Season Review 2012/13:
Advanced Stats
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Numbers
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Rank
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Pace
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90.4
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24
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Offense
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105.9
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14
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Defense
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107.5
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22
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Rebound
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49.5
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21
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4 Factors
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Offense
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Numbers
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Rank
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Defense
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Numbers
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Rank
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eFG%
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48.8
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18
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eFG%
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50.0
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17
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TO%
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13.0
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5
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TO%
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13.6
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16
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Reb%
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25.5
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20
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Reb%
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26.6
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17
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FT%
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21.6
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11
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FT%
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24.7
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30
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Monthly Performance
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Record
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OffRtg
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DefRtg
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November
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4-13
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103.9
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108.2
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December
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7-7
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110.5
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109.6
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January
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5-10
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111.0
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111.4
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February
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7-5
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106.2
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105.1
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March
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4-11
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104.8
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112.4
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April
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7-2
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108.7
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105.1
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The Raptors came into the past season with
some expectations to be one of the Eastern Conference’s biggest surprises. After all,
with their new head coach Dwane Casey, the Raptors improved from being the
worst defense in the league in back to back seasons to a Top 15 team on
defensive rate in the previous season. This was a huge accomplishment, while
their biggest flaw (lack of speed on the backcourt) was corrected with the
signing of the underrated PG Kyle Lowry and the draft of Terrence Ross. It
seems like GM Bryan Colangelo was so obsessed in improving the team’s perimeter
defense that he had no problems in completely overpaying the forward Landry
Fields.
On the other hand, Andrea Bargnani was
always a major question mark in terms of his availability let alone his
performance levels, but the Raptors was going to receive the young Lithuanian
Jonas Valanciunas, who would be their post up player for the future, so they
had some legit expectations for the past season.
What was the reality? A 4-19 start! The
Raptors lost games via all possible scenarios, including three road losses in a
row by 32, 19 and 18 points at Utah, at LA against the Clippers and at
Portland; three losses in a row by 1, 1 and 5 points after overtime at
Charlotte, Detroit and San Antonio. It didn’t matter in what way, the Raptors
just kept on losing.
Toronto eventually improved a bit until Bryan
Colangelo made a big bet trade in January by trading for Rudy Gay, in order to
try to make a playoff push. The short term outcome of this trade couldn’t have
been better, as the Raptors won seven of their following ten games, three of
them by 4 or less points (100-98 at Indiana, 92-88 at NY against the Knicks and
100-98 once again against the Knicks). The franchise had finally their “closer”
for the present and the future!
The problem was that the Raptors won just
four of their following 18 games and their season was over, even though they
won their last seven games of the season to end it with a more respectful 34-48
final record.
A lot of things went terrible for the Raptors
at the end of the day…
Kyle Lowry didn’t have the breakthrough
season that people were expecting after a good season at Houston. He started
the season a bit out of shape and he was outplayed by Jose Calderon at the PG
battle in such a way that Calderon became the team’s starting PG. Lowry clashed
with head coach Dwane Casey, something worrying giving his previous track
record of clashes with head coaches (he had already clashed with Kevin McHale
in Houston and also with Lionel Hollins in Memphis).
Andrea Bargnani was an absolute cancer for
the team in every possible way and I’m not even going to talk more about this,
as it was the same old story that happens with Bargnani every season.
Landry Fields earns +6M$ per season, but
played just 20 minutes per game and averaged 4.7 points/game. Enough said! Even
though Coach Casey has never trusted on his rookies a lot, Jonas Valanciunas
showed some flashes that he can indeed become a key piece for the future of
this franchise, while Terrence Ross has never been used a lot by Casey.
Offseason
Report:
The Raptors’ biggest move on this
off-season was to get rid of Andrea Bargnani! Not only Bryan Colangelo was able
to find a team that would want the Italian player, as the Knicks also give the
Raptors some expiring contracts, their 2016 first-round pick and their 2014’s
and 2017’s second-round picks! Wow!
But besides that, Bryan Colangelo was
unable to do a lot more on this off-season, as the organization is full of
overpaid players, but the only culprit of that is Colangelo himself, as he was
the one who decided to give huge contracts to players like Landry Fields.
So, Colangelo spent the off-season in doing
some minor deals to give the Raptors more depth: D.J. Augustin, Austin Daye,
Steve Novak, Tyler Hansbrough and Aaron Gray. None of these players will the
team’s highlight on the new season for sure.
By the way, Bryan Colangelo stepped down as
Toronto’s president and he was replaced by Masai Ujiri, the former vice
president in charge of basketball operations in Denver and the winner of last
year’s NBA Executive of the Year Award.
Season
Preview:
The Raptors’ major “question” for this upcoming
season is to see if Rudy Gay and DeMar DeRozan can coexist in the same team. It
seems like every season we have this kind of question regarding at least one
team, with last season’s question being around Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings
in Milwaukee.
I watched several games of the Raptors
after the Gay trade and their offense looked awful with little flow, with just
a bunch of ISO plays by both Gay and DeRozan. Predictably, the two players will
get around 30-35 shots per game and if they keep shooting below the 45% FG
mark, then this isn’t a good thing for the team. Besides that, we are dealing
with two players that don’t set up their teammates, as 2.8 and 2.5 assists per
game shows that. So, if they are just going to be scorers for the team, then
it’s good that they are efficient on that at least, something that didn’t
happen last season.
Rudy Gay still needs to prove that he is a
“top player”. There is a negativity factor around him, as he couldn’t take
Memphis into the next level and so, this new season will be a key one for Gay
if he wants to establish himself as a top player.
Regarding DeRozan, something similar can be
said about him. His court vision is limited, he is a subpar rebounder for his
position, he can’t shoot treys (yet to reach the 30% 3pts mark in a single
season), and so he offers too little to the team besides attempting bad shots
after bad shots. To make things worse, after attempting 4.4 shots at the rim
per game in 2010/11, his numbers regressed into 3.9 in 2011/12 and 3.7 last
season, a terrible sign.
The team’s biggest hope will be in the
Lithuanian Jonas Valanciunas, who should be more ready to play in the NBA this
season. Last season was a tough experience for him, with a new country, new
language, new league and an inconsistent franchise that wasn’t a great host to
him. Dwane Casey unleashed him a bit more during the second half of the season
and Valanciunas performed well, as in 27 minutes per game, he shot 58.8% FG for
11.1 points and 6.9 rebounds per game. The key question for him this season
won’t be regarding his ability, but how he will get the proper touches in the
ball while playing with the selfish Rudy Gay and DeMar DeRozan.
But the key regarding Toronto being a
competitive team or not this season will be on Kyle Lowry. He averaged around
6.5 assists per game over the last three seasons, but that won’t be enough for
a team that terribly lacks playmaking skills. Dwane Casey has to find a way for
Lowry to get double digit assists per game or the Raptors’ offense will have no
flow once again. Lowry is yet to reach the 43% FG mark on a season, so he has
to focus more in other areas, where he is indeed a good player.
To complete the team’s lineup, Amir Johnson
will be the projected starting Power Forward and he has been a solid role
player in Toronto. He doesn’t need a lot of touches to score his points, as he
is a good finisher in pick and rolls, while he is also a solid offensive
rebounder as well. The problem is that he can’t defend without fouling (3.7
fouls per game in 28.7 minutes of action is too much!), so he desperately needs
to correct this issue or Toronto will struggle on this position this season, as
asking Tyler Hansbrough to have more than 20 minutes of solid production in
both ends of the floor will be too much for him to handle.
The starting lineup of the Raptors has some
quality on a conference that is getting more and more competitive as the
seasons go by. The problem is that the Raptors won’t have a B plan, as their
bench doesn’t have a lot of quality. The new GM Masai Ujiri won’t have an easy
task to build a successful team due to heavy inheritance that he is receiving
from former Toronto’s president Bryan Colangelo.
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