Exactly what I was thinkingNilanka wrote:
Exactly what I was thinking
Most of the teams around below and around us last year will be better as well. E.g.
-Washington - veteran upgrade will compete for a playoff spot;
-Cleveland - internal development (Irving/Thomas) + new high picks (4 & 17) and big for the wins, Varejao might be healthy. Depening on how the development will go, they might be just above or below us.
-Brooklyn - will compete for homecourt?
-Golden State - tanked like hell at the end of the season, distorted record. With a semi healthy Bogut enough to end above us.
-New Orleans - improved clearly, will be close.
The WP-guys think Anderson is a bargain ... But I'm not into WP, so I doubt he'll produce like he did last year. If he comes close however he'll have a postive impact on the Hornets (and might not be (much) overpaid)).
In the play-offs he had some brutal games, but I read an analysis of his game with and without Howard on the court last year, and it wasn't that bad. Might be more brutal to see Davis play center in his rookie year for them.
You can't look at the Raptor's moves in a vacuum. Other teams arguably got better as well. At this time of year its hard to predict what will happen, but 26th is still plausible. We upgraded our PG, but we were never really weak there. Then we have upgraded our roster with rookies which may not pan out.
The biggest key in my opinion is that we have a full training camp with Casey, a healthy Bargnani (hopefully), and a better version of both Davis and DeMar (assuming neither regress). But we still don't have legitimate talent that can close out games (I'm hoping Lowry can be that guy, but I'm skeptical).
26th seems harsh, but a lot of teams improved. Of the teams ranked higher than Toronto in that article, I think that Toronto could conceivably have a better record than Orlando (if Howard is gone, but they may have a good head start), Washington (looks okay on paper, but not so sure about Wall yet), Milwaukee (is Jennings/Ellis any better than Curry/Ellis), Phoenix (now that Nash is gone), Cleveland (assuming they don't get Bynum), and NO (relying on rookies, and an often injured Gordon). So when its all said and done, I think Toronto will be in the 20-26 range. I am hoping for the playoffs, but it'll be a struggle to get there.
I beleive it's referred to, as being Kapono-ed
LOL, well there goes my optimism for making a playoff run this season. I'm hoping that having what should be a deep bench this season can compensate for lack of All Star starters and we can prove people wrong this year.
Yes, me too. I really have no clue where we stand. Going anywhere from say 16th to 29th seems possible (to me) right now.
Guess I was being a homer after all.
The think I like about our team is that this season even if one of our key players goes down with injury we have a deep enough bench to sustain it. We have quality players at most positions and unlike last season if Bargs goes down our offense should still be okay:
Lowry/Calderon
DeMar/Ross
Fields/Kleiza
Bargnani/Ed (with another year in his belt should be ready to take over if needed)
JV/Amir (capable)
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