The season is over, forget the positives, what were the NEGATIVES?

[sleepz]

1) Derozan not being able to elevate his game in other areas where he is needed, i.e. rebounding, steals, blocks, etc.

2) The amount of accolades, hype and expectations being built for the arrival of Jonas V.

3) Casey playing his veteran players as often as he did in an evaluation year.

4) Casey not giving young players like Ed Davis and Alabi enough minutes to learn on the job which were strategies afforded to DeRozan and Bargnani in the past.

5) Casey calling Ed Davis "Eddie" all the time.

6) Not losing enough to, statistically speaking, be in place for the 1-5 most ping pong balls in the draft lottery.

7) 13 games extrapolated and replacing a years worth of accumulated stats. And then using this extremely small sample size to wash away 6 previous years of sample size.

[Apollo]

1. Not enough camo.
2. Too much Devlin.

[Soft Euro]

The wins against Cleveland (twice), New York and Minnesota in the first 10 games or so. If we had just lost those games nobody would have cared (a lot) about the wins at the end of the season.

[Bendit]

Do you remember the opening game (Cavs) when DD I believe made five 3s and got giddy (like he couldnt believe he was jacking them in)! And we all thought wow...this guy really has his long distance shooting down. And then.....

[Bendit]

Winning Culture!!!! When the Raps are in the playoffs 3 years from now and they are 2 down with 9 secs left, Jonas Valanciunas and the other 4 guys on the floor (none of whom play for the Raptors right now) will recall that win against Boston in April 2012 and use the experience gained on that day to execute the out-of-bounds play to get a clean look.

Haha....will it be Casey calling that play? Oh those negative thoughts.

[Matt52]

Winning Culture!!!! When the Raps are in the playoffs 3 years from now and they are 2 down with 9 secs left, Jonas Valanciunas and the other 4 guys on the floor (none of whom play for the Raptors right now) will recall that win against Boston in April 2012 and use the experience gained on that day to execute the out-of-bounds play to get a clean look.

The butterfly effect?

[Holy Craptors]

Wow, what a thread!

Picking out the top negatives from a Raptors' season is like picking out the sandiest grain of sand on a beach. But here are some of mine:

- Camo uniforms
- Losing twice to Charlotte
- Derozan not emerging as the leader we thought he'd be (maybe this was our fault for expecting it)
- Bargnani's delicate leg
- Absolutely no representation at the all-star weekend
- I didn't catch any shirts during the 60 seconds of madness
- Inconsistent play from (insert just about any player's name here)
- The positive of an improved defense was offset by lousy offense

Also, not to shamelessly promote my own handiwork, but it seems perfect for this thread: these are my official "Raptors Bottom Ten plays of the season":



(Here's the link if it doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de7WHcwe5zU)

[white men can't jump]

Hmmm.....some simple thoughts:

1) We don't have good enough leadership among the players. Maybe Jonas can be that guy eventually, or if we draft/acquire someone to fill it. I hope so, because even if they make strides, I don't see what Demar, Bargs, and Jose bring as being enough, and I think everyone here would agree with that.

2) The strong finish to the season. I don't like tanking, but I also don't think we weren't trying. I mean coaches always want to win, and it's really hard for them not to prepare. But we had 2 D-leaguers and Alabi playing heavy minutes and still played well. I didn't expect us to finish in the bottom 3 before the season, but 2 or 3 weeks ago, I was still hoping for a 4-6 pick...epic fail

3) Amir Johnson and Linas Kleiza: both inconsistent and frustrating, both getting overpaid. People hate on Bargs, but regardless of your personal feelings, 10 million is not overpaying for a PF who scores about 20 PPG. Jose is getting overpaid, but you can have one bad contract if he actually performs, which hate on Jose if you want, but he was our most consistent player if you consider the whole season(also, given our rate of development as a team, his huge contract expires with nice timing). Amir struggles with structure, and his jumpshot seemed to regress. He's still way too skinny for guarding Cs, and I don't see how he gets enough minutes to be worth what we're paying him...for 3 more seasons. Linas isn't really overpaid as much as he doesn't seem to fit in long-term, so his contract blows. If he were a consistent 3-pt threat, his spot would be secure.

[LBF]

Casey's poor minute management. His grasp of offensive fundementals.

This team still does not have a "closer" or "big shot" type player and has no distance shooters.

I would be concerned about Ed. If a ton of players in every league didn't have bad or regressed sophomoreseasons.

No Rasho Nesterovic type player to mentor and be serious when needs and joke around when needed.

The team has questionable starters save calderon and bargnani, alot of injuries.Yet, the team could be selecting 8th and be happy with it and may not go after starting calibre talent this off season.

[Matt52]

Wow, what a thread!

Picking out the top negatives from a Raptors' season is like picking out the sandiest grain of sand on a beach. But here are some of mine:

- Camo uniforms
- Losing twice to Charlotte
- Derozan not emerging as the leader we thought he'd be (maybe this was our fault for expecting it)
- Bargnani's delicate leg
- Absolutely no representation at the all-star weekend
- I didn't catch any shirts during the 60 seconds of madness
- Inconsistent play from (insert just about any player's name here)
- The positive of an improved defense was offset by lousy offense

Also, not to shamelessly promote my own handiwork, but it seems perfect for this thread: these are my official "Raptors Bottom Ten plays of the season":



(Here's the link if it doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de7WHcwe5zU)

Imagine if Toronto had won those games and then throw in the 2 losses to Washington and they'd be picking 10th! That would spur some negativity!

[Moss33]

This season was a wash for me. The biggest negative was that they won too many games. I really wanted to add a future all star wing through this draft.

[Ion66]

Most of what I had to say has been covered. I'll give a pass to Casey for playing veterans a fair bit in an evaluation year, because ALL the players were new to him this year, plus no training camp, so he had to see what he has at all levels. The lockout was a huge negative for us in that sense.

1. Is the calf a chronic thing going forward, and no clear answer to the enigma.

2. DeRozan and Davis started well, went soft and then closed out the year well...same as last year, so I'm still on the fence, same as last year.

3. I do not like green jerseys or spam. I do not like them, fan I am.

4. Inconsistent play. This is my biggest issue with the team really. I cant get my head around players who can have 20+ point nights and then have a stretch of 3-8 point nights. That goes for comeback Bargnani, Kleisa, DD, Ed etc. The odd off night or two I get, but there were too many nights where our top scorers were not guys who should be our top scorers. Same goes for rebounding too, that seemed to be hit and miss for guys like Amir and Ed at points in the season.

5. Turnovers should have a flaky pastry and be filled with either apple or cherry..sometimes blueberry. If you dribble off your foot it should be because your turnover had too much filling.

[Sig]

Winning Culture!!!! When the Raps are in the playoffs 3 years from now and they are 2 down with 9 secs left, Jonas Valanciunas and the other 4 guys on the floor (none of whom play for the Raptors right now) will recall that win against Boston in April 2012 and use the experience gained on that day to execute the out-of-bounds play to get a clean look.

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better myself, lol.

[Miekenstien]

i didn't like the jj complaining issue. but other than that i didn't see many negatives. my expectations were very low coming into the year. i thought we would be 30 29 or 28th in the league.

sorry, one thing i was disappointed in was alabi. not fair to him but after all the talk in the summer and i had barely seen him actually play in the nba i thought he would have gotten onto the court more than magloire.

[joey_hesketh]

1. Not enough camo.
2. Too much Devlin.

HAH! He's here all week ladies and gentlemen!!