NEW YORK — It came in a loss, but at the risk of getting the Raptor faithful excited about this 8-14 team, a potentially successful approach may have been uncovered at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night.
It’s nothing earth-shattering or even novel for that matter, but it was enough that it kept the Raptors in a game against a team they couldn’t stay close to only three days earlier.
It was a steady diet of feeding Andrea Bargnani in the post and not only did it translate into a career-high 41 points for the Raptors former No. 1 overall, it created open shots for his teammates throughout the night.
With the ball in his hands for the bulk of the night when the Raptors were on offence, the big Roman attempted 24 shots, dished out six assists and was as engaged defensively more Wednesday night than he has ever been.
Don’t discount the former having a huge impact on the latter. It does, without question, especially where Bargnani is concerned.
Amar’e Stoudemire and Raymond Felton had the last laugh, of course, winning on a will-it-or-won’t it-fall three pointer that eventually fell for the Knicks, but seeing the feed-Bargnani approach pay out the way it did, you wonder how successful this might be against other teams if they stayed with it.
Bargnani looked very comfortable passing out of the double teams when they came and seems to thrive the more he is involved.
If nothing else, it can’t hurt to stay with it for a few games. It’s not like any other approach has been tremendously effective to this point.
— Mike Ganter
Posts Tagged ‘Raptors’
Feed the Roman
Dying by the three
There was a time when the Raptors were the team that gave opponent’s headaches with their ability to drain three’s.
That is no longer the case. For the past two games, the Raptors have died by the three as first the New York Knicks hit 12 to pull away and hide and then the Indiana Pacers nailed 13 from beyond the arc to make it back-to-back woeful nights for the Raptors.
The worrisome part about this is that both games, the very Raptors who let themselves get torched from the three-point line were drilled and schooled that this would be their downfall and they let it happen anyway.
Head coach Jay Triano says this is all part of the learning process.
Well, the learning process is now two games old. Game three is a return match with the same Knicks which bested them on Sunday.
Perhaps, as Jerryd Bayless suggested, the third time will be the charm.
It’s going to have to be, or Triano is going to have no other choice than to start considering new changes to his starting lineup.
— Mike Ganter
Davis’D-League stint encouraging
Just a quick hit today on Raptors rookie Ed Davis.
It was hard not to be impressed by Ed Davis’ two-game stint in the D-League.
Despite being out of action for quite some time, Davis was able to make shots, block others, rebound the ball and most interestingly to me, only pick up one foul.
Not fouling after all that time off is extremely difficult to do and bodes well for his future.
Davis will likely get a lot of minutes this year, though I’d expect him to be worked in slowly for the next month or so.
Though Linas Kleiza is better at power forward than small forward, a lack of depth at the three should see him mostly there backing up Sonny Weems. That leaves 15 minutes for Joey Dorsey as the starting power forward, Andrea Bargnani will get his 35 minutes at centre, Amir Johnson will get 25 minutes split between the four and five, Kleiza might see 5 minutes a game at the four, leaving 15-20 minutes for Davis, depending on the health of Peja Stojakovic.
Down the line, the Raptors desperately need a true centre (like a younger Brendan Haywood) to back up, or even play beside Bargnani.
Reggie speaks, Raps listen
Beneath the ever-present smile and the odd twist in the English language lurks a real leader.
Who knew?
Reggie Evans, based on recent events appears to have assumed the role of team leader in the Raptors locker room.
In the 24 hours between a game in Washington devoid of any effort or passion – Reggie’s summation but one shared by many inside and outside the team – the Raptors Energizer Bunny on the boards called his team together and let it be known that kind of effort would not be tolerated.
Effort was not an issue for the Raps that same night in a win over Philadelphia.
Now we are all well aware that you can only go to the well so many times with these team meetings.
This one was not only necessary, it was everything these things are at their very best: timely, well received, and effective.
Evans stepping up and putting it to his teammates in his no-nonsense way was the perfect candidate?
Why?
Because no one is going to point at Reggie Evans and say there is any other agenda at work there. There is no more unselfish player on the floor in a Raptors uniform than Evans. He does all the dirty work, all the grunt work and then hands it off to his teammates to finish it off.
Next time you are at a game, count how many times Evans pulls down an offensive rebound and kicks it out to someone else. More often than not he’s under the basket when he does this. A more selfish player would go back up and finish the play by himself, but not Reggie. He understands that possession has a better chance of a successful completion with someone else directing it into the basket. Yes, that is exactly what is being asked of him, but actually doing it and doing it without reservation immediately establishes his team-first attitude.
Evans sounded somewhat insulted Wednesday night after revealing he had called a team meeting when he was asked if he felt more comfortable doing this now that there’s no Chris Bosh or franchise player on the roster whose territory he might be trampling by calling the meeting.
“I don’t really care if Chris were here. It really don’t bother me because no one puts any fear in my heart just because he’s a superstar,” Evans said. “It’s just that it’s harder to address things when you are not playing. When you are on the court, you can let those actions by playing hard (back up what you’re saying). It’s kinda hard to do it when you’re not playing. They would all be ‘What are you talking about? You don’t even play.’”
In other words, Evans, had he been playing last year, would have been this voice then, but didn’t feel it appropriate because he was injured and not contributing.
A quick check with the likes of Sonny Weems and Jarrett Jack suggest Evans words were taken to heart..
That, more than even the win over Philadelphia that followed, make Wednesday a big day in the development of this year’s Raptors’ team.
— Mike Ganter
Raps need a voice
Here’s one you can’t blame on Chris Bosh.
The Raptors lack that necessary voice within the locker room. That guy that doesn’t allow the kind of mail-it-in nights the Raptors had in Washington on Tuesday.
Sure you can blame Jay Triano and his staff, but they are sending the message. It’s just not always getting through.
Monday in Miami after a spirited practice, Triano turned things over to P.J. Carlesimo for part of the post-practice here’s-what-we-need-from-you spiel. The message was the same one Triano has been delivering, but he was worrying it was falling on deaf ears.
Perhaps a different voice was the thinking.
Turns out the deaf ears aren’t just for the head coach and really you can say that about most of the teams in the NBA.
In today’s NBA, the good teams hold themselves accountable from within. It’s usually one or possibly two voices in the room doing that.
You can’t blame Bosh for this because he was never that type of player either so his departure did not change anything in that regard.
The Raps need someone to step up and be that guy. The young roster combined with the handful of strong, silent types in the room does not make finding this kind of guy easy.
But it would certainly be a worthwhile search if it meant never seeing the kind of collective shoddy effort the Raps put out on Tuesday.
— Mike Ganter
The talent gap
I mentioned this in the game story after Monday’s Raptors loss to Golden State but wanted to expand on it here.
Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis doing whatever they wanted against the Raptors didn’t just show us that Toronto’s defence leaves an awful lot to be desired, it also illustrated just how far the talent gap is between the Raptors and almost every other NBA team.
This was brought up in the Twitterverse Monday and it is worth thinking about: When the ball is tipped at any Raptor game this season, will the Raptors have the best player on the floor at any of them? Maybe Cleveland (Mo Williams/Anderson Varejao vs. Andrea Bargnani), I can’t think of any other team.
Kevin Love is a much better basketball player than Andrea Bargnani, Stephen Jackson/Gerald Wallace are better, Detroit’s aging vets and Ben Gordon are better and so on.
I wrote that Curry and Ellis are on another plane than the Raptors and it is true. These Raps are not playing with a full deck and that is why they are going to lose a ton of games this season.
How do they get better? They find two guys (at least) better than Bargnani (DeMar DeRozan has a chance to be better eventually, another one can come in the draft, another with the $14.5 million Bosh TPE).
Highly respected ESPN analyst David Thorpe alluded today that Bargnani is in over his head. He’s an (excellent) scoring sixth man being asked to do things he can’t that are required of starting NBA centres.
It’s not entirely Bargnan’s fault that he can’t do the things necessary to be a starting centre in the NBA (though he can try harder to grab rebounds and rotate faster), but it certainly is Bryan Colangelo and the Raptors’ fault for thinking he is what he isn’t and trying to make this round peg in a square hole fit when it clearly doesn’t.
There’s nothing wrong with being a 7-foot version of Jason Terry, as long as everybody knows you are the sixth man and there are 3-5 better players also on the team. The Raptors have miscalculated with Bargnani and the only other option besides upgrading the talent and making him a deadly sixth man (besides trading him) is finally finding a dominant defensive 7-footer that can anchor the inside and control the boards. But those guys don’t grow on trees.
Courtside returns, Tuesday in the Sun
When I started this blog about three years ago it was named Courtside in honour of the dearly departed weekly feature in the Toronto Sun of the same name.
I faithfully read Courtside for years and was disappointed when it was axed a year or two after I joined the Sun.
It returns Tuesday bigger than ever.
While doing some research for one of the pieces on it on the class of 2007 and the lack of extensions signed by its members, I came across this analysis by ESPN’s Chad Ford.
It got me thinking, having screwed up so royally by giving Joe Johnson twice what he is worth, Atlanta has priced itself out of being able to keep its current roster. Jamal Crawford will be a goner and one or both of Josh Smith and Marvin Williams will likely be as well.
Could the Raptors step in and grab either Smith or Williams with the Chris Bosh trade exception?
Williams is an underachiever but has a lot of talent. It would give the team both a maddeningly inconsistent yet extremely talented former No. 1 overall selection and the same type of player who was drafted No. 2 overall.
Smith would likely cost a lot more and is paid a lot more but would be a nice fit beside Andrea Bargnani.
He should have been a Raptor years ago, just like Al Jefferson, Andre Iguodala and/or Danny Granger.
To me, Smith is not worth acquiring if the cost is a top 5 pick in 2011 and the TPE, but if he can be had for a lottery protected first and the TPE I’d have to think about it. I would even think about Jose Calderon and Ed Davis for Marvin Williams and the TPE for Smith. Without moving Davis, acquiring Smith doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Would Davis and the TPE be too much for Smith? Considering Davis’ potential and far cheaper salary, it probably would be.
Just something to think about. There will be a lot of options of how to play the TPE chip.
Bosh fires back
Chris Bosh objects to the way his words have been interpreted.
Appearing on the FAN 590 this morning at his own request, Bosh said that when he told a scrum of reporters in Boston including a pair of Toronto reporters on Tuesday that “at the end of the day it’s about playing on TV” he wasn’t referring to the reason he left Toronto.
“It wasn’t in the context of why I made my decision,” Bosh said of those comments. “It was (about) the perceptions of players and how more popular players are considered better players (because they’re on TV a lot).
“At no time did I refer to that as my quote/unquote bottom line or the reason I made the decision I made,” Bosh said.
Bosh then took a shot at print media in general saying “most of the time” print media can misunderstand or misquote him. He said he will “set the record straight” as often as he has to.
Reaction to Bosh’s “clarification” after the show was mixed.
Some bought it. Some did not.
Our opinion? Not having been there, we don’t know exactly in what context the questions were posed and it’s very easy to try to shape one’s intent after the fact.
But we do know Bosh has managed to antagonize an entire fan base, and it’s not just the fact that he left. It’s the manner in which he left. The taunting tweets early on in the process set the stage for all this mistrust.
It might not be popular in Toronto, but when Bosh says he left for a better chance to win a championship, we believe him.
But for a smart guy, a lot of his exit has been handled very poorly.
What we do know for a fact is there is never going to be a consensus on Chris Bosh in Toronto.
— Mike Ganter
Looking ahead already as the season tips off or, what to do with the trade exception
I know it’s a little weird to already be looking ahead to the future on the day the Raptors start the 2010-11 season, but that’s just what I’m doing.
I believe the prognosticators have it a little wrong with these Raps – they won’t be anywhere close to 20 wins or less. At the worst, they win 25 games and I am going on record that they will win 32.
Where do they go from there?
Well they’ll need to increase the talent base substantially. They have some pieces to help build a core but need to add a top 20 player and another very good player in order to grow into even a contender to advance out of the first round.
Bryan Colangelo cannot just let the $14.5 million trade exception he got in the Chris Bosh sign-and-trade expire. Yes, it will save the team money and keep it far under the luxury tax, but letting it go will put the team in a bad spot competitively. I’m not saying spend it all, that’s reckless, especially with a new CBA coming in that will likely have a lower cap. It should be spent either on a solid player making up to $10 million a season – but no more – or it should be used to take on a player who is makign $5-$8 million for no longer than the next two seasons (including this one). That player would be one that is out of favour with his current team. He might be a guy who gives you nothing on the court, but by taking him you get a couple of first rounders in return. Those are valuable assets. The trick is finding a team that either is not very good and willing to trade a first to get rid of a problem (not likely), or to find a team that wants to get rid of a guy and already owns a first from a crappy team. Who might that be, I’ll save that for another post.
One other thing, the Raptors should avoid adding a good player with the TPE that will take them out of the high lottery this year. They desperately need to add a top 4 pick to their roster. No point getting medicore too soon and costing themselves a high-end talent in the process.
Enjoy opening night.
A correction, some Raps stuff some NBA stuff
First wanted to make a little correction to what I wrote Monday about Canada Basketball. I wrote the Canadian team was “terrible” in Turkey. That was a bit of fast typing, I meant their winless record was a terrible overall result. The team’s play was actually solid, considering the lack of talent on hand. They were in the games and with a few breaks going their way, could have had a couple of wins. They were competitive, even though a lot of the players were banged up and even though the point guard situation was pretty bleak. So labelling their play as terrible was an error on my part.
Hopefully the talent situation improves going forward, too many talented young Canadians have treated the national program as an afterthought for too long. Players need to realize that playing for their country will be a rewarding experience in a number of ways. Too many choose to pursue paths that they think will better themselves, when spending time with the national program during the summer would be equally – or more – beneficial for them. Players and parents need to learn to rein in their hype a bit and take a step back to think about what is really best for these kids.
More on that another day.
As for the Raptors, still can’t comprehend how they will win more games with Jose Calderon and Reggie Evans starting compared to Jarrett Jack and Amir Johnson being in the top 5, but Jay Triano and the team seem to like the lineup they have been running out.
In NBA news, Carmelo Anthony to New York seems to be inching along. ESPN reports a deal is getting closer with a package of Danilo Gallinari, Anthony Randolph, a first or two and Eddy Curry’s expiring contract heading Denver’s way. Denver reportedly wants to see Randolph or Gallinari pawned off for a high first from another team.