Raptors Rapture
Fansided

Is It Time For Raptors Fans To Panic?

By Matthew Allman

facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 6
Next

Nov 4, 2015; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Toronto Raptors forward Terrence Ross (31) drives to the basket against Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dion Waiters (3) during the second quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

1. Offense

Let’s address the big elephant in the room: The Raptors offense leaves way past too much to be desired. What I mean is that although their offense isn’t terrible, scoring 101.6 points per game (11th best in the league), but with a team shooting percentage of 43.5 percent (good enough for 19th in the league), it isn’t good either.

There are some viable reasons why their scoring is so low, compared to last season’s numbers of 104 PPG and 45.5 percent team shooting (4th and 12th in the league respectively).

  1. Lack of continuity: For the first time in 3 years, the Raptors have had a major roster turnover. Gone from last year are Grevis Vasquez, Lou Williams, Amir Johnson, Tyler Hansbrough and Chuck Hayes who all, for better or worse, were a part of the Toronto Raptors’ best roster. Added are the defensive talents of DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph and Bismack Biyombo, as well as veteran Luis Scola and rookies Norman Powell and Delon Wright. It will take a fair bit of time for these players to gel together and find their offensive rhythm together.
  2. Lack of weapons: The loss of Lou Williams, coupled with inconsistency of Terence Ross along with the early season struggles of Patrick Patterson is extremely telling. Ross just recently came back from a thumb injury (more on that) and Patman can’t find his shooting touch, averaging 37.3 percent from the field, 32.1 from 3-point range and a paltry 5.8 PPG on the season thus far. With very few options off the bench outside of Cory Joseph, we can’t expect much else until they get things back on track.
  3. Lack of creativity: I don’t have the time, energy or patience to dissect Coach Dwane Casey’s offensive playbook. I actually wrote an article of why Casey sucks as a head coach The only thing to point out here is that Casey’s affinity for running horn sets, ISO plays and neglecting to include Jonas Valanciunas is really going to come back to haunt him late in the season. The Raptors offense get stagnate way too often and it’s puzzling way Casey does very little to correct that.

Panic Meter: 8 of 10 (we’re sweating here!)

Next: Strong Defensive Effort

Home/Raptors News