Toronto Raptors: Quick Summer Report Card

Now that the Toronto Raptors have made basically all of the moves they needed to make, it’s time to judge them. How did Masai Ujiri do? Is this club really better than last year’s? Did they get what they wanted or were they forced to settle?

Let’s dive right in.

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Gained: Delon Wright, Cory Joseph, Norman Powell, DeMarre Carroll, Bismack Biyombo, Michale Kyser, Luis Scola, Ronald Roberts, Axel Toupane

Lost: Chuck Hayes, Lou Williams, Landry Fields, Amir Johnson, Greg Stiemsma, Greivis Vasquez, Tyler Hansbrough

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Starters:

Have to imagine the starting five goes Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, DeMarre Carroll, Patrick Patterson and Jonas Valanciunas.

Last season they rolled out Lowry, DeRozan, Terrence Ross, Amir and Valanciunas to start games.

This season’s starters are better, plain and simple. The biggest difference will be Carroll starting in place of Ross, of course, since he’s a much more capable player. He does all of the things fans have wanted Ross to do ever since he joined the team.

JV will be another year older and hopefully more improved; and Lowry and DeRozan should be healthy and ready to get the ball rolling.

Patterson isn’t a starting caliber player, but he’s the best of the power forward bunch and on a team that will play lots of small ball (and in a league that values his skill set) his stretch-4 ability will be key to spacing things for Jonas to work inside and create driving lanes for the wings.

At least one of these guys will be an All-Star next season. But who?

Bench:

Ross is now on the bench, though it’s hard to tell if that’s a plus or not. He came off the bench for some games last season (James Johnson had the start) and he seemed at times like he was playing dejectedly, as if moping that coach Dwane Casey dropped him into the bench mob.

This is the season that Ross absolutely must pick things up or he’ll be traded. There’s no way he’s starting over Carroll, so he’s got to prove his worth now and come out firing on all cylinders.

Johnson will provide some backup wing defense; Joseph can run things; Scola can score; Biyombo can protect the rim; Powell can get out and run the fast break. This bench is packed full of interesting pieces that Casey will have to mish-mash together to try and find the best possible lineups.

I think a Joseph, Carroll, Powell, Patterson, Biyombo five would be neat to test out. Have fun, Dwane.

Coaching:

Dwane Casey is still the man in Toronto. Ujiri and Casey appear to be on the same page and the head coach of the Raps did only just get a three-year contract extension of around $4 million per year in 2014.

He led the team to a franchise-record 49 wins last season. It’s hard to argue with results; each year, Casey’s Raptors seem to get better and better.

Now if only he was able to make the big-time adjustments in the playoffs …

But we’ll save that for later. For now, it’s the Casey train. All aboard to pound the rock!

Overall Grade: B+

The Raptors did their best to woo the free-agent prize of the summer in LaMarcus Aldridge, but he was never truly considering Toronto as an option. In his mind, he was very likely already a Spur. Still, getting a meeting with him alone was a step forward and a stamp on what Ujiri’s been able to do with the franchise.

The Carroll pickup was huge and should be well worth the pricey contract they gave him. He has a playing style that allows him to fit into other teams’ schemes pretty easily, so he should have little issue squeezing in next to DeRozan and Lowry.

Toronto went all out on defense this offseason after their collapse on that end to close out last year. Defense is always the best place to start when building a team; the offense comes later. Ujiri decided to sacrifice some of that offensive power from last season to give this team the chance to succeed by gritting and grinding to the finish line.

All in all, nothing spectacular happened this offseason, but the results are a little better than solid. This team has the potential to keep getting better, and that’s the right direction to be headed in, no matter how slow the trajectory.

Ujiri has been great during his tenure with the Raptors, and he proved it again this summer. We The North lives.

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