Thoughts on Raptors preseason

So much for posting more frequently... but I am back again.

The Raptors preseason is half over and we've had a chance to kinda see how the new players are fitting in. Yesterdays game seemed to be a step in the right direction, but they still have a lot of work to do if they're going to repeat as division champs.

Things I like

They finally look like they're learning to rebound. Out-rebounding 47-43 Zalgiris without Bosh in the lineup is a definate positive.

Despite shooting only 20% from three point range they still managed to put up 105 points, a lot of which came from the charity strip. Its good to see that kind of aggresiveness in attacking the basket.

They have gotten back to the team scoring that made them one of the more efficient offenses last year. Six players were in double figures and no one scored more than 13 points.

T.J. Ford seems determined to prove that he can be an all-star and the way he's playing he might be right.

Things I don't like

Bosh is hurt. Why does Toronto always seem to get injury prone stars?

Garbajosa might have come back too early from his injury. He certainly looks like his injury is bothering him. How long until he regains last years form? or did he screw himselft permanently?

Well it's official, Lebron James is not very funny. I caught most of his appearance on SNL last night and wasn't all that surprised that he's not a very good actor. Half the time he was just playing himself and not very convincingly. You know the host isn't very good when he or she gets very small parts and few spoken lines. Hopefully he'll watch a tape of the show and realize that he's better of if he just sticks to BBall and ad that don't require him to act. So he can avoid pulling a Shaq. But enough Lebron bashing, he is certainly an awesome baller and that's more than enough.

Sorry about the long hiatus, assuming someone was reading to begin with, classes and personal life snuck up on me. I am going to give this thing another try, we'll see how that works out.

So, training camp is almost upon us, anyone excited yet? I have never really understood why team would hold their camps overseas, see the Raptors. All that travel, plus the distractions of Europe just don't seem to be a recipe for productive training.

Anyone else worried about the potential injury woes for the Raptors this season. Bosh's foots kinda iffy, as is Garbajosa's ankle. They also had several players in the international competitions this summer, that extra wear and tear could be problematic. At least they have one of the deepest teams in the league this year, which means that they can weather any injuries, even to some key players, and still come out ok.

On a completely seperate note, my Sun Devils are 4-0 and ranked, which means they are due for an upset. We'll see if the new coach can do a better job of keeping them focused than Kotterer(or however you spell his name) used to. At least they seem to have learn how to play defense and that's never a bad thing.

Well, I'm out, night all.

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).