This offseason, we at Gino's Jungle would like to think we have covered everything from A to Z when it comes to the Boston Celtics. With the regular season tip-off quickly approaching we decided it was time to take a look at the enemies. For the next five weeks we will be giving you the down low on all thirty teams in the NBA. We'll be doing this somewhat in conjunction with Celtics Blog's NBA team previews.
Team Name: Toronto Raptors
Last Year's Record: 40-42
What did they do this offseason?
Umm, can I answer this question by saying absolutely nothing? Actually, scratch that, my final answer is: nothing good. This offseason was a nightmare for the Toronto Raptors organization and its fan. It all started when the overrated face of their franchise decided to take his talents far south from Toronto and join the two superstars in South Beach.
The “guy who got kneed in the balls by Paul Pierce” left the city of Toronto, practically kneeing the city of Toronto in the balls. The feeling of fans in Toronto is very similar to that of fans in Clevelend following the departure of the self-proclaimed king.
Aside from Bosh’s departure things didn’t get any better for the Raptors. Both Hedo Turkoglu and Antoine Wright found new homes outside of Toronto. By losing all three of these guys Toronto found themselves in a bad situation with no hope of adding a true superstar to their team. They also found it very difficult to add “solid” players because there weren’t many of them around, and those that were available didn’t see Toronto as the most attractive destination.
The Raptors ended up bringing in Linas Kleiza, Leandro Barbosa, and Julian Wright to help form a somewhat decent NBA roster.
What will they be good at? Bad at?
With the roster that they currently have assembled, the Raptors will find it hard-pressed to be good at anything this season. Their offense is far from superior, the defense is nothing that catches your attention, and everything else will be average at best.
The one weakness that I can pinpoint is going to be their inability to score points. If you look up and down this roster there is nobody that jumps out at you as a true scorer. You have to wonder how this team will score points. Maybe they’ll prove me wrong, but I won’t be surprised if they struggle to put up 80 points on many occasions this season.
What should we expect from the Raptors this season?
Improvement throughout the season is all you can hope for if you’re a Raptors fan or part of the organization. It’s plain and simple, this roster is not anywhere near ready to be a contending team in the NBA. If they can show steady growth over 82 games, they may be able to put together a competitive roster for the 2011-2012 season.
The Expert's Take: (Raptors HQ on goals for this year’s squad)
Bryan Colangelo would probably answer this question by saying the goal is to make the playoffs. Yes, that's always a nice thing to say to the media, but frankly this to me looks like a rebuild situation for the franchise. Therefore I think the main goal for this club should be player development. Guys like Sonny Weems, DeMar DeRozan, Ed Davis and even Joey Dorsey etc need coaching and experience as well as adequate playing time so hopefully Jay Triano and his coaching staff provide these things next year. The truth is that no one really knows if guys like DeMar or Weems have what it takes to be stars in this league, let alone solid role players. If this team wants to rebuild, it needs to sort out the true potential building blocks from the fringe types, and this should start this season.
Final Prediction: 20-62 (Last in the Eastern Conference)
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