The Toronto Raptors compiled one of the better seasons in franchise history, moving within one game of the second round of the playoffs. Can this team get to round two this season?
What Went Wrong Last Season?
Not much went wrong for the Raptors during the regular season. Toronto won the Atlantic Division title and, in the process, won the third seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, complete with the right to have home-court advantage in round one. The Raptors developed into a very good team under head coach Dwane Casey, averaging roughly 101 points per game while holding opposing teams near 98 points. The Raptors’ three-point-per-game differential reflected how much they matured. This is a team that unified on defense, making very sound rotations and playing with great fluidity over the course of the season. Toronto made it very hard for opponents to score against them, and without an elite big man, that’s precisely what enabled the team to get as far as it did. The season was really a triumph and an achievement on so many levels.
However, the ending of the season was painful, and it represented how far this team still needs to go in order to become a true championship contender. The Raptors fell to the veteran Brooklyn Nets in the first round, failing to even make it to the second round, in which they would have been able to face the Miami Heat and gain the valuable experience of testing themselves against the very best. Toronto could have grown so much more from facing the Eastern Conference champions in the playoffs, but by staying locked in the first round, the Raptors missed out on a prime opportunity.
Why did the Raptors not win that series? Narrowly, they lost because they couldn’t get a basket on the final possession of the series, losing by a point to the Nets in Game 7 in Toronto. On a broader level, Toronto really struggled on offense. The Raptors endured prolonged scoring droughts in most of the games of the series: Game 1, Game 3, Game 4, and Game 6. The team failed to score 88 points three times and was trailing by a huge margin in Game 3 before rallying late. This team didn’t have enough good low-post options, and that mattered in the end.
Offseason Changes
The Raptors didn’t make a substantial overhaul of their roster. They did well to hang onto their high-dollar players, the young bucks who can keep this franchise in the playoffs. Toronto got rid of two slower veterans, John Salmons and Steve Novak, in search of building its youthful profile. The Raptors are hoping that merely sticking to their young core and developing what they have is going to be the straightest and surest path back to the playoffs and what the team hopes will be a much brighter future.
Projected Finish
The Raptors have Patrick Patterson, Tyler Hansbrough, Greg Stiemsma, Jonas Valanciunas, Chuck Hayes, Amir Johnson, James Johnson, and Lucas Nogueira as their big men. There’s not one particularly good player in that group, though some of them are very solid role players. Toronto will win its division, but it probably won’t be able to do anything more. It won’t get out of round one yet again.
Pick: Third In Eastern Conference
