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Does This Mean We Can Plan The Parade Route Again?
Posted on | February 4, 2010 | 18 Comments
Well, I guess all is right with the world since the Raptors won again. Whew!
The Raptors certainly didn’t look great against the Nets, but with three main players, including two starters, missing, I wouldn’t expect a perfect game. If it wasn’t for the Raptors vaunted depth, New Jersey might be riding high on win #5 right now. Despite the Raptors missing over 31 ppg, however, they still managed to score over a 100 points for their 15th straight game.
I was having a discussion with someone over at Raptors Republic about, of all things, the Raptors. This fan, after the loss to Indiana, jumped to point out all the problems with the Raptors, insisting that the loss was an indication of everything that was wrong with this team. A fact he at first dismissed and then grudgingly accepted was the fact that the Raptors are a young team. Regular readers know that I’ve discussed this before, but it’s worth going over again.
The ten players on the Raptors roster who play at least 10 minutes per game and have played in most of the games, so can be considered regular rotation players, have an average age of 24.6 years old. And only two rotation players are above the age of 26, Turkoglu and Calderon. That’s very young. It’s especially young when you look around the league a little…
Orlando: 27.8
Charlotte: 27
Miami: 27.2
Chicago: 26.4
Atlanta: 26
Even Atlanta, which has been discussed so much about being a young team, has a lot of older rotation players. Bibby and Joe smith are over 30, and Jamal Crawford is 29. Joe Johnson is 28.
And notice that the three teams the Raptors are currently battling for the 5th seed are all pretty veteran teams, even Chicago, who have Brad Miller, John Salmons and Kirk Hinrich all 29 or over.
It turns out that the Raptors have the fourth youngest rotation in the entire league.
Golden State: 24.9
Toronto: 24.6
Portland: 24.5
Memphis 24.4
Oklahoma City: 23
Interestingly, Toronto, Portland, Memphis and Oklahoma City all are within 1½ games of one another in the league standings.
So to get back to this discussion I was having, this fan felt that I should not be happy with where the Raptors are right now, and that, since it was obvious the Raptors would not be going deep into the playoffs, that the season was pretty much a failure.
Well, unlike this fan, I tend to look at the big picture. The Raptors are an extremely young team that has played .625 basketball since November, and look to have a bright future ahead. Hopefully Chris Bosh will view things the same way come the summer.
The Only Indispensable Raptor (and other stories)
Posted on | February 1, 2010 | 12 Comments
[Update: I've added a poll for the blog, and the first one is at the bottom]
There’s a line of thought among some Raptor fans that Chris Bosh is not worth the maximum contract, and that the Raptors should let him go (either via trade or sign-and-trade) and build around Bargnani and the rest of the Raptors. To put it mildly, these people are morons who have no business watching an NBA game let alone sharing their opinions on one. Okay, maybe that’s not putting it mildly.
When Turkoglu got an elbow to the face, two thoughts came to mind. The first is that I really feel for Turkoglu because I know how it feels. I once got a shoulder hit just below my eye that felt like it completely collapsed my face. I’ve been hit (and hurt) many times and kept playing, but this was different and knew it. I first checked to see if all my teeth were intact (I’ve lost a tooth playing ball before), and then checked my nose to make sure it was still where it was supposed to be. Stupidly, I did go back in when I discovered my face still intact, despite the fact I was seeing double (slightly). The most shocking thing was when I finally looked in the mirror and saw that my face looked, for the most part, normal. I had expected a look similar to Rocky after fighting Apollo Creed the first time. There was a little swelling, but no bruising at all.
It turned out I had fractured my orbit bone and it was more than six months before I got most of the feeling back in my face and to this day, I don’t have all of it back (it’s been nearly two years). The worst part about having no feeling in part of your face is showering. Since you can’t actually feel the water on you, you can’t tell if you haven’t washed the soap off. It was very odd and not the least bit pleasant.
But I digress.
The second thing I thought about was how the Raptors won’t necessarily miss Turkoglu if he doesn’t come back in the game. The great thing about this Raptors team, as I’ve mentioned before, is the bench. Unlike last season, when an injury to any of the key players was devastating, this year there’s only one player who is irreplaceable. And that’s Chris Bosh. When Turkoglu went out, I knew that between Wright, Weems and Belinelli, the Raptors would be able to absorb his loss. Obviously those same players make DeRozan’s absence not even missed, and Jack and Calderon can both start, which makes an injury to one of them a non-issue, especially when Banks played so well during Calderon’s missed games, and Belinelli is a capable enough ball handler and passer that he can play the point in a pinch. Even Bargnani can be replaced by Nesterovic and Johnson. They don’t have Bargnani’s scoring touch, but are better rebounders and play well alongside Bosh.
Bosh, however, cannot be lost for long without the team going into a tailspin. You see, Bosh is the only consistent scorer and rebounder the Raptors have. Bargnani can have great scoring bursts and is the second leading scorer on the team, but he’s too inconsistent to be relied on as the team’s first option. He relies too much on people creating for him and doesn’t get to the line enough. And he’s the second best scorer. Nine times he has not scored more than 12 points in a game. Compare that with Bosh’s 2. And one of those two, Bosh only played 15 minutes.
And it can’t be written off to Bosh taking more shots than Bargnani because Bosh only takes two more shots a game. Besides, a lot of times, good players make their own shots. Bosh gets two more shots than Bargnani because he gets himself the shot. Bargnani, for all his talent, doesn’t do that, which is why he goes through so many scoring droughts.
And, needless to say, Bargnani is not going to be able to cover Bosh’s rebounding. The only two player on the roster who can consistently rebound at a rate similar to Bosh (Evans and Johnson) are both foul prone and don’t bring the scoring the Raptors would need if they lost Bosh.
The Raptors can go small to score more, with Turkoglu shifting to PF, but they’d suffer on the boards. If they insert Johnson or Evans into the PF slot, they suffer in the scoring department.
Let’s hope Bosh re-signs, because if he leaves, the Raptors will be in trouble.
SOARING RAPTORS
In ESPN’s recent Power Rankings, the Raptors are ranked #7. Okay, Mark Stein is one of the few American sports writers who is actually unbiased when it comes to things north of the border, but it’s still a great indication of how far the Raptors have come since their slow start in November.
Can I point out something I probably shouldn’t? The Raptors are only 4 1/2 games behind a struggling Celtics team that has gone 6-11 since winning against Orlando on Christmas day. And speaking of the Celtics, I’ve been suspicious of Garnet’s knee injury from day one. I didn’t like how little the Celtics said, even as the Celtics went into the second round. I didn’t like that little was revealed over the summer about exactly what was wrong with his knee, and I didn’t like how he looked at the start of the season. Sure, he’s had a few big games, but when a player limps, it’s a bad, bad thing. It means two things. One is that he’s not fully healed, and the other is that he’ll probably have problems due to favouring the other leg. Well, it’s already past the halfway point and he’s still having problems with the knee. I think they may be in trouble.
DIVISIONAL RACES
While the race in the east is for the 2nd spot among the contenders (as long as Cleveland doesn’t falter without Mo Williams), and the 5th spot among the pretenders (of which the Raptors are included), in the West, the big race is to see who’s going to make it to the big dance. Currently, there are 6 teams within 2 games of one another, and only 3 of them are going to make the playoffs. Right now, Oklahoma City, Memphis, and Houston are on the outside looking in, but no one would be surprised if all three make the playoffs. Portland is in danger of not making the playoffs, and New Orleans will certainly drop without Chris Paul for a month or two (due to knee surgery). I’m going to guess that at least a couple of those six teams are going to try and make a deal to better their chance.
TRADES
What on earth is this nonsense about Philly thinking of trading Igoudala. Is he really the problem on this team? And trading him for McGrady? What good would that do? Think they regret letting Andre Miller go? Okay, maybe they don’t, but they should. Personally, Igoudala should be one of the last players they should trade.
If they are intent on trading Igoudala, something crossed my mind. Now as regular readers know, I’m not for trading Calderon, but if Philadelphia offered Igoudala for Calderon, DeRozan and Wright, I’d think long and hard. DeRozan has a lot of potential, but realistically, you’ve got to hope that he’ll be as good as Igoudala. Calderon’s playmaking will be missed, but as I stated above, he’s not indispensable. The addition of Igoudala would give the Raptors an incredible starting five, a top defender, another playmaker and a very good scorer in Igoudala. He’d also immediately become the Raptors second leading rebounder.
The Sixers would get their point guard, and DeRozan would be a prospect that could eventually replace Igoudala.
Loading ...And Reality Comes Crashing In
Posted on | October 31, 2009 | 6 Comments
Yes, in a game they should win, after winning a game they shouldn’t, they play badly and lose. Welcome to Raptors basketball, at least for the first month or two. I’m sure expectations were high after winning against Cleveland, but I hope no one thought what we saw there was going to be the norm, at least for a while. This is still a new, young and relatively inexperienced team, and against Memphis, it showed.
After many Raptor fans pencilled him into the All-Star game, Andrea Bargnani showed once again why he’ll never be the player that some hope. He played horribly against Memphis. Horribly. And if he’s not hitting his shot, he’s almost useless. After playing good defense against Cleveland, he couldn’t seem to defend against Memphis and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was responsible for giving up half of those 18 offensive rebounds the Grizzlies grabbed. Time and time again, the man Bargnani should have been boxing out was able to secure the offensive rebound. If he hadn’t fouled out, if I was Triano, I would have sat him down for the final minutes, anyway.
Yes, I’m hard on him, but when you have the kind of talent he has, it’s a shame to waste it. And he did tonight. In my pregame post, I said that I didn’t think that Gasol would play more than 25 minutes. Well, he played 25, but still managed 19 points, 7 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 assists and 1 block. Compare that with Bargnani’s 12, 6, 0, 2 and 0. Guess who got outplayed badly? I did apparently underestimate his offense, however, since I said it was not good enough to keep him on the floor. The guy looks a lot trimmer than he did last season, and I think he’s gotten quicker. The Lakers trade for his brother Pau isn’t looking nearly as lopsided, now. In two games, he’s averaging 20 ppg and 11 rpg.
On the plus side, for the Raptors, I also said that Bosh would have a big game and might go for 30. He went for 37, in large part because he got to the line 14 times. His 12 rebounds were also impressive as were his two blocks. The only bad thing I can say about Bosh’s game was that he was the only one who had a really good one.
Well, actually, Nesterovic played well in limited minutes, as did Belinelli, who is thankfully living up to my preseason hype. I do find it puzzling that Belinelli didn’t play more minutes, however. My one issue with Triano is that I feel he’s limited Belinelli’s minutes too much in both games, so far.
Jack played pretty well, out assisting Calderon, who finally seems to be shooting well again, but uncharacteristically had as many turnovers as assists. DeRozan had a pretty good second half, but that barely made up for the first half he played.
The defense that looked so good against Cleveland was no where to be seen. Guys drove to the hoop without anyone getting in their way, a lot of times. The `house’ that they famously practiced to defend was ransacked and burned to the ground.
I do have some good news, though: The sky is not falling. I’ve probably been one of the more optimistic bloggers out there, and while I was disappointed with the loss, I’m not entirely surprised. As I’ve said over and over, we’re going to see a lot of inconsistency with this club for a while. We have seen how good they can be, but we’ve also seen how they can play if they don’t play defense and protect the boards. They’re not as bad as the team we saw against Memphis, and they’re not yet as good as the team that beat Cleveland. Hopefully, by the All-Star break, they will be.
NOTES:
- Does anyone else understand why Colangelo was trying to grab DeMarre Carroll in the last draft? The guy looks like he’s going to be around the league a while.
- Has anyone else noticed the stats Jermaine O’Neal has been putting up in two games so far this year with Miami? He’s averaging 22 ppg, on 17-25 shooting, and 12 rpg. Wouldn’t it be incredibly ironic if he makes the All-Star team at center and Bargnani doesn’t?
- Chicago beats San Antonio and then loses to Boston by 28 points? Is Boston really this good or is Chicago really that inconsistent?
- With Oklahoma City beating Detroit, the Thunder now have won more games than they did in their first 17 last season. I’d say they’ll probably be one of the more improved teams this year. They’d almost have to be, after finishing with only 23 wins last year.
- Golden State’s rookie, Stephen Curry, had his first real lesson on how to run a team tonight, when he watched Steve Nash rip his team for 20 assists with only 3 turnovers. Curry, himself, had 4 assists on 3 turnovers. The Suns won by 22.
- Cleveland FINALLY won tonight. Of course, it was against Minnesota, so I’m not even sure that will count in the standings. Oh, and Shaq played 19 minutes, scored 6 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. In 3 games this year, he’s averaging 9 ppg and 8 rpg. Anyone else starting to think that Ferry trading for Shaq was a mistake? Yes, it’s a long season, but he’s looking old and slow.
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