Toronto Raptors 2016-17 player grades: The starters
By Nate Wolf
With the 2016-17 NBA season now over for the Toronto Raptors, it’s time to look back on the performances of each player. Moving from the youngsters to the bench to the starters, we’ll grade every Raptor’s 2016-17 season and evaluate his future with the franchise.
Over the last week, we’ve evaluated the 10 bench players on the Toronto Raptors. We started out with the youngsters, and then moved on to the rotation guys. This time around, we’re looking at how 2016-17 panned out for each of Toronto’s starters.
Due to injuries, trades, and matchup issues, the Raptors’ starting lineup varied throughout the season. But head coach Dwane Casey showed his hand in the playoffs. Even if the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers forced some tinkering, Toronto brass clearly envisioned a starting lineup of Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, DeMarre Carroll, Serge Ibaka and Jonas Valanciunas.
In truth, that group played just 88 minutes together all year. And frankly, they looked pretty woeful. When healthy, however, all five guys started more often than not. They may not be the starters next season, but they’re the starters for our purposes.
So here’s the deal: Each player will get an admittedly arbitrary grade that represents their progress and performances in 2016-17. These grades – and I cannot stress this enough – are relative to preseason expectations.