Will the Raptors have two 20pt scorers this year for the first time since the 2005-2006 season? (extra points if you can guess who the only two Raptors to average 20 points in the same season were without looking)

Arsenalist: I got a feeling Bargnani’s attempts will decrease from 17.9 a game, and DeRozan’s will increase from 14.6 per game. Not sure how that’ll affect their scoring numbers, from what I can see the only way Bargnani can maintain his scoring numbers while taking less shots is hitting more of his threes. Last year he shot 34.5% from there, he needs to be around 39-40% from downtown in order to 1) be a dual threat (drive/shoot), and 2) be of real value to the team, like he was in his first season (37.3%) and when O’Neal got traded (40.7%).

Chris Bosh and Mike James is the answer, which tells you how meaningless this stat is.

AltRaps: I’d be surprised if we have one. Depending on how much time this club has to prepare in “training camp” under Coach, I’m not sure we have one go-to guy in the new offence. I think you’ll see 3-4 guys in the mid/high-teens. If DeMar is keeping up his conditioning during the labour strife, he has a shot to be over 20, but barely. If you are the opponent and DeMar is hot, you double him (or show double) and take your chances with our less than stellar supporting cast.

Sam: I think we’re going to see scoring on the whole drop in the league this season (if there is one); what, with all the players coming to camp looking like Shawn Kemp and Vin Baker. I’m optimistic about this team going forward, and think with the improved defense, there will be more scoring opportunities in transition, where DeRozan can cause a lot of damage. I really don’t see a reason why both these guys can’t average high teens to low twenty’s.

Also, Mike James and Chris Bosh averaged 20 a piece in one of the most frustrating seasons we’ve had chance to witness.

It’s fair to say that the Raptors have never had a defensive focus until this season. What kind of improvement will we see from this team with Casey barking at them throughout the year? Who will improve the most?

Arsenalist: I expect defensive positioning to improve, which means shorter rotations and better close-outs, a grave problem for the Raptors under Mitchell and Triano. Casey will hold the players accountable for their defensive mistakes, which is a long time coming for the Raptors. Look for heightened sense of personal pride when defending too. I think DeMar DeRozan, who by all accounts is a good listener, will see significant improvment.

AltRaps: very little. I still live by the fact that you can’t really teach defensive skills to player who simply don’t want to play it. Your quarterback makes a better bullfighter than a defender, your main big has Carter-itis in that he’ll play hard if he gets riled up, and your young stud looks dazed most of the time. Coach has alluded that he will hold players personally responsible and make them earn time, but what does that leave him with? I fear he falls into the same pit that Triano fell into: preach and teach D, then 10 games in realize nobody cares, look at the subs and just break stuff. DeMar will improve because he HAS to.

Sam: You can’t teach defense, but you can sure as hell hold people accountable for what they don’t do. Again, I’m super optimistic for Casey and will give him the benefit of the doubt. While Bargnani wont ever be a great defender, his man defense is passable, we should see some improvement on his positional defense/awareness if for no other reason than Casey will be working on that end of the floor more than any of the last few Raptor coaches have. For the team as a whole, positional defense and rotations are the low hanging fruits, and I have a feeling we’ll witness less hand-clapping and blow-by’s than years past.

Barring any trades, who should be named captain this year?

Arsenalist: Not sure what a captain does. Just scanned the roster and nobody sticks out, maybe Amir Johnson but that’s a real big stretch for him. This question has me thinking if the Raptors have addressed the leadership void that’s been missing since….Oakley?

AltRaps: Nice setup….I’d say Jose. LL Cool J, after all. He loves the city, does a lot for the team off the court, kids love the guy and his players listen to him (apparently). He never shies away from media and you get the impression opposing teams and coaches respect him. Personally, though, I’d stick a C on Alvin Williams’ lapel and have him show up at every practice and whip some candy-asses.

Sam: Leadership has been an issue since Oakley left the team. Jose is the closest thing this team has to a leader (passing out Gatorade at half-time and all), and will probably wear the ‘C’; maybe Reggie Evans if he’s back. As far as someone who can put this team on his shoulders and lead them out of tough situations, the guys in suits on the bench (Casey, Williams, English??) are the best we have.

Is it fair to say the Players Union failed? What could they have done better throughout this process?

Tom Liston: Yes. Ultimately they should have been able to settle for a slightly better deal. Obviously, the owners have much more leverage. However, the decertification threat was poorly timed – the players union needed to play that card in the summer, not now. They may have gained a small bit of leverage of their own. However, by doing it now, it largely has turned the fans against their side. My view is they should have put the deal back to David Stern, with a couple tweaks they wanted. Even still if it was a tough deal for them to accept, push it back in his court and let him address the media and fans on why he wouldn’t make a few small changes. The deal on the table was at – or very close to – the best deal they will get.

Blake Murphy: Yes. Billy Hunter repeatedly said that he saw this playing out two or three years ago, so the inaction from then until just a few months ago is inexcusable. While the players had little to no leverage in negotiations, the timing of some of their tactics (like the decertification process) was questionable at best. I also found the lack of involvement from the rank-and-file as a whole to be disappointing, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that players have lost faith in the process. The owners are to blame as well, of course, but both sides failed if there is no season.

Arsenalist: I’m writing this after Tom and Blake, and they pretty much covered every point. The only way this can turn out good for the players is if the NBA is found guilty in the courts, and are ordered to pay “treble damages”, which would mean the NBA shelling out a lot more than what they’re owed on the contracts. You would think that whatever deal the players end up getting, it’ll be better than what was offered by the league last week, and although the current player only stand to lose, perhaps the future one might benefit. In that instance, you could argue that although the Players Union failed the current crop of players, it might serve to benefit ones to come.

A part of the decertification process will be disputes over the validity of current contracts; with the owners wanting them all declared null and void. If all contracts are null and void, what would that mean for the Raptors?

Tom: Too difficult to say. If it ended up a completely free market situation (highly unlikely) II believe Toronto is an above average market, but certainly players would gravitate to Boston, LA, Chicago, Miami etc. We have a couple tough contracts, but not bad vis-a-vis other teams. We also have a few nice players on (or entering) rookie scale deals, which would be the negative.

Blake: I don’t think it would have much of an impact at all. The large question would be whether teams still own exclusive rights to players on their rookie contracts, so the Raptors would still have control of players like DeRozan, Davis, and even Jonas. I can’t see the Raptors being able to attract any stars in a “fantasy draft” style free agent frenzy, but their would be advantages to be gained in terms of organizational flexibility (e.g. their international flavor, or by allowing players to sign “together”). There are no albatross contracts the Raptors would be excited to get out from under (I’m not even sure who they’d use the proposed amnesty clause on), and the risk of not attracting any tier-one or tier-two players would scare me a bit.

Arse: The Raptors might welcome a ‘reset’ button for guys like Jose Calderon and Andrea Bargnani, but on the flip side DeMar DeRozan probably stands to make more than he’s making as part of the current CBA. The larger question, as Blake mentioned, is what kind of rights the Raptors would hold on their players. Pound-for-pound, I don’t see the Raptors out-attracting many teams for unrestricted free-agents, so I’m inclined to believe the voiding of contracts would have an overall negative effect.

Will there be a season, and if there is, will you care as much?

Tom: Yes. The global economy is on the edge. I’d really like to see all those employees the teams have back to work. The spin-offs are also important (although fans would spend discretionary income elsewhere). If there is a season, the majority of fans will come back quickly. There were several great matchups in last year’s post season and it will carry over to this year.

Blake: There will not be a season. As I understand it, this process is basically a legal one now, and unless the courts are ready to rule with summary judgment, the process could really drag out. If mid-January is essentially doomsday, that would mean the union and league have two months to reconcile their differences and get back to good-faith negotiating, which at this point seems unrealistic. If they come back, of course I’ll care every bit as much, especially as a season ticket holder. I’m sure it’s the same feeling for the rest of the “die-hards,” but I can’t see the casual fans coming back as quickly.

Arse: The lawyer-talk of the last few days makes me quite skeptical about the prospect of a season, unless all this is another negotiating tactic, and there’s a loophole somewhere which allows Stern and the players to negotiate and strike a deal under soem sort of CBA. I wasn’t too hot on this season to begin with as there was very little to look forward to, especially with Jonas being overseas. I’ve long been a proponent of a shorter season, so I’d actually enjoy a 60-game season a lot more. If it ever happens, that is.

How would you rate the hiring of Ed Stefanski: good, bad or meh?

Arsenalist: Good. An experienced mind in the front-office can only help, unless of course Colangelo and Stefanksi end up constantly butting heads. That’s unlikely to occur, though, as Colangelo would’ve taken that into careful account before making the hire. The Raptors haven’t had a fresh set of eyes for a while, and Stefanksi does provide that. A guy you can bounce ideas off, maybe if he was around two or three years ago, the thoughts of signing guys like Hedo Turkoglu and Jermaine O’Neal would’ve been cut short.

Unlike Colangelo, Stefanksi’s played the game at a relatively high level (got drafted in the 10th round too), so he definitely brings a blend of both executive experience, and a first-hand knowledge of the game. His recent picks are Evan Turner, Jrue Holiday, and Marreese Speights, and I expect him to be very beneficial to the Raptors when it comes to the draft.

Avid readers of RR will note that he did select the great Rodney Carney.

AltRaps: Meh. We already had a second in command in Embry that has gone untapped and/or ignored over the past few years. Not many in the league demand the respect that Embry has and his track record here is pretty damn good. I don’t need to remind you (I hope) of the gifts he provided to Colangelo upon his arrival by clearing space and setting us up for a pretty good rebuild. I also don’t need to remind you that Colangelo pissed it all away like he had been drinking Carlsberg by the keg.

Sam: Meh. Another guy batting .500 is brought in, and given more power than a guy whose been here longer, and hasn’t done worse than a double on any hit. Landing Pritchard would have been the move; that’s just me though.

How much authority will Stefanski have to make the moves HE wants to make?

Arsenalist: He has zero authority to “make” the moves, he can suggest them to Colangelo as much as he pleases, but in the end it’s Colangelo’s decision. He knows that entering into this job. I’m sure not having full authority isn’t ideal, but then again there are only 30 NBA GM jobs in the world. You take what you can get.

AltRaps: About as much authority as I have to go to Arsenalist and demand we change our logo every week. Nil. BC has gone for the quick save and brought a fellow GM in and razzle dazzled the MLSE Board in thinking that 2 heads are better than one. I’m sure there were some lovely graphs and charts showing how more is indeed more and we should pay some money to get a proven piece in to help this organization out in a spot that we needed filled. See Hedo. I’m convinced Ed is working in a cubicle beside JYD and that both have as much pull as each other.

Sam: Does puppet-master come to mind? Trying not to be pesimististic about this, and the guy has made some good moves, but BC isn’t the kind of guy to concede giving his stamp of approval on moves. This is how I see things going down:

1. Ed working the phone, putting together a deal that makes sense
2. Puts together his fancy pitch-deck using Keynote
3. Takes it too Colangelo who gets hung up on the background colors of the slides
4. BC tells Ed to leave it to him….and he does…
5. Calderon gets a 3yr/$21m extension

What will/should his first official act be?

Arsenalist: Deal with the power-forward glut: Ed Davis, Andrea Bargnani, Amir Johnson and Linas Kleiza. If Bargnani is option #1 there, we don’t need Davis and Johnson to vie for 25 minutes a game, it’s better to just hand them over to one of the two and cash in on the other in the trade market. Basically, one of the three has to go.

AltRaps: to increase the budget for halftime entertainment. His first official act won’t matter. You best believe Bryan has a list of guys he wants once free agency opens and nobody is going to change his mind. Stefanski I think will try, but it will be a lost cause. Once that passes, though, I’d hope he sits down with Steve Fruitman (the genius behind some of the good moves in the Colangelo reign) and they do a deep dive in the new CBA. Beyond that, we need someone that will be a solid back up to Jonas. This will surprise you but I’m not sold on the kid. It will be Andrea-like the first few years, so need a piece to bridge that time.

Sam: Seems to me a lot of time and effort will need to go into understanding, and really getting, the new CBA after something gets agreed too. Last summer was a disaster for the Raptors in this regard. Otherwise, any move that can improve the Raptors short term, with the future in mind will do. Just pick any position and make a move.