Today’s player review will be focused upon the Raptors 9th overall pick in the 2009 NBA Entry Draft, ‘Heir Canada’ DeMar DeRozan. Coming into his rookie campaign the expectations were high for the youngster, and in a Raptors organization desperate for a swing-guard the opportunity was even greater. From opening night, DeMar found himself thrust into the starting line-up, a role he managed to hold onto for the greater portion of the season. Although receiving starters attention, DeMar struggled to find consistency at any point in the season, which can accredited to being the 5th option on the starting unit. [...]

After being absolutely demolished by the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night, the Toronto Raptors entered Friday’s contest with the Denver Nuggets as the heavy underdogs despite being on their own home floor.  To help combat that, head coach Jay Triano made several changes to the Raptors starting line-up, inserting both Antoine Wright and Sonny Weems for rookie DeMar DeRozan and the flu-ridden Hedo Turkoglu.  Despite an incredible display of effort and intensity particularly on the defensive end the Toronto Raptors fell short 97-96 in front of a sold-out Air Canada Centre crowd.
After three quarters things seemed stellar in Raptorland, particularly [...]

Bosh, oh Bosh, where art thou Bosh? That is question that I am sure Raptors fans are all asking themselves -although in a much less formal manner – after
watching their beloved team get manhandled 119-99 by the Thunder on Sunday night.  From start to finish, the Raptors were never in it. Even when it seemed like they were on a bit of run they always seemed to be stuck by at least 9 points.
The Thunder, who improved to 35-23 with the W, seemed to have everything going for them.  Whether it was circus shots, an open three, or a questionable [...]

The 2010 Sprite Slam Dunk Contest will definitely NOT go down in the books as one of the most exciting dunk contests in the history of the NBA.  All four participants – Demar DeRozan, Nate Robinson, Gerald Wallace, and Shannon Brown -are all incredible athletes with the ability to wow the crowd, but for the most part all failed to do so last night.
The most impressive dunk of the night belonged to Toronto Raptors rookie Demar DeRozan who on his second dunk of the first round, utilized the help of Sonny Weems to finally somewhat wake up a crowd that [...]

Hey Raptor Fans. Just wanted to drop a quick post today to remind all of you to tune into the All-Star Weekend festivities this weekend live from Dallas. The weekend gets under way tonight, in direct unison with the Winter Olympics, should be quite the battle for viewership.
Anyways, here is a quick reminder of the Raptors you can expect to see as part of All-Star Weekend:
Rookie Challenge & Youth Jam
The Raptors don’t have players competing for either the Rookie or Sophomore team, but Chris Bosh has been selected to be one of the coaches for the Sophomore team. Should be [...]

Sorry for the recent lack of action here at Raptors Rapture guys, the internet at my house has been out of commision for almost a week now. Not only could I not write anything, but I had no internet for 4 days which is torture in it’s own right. I come back at a perfect time though, the Raptors have just finished up all of their Summer League games and it seems assured now that Jarrett Jack will be a Toronto Raptor.
Since the Summer League just ended lets take a look at who might make the Raptors roster, and those [...]

The Raptors second Summer League game airs today at 4 pm. The Raptors face a Pistons team that features NBAers Will Bynum and a favorite of yours truly, Sean Singletary and their rookies Daye, Summers, and Jerebko. The Raptors lost their first Summer League game to the Lakers in a close one, 85-84. The Arsenalist had a nice live blog of the game over at Raptors Republic.
Today the Raptors game will be streamed live courtesy of the folks over at Raptors Forum. Make sure to watch it!
Players to look out for:
Smush Parker: Looked alot better than Ukic in the first [...]

 After yesterday’s Doug Smith rip job, I feel obligated to point out that today’s column is actually quite a good read.  It usually is, by the way, and although I was a bit fired up yesterday over what I perceived to be a lack of appreciation for this great game, I still read Smith’s column daily, and more often than not I enjoy it.  Today’s is particularly good for an offseason effort, as he touches on a few subjects that are going to become a big deal starting tomorrow, when Free Agent negotiations begin.
First and foremost amongst those is Shawn Marion.  [...]

Tucked inside Doug Smith’s latest blog for the Toronto Star was this little nugget of information:
There are no plans at the moment to have television broadcasts of any of the games. Nothing from NBA-TV, nothing from RaptorsTV, nothing from There Are Too Many Channels In The Universe TV.
That means no breathless discussion of how DeMar DeRozan looked playing against true scrubs, no waiting for the broadcast of some game to see if Roko’s lost that ability to dribble out the shot clock like few other guards in the game.
And I don’t believe there will be an ink-stained wretch from Toronto [...]

It was announced late last night, via his twitter account, that the Raptors first round selection in this years draft, DeMar DeRozan, will be keeping the number 10 when he joins the Raptors. Ten was also DeRozan’s number in college at USC, so I guess despite all the craziness that went on at USC this year DeRozan still wants to keep his Trojan number.
Now that it’s official (kind of) I’m just waiting for the NBA Store to release the jersey so I can order one. They already released Griffin’s jersey, partially ’cause he was a lock to go first overall, [...]