Toronto Raptors: Well … What Now?

The entire Toronto Raptors postseason felt like an extended Porky Pig outro for an episode of Looney Toons. It was a bumbling mess. Nothing went right. And then suddenly (and yet not quickly enough) it ended.

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Now there are lingering questions buzzing overhead of the Raptors franchise. Things might be different if Toronto had at least been competitive in their series. But they weren’t. They gained nothing from the experience–they got their tails kicked and their clocks cleaned.

Last postseason was a learning curve. They were supposed to take that and do something more this time around. Instead they began leaking oil at the wrong time and eventually sputtered into silence.

We The Pathetic.

So what about those questions? Well, there are lots of them. But let’s look at a couple of the big ones and I’ll give you my opinion:

1. Does Toronto Really Keep Dwane Casey?

All that really needs to be said about this is: he was out-coached by Randy Wittman for four straight games.

That should be enough to get him canned.

Look, Casey has done some good things in Toronto. He was the head coach of last season’s team that won the most games in franchise history (48-34) and then topped it by one win this season. For several years, his teams in Toronto have been slowly but consistently been getting better and the players have seemed to buy in.

Until now. Casey has always been viewed as a defensive-minded coach and, indeed, that is most often what he talks about. His motto, “Pound the Rock,” is all about defense. During the early part of his reign in the Big Smoke, that mindset seemed to sink in and the Raps improved defensively.

But they finished this season out with a defensive rating of 107.7, which ranks 25th in the league, ahead of only Denver, Sacramento, New York, Los Angeles (Lakers) and Minnesota. None of those teams made the playoffs.

At some point, the Raptors decided to forego putting the same level of effort into defense and instead chose to ride their offensive ability that for a large portion of the season was good enough to keep them in a high spot in the East.

Casey never managed to reel his squad back in. He also made some strange moves in the playoffs: he never once adjusted well to the Wizards’ lineups, he hardly ever played James Johnson, he continued to allow Louis Williams isolation plays at the end of quarters.

According to Marc Stein, Masai Ujiri is still looking to bring Casey back for next season. But that could change at any moment. Besides, there’s a guy who recently lost his job with OKC that I might like to see in Toronto.

I won’t say any more on that now. But in short, no, it’s time for the Raptors to move on from Dwane Casey.

2. Is Anyone Untouchable This Summer?

I honestly don’t think so. Bruno Caboclo, maybe? Everyone else has a price.

It might be time for Ujiri to blow this club up. I could see him trying to trade someone like DeMar DeRozan for a high draft pick. The Knicks, perhaps?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily want to see all of the players go. Toronto still has a good bench and some key players that are worth holding onto if possible. But it’s pretty clear at this point that having Kyle Lowry as your best player doesn’t make you a legitimate contender, even in the wretched East.

Still, if possible, it’d be nice to see the Raps try to hold onto Lowry/DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas. Those players have potential and worth to the team. Everyone else is an extra at this point.

Hard to tell where this is going to go, but this same Toronto team will not be returning next October.

3. Can Toronto Gain A Key FA?

It’s really freaking hard. It was already tough trying to get marquee free agents to come to Toronto. Now that the Raptors have gone out the way that they did, it’ll be potentially even more difficult to bring in franchise-changing guys.

It’s just difficult to go after a big-name player, who is probably trying to escape whatever team he’s playing for because he can’t win there, when the only thing you can really offer him is potential. There is a very high amount of that in Toronto. You can feel it in the tremors caused by the noise in Jurassic Park.

But that’s not enough.

You need a good team to interest key free agents. And you need a really good team to interest key free agents when the place you’re trying to bring them to is also in another country, cold for most of the regular season, different in regards to taxes and has a history of disappointment.

If you were a free agent, would you rather go to Toronto or Los Angeles? Seriously. Even with the way both teams are right now.

…

Yeah. Thought so.

4. Was This Team Really That Good?

The homer in me who is trying so very hard to burst out wants to scream, “YES!!!” but I’m just not sure that’s true. The more I look at this team the more they remind me of the 2012-13 Knicks and their fluke season in which they relied far too much on the three-ball to help them win games.

The Raptors began relying on the three too much as well, especially after their defensive intensity fell off and they started trying to win games on offense alone. They became a jump shooting team only; one that lacked balance to deal with opponents when the main point of attack was taken away. Playoffs too, with the game being slowed down, forced the Raps out of their rhythm.

Their red-hot start to the season may be explained by the fact that they already had the chemistry that other teams didn’t. Ujiri basically brought the same squad back while most of the other teams in the East had been shaken up and were still meshing.

Eventually, all of the other teams meshed and got better. The Raptors, on the other hand, didn’t get any better because they were already as good as they could get. They faltered when teams figured them out and couldn’t find ways to adjust.

They swooned, reeled and eventually crashed in a Michael Bay-level explosion.

Chemistry is important, but it’s not everything. It’s just a piece of the puzzle.

More questions will arise and some will be answered as we inch towards June. There might even be a move made before the draft. Who knows.

Only one thing is certain: the 2014-15 Toronto Raptors disappointed in a mighty way.

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