Entering tonight’s action in Phoenix, the Raptors are 6-11 overall and have fallen from first in their division and fourth overall in the Eastern Conference (flawed or not) to a spot outside of the post-season picture in just a matter of days.
Many critics will automatically point to the man in charge, Dwane Casey, to explain the rough start. That’s the nature of professional sports; it’s easier to blame one man and let everyone else off the hook. But I have long preferred slicing up the ‘blame pie’ and handing pieces to anyone and everyone involved.
Teams don’t win because of one player or one coach; it takes a group effort that involves everyone from the last guy on the bench to the rookie assistant coach. If you want to point a finger at Casey, go ahead. Just make sure your remaining digits are locked and loaded for the players as well—everyone has played their part in the general malaise that’s currently hanging over Toronto.
It’s a cliché, but the most consistent thing about the Raptors is their inconsistency. Whether it’s the team’s inability to stay competitive for a full 48-minute game or the ups and downs of Rudy Gay’s season—on both ends of the floor—Casey is left scratching his head on many nights. Nearly 20 games into the season, he still isn’t sure what his team is and how they should define themselves going forward.
“When I find that out, I’ll definitely let you know,” Casey says. “We feel like we have a grasp of what we’re going to do offensively. As a staff we know what we’d like to do, but we’re not there yet. Defensively, we know what we want to do but we’re not there yet. We take two steps forward [and] one step back.”
Critics have said that Casey’s substitution patterns can be head-scratching at times. They’ve also laid fourth-quarter meltdowns at the coach’s feet. But a laundry list of issues points to the players needing to step up as much as—if not more than—their coach.
Kyle Lowry: His assist totals have been rising and he’s playing aggressive on the offensive end. But he still takes too many chances defensively and can get sticky fingers in crunch-time despite shooting just 40.4 percent from the field for the season.
Rudy Gay: He continues to struggle, mightily, with his shot and can’t seem to get a bucket within eight feet of the hoop with any kind of regularity. To make matters worse, he’s averaging 3.4 turnovers per game.
Amir Johnson: His scoring, rebounding, blocks and steals are all down from a year ago and he has now been moved from the starting line-up to the second unit.
Jonas Valanciunas: He leads the team in rebounding and has increased his scoring from his rookie season, but after a standout summer with the Lithuanian national team and his MVP performance at Summer League in Las Vegas, more was expected. He’s also still having major issues defending the pick-and-roll, often getting burned by the ball-handler.
D.J. Augustin: Coming in with serious playoff experience (from his time in Indiana) and the cache of having been a former starter in Charlotte, Augustin was supposed to be a legit backup to Lowry at the point. Instead, he barely sees the floor and has fallen behind both Dwight Buycks and Julyan Stone on the depth chart.
Steve Novak: He suffered through nagging wrist and back issues for the first few weeks of the season and is only now starting to find his groove. But his 36.4 percent success rate from three-point range is still well off the 42.5 percent he posted in New York last year and even further behind his career pace of 43.1 percent. As a marksman with limited defensively abilities, more is needed.
Tyler Hansbrough: He’s been thrust into the starting lineup over the last couple of games in an effort to provide a spark for the club. But in a perfect world, the gritty forward is probably best suited to a reserve role.
Terrence Ross: Seventeen games into his sophomore season, there are flashes of solid play. But they’re followed by too many poor shots and missed defensive coverages. He’s young and he needs to be given time to learn, but is also, arguably, Toronto’s top offensive option in the second unit—and, as long as Landry Fields isn’t seeing significant minutes, the top defensive option too. The responsibility means he needs to be better now, not later.
Those are just a few of the issues that Casey and his staff face every night. So if it seems, at times, that the coach is “searching” for the right combination of players, it’s probably because he is! I’m not trying to say that Casey is completely blameless but, rather, that no one connected to the franchise is.
To win, the players have got to want it—they have to sacrifice. As one Raptor put it about a week ago: “Less talk, more do.”