The new season is here, which should be a time for optimism and happy thoughts, but the memories of the one past, and the way it ended, still linger.
The Toronto Raptors have some demons to exorcise and a lot to prove. Their season opener against the Indiana Pacers Wednesday night is their first chance to shed some of last season’s weight, but it’s a burden that they will carry for 82 games and into the post-season.
Professional athletes are a proud tribe, so it’s no wonder what happened to the Raptors— or what they let happen to them— against the Washington Wizards in the first-round of the Eastern Conference playoffs sticks with those who were part of it.
Pat Patterson was there. He still shudders at the thought. The way things went from bad to worse as they lost two games at home and then were humiliated on the road by lower-seeded Washington, trailing by 32 heading into the fourth quarter of Game 4. It was a complete laydown.
The hope is that going through that experience will make the Raptors a tougher, more resilient team, one that is more receptive to the defence-first preachings of head coach Dwane Casey.
Something needed to change, of that, there is no doubt.
“Yeah, the mentality we had in the playoffs, we didn’t play tough, we didn’t play strong, we didn’t play hard or with enough aggressiveness and passion on the court,” Patterson said the other day. “We pretty much gave up.”
But apart from that …
The obvious hope is that what happened not just in the playoffs, but over the course of the Raptors’ 13-16 finish (13-20 if you include the post-season) was some kind of glitch. That the true nature of this team is reflected in the 76-38 record (A 60-win pace over 82 games) the remaining core of Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, Jonas Valancuinas put together after the Rudy Gay trade in December 2013 through the all-star break last season.
General manager Masai Ujiri didn’t panic as the alarms were tripped down the stretch and into the playoffs. Instead he calmly calculated that the bones of a promising project were in place. Needed were a new set of tradesman to better execute foreman Casey’s bidding.
The blue-collar allusions are intentional. Ujiri didn’t add shiny, bouncy pennies in the off-season. He added high-grade sandpaper. Are the Raptors a better offensive team with the absence of Lou Williams, Greivis Vasquez and Amir Johnson? Given that they collectively made 304 three pointers – the NBA’s most important weapon these days – and newly arrived quartet of DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph, Bismack Biyombo and Luis Scola made just 141, you could argue they aren’t.
But there’s a belief taking root that they are tougher, more resilient group of basketball players than the group that ended last season in Toronto.
It’s all in theory, of course. In the past two seasons alone the Raptors have set franchise records for wins by being a top-10 defensive team with a stumbling offence and a top-five offensive team with a porous defence.
How can anyone trust this group? Which version will show up this season?
“Trust is a hard word,” said Casey. “I trust them because I see how hard these guys are working, but do I know exactly what we’re going to do and what we’re going to get? Offensively, no. I don’t think anyone in this room does.”
No wonder Casey has gambled on being able to make his team a more defensively sound crew than the one that gave up 107.7 points per 100 possessions last season, 25th worst in the NBA, according to Basketball-Reference.com. Ujiri has not so subtly told him he better get it done, giving Casey three new assistant coaches to work with, in addition to the new defensive-minded additions to the roster. If Casey can’t get this group to perform it’s hard to imagine him lasting the season.
Lucky for him that the character of the team seems to have shifted. Patterson said Carroll has been a revelation, for his determination to stick to the most basic tenets of team-first basketball. The former Atlanta Hawk gives Casey defensive options at small forward he’s never had before. DeRozan has similarly lauded Joseph, who should take a load off Lowry, who wore down at the end of last season, dragging the Raptors’ season down with him. Lowry embracing fitness in his 10th NBA season should help with that also.
Casey can’t say enough good things about the defensive presence provided by Biyombo and all Scola has done is successfully oscillate between being a superstar internationally and a role player in the NBA without a moment’s complaint.
Last season was a lesson in a team getting ahead of itself and being whomped for their presumptiveness. This season the pledge is to get lost in the process.
“We have to take every single thing, no matter what it is, day by day,” says DeRozan, who qualifies as the sage veteran as he heads into his seventh season, with his own free agency likely looming. “Everything, day by day. I think at some point last year we could have got too comfortable. We won a lot fast and we got caught up thinking, ‘we’re going to win this many games.’
“We can’t have that mindset. We have to be: ‘We played last night, we won, forget it. We’re 0-0, now we have to go out there and get a win. We need that old-man head. If we keep that mindset before you know it, we look up and we’ve exceeded our own expectations.”
What should those expectations be?
Their own expectations are high. They survey an Eastern Conference devoid of elite teams with the exception of the injury-weakened Cleveland Cavaliers and see an opportunity. They feel like they are a better defensive team and a more humble offensive one, more willing to do it by committee than via the isolation style they defaulted to too often last season.
“The East is wide open,” said Casey. “It’s there for anyone who really wants it. It’s wide open for a number of teams … We’re going to be in the mix, so why not us?”
Well, there are a few reasons, and all of them can be traced back to their meltdown in against Washington.
If that was a blip and they’ve learned from it, this could be the season the Raptors turn the corner from promising young team to a true contender in the Eastern Conference.
If it revealed a cracked foundation that is beyond repair, a roster reconstruction may be the only path forward.
