The Raptors appear cooked, and will be heading into an off-season fraught with questions about how to correct their unbalanced roster.
The Toronto Raptors are all but eliminated from the playoffs by the Cleveland Cavaliers. There’s no shame in losing to the defending NBA champions, a team which includes a major participant in any GOAT conversation, LeBron James. However, even without King James on the floor, Toronto’s problem with roster construction is exacerbated by Cleveland’s strength.
A huge hole
The Raptors’ linuep is woefully weak of 3-point shooting. Trading for Serge Ibaka late in the season was a move I supported then and now. While the price (Terrence Ross and a first-round draft pick) was reasonable, no one could have known Kyle Lowry would need right-wrist surgery and miss 22 games. His enforced absence was papered over, but there’s no place to hide in the post-season. Now he’s hurt again [20-second timeout: Tristan Thompson tossed Norman Powell aside under the hoop. Powell crashed awkwardly into Lowry, causing him a severe ankle sprain. How can it be that Thompson isn’t suspended?]
With Ross gone and Lowry hurt, the Raptors have no offense from distance. In the three pastings Cleveland has handed Toronto, the teams have scored exactly the same number of field goals(!), 119. However, 45 of the Cavs’ buckets are triples, compared to the Raptors’ 17.
DeRozan – what to do?
The Raptors also have a problem named DeMar DeRozan. He’s made himself into an All-Star shooting guard by relying on mid-range shooting and drives to the hoop, at the expense of scoring from deep. He ranked #73 this past season at his position with 33 made long balls, yet finished fifth in scoring at 27.3 Points Per Game (first among SGs, though the NBA’s site doesn’t make the distinction between S and P Guards).
I’m not suggesting DD should be traded. His skills are exceedingly rare, and can complement deep shooting positively. However, the Raptors need to find those players, particularly at the small forward spot, who can take advantage of the threat DeRozan represents every time he touches the ball. DeMar needs a dance partner who can be on the receiving end of a drive-and-dish, then rise for a successful corner-3.
Norman Powell has been tested at the SF spot, with mixed results. However, even if Powell pans out, the Raptors problems are far from over.
Big guys like to shoot
Channing Frye has hit 14 3-balls in the playoffs. He’s a player of a type becoming increasingly popular, namely, a “stretch-5”. The Raptors have no one like that, unless you want to argue for Ibaka, which I’m not buying. The Boston Celtics feature Kelly Olynyk off the bench in a similar role to Frye’s. The Canadian big man has drained 10 long shots for the #1 seeded Green Men, who are 6-3 so far in the post-season.
And speaking of shooting off the bench, the Raptors can only dream of a game-changer like Kyle Korver. Writing about that guy is a downer, so I’m moving on.
The Raptors may have the people in their system already who can step into the vacuum. Can Bruno Caboclo, or Jonas Valanciunas, become a stretch-4 or -5? Is Pascal Siakam the deep-shooting small forward of the future? We’ll never know until they are given the opportunity to pass or fail.
The heart of the problem
My fear is that our coach, Dwane Casey, is so fixated on defensive issues that he’s missing the train leaving the station. The NBA is movin’ on, to ever more 3-ball takes and makes. Whether Casey is on board remains an open question.
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