Early Team Profiling: Toronto Raptors (Current Record: 5-7)

C: Andrea Bargnani
PF: Chris Bosh
SF: Hedo Turkoglu
SG: DeMar DeRozan
PG: Jose Calderon

6^th Man: G Marco Belinelli

Key Bench Players: G Jarret Jack, F Antoine Wright, F Amir Johnson, C Pops Mensah-Bonsu

Bench Warmers: G Marcus Banks, G Sonny Weems, C Patrick O'Bryant

Head Coach: Jay Triano

TEAM LEADERS

Points: Chris Bosh | 28.6

Rebounds: Chris Bosh | 12.3

Assists: Jose Calderon | 6.3

Steals: Jose Calderon | 0.83

Blocks: Andrea Bargnani | 1.25

Overview: This team went through a big overhaul in the 2009 offseason in an attempt to keep Chris Bosh around and show him that they can build a contender around him. As it is, Bosh is the face of this franchise, sometimes quite literally because when he does his war cry he looks like a Raptor... actually he pretty much just looks like one overall. The problem with that is, Bosh is not a real superstar type of player. Can do anything and everything you want a post-player to do, he can be a first option, but in my view while he is a very good player, if he wants a championship, he's gonna have to settle and be more of a 2^nd option side-kick type. Think Pau Gasol with the Grizzlies, everything was based around him, they surrounded him with shooters, slashers, complimentary post-players, had a very good team built around him and his skill set, yet they were always at the bottom of the playoff pile. The Raptors do not have that player do not have that Bryant, Wade, James, or Paul type of player that could knock in the walk-off homerun when the game is on the line. Another situation if they can't find a such a player, (because really, how many are there in the league?) Toronto may want to try to find themselves in is a team like Detroit's championship teams (Billups/Hamilton/Prince/Wallaces), or right now, Boston's big three(Allen/Pierce/Garnett). They all have very good a slew of very good players, none of them were really true superstar types, but they all helped each other to win it all. No matter what team you are, that's not a bad situation to have because the goal is to win it all, right?

Offense: For now the Raptors are averaging 106 PPG good for 5^th in the league. Shoot's a combined 46% FG (11^th), 39% 3pFG (4^th), and 77% FT (7^th) so they're a very efficient offensive team. Andrea Bargnani is finally looking like the player they thought he would be when they drafted him 1^st overall back in 2006, he's second on the team scoring 17.9 PPG, shooting 47%FG, and 41.8% from downtown. The thing with Bargnani is that he doesn't really compliment Bosh's style of play. Both of them are face up post players and that's where Toronto is hurting the most in the front court. While Bosh does his best, Toronto doesn't have a true bruiser that does the dirty work down low(offensively you want size, a guy that could push people around, throw it down low to and let him do work on occasion) ala Kendrick Perkins, Erick Dampier, etc. Sometimes the best defense, is to make the other teams play defense. Get a team tired and frustrated down low, it could make all the diffrence at the end of the game. With that said, the Raptors play a weird combo type of ball, On one side and during certain sets they're very European. In other words, they're shooters first, do everything else second (Calderon, Belinelli, Turkoglu, Bargnani) . The other unit however, mainly DeRozan, Jack, Johnson, and Wright are more American street ball type of players. Sometimes they do combos like a Calderon/Jack backcourt, with TurkeyGlue/Johnson/Bosh up front. So far this type of versatility has been working... offensively. While Bosh is the go-to guy they use Calderon a lot for a lot of screen and rolls, or screens to open him up for jump shots. They use the screen and roll/pop in a lot of different ways. When it's in DeRozan's or their other slashers hands, Bosh and Bargnani screen and pop out. DeRozan has the option to either take it to the hole, or drive and dish. For Calderon & Turkoglu it's the opposite, set the screen and roll to the basket, or have Calderon and Turkoglu pop up for the J' or dish to an open teammate. Just your classic screen and roll/pop team. Very effective for what they have.

Defense: Defensively is where the Raptors are hurting, and bad. They give up 107 ppg, 47%FG, & 40% 3pFG. As I alluded to earlier, the Raptors don't have that bruiser down low that does the dirty work. Outside of Bosh, they don't have a guy getting down low and grabbing rebounds (Bargnani's second on the team with only 6.2 RPG as a team Toronto's 19th in rebounding!). Speaking of that, while Bosh and Bargnani are very good offensively, their defense leaves much to be desired. Barg's doesn't have the strength to bang down low, so he gets pushed around a lot, and while he's improved he's not a great shot blocker either. He's also pretty slow so defending perimeter oriented big men is a problem as well on his man and stepping in to clog the lanes. Subjected to dumb fouls as well. He's pretty bad overall defensively. As for Bosh, he has the speed and athleticism to counter the perimeter big men, good help defender, is a good weak side shot blocker, gets his fair share of steals for a big buy, but his one on one defense is hurtful. He has trouble against real low-post players, and against lower tier teams this is fine, but the real contenders have those guys that can really play their backs to the basket so this is a problem in the long run. Turkoglu, offers a lot of offense, but just Barg's, doesn't offer much defensively. He's smart, crafty, has length, always puts a hand up, and he tries so that's good, the problem is his foot speed, the other thing higher-tier teams have good slashers on the wings and that's what kills him and the Raptors. Their perimeter defense is no better, Calderon and DeRozan aren't lockdown defenders, so the Raptors rely on a lot of help defense... something they don't do very well. Nothing really to offer from the bench either, Jarrett Jack showed to be a good defender in Indiana, but so far he has been horrendous with the Raptors. For whatever reason coach Triano likes to play Calderon and Jack at the same time, and that has been very very very very bad for them.

As recently identified in the True Hoop Article: What’s Working For The Raptors, when Jose Calderon and Jarrett Jack on the floor together, the Raptors are surrendering 136.8 points per 100 possessions. Now that’s unbelievably bad! It’s historically bad! - Source

They don't have anyone on their bench that helps in this regard either. Head Coach Jay Triano has said that they're working on their help defense because no one's concerned about them scoring, but we have yet to see anything from that. Granted, it's still early, so forward progress can still happen, but the Raptors really can't afford to dig themselves a deep hole early, especially if they don't want Bosh to leave. At the very least, get a shot blocker down low, a last line of defense, someone that can be left on an island alone defensively in the post, because when you double and help you have to rotate, the Raptors have shown to be far from being aware defensively to do that consistently.

TPD's Final Opinion: The obvious: Lots of offense, very little defense. The Raptors have a lot they could offer up. Boston pretty much gave away their entire roster for KG and Allen, so I don't see why Toronto can't do the same for Bosh. But if they don't want to go to that extreme, really the Raptors only need a few pieces. The problem is finding the right ones. The league is rather thin in the Raptors area of needs. Big effective bruisers are really hard to come by because for whatever reason, big guys are coming in (seeing it in a lot of HS & college players now as well) wanting to shoot more and more. The shooting guard position could stand to be upgraded as well. I like DeRozan a lot, loads and loads of potential, but Bosh wants to win now (I don't know, maybe make a play for Rip Hamilton?), otherwise DeRozan's going to have to start progressing, fast.