A lot has happened in the 2009-10 season to Bryan Colangelo’s Toronto Raptors. After fixing one massive error last season, Colangelo has rebuilt his team back into a playoff contender.
A fifth place team with a 27-23 record at the 50 game mark of the season.
And this season, the Toronto Raptors are finally Colangelo’s team. The Raptors GM now has:
- His own choice as Head Coach in Jay Triano;
- His first major free agent signing in Hedo Turkoglu; and,
- Has purged the team of all pre-Colangelo era players except All-Star Chris Bosh and TJ Ford’s replacement, Jose Calderon.
Most of the last vestiges of GMs past have been finally swept away.
This was Bryan Colangelo’s second and more thorough house cleaning since he arrived just ahead of the 2006 draft. And by bringing in nine new players (again) plus a “new” coach, Colangelo almost guaranteed the Raptors would get off to a slow start.
Unfortunately for Colangelo and the Raptors, the team got off to a better than expected start, beating Cleveland in their home opener and winning five of their first ten games. A nice start raising expectations that would not be met.
The next ten games quickly corrected that impression as the Raptors fell to 7-13 following a brutal five game losing skid. Fans and media started deserting the floundering team as fast as they could.
Bryan Colangelo rebuilt his Raptors around skilled offensive players and it shows in the team’s current fourth best scoring average in the NBA. But it wasn’t until the team started to hold their opponents to a more reasonable number of points did they manage to win more games than they lost.
Starting at the 29th game of the season, the Raptors held their opponents under 100 points four games in a row and finished the ten game stretch from 31-40 giving up only 98.3 points per game.
The Raptors were rewarded with their first 7-3 mark and the accolades for this defensive prowess heralded a new era of Raptors basketball. Or so we thought. At least the seats in the ACC were full again!
What was being masked by that streak of holding teams under 100 points was that after Jose Calderon returned to the line-up, the Raptors changed their style of basketball yet again.
With Jose’s return, the Raptors began to routinely put up 108 points or better. This was a huge jump from earlier in the season, but not completely unexpected based on the offensive talent Colangelo had put together.
Unfortunately, those days of holding opponents to under 100 points on average have disappeared.
| Games | Record | Points For | Points Against | Diff |
| 1-10 | 5-5 | 106.9 | 105.9 | 1.0 |
| 11-20 | 2-8 | 103.7 | 116.0 | -12.3 |
| 21-30 | 6-4 | 100.8 | 100.9 | -0.1 |
| 31-40 | 7-3 | 102.6 | 98.3 | 4.3 |
| 41-50 | 7-3 | 108.1 | 104.8 | 3.3 |
| total | 27-23 | 104.4 | 105.2 | -0.8 |
In the games from 41-50, the Toronto Raptors have become the high scoring, weak defensive team that was envisioned at the start of the season.
The good news is these Raptors are good enough to win more games than they lose and Bryan Colangelo’s 50 win prediction, while optimistic, is not impossible. Assuming the recent injuries to Hedo Turkoglu and Jose Calderon will not require them to miss many more games!
The obvious news is these Raptors will require a major acquisition before the trade deadline if they are to finish any better than fifth in the East and face another early first round playoff exit.
Unless of course Boston’s injury woes continue to get worse!
Somehow it is very hard to see Bryan Colangelo counting on a Boston collapse to boost the fortunes of his team.
Nice breakdown.
That stretch of games 11-20 sure stands out.
50 games in and who knows whats to come. While I’m on the side of no major change, who knows whats to come.
Guess you could say the same about next 30 games. We’ve seen some good and we’ve seen some bad, this team can bring both.
Think its important to get and stay healthy. Last few games we have missed our depth. Both Indy games were unimpressive and, well, you saw the Jersey game.
At this point, the 47 win season seems likely. Raptors are good – just not good enough yet.
Temptation will be to do nothing and see what Amir, Belinelli, DeRozan, and Weems bring next season, but that pretty much limits the Raps to a 1 and done playoffs this year. Somehow I don’t believe that sits well with Colangelo – I think he’s going to try do something.
Last 2 games showed just how much the Raps miss Hedo!