, Weems, LK and DeRozan have increased productivity, but what if a couple of those guys lose a chunk of the season due to injury? Heck, what if Bargnani or one of the PG’s go down for an extended period of time?
I will easily admit that defense is the big issue…
September 17, 2010 » 10:32 PM »
If we lose one of PG’s we have more than enough who can do the job with Banks, Barbosa, Calderon, and Jack. But I agree if Bargnani gets injured the Raps would be in a bit of a pickle, but on the other hand looking at the past few years Bargnani has not missed many games. But don’t get me wrong I agree that their season will not be great but I also believe that it will not be as bad as many people are saying. In the 5th point of the artical you said that you thought the Raps would be close to a 50 win season last year. I thought the Raptors would have a winning season. What I learned from that is that is you can not predict what will happen during the offseason. By the way I think its really cool that you take the time to respond to peoples comments!
September 17, 2010 » 11:32 PM »
I just can’t wait until this season starts! So pumped! haha. woooo Go Raps!
September 18, 2010 » 1:27 PM »
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September 18, 2010 » 3:39 PM »
Allan – Good point, with those four PG’s I don’t think injuries will effect that position.
I hope you’re right about the upcoming season! It will be a tough one to cover if my expectations for the team are on the mark. I’m hoping the team proves me wrong.
Thanks for the comments this week! I hope this is a place you visit during the season for exclusive interviews, multimedia and articles on the Raptors.
September 18, 2010 » 5:22 PM »
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September 20, 2010 » 12:35 AM »
Andrea to average 25 and 7 ? lol come on now. He is 7 ft tall and can’t average more then 5 boards per game. Ed Davis hurt already by playing in a scrimmage game that he was not suppose to. Our team sucks this year. But the way the NBA is going the raps will never win a championship just like any other mid market team. Melo is on his way to NY with Paul going there next year. The NBA is turning into the EPL.
Pathetic
September 24, 2010 » 7:51 AM »
Your preview is too damn rosey. the Raptors r going to suck!!!!! Watching their games will be like pulling out teeth without any novacaine
September 25, 2010 » 9:37 PM »
[...] As a result, weaknesses abound and it’s hard to point to one single area that is a concern.” Another Raptors blogger Ryan McNeill bemoans, “Things have sunk so low in Toronto that Sonny Weems, a player who was a bubble guy on the [...]
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