Bryan Colangelo has been doing a good job in making the Raptors a
competitive team and for the second season in a row, the Raptors went
to the Playoffs, just to lose in the first round. The team won the
Atlantic division two seasons ago with a 47-35 record, but their record
last season was just 41-41, far away from the eventual champions
Celtics. One of the main problems of the Raptors last season were the
injuries: Chris Bosh missed 15 games and if there were doubts about his
importance on the team, these doubts are now over, with the Raptors
going 4-11 without him. Also TJ Ford missed 31 games with a severe back
injury and he was never able to regain his old level.
It may seem weird, but the truth is that the most important player
in Toronto in the past two seasons was Jose Calderon, who isn't the
team's best player, but his development was way better than everybody
was expecting and from a backup of Ford, he has now become the team's
starting PG, which allowed Ford to become expandable. Calderon was the
main responsible for Jermaine O'Neal coming to Toronto, as if the team
didn't believe in the Spanish player, they would have never traded T.J.
Ford. Calderon was one of the main causes for Toronto to become the
league's best team in A/TO with a 2.13 ratio and he was also the player
on the league with the best A/TO ratio of the league with 5.38! For you
to understand how good this is, Chris Paul had a ratio of 4.62 and
Steve Nash 3.04! The most surprising is that we are talking about a
player, who averaged 30.3 minutes per game. Besides that, Calderon had
11.2 ppg for 51.9% FG, 42.9% 3pts and 90.8% FT! The team is trusting
him so much right now that they've offered him a contract until 2013
and without T.J. Ford on the roster, he will play more minutes this
season and it is expected that he has another brilliant season.
Chris Bosh has every reason to be happy with the arrival of
Jermaine O'Neal to the team. The Raptors were accused many times for
being a soft team in the paint and it's only necessary to go back to
their last season's Playoff series against Orlando to see that Dwight
Howard had 20 pts/20 reb games against them. Now with O'Neal, Toronto
will gain some aggressiveness on the paint. Bosh's numbers decreased
last season, as he finished with 22.3 ppg, 8.7 rpg and 49.4% FG and
with Calderon leading the team and with O'Neal on his side, he has
everything to have a good season. However, his main challenge for the
season will be to improve his defensive skills, as with Kevin Garnett
and Elton Brand playing on the same division of the Raptors, it will be
essential that Bosh is able to compete against these two players.
What Toronto really needs from Jermaine O'Neal is that he is
capable of keeping himself at 100%, as we are talking about a player
who has missed 122 games on the last four seasons due to injuries and
very few people believe he can comeback to the level he had in Indiana.
If he manages to regain that form, then Toronto can even be a contender
to win the East.
Even though the Raptors don't have a big star for the SF and SG
positions, both Anthony Parker and Jamario Moon are very interesting
players. Parker is a player with an amazing shooting ability (43.8%
3pts last season) and he is coming from a season, where he averaged
12.5 ppg. On the other side, Jamario Moon was one of the league's big
surprises last season and he was involved in some highlights with dunks
and blocks, due to his amazing physical condition and athleticism.
The Raptors have a very strong starting team, but they will
struggle with their lack of depth on the bench. Calderon doesn't have
an experienced backup, who could have an immediate impact on the game.
Ukic and Solomon don't have any experience on the NBA and it will take
them time until they are capable of showing their real level. The
frontcourt has just one quality backup: Andrea Bargnani, who is yet to
show why he was the #1 pick on the draft, a couple of seasons ago, but
the most concerning thing is that the team doesn't have a good backup
for the injury-prone Jermaine O'Neal. Do the Raptors really believe
that nothing bad will happen with O'Neal this season?
This team has conditions to do better than last season and win a
Playoff series, however everything will need to work well, without
severe injuries on their stars. The lack of depth on the roster is
something it should be solved by Colangelo and the Raptors will begin
this season with high expectations.
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