Sorry in advance if I don’t finish this article because my conditioning is totally off, it’ll probably take me till mid-November before I can write a grammatically correct sentence but I’ll try.
We should’ve taken those early pre-season games more seriously, we could use a couple right now just so Triano can validate whatever he’s teaching in a real setting without it having to count against the record. Forget about the defense for a second, we get the gist of what he’s trying to do there, the talk is that everything’s just dandy and if it weren’t for that gosh darn fatigue, we’d be solid as rock. The question is what the offense will look like. He acknowledged as recently as a week ago that absolutely no work was being done on that side of the ball and that he was quite pleasantly surprised how easily the team was scoring just by making basic reads. That’s the extent of what our offensive preparation has been. When Triano finally does call his first play, it’ll be against the Cavaliers.
There are too many questions and not enough answers with this team. Just like last year, we’re hoping for average players to have great years, if not career ones. Last year we handed the brunt of the wing burden to Kapono and Moon, hoping that a year’s worth of experience and some new thinking on part of the coaching staff could break them out of their ruts and convert them into real players. It didn’t happen, this year you can replace Kapono with Belinelli and Moon with Wright. Throw in DeRozan instead of Parker and although the rookie is a long-term upgrade, he is a complete X-Factor in the short-term. If you consider the best-case scenarios for these players, all is roses, but if you start thinking average ones, we’re in a heap of trouble with the burden falling on our big three.
I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic. From what I’ve seen of this team so far, we are nowhere close to being prepared enough to play high caliber teams and it’ll be nothing short of a small miracle if we don’t get murdered in the first dozen games. That early schedule is so tough that we’d have to be scrimmaging from day one of training camp to have a chance at full preparedness. The key will be to maintain effort, not let your head hang, keep faith in your system, and keep on running what you’re told to run. The good part about such a brutal stretch is that we’ll get to see the inner core of what this Raptors team is made of.
With so many questions hanging around, Bosh was asked to pick which one is most urgent:
“I think just our conditioning level. I think we get a little tired, the ball stops moving and we don’t make smart decisions on defence and offence. On offence anything can happen, but we have to stay solid on the other end and there were a couple of sequences in Sioux Falls where we gave up a lot of second chance points. It’s all about chemistry and a little bit of conditioning too. The coaches understand that and we did a lot more running today. We have to challenge each other and really push ourselves to get to the point where we’re not making those mistakes.”
Practical scrimmaging, yes, we need more of that. Triano’s early philosophy was to teach and then practice, and a lot of time was spent in the classroom, perhaps it should’ve been teach while practicing. Nothing improves chemistry like scrimmaging and from what we’ve seen thus far, we got a long ways to go. But as I said, we’re about to get baptized by fire in the first two weeks so that should be fun. Oh, BTW, I can already hear the excuses from all the major media types about the team.
Turkoglu also spoke about the conditioning:
“It was really important for our team, conditioning-wise to be really effective on both ends of the court. We are young and athletic and we really need to take advantage of that on both ends of the floor. Getting stops, we have to outrun people on the other end and we have to run back on defence, too. All-around it was a good conditioning practice….We are still not 100% on our conditioning. All around, fatigue or carelessness, we have to be smarter in those situations. Especially at the end of game situations. I know fatigue is going to be there all of the time when you’re playing hard, in a last game situation. That’s why we are working right now on conditioning wise, so we don’t have that fatigue problem at the end of games.”
OK, fine, but this is getting a little ridiculous. I’ve scoured other NBA teams’ blogs and not anywhere did I find conditioning to be such a major issue. Really hoping this gets sorted out in the next few days but not exactly sure how long it takes or should take to get ready for game-shape, maybe someone else can comment.
Triano on why this team can’t throw a rock in the ocean:
“I think it’s a lot of our guys trying to find rhythm right now. They’re trying to find out where they are going to get their shots from. We’ve got some guys shooting shots they won’t take during the regular season and I don’t want to take that away. Guys spend all summer working on their game and this is the chance to show it. Now is the time to tighten the screws as far as who is allowed to take what shot. Do I want to shoot threes? Yes. Do I want to shoot a better percentage? Absolutely. I thought our looks in Minnesota were good looks. I thought we had wide open looks and I cant ask for more. We’ve got to make them.”
That quote can be better summarized by: We didn’t make shats.
Earth to Marco Belinelli – wake up and do something, this is his statline from our four game losing streak.
Min FG 3Pt FT +/- Off Reb Ast TO Stl BS BA PF Pts BOS 14:41 1-5 0-1 0-0 -3 0 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 2 HOU 26:59 4-9 0-0 0-0 -5 0 2 4 2 4 0 0 2 8 BOS 19:01 1-2 1-1 0-0 -4 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 1 3 MIN 8:32 0-1 0-1 0-0 -1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
Is this guy going to make me miss Kapono? We’re counting on him to be an efficient scorer – low shots, high productivity, good athleticism and acceptable defense. If he can’t provide that spark off the bench we’ll be left asking too much of Jack, who is not a scorer but a playmaker. Belinelli’s a player that needs to be harnessed properly, if you ask him to go out there and play by making “reads”, you’re asking for trouble because his idea of a good read is a fadeaway three. I kid you not. Triano’s got to channel his ability properly, easily one of his biggest challenges. Here’s Triano saying that the reason Belinelli only played 9 minutes against the Wolves was because he was trying to get Wright some run:
“He wasn’t playing well. The last game was a little tougher because we wanted to get Antoine as much run as we could and find out where he was fitness-wise because that was the only game we had that chance. Marco played a little bit earlier and we had a chance to see what he could do.”
So while the team’s working away on conditioning and trying to run three suicides without collapsing, there’s also the question of the backup big. Early money was on Reggie Evans and he played as advertised, but you realize the reason he was only playing 14 minutes in Philly was because he’s tops on the team in fouls per 48. Although the rebounding and tenacity is welcome, you can’t rely on him for scoring, put-backs and block shots, which is where Amir Johnson comes in. Belinelli is my first concern but Johnson is a very close second, I’ve already pointed out his rebound positioning problems, weak finishing, unrefined post-moves and a shifty jumper, but the good news is that he’s not far off from making an impact. It comes down to the instruction provided by the coaching staff and whether they can convey to him what he has to do in order to play smart positional defense which maximizes his athleticism and reach, something he has in spades. As A-Dub told me, he’s this close to being Jerome Moiso and this close to being Keon Clark.
On to a sickness note, Jarrett Jack, Antone Wright and Alex English weren’t with the team on Sunday. They called in sick and the team didn’t reveal anything about it being the flu or not.
Other than mulling over stuff like this, all we can do is wait. And make predictions. Opinions of what this team is capable of seem to be divided and instead of sitting on the fence, it’s time to commit and answer 10 questions. This will serve as official record.
34 Raps
A Tip of the cap to you Mr. Arsenalist
If even the team did not have conditioning isssues, they will still have subpar stats at the end of the season(a 4th-5th seed in the East and a second round loss, if you call that an achievement for a 15 year-old team, smh). The players in this team have no heart(except Reggie, wish his attitude was infectious), no “I am a winner” mentality and no passion for the game. The way out for this team is getting an array of consistent 3 point shooters and an imposing low post defender ala Orlando’s system, a proven GM and a proven coach(like Flip Saunders) learning crazy systems like the Triangle offense and systems shooting 3s to punish opponents for “blown defensive assignments”. I will keep on preaching about this until someone lends support. Preach!.lol.I wish I can own this team today and buy it from MLSE. MLSE sport teams really suck. Ever wonder in 15 years why only the Jays have won 2 World Series(2 series in 15 years is no way close to when San Antonio Spurs can win 4 rings in 7 years or when New England Patriots won the Superbowl 4 times in 5 years or Boston having 17 Championship Banners on their rafters or Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees being perennial title contenders)?. MLSE only cares about their profit and not if their teams win or not.Even if I have money now to buy the Raptors hypothetically, I would get a basketball team into Winnipeg instead and incorporate my ideas. The city of Winnipeg is nice(the coldness in temperature is an exception), if you guys can make a visit to the city for a week or two, please do so before you die in the future. The downtown is really clean, nice and well organised, what more could you want?
Yesterday, I spoke to all of the players in the league and they all said “that they are in the best shape of their lives” and that their team chemistry is “amazing.” They wondered aloud why the Raptors are in such “bad shape and lack any team chemistry whatsoever.” They aluded to the fact it must be a Canadian thing.I couldn’t agree more…those damn lazy Canadians!
Just for the record…the comment above is pure sarcasm.
Arse .. the results of conditioning only shows up after 8 weeks intensive work .. soooo …. these guys will be ‘conditioning’ themselves during the first 2 months of the regular season..???!!!
The team has not yet gelled, and the chemistry has not been established … which again will take 2 months into the regular schedule to see if anything clicks. Don’t count on it.
It now sounds as if you are coming back to reality about this group of players, and I hesitate to call them a ‘team’ yet …. because they are not fully prepared to compete at the highest level in the NBA.
No wonder BC signed up JT as head coach because no self-respecting established NBA coach would want to land in this bucket of sh!t in Toronto.
Look to Bosh padding his stats regardless of how the team plays … and possibly even publicly pushing BC for a trade after the first 33 games, taking us to January 2010 … what else can he do ..???!!!
Alright, you made your point. I tend to agree with the 8 weeks bit and I also agree that the team hasn’t gelled yet and that the chemistry isn’t there. Not sure if it’ll take 2 whole months for that to happen, but that could be debated.
There are only 30 head coaching jobs out there and I’m sure that most unemployed coach would love to interview for a head coaching position.
If the team fails, then I think Bosh will be traded so he won’t be here to pad his stats but I catch your drift.
Now, don’t repeat what you said in this post in different flavors. I think everybody knows exactly where you stand and I know it’s painful for everyone to get till Wednesday but let’s all just try and get through this. We’ll know all about this team over the next few weeks….patience….
Arsenalist, I agree with you that “if the team fails, then … Bosh will be traded”. That is why I’m already disappointed with our Raptor players. They all knew what the schedule was early in the summer. They all should’ve concluded that only showing up to training camp at the optimal weight & conditioning was going to work in our favour. Shame on any of them that are sucking air at any point on Wednesday. This has been absolutely the wrong way to start a new season. If I had to bet the home right now, I’d bet that we’ll get too far behind record-wise and end up having to trade Bosh under the wrong circumstances. Too bad. I love this team, but …
Arse .. then just admit this is a ‘development’ team only intended to get the Raptors through the 2009-10 season, and then it gets blown up again after the 2010 max player bazaar … because there are going to be good players floating around after the contending teams don’t renew contracts as they pick up the coveted max players.
I suspect BC is lining himself up to snatch several good players after Bosh departs and then build around the Barg, Jose, Jack, Hedo core.
Why would I admit to that? There’s absolutely no proof whatsoever suggesting anything close to that.
Hedo, Calderon, Bargnani, DeRozan and Jack are in long-term contracts with Bosh being the only major question mark. In fact, you could argue the opposite of what you’re saying, that we have a core locked up regardless of whether Bosh leaves (assuming we get somewhat decent value). Unless by “blowing up” you mean replacing parts of your 8-15, then no, nothing will be blown up regardless of how things work this summer.
Of course, this team could SUCK and finish with 30 wins and in that case things have to be reevaluated completely, but I don’t see us being this bad unless Triano turns out to be a really shitty coach.
Just got word that Raptors Intro song will be “O Fortuna”
I don’t care whether the team has gelled or not, I want to see some passion on the court and feeling when they lose instead of feeling okay after a loss. We paying these guys millions to not compete or make or fake an attempt to compete.That is bulls**t. Same shit different toilet(like last year).I’m sure Colangelo would blow up this team again, but his crush on Bargnani – a defensively deficient centre is the beginning of troubles. Which team starts a defensively deficient centre in the NBA? None. No wonder, we are a laughing stock in the NBA. Sell Bargnani for cents on the dollar(I don’t care about his being a #1 pick, lots of litters of #1 picks that have not realized their potential e.g. Oden(until he plays well this year and he was injury-free last year for the critics)) and Bosh and start rebuilding all over again. Get an array of consistent 3 point shooters and a low-post presence and we can talk. Right now, I cease supporting the Raptors(though my heart is still with them). I’m supporting the C**tics just like Manchester United. I support winners. Good luck with heart-aches this year, my fellow Raptors fans.
I read Hedo’s comment as saying that good teams outwork their opponents. If the Raps want to be good they need to work harder. He’s couching it in the language of “conditioning”.
One way that you can look at it, and this may be a leap, but…
The Raptors are going for the playoffs, and they’re looking to go far. What do you think the scouting report for the team is? What do you Cleveland is thinking?
So when Cleveland comes into the ACC and the Rapz completely go against the scouting report..
It might be a stretch.. but..
it’s a stretch
other teams’ scouting reports look something like this, i’m thinking:
‘try.’
that should suffice.
Yertu,
That’s good stuff.
K i think we’re jumping to conclusions no? I liked what I saw from Bosh the last couple of games, with the last ending in an easy double-double. Turk has been excellent so far, (when he’s ready). And Calderon has been showing a very nice, aggressive side. He’s looking more to score than to only make plays for other people.
On a side note, Belinelli has been terrible so far, showing why he got easily traded from Indiana. We’ve seen flashes of what he can do, but never in a consistent fashion. The potential is there, it’s a question of making the right decisions.
I hope to God that Jay knows what he’s doing. The way that all of the Raptors appear so casual and not worried makes me think that the new plays we are going to see might actually be effective. Big point here, is that Reggie Evans is back for the reg. season (as far as I know), or at least until a couple games in. We’ll be counting on him for interior presence.
The bench has been extremely questionable, and makes me worried. Due to the fact that they’re barely ever going to play.. not all that worried.
So nice post, but I don’t think it’s time to throw up those extreme warning signs yet.
Nitpicking…but Beli came from Golden State.
Bosh’s double double was against Minie’s bench,and by the way we lost again.
I laugh when I read Bosh saying the ball is sticking …no shit !!!
Drop a dbl dbl against,the C’s,Cavs,Lakers ,Spurs,or any other above 500 team,and I’ll be impressed,until that time comes…
I want to remain positive,but until I see something that gives me that feeling…
What’s all this conditioning talk? are they not professional athletes?
Excuse after excuse I dont buy it…
Bosh, Turkouglu and Wright missed a large portion of training camp due to injury or other factors(Turkoglu). Every single team is still working on conditioning. Unless some teams started training camp at the beginning of September. As you mentioned previously, it takes two months for conditioning to kick in. This must mean that while the Raptors were taking the summer off eating hot dogs and ice cream, gainging weight and getting out of shape, every other player was training vigorously. Those damn, lazy Canadian players. Sarcasm…for those who missed it.
I trained and conditioned all summer for my upcoming season. Weight lifting, running 10 km every 3 days, swimming, and of course playing as much ball in the summer as possible.
I’m in great shape but you can’t mimick real game tempo with fast breaks, jumping, playing D, rebounding, boxing out, setting screens, chasing people around screens, shooting, etc etc etc.
It takes a little time for the body to get back into “Basketball” shape if one can say that. Shouldn’t take 2 months though, I think thats stretching it.
The only thing that should’ve been a focus as of the first day of training camp for this Raptors team was building chemistry. Weight and conditioning should NOT have been a concern at that point. The pre-season needed to be about strangers becoming a team. Now, by the time we get the weight & conditioning right, the tough schedule in the first month will’ve already buried us too far behind in the race to get the 4 or 5th seed in the East that we needed. Thus BC will have to seriously consider ALL his options before the trading deadline. It didn’t have to be that way. The players were either lazy or short-sighted. Now, it’s too late. That toughest month in the schedule is upon us. Only a miracle will have us near .500 at the end of November. I hope I’m wrong, but it is what it is …
d279, he will.
You’re saying that a the beginning of last season we handed the brunt of our wing duty to Kapono and Moon and this season we’re handing it off to Belinelli and Wright. I don’t see it that way. I don’t know if you’re intentionally forgetting about Hedo but the way I look at it is we’re replacing Moon and Kapono with a combinationm of Turkoglu, Wright and maybe Belinelli. For my money that is a far better combination.
…on a side note…lets not freak out this year when Anthony Parker and Jamario Moon have great years. Playing with Lebron, Shaq and Mo Williams will only make AP seem better both offensively and defensively. Similarly, Jamario, in an energy role of the bench, where he’s not asked to do a lot, will seem far better than he was playing as a starting 3.
Good point about AP and Moon. I hadn’t thought about that and now that you mention it, I’m pretty sure a LOT of people will be complaining about how we traded away 2 “great” players. Same thing can be said about Marion. He’s playing with an all-time great PG in Kidd, so his numbers are gonna be a lot better. The reality is that Jamario and Marion weren’t right for our system, and AP was being asked to do way too much. Now that they’re in situations that better suit their skills, they’ll undoubtedly perform (or seem to perform) a lot better than they did with us.
don’t forget kapono – he’ll be getting those open looks he wasn’t in TO now that he has a legit wing (iggy) & low-post presence in brand, not to mention a quick, drive/kick pg in williams.
I don’t care if their conditioning is not okay. All I care about is for the team to make or eve fake an attempt to compete and take losses personally to heart not like the way the players are feeling okay after a loss. Is that too much to ask from this team?
Nice Job Arsenalist, and just a side note about the draft. I’d like to thank all the assholes who signed up for the draft and decided to autopick.
I’d like to thank all the auto-picks out there as well. Getting the 20th pick was tough but a few gems squeaked through thanks to those that didn’t bother to pick for themselves. I think my luck is going to end there, though.
This was a solid article. Perhaps a bit too cynnical of Amir Johnson, he’s shown pretty good glimpses for a 22 year old imo.
Still though, the most glaring thing is this:
“this year you can replace Kapono with Belinelli and Moon with Wright. Throw in DeRozan instead of Parker ”
Kapono vs Belinelli: Belinelli can at least dribble without travelling, but he’s a volume shooter, and a streaky one at that.
Moon vs Wright: At least Wright won’t shoot a random 3 ball in the heat of the game and then grin frome ear to ear when it misses… at least we hope not.
DeRozan vs Parker: We were asking parker to do too much for us on his old legs, he’ll flourish in cleveland. Now I fear we may end up asking DeRozan to do too much.
Here’s hoping the addition of Turkoglu means our depth at the 2 spot is… well, passable.
Jarrett Jack is a huge omission, no? I’ll take my chances with Turk and a few dashs of Jack, DeR, Wright and Belli over AP, Kap and Moon.
Johnson’s game has signficantly regressed since the 2007-08 season. In fact I would venture to say that his performance Friday was the worst that he has given in a preseason or regular season game since he has been in the NBA.
Another example of how his game is absolutely horrible when he isn’t aggressive enough.
When he keeps his fouls down his play suffers accordingly. He has never learned how to play aggressively without being a foul machine.
Will the return of the real refs help. I doubt it.
This is why “potential” or “prospect” as a word for a 3-4 year NBA player is bulls**t. Ever wonder why Amir was benched for Kwame Brown(Kwame who?) at the Detroit Pistons and sold to the Milwaukee Bucks and resold to the Raptors. If this team wants to go forward, it is time to sell this “potential” players(Amir and Bargnani) but they can give them 2 years more, get them a big man coach and if there is no change, sell em. Ain’t no thing called “potential”, NBA players only play to their ability or show glimpses of what they can do.
Totally agree with you, but Marco is young enough,intense enough, and has pride to turn his pre-season turd around and have an okay season if not gang-busters.
The one thing we need to have is that our wings need to finish off layups and aggressively dunk (for posters as well) in transition from good defense and jump to get alley-oops from Calderon’s crappy alley-oop passes. If defense is not their big strength we gotta hope these guys will camp at the line for about 12-16 FTs combined (Weems+Bells.+DeRo+Wright) per game.
Looking at our point guard situation as of now, we are “talent-solid”, but they look like headless chickens still on offensive sets.