Season Previews Toronto Raptors

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This fall the Toronto Raptors will be sporting a new look that removes the color purple from the team's pallet. Launching a new look, along with brand new home jerseys, couldn't have come at a more appropriate time since there is very little about this new-look team that resembles the crew who finished 27-55 last April.

Gone from last year's closing night squad are Charlie Villanueva, Mike James, Matt Bonner, Rafael Araujo, Eric Williams, Alvin Williams, Loren Woods, Andre Barrett and (due to injury) Pape Sow. President and GM Bryan Colangelo promised a swift and thorough alteration at the close of last season, but no one could have expected what came next.

This season's team will include nine (NINE!) new players: T.J. Ford, Andrea Bargnani, Kris Humphries, Fred Jones, P.J. Tucker, Jorge Garbajosa, Anthony Parker, Rasho Nesterovic and Uros Slokar. It marks one of the most dramatic roster turnovers in the history of the NBA. Ultimately though, this makeover makes it very difficult to handicap this team going into training camp.



First of all, everyone is abuzz about the influx of European players. Looking at the roster, Bargnani, Parker, Garbajosa and Slokar are all coming off of seasons in the Euroleague, and returning point guard Jose Calderon is only one season removed himself. That said, the fact that there are five imports is slightly deceiving. Calderon does have one season under his belt, and looked to be adjusting to the NBA game fine before injuring his heel and never really regaining his step. Slokar will not likely see much time on the court this year, and Anthony Parker is actually U.S. born and has logged three (albeit unspectacular) seasons in the NBA. That really only leaves Bargnani and Garbajosa as the players needing to pick up the NBA style of play, and given that both have very a high basketball I.Q., the Euro influx shouldn't worry people as much as it seems to.

The real question about this team comes down to how quickly they can gel as a unit. The talent is there, but if talent were all it took to win NBA games the Knicks would probably sit atop the league instead of in the basement as they currently do. Last year's squad got along great considering their dire circumstances, but the talent just wasn't there for it to matter. This year they have all sorts of multitalented players, but how those talents mesh is what's going to determine their level of success.

If this team does coalesce early in the season, then all of a sudden the playoffs don't seem like such a laughable goal. In fact, as I see it, if the Raptors can do four things this year, they should be safely hovering around .500 and well within reach of their first playoff berth since the Lenny Wilkens era.

First, Chris Bosh has got to learn to rebound more consistently. Last year's 9.2 boards per game is nothing to sneeze at, but Bosh showed this summer at the World Championships he is capable of so much more given his speed and athleticism. By his own admission, he's just got to work harder to clean the glass, especially on the defensive end. For this team to run like it wants to, they have got to rebound more consistently, and while Nesterovic and Bargnani will also have to do their part at the centre position, it's Bosh that's going to log the heaviest minutes in the frontcourt, and he has to become the dominant rebounder he insists he wants to be.

Second, Morris Peterson has to stay efficient with reduced playing time. Mo Pete broke out last year, shrugging off his career-long bout of inconsistency by logging career highs in nearly every category. This year, he wont be asked to play the nearly 40 minutes per game he logged last year, if for no other reason than the team has newfound depth in the backcourt with Parker and Jones. He will still play a key role on this team because of his defense, but he has to be able to keep his game consistent even if he isn't getting the kind of time he did last year or else the team could regress back to not knowing which Mo Pete is going to show up on any given night. If he can prove last year was no fluke, the team will be that much stronger for it.

Third on the list is how quickly Bargnani can make himself dependable enough to log consistent minutes. Make no mistake, for all the talk about bringing Bargnani on slowly and allowing him to ease into his role on this team, if this team wants to make a run at the playoffs, they are going to need his speed and offensive ability on the court at the centre position as much as possible. Nesterovic is going to be a nice starting piece who can rebound and block shots, but he will slow down this team's fast break offense. Bargnani needs to be on the court as much as is reasonable to keep the team's offense chugging along, not only because of his ability to finish on the break, but because he is the team's best shooting big man. He is going to be needed on occasion as a zone-breaker since the loss of Bonner and James leaves Bargnani as one of the lone three-point threats left on the team. He doesn't need to become Villanueva, who ventured into the paint less and less and the season wore on, he just needs to hit enough to keep the defense from sagging into the paint and hounding Chris Bosh.

Lastly, this team needs to find a swing player to start alongside Peterson. Last year the Raptors tried teaming Mo with Joey Graham, Jalen Rose, Charlie Villanueva and Eric Williams, none with much consistent success.

This year the team will have to select either Graham, Parker or Jones as the starting two or three, and it must come down to one of these players earning it, not coach Sam Mitchell settling on someone simply because you need to start five guys. Graham has fallen out of favor after an unspectacular Summer League in July and will have to fight with second-round pick P.J. Tucker for minutes, so he's an unlikely option. Parker has all of the tools necessary to be a perfect fit alongside Peterson, as someone who can shoot, finish and even defend some, but there are lingering questions about how quickly he will readapt to the NBA that keep him from being a no-brainer starter. That just leaves Jones, who ideally would be coming off of the bench because every good team needs a sparkplug to ignite the second unit, but if he is forced into the starting five it wouldn't be the end of the world. It would make the team's backcourt extremely undersized, but Jones' defense defies his size because of his strength and quickness. If he or one of the others can step up and earn the starting spot, however, it would add some much needed stability to Mitchell's roster.

Like I said, there is no handicapping this team going into this season. They have absolutely no resemblance to last year's team beyond the five returning players, and even they will be changed by the overwhelming influx of new bodies. This team has an interesting mix of talent, though, and if they can get past the arduous first two months of their schedule without crumbling, they just might be a team to watch in the East.

PROBABLE STARTING LINEUP

PG - T.J. Ford

Ford is the team's first 'true' point guard since Mark Jackson, and he'll be asked to be the catalyst for their new run-n-gun offense. There is no doubt that this is a match made in heaven in terms of the style of a player matching the style of a team, but that doesn't mean everything is peachy for Ford. He still has to learn to hit the mid-range jumpshot consistently to keep the defense spread out on the floor instead of sagging off of him and tying up Bosh or Peterson. His defense is also less-than-stellar. He's undersized to begin with, and he doesn't make up for it like Fred Jones does with strength or anticipation, so that could be a sticking point for him this season, too. But those are two things that can come with time if he works hard at them. As it stands, Ford is still the best point guard the team has had, really, since Damon Stoudamire, in terms of impacting a game. He won't be scoring like Mighty Mouse did in his heyday, but his control of the tempo of the game, along with his awesome playmaking abilities will do a lot to dictate the character of this team.

SG - Anthony Parker

Like I said before, this is a very hard position to predict, but I think that at some point Parker will slide into it and keep it. He is a very savvy veteran player, who can flat-out score when it's called for. His defense won't embarrass him and his basketball smarts will help this team a lot in tight situations. Keep in mind, Sam Mitchell's Raptors are rarely blown out of games, and in the last two years the bulk of the games lost were lost in the dying minutes. Having a player like Parker on the floor will do wonders for the team's late-game execution and could be that missing piece in the starting line-up that can hit the big shot at the end of games without completely dominating the ball for the final five or six minutes.

SF - Morris Peterson

Peterson has inherited the title of Mr. Raptor with the departure of Alvin Williams this summer. He is now the longest serving Raptor still on the roster, and with free agency coming this summer, look for Peterson to do everything in his power to prove he deserves a nice raise at seasons end. Before it comes to that, however, Peterson should continue to be the steady two-way player he developed into last year, and with Mike James now playing alongside Kevin Garnett in Minnesota, look for Peterson to take over the role of second scorer to Bosh. Peterson is entering the prime of his career, and he's going to do what he can to make sure the team is good enough for people to notice.

PF - Chris Bosh

No real surprise here. Everything about the construction of this team is geared towards maximizing Chris Bosh at all times for years to come. If Peterson is to be known as Mr. Raptor, then Bosh simply is the Raptors. This team's fate is directly tied to CB4, and that simple fact is the reason he didn't have to think twice about extending his contract this summer. Bosh wanted to take the reigns of this team badly, and now they've been handed to him with a glittery new trim. The question now is can Bosh go from being a stellar player on a sub-par team to being a superstar who elevates his team to his level of play. This year will do a lot to answer that question.

C - Rasho Nesterovic

If we're nicknaming Raptors here, then Rasho may as well be known as The Stop-Gap. This position is being kept warm for seven-foot rookie Andrea Bargnani, and no one is shy about admitting it. In constructing this team, Colangelo envisions many years to come with Bargnani and Bosh leading the charge in the frontcourt. However, that is in the years to come. This year the spot belongs to Nesterovic. Rasho has had the good and bad fortune of playing alongside the league's most elite power forwards in Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan. It's been good because it has nabbed him an NBA title, but the guys he's lined up with have also vastly overshadowed him. Garnett would notoriously hound Rasho for not matching his intensity, and he lost his starting spot in San Antonio to Nazr Mohammed before being shipped to Toronto. However, none of that has anything to do with his time in Toronto, despite his critic's insistence. Right now, Nesterovic remains the first legit centre this team has had in a long time, perhaps ever. He is a fundamentally sound player who can rebound and block shots very efficiently. He does not need heavy minutes to have an impact, and even if he is rather unspectacular, he is literally light-years better than last year's option Rafael Araujo.