Raptors Season Preview Part 2: The Good, The Bad and The Iffy.

Did I mention that I’m very exciting about the Raptors possibilities this coming season, well I am. This season has the potential to be the best in Raptors history. Expectations are high; anything less then the second round of the playoffs would be seen as a disappointment. With the relative parity of the eastern conference, who knows what the ceiling is… finals maybe? But, before I go proclaiming them Eastern Conference champions, when training camp hasn’t even started yet, we should probably take a look at the factor that will affect their success.

The Good:

Let’s start with their most obvious strength, their depth. The Raptors have multiple quality players at every position, except perhaps center, which gives them several advantages. First, it means that they can weather most injuries without suffering too much of a decline in play, even Chris Bosh could miss a few games and they would survive. This also lets them play an up-tempo game without wearing their players out, which will be really helpful in back-to-back situation, especially late in the season.

Another key strength is the attitude and chemistry of the team. Pretty much every Raptors player has a team-first attitude and they all seem to like each other. This makes it very easy for the coach to make decision on playing time, based solely on who is going to help the team most. Sam Mitchell won’t have to worry about bruising someone’s ego because they didn’t get as much playing time as they thought they should have.

The last major strength is that the Raptors have some very talented young players. Chris Bosh is obviously the star of the team, he is one of the best power forwards in the league and he’s only 23. Last season he finally started to complement his already impressive physical skills with some developing leadership. Behind Bosh, the Raptors boast the best young point guard tandem in the league in T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon. Forward Andrea Bargnani is a 7 footer with legitimate three point, who is well on his way to becoming unguardable.

The bad:

Last season, one of Toronto’s biggest problems was their rebounding. It was a rare game in which they out-rebounded their opponent, many times losing the battle of the boards by ten or more. They really haven’t done anything over the off-season that would suggest any significant improvement in this area, so we can expect more of the same this season.

Aside from Chris Bosh, there are no players on the Raptors that can really be considered elite. This proved to be a problem last year in the playoffs, when they couldn’t really answer the challenge of New Jersey’s Kidd, Carter and Jefferson. This will probably continue to hold the Raptors back until some off their young talent takes the next step. Of course, there is no guarantee that they ever will.

The Raptors really don’t have much at center. I have heard that Bargnani is bulking up this summer, so that he can play the position. If this doesn’t work out the next option in Rasho Nesterovic, who is a decent player, but can’t really keep up with the pace the Raptors like to set. The other options would be to go small and have one of their power forwards play inside, probably either Jorge Garbajosa or Maceo Baston, but neither of them has the size or the post game to really be effective.

The Iffy:

Chris Bosh still has Plantar Fasciitis. If he can’t find a way to beat this nagging injury, it will hurt both his long term development and the team’s chances this year.

There are a lot of players on the roster who should legitimately be expecting significant playing time and there simply aren’t enough minutes to go around. You know Bosh will get the majority of the minutes at the 4 spot, leaving very little for the other 3 power forwards on the roster. The small forward position is similarly crowded, but the minutes will probably be distributed more evenly. It’s really not that bad from the teams point of view, especially if they are hit hard by the injury bug (knock on wood or something), but it will be disappointing for the players who end up riding the pine all season.

Chris Bosh's foot injury

News of Chris Bosh pulling out of the US men's basketball team has me pretty worried. He's had this Plantar Fasciitis for almost a year now and it still seems to be given him some problems. There's nothing worse than a promising career that's derailed by lingering injuries. Let's hope that the Raptors brass have enough sense give him the time he needs to fully recover from this, even if it means starting the season without him. Even though he is clearly the Raptors best player, they have enough depth to survive without him, at least for a little while and his long term health is far too important to the team's success to risk bringing him back before he's ready. Even if it means losing a few more games early in the season.

When will this go away already

Any else tired to this whole ref scandal yet? Call it apathy, call it indifference, call it what you will, but I simply don't care that one NBA ref was a little crooked. I mean, when the story first broke it seemed like the end of the NBA world. The whole thing was going to go up in flames on a pyre built by the unbelievers (anyone not a hardcore NBA fan). A ref had cheated, he had fixed games. Then it became, that Donaghy had manipulated the spread, to make money on gambling. Then it was that he was manipulating the over/under for the same purpose, which is not a big deal to anyone unless they were betting. Finally, unless he faces further charges, it turns out that all he did was give some small-time bookies some insider information. Apparently this is a major crime, since he's looking at 25 years and some hefty fines, but from the perspective of a non-betting NBA fan it's pretty meaningless. Really, who cares that he helped a couple of minor criminals make some money, wasn't the important part of this whole fiasco that he was altering the outcome of certain games, which apparently he wasn't. Can't we just move on and focus on more important issue. Like Chris Bosh's foot injury and how it might affect the chances of the Raptors winning the championship this year (in case you think I'm nuts, I don't actually thing their chances are all that great to begin with, but you never know).

Raptors season preview part 1: Off-season moves.

Just so you know I'm a Raptors fan, so most of my posts will be about them.

With the relative lack of Raptors news over the last couple of month, I’ve had plenty of time to think about the potential of the upcoming season. I’m excited. There are good reasons to believe that they will improve over last season and could easily win a playoff round or two or even three, who knows. In an effort to make the waiting more bearable and to spare my wife from having to listen to me blab on and on about how good I think the Raptors will be, I have instead decided to annoy a larger audience, you. That is, anyone who obsessive or foolish enough to be reading an NBA preview by some nobody, in the middle of August.

This first part will be focusing on the Raptors off-season moves. I realize that pretty much every sports writer and blogger has already covered this ad nauseum, but I guarantee that my analysis will be better thought out and more accurate, or at least slightly different.

The off-season has been pretty quiet for the Raptors. I consider this to be a good thing, mostly because I feel that the they have a good, young, promising core and are really very close to being an elite team. Whether Bryan Colangelo has done enough this year remains to be seen. Let’s start with the losses.

Lost FA Morris Peterson to the Hornets:

As much as I liked and respected Mo Pete, this was probably a good move for both sides. Aside from a couple of games in the playoffs, he never really seemed to understand what the coaching staff was trying to preach. It made no sense for the Raptors to spend their MLE on a player who did not fit in their system, and made even less sense for Mo Pete to sign with a team where he was likely to see limited playing time. Despite his frustrating inconsistency, (I could never understand how he could be so dominant in some games and almost invisible in others) he was still an important part of the Raptors franchise for a long time. I wish him all the best in New Orleans. Grade: B.

Other Free-Agents that are unlikely to return include, Uros Slokar, Pape Sow and Derrick Martin. Of these three only Martin had any impact on last season and that had more to do with his mentoring of the young PGs than anything he did on the court. Not resigning these guys frees up some roster slots for better players. Grade: N/A.

Trade two second-round pick to Pistons for Carlos Delfino:

Bryan Colangelo committed highway robbery here. Delfino is an under-rated player who never really got a chance to play under Flip Saunders in Detroit. Despite limited playing time and being generally neglected in Detroit, Delfino has managed to increase his PER through his short career. With more playing time in Toronto and in system that is a better fit, he is in the perfect situation to have a break-out year. Be ready, this guy will surprise you. Grade: A.

Signed FA Jason Kapono from the Heat:

I’m a little uncertain about this move, while Kapono can most definitely hit open threes, I not sure what else he brings to the table. Kapono is at best an average athlete (by NBA standards), but he does have a good work ethic and high basketball IQ, that should minimize this short-coming. I would probably feel better about this signing if the price had been about 1-1.5 million a year less. On the other hand, Colangelo has proven to be very good talent evaluator, so we will have to wait to see what he sees in Kapono that I don’t. Grade: B.

Signed FA Maceo Baston from the Pacer:

He couldn’t cut it on a floundering Pacer squad and that has me a little worried, but the Raptors brought him in to play a limited role at a cheap price, so it really doesn’t matter much if he doesn’t work out. Best-case scenario, he is an athletic big man who helps the Raptors keep up the fast pace while Bosh and/or Bargnani are out of the game. Worst-case, he pushes and mentors the raptor young forwards in practice. At least he will be quicker than Nesterovic. Grade: B-.

Signed FA Jamario Moon:

This guy is a complete wild card. From what I’ve heard he is crazy-athletic and driven, but still pretty raw. He sounds like an older, less polished Joey Graham, (do the Raptors really need another one??), but for the money that he’s getting, (his contract isn’t even guaranteed) he seems to have enough upside to be worth a serious look. I wouldn’t expect him to be a significant contributor any time soon, or perhaps not at all. Grade: B.

Since the Raptors off-season activity seems to be pretty much done, I’ll give them an overall grade of a A-. Mostly because Colangelo resisted the urge to move any of his valuable young pieces and managed to steal Delfino from the Pistons. Next up, a look at the returning players on the Raptors roster, expect it sometime is the near future. You know, whenever I get around to it.

Sorael, Raptors Fan Extraordinaire.