Toronto Raptors: The Center of their failures

The Toronto Raptors have discarded another center. It should come to no one’s surprise, as the man in the middle has always been the Achilles heel of the Raptors.

The Toronto Raptors needed just under 60 days to determine what any avid basketball fan could have told them. While he was signed go replace Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka, Alex Len, who signed a one year, $2.3 million deal, according to nba.com, was not going to give them the same type of production.

Len was never an adequate replacement for Gasol or Ibaka.  A former fifth overall pick back in 2013, Len is the very definition of a bust. His best season was the 2018/19 season when he was in Atlanta, when he averaged 11.1 points and 5.5 rebounds in 20.1 minutes per game. Since being waived by the Raptors, Len has signed on with the Washington Wizards, his fifth team in just eight years.

Len played in just 7 of 13 games he was eligible to appear as a Raptor. In that brief stint, he averaged 2.3 points, 1.6 rebounds, and 10.9 minutes per game.

Based on the offensive scheme that head coach Nick Nurse prefers to implement, Len was never really going to fit in. He is best used in the post, and the Raptors are a perimeter-oriented offensive team. Len is not a three-point shooter.

The expectation is that the Raptors will try to sign someone to help an undersized but productive Chris Boucher at the five spot as Aron Baynes’ usefulness has not been much better than Len was.

No one should really be surprised, as, for some reason, the Raptors are notoriously bad at figuring out who the man in the middle of their team should be. For every Antonio Davis or Jonas Valanciunas, there have been many bad choices made by this franchise concerning the center position. The following is a list of six of the worst transactions the Raptors have made concerning the center position in their franchise history.