Dunk Base

The Toronto Raptors have made a lot of movies this off season and they've got a lot of their fans pretty excited, talking about the playoffs and 50 win seasons and offering to perform do things unheard of outside of Gilbert Gottfried's rendition of the infamous aristocrats joke to Bryan Colangelo for making it all happen, but I'm not completely sold yet. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see the Raptors do well; I'm not a Raptors fan but I am a Canadian and would be very happy to see the Raptors still playing in late April or even June. I'm just not convinced that it's going to happen, and I think that if it doesn't happen now it won't be happening for a long time.

I have to give them credit for recognizing that it's do or die time for them and for putting in a lot of effort to right the ship. For the three of you who have been living under a rock and haven't heard, Chris Bosh is opting out after this season and there are a lot of teams with a lot of money who would love to have him. If the Raptors are not a contending team, what reason is there for Bosh to stick around? NBA history is full of players who never won that ring because they stayed on the same mediocre team for too long, I think by now players are aware of this fact and are less willing to trust management unless they have proof that better days are on the horizon, so the big question is this: are these moves going to make a big difference or will it be more of the same?

The move getting the most hype is the addition of Hedo Turkoglu, who is a very good player but I don't believe he's the difference maker that people believe he is. He was the 4th best player when the Magic were healthy last season, getting bumped up a spot when Jameer Nelson went down. Despite all the hype surrounding him right now there is nothing I have seen from him which convinces me he is any better than Toni Kukoc was, which isn't bad but it's not the difference between 30 wins and title contention. Just to reinforce that point, here are Toni's career numbers compared to Hedo's career numbers to date: www.basketball-reference.com eerily similar.

The other move getting a lot of attention is actually one that I like a lot and that's the addition of Jarrett Jack. He's not a great player but he is a lot of the things that Calderon is not and does a lot of the things that Calderon can't do, the most important ones being the fact that he's tough and that he can defend. He does have one thing in common with Calderon, he managed to take TJ Ford's starting job. I think that Jack will make more of an impact than Hedo will, but that's just a guess with nothing to back it up.

The next two things that need to be mentioned are related and I'm not really sure which one should go first. I guess I will start with the good, which is the fact that a team which lacked toughness, interior defense and rebounding went out and got Reggie Evans and Rasho Nesterovic. Evans is one of the best rebounders in the NBA and Nesterovic has already shown Raptors fans that he is a capable interior defender. That said, I don't think their impact will be as great as it could be because of another move the Raptors made this off season: the extension of Andrea Bargnani for big money.

Don't get me wrong, I like Andrea Bargnani as a person. He seems likable, appears to put in a lot of work, really tries hard on the floor and stays out of trouble. Unfortunately I don't think he's a very good basketball player, at least not for the money he is paid and the role the Raptors appear to want him to play. He can be good as an offensive option off the bench, stretching defenses and causing a few match up problems, but as a starter his terrible rebounding and lack of natural ability as an interior defender really hurts the team. NBA history shows us that rebounding and shot blocking are two things that are, for the most part, innate. There are very few people who come into the NBA who go from being bad to good at either of them. That doesn't mean people don't improve in their own way, but the leap that Dirk Nowitzki made as a rebounder is very rarely made, and dramatic improvement as a shot blocker is so rare that I actually can't even think of an example off the top of my head. This is not good news for the Raptors defense and rebounding because you don't sign a guy for $10 million per season to sit him on the bench, they clearly want him in the game for at least 30 minutes per game. This means Bosh and Bargnani will combine for about 70 of the Raptors 96 big man minutes which leaves about 26 minutes combined for the best interior defender and the best rebounder on a team in desperate need of rebounding and defense. I don't think that's going to get it done so I think the Raptors will have to seriously consider cutting Bargnani's minutes to improve their defense, unfortunately I don't think they'll do it. So I guess that means their success is going to be determined by their offense, and with how bad their defense is likely to be the Raptors will probably have to be a top 5 offensive team, which means the big question is whether or not the addition of Jack, Turkoglu, Marco Belinelli off the bench and the rookie DeMar Derozan is enough to turn last seasons 22nd best offensive team into one of the best of the best. I'm not really optimistic that it's going to happen, and if it doesn't I think that means Bosh leaves town.

Here is the reality of the situation: the Raptors, bless their hearts, have laid it all on the line this season. If they're not a contender this year and Bosh re-signs they have more than the entire salary cap tied up in Jack, Bargnani, Turkoglu, Calderon, Bosh and Derozan. Bosh won't be moved unless they scrap everything and rebuild from the bottom up, Turkoglu and Bargnani will be so overpaid that nobody will touch them and they have no significant expiring contracts. The only real asset they will have is Calderon, if they can find somebody who wants to pay him almost $10 million per season badly enough to send significant talent in exchange for him, and I don't think that's very likely. The other possibility is Bosh deciding to leave. This means the Raptors would have about $38 million of their cap space tied up in Bargnani, Turkoglu, Calderon, Jack and Derozan for at least the next three years. With the cap being projected at $50-53 million starting next season it doesn't seem very likely that the Raptors will be able to land somebody even close to being as good as Bosh in the foreseeable future.

Of course, that doesn't mean that things are hopeless. The Raptors could surprise me, teams have exceeded all expectations in the past. Derozan could develop into an all-star caliber player. Bargnani could start playing more like a big man and less like Brent Barry. If Bosh leaves the Raptors could draft somebody who becomes the franchise player they were hoping he could have been. One of the things I love most about the NBA are the surprises that come along every year and the Raptors could very well end up being one of them but as things stand right now I'm not very optimistic about their chances for the next 4 years.

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