Wright, still just 23, played well as a rookie for the Hornets before taking a step back the past two seasons.
The personable native of the Chicago area said the coaching staff and players have helped him fit in quickly.
Wright feels he can bring something.
“I’m energetic, bounce around the floor, able to get points off rebounds, run the floor,” Wright said in describing his game.
“I just want to be counted on in a lot of ways. (I’m) working on being more aggressive, taking it to the hoop.”
Wright said former teammate Morris Peterson had good things to say about Toronto, but he wasn’t able to get in touch with the popular ex-Raptor recently for more of a heads up.
The Raptors had until Halloween to pick up DeRozan’s option, but they did so a month early, in part, to make a statement about DeRozan’s importance to the club going forward.
“I wasn’t expecting (general manager Bryan Colangelo to tell him now), it came out of the blue.
“I’m happy. It shows that I’m really liked here. Hopefully I’m here for a while.”
When asked whether more guaranteed money would change his hard-working approach at all, DeRozan said it won’t have any impact.
“Not at all, this is for the love of the game,” he said.
“I love this game, and everything else that comes with it I’m thankful for, but overall, I’m in it for the game.”
DeRozan added that he is feeling far more comfortable compared to his first taste of NBA training camp last fall.
“Last year, everything was new to me, I had to learn everything on the go. Second year, I know what to expect coming in, (which) makes it a lot easier.”
DeRozan said he is anticipating the club’s trip to Vancouver this weekend.
“I’ve been there (before), looking forward to it, getting back on the Pacific Time,” said the native of Compton, California.
Erick Dampier, a free-agent centre looking for an NBA job, met with Raptors president and general manager Bryan Colangelo and is expected to make a decision on a contract offer shortly. He sat and watched the second practice of the day with team officials but was not available to the media.
According to NBA sources, the Raptors and Houston Rockets have the best chance to land the 35-year-old Dampier, who was waived this summer by the Charlotte Bobcats after they acquired him from the Dallas Mavericks. Dampier, 6-foot-11 and about 265 pounds, appeared in 55 games with the Mavs last year, averaging six points and 7.3 rebounds.
Because of NBA salary cap and roster restrictions, Dampier is only going to be in line for a veteran minimum salary, which is just over $1.3 million U.S.
The Raptors aren’t exactly taking Vancouver by storm. The team will hold its annual open scrimmage at the University of British Columbia on Sunday afternoon. The gym seats 3,000, but only about 1,000 people have made the $15 donation to charity for a ticket.
if they don’t shore up their defence and find a system that suits their personnel, any chance of being even a mildly surprising team in the coming NBA season is gone out the window.
It is the topic as training camp drones on, the one thing that coach Jay Triano and his assistants are more worried about than any other.
“One, you’ve got a number of new guys who are going to be in the rotation so that’s immediately a challenge,” said assistant coach P.J. Carlesimo. “Two, you don’t have a lot of continuity. Even though you could say it’s Jay’s third year, it’s at least a second, if not a third, different roster so it’s not like he’s had two years to install his system and the same guys are playing his system.
“The good news is you have some young guys with some quickness and enthusiasm. The bad news is you have young guys and inexperienced guys.”
What the Raptors want to do defensively sounds so simple: They want to apply pressure as much as possible, take away outside shots, force turnovers and score off their defence.
“I’d say we’re more aggressive,” said Triano. “Last year we had a tendency to sit on boxes (in the low post) and elbows (at the top of the free-throw lane) and protect the paint and the house and all that. This year, we’re just out and guarding guys.”
That’s where the teaching comes in. Each day, they go through a series of defensive footwork drills that are aimed not so much at allowing players to single-handedly stop the men they’re covering but to make sure they’re in position to guide an offensive player where they want them to go. They find it nearly impossible to teach quickness, but they can teach technique and that’s a big step.
“The real definition of quickness is just that: How quick they can move their feet and get from spot to spot?” said Carlesimo. “It’s not how fast they can run. It’s how quick they can get from point to point.
“To some extent, I think you can drill it and improve it, but you can’t take somebody who’s not quick and get them there. You can drill to the point where the fundamentals are good.”
Coaching: I don’t know much about Jay Triano and I’m not sure that the Raptors do as well. He took over as head coach during the 2008-09 season and has been the main man ever since. We have to see what he can do now that the Bosh distraction is finally over.
This section must also include general manager Bryan Colangelo, who is in the last year of his deal and is under pressure to win as well. He has had an OK track record but has also struck out with some long-term deals, especially the Turkoglu situation.
With NBA television ratings being where they are in this country, you can’t blame the Toronto Raptors for trying to increase their footprint in Canada, and former Grizz territory is a pretty reasonable approach.
That appears to be the Raptors’ reason for holding their training camp 3,000 kilometres from the epicentre of the universe, a city Chris Bosh certainly wanted no part of particularly when given the option of whatever it is going on in Miami.
Obviously if the Raptors train out here and generate a little more interest as they head into their season, their ratings may rise and as such improve the revenue generated from their national telecasts.
And clearly they would love to step into this Rogers Arena gold mine that the Phoenix Suns have been exploiting for some years now, playing an exhibition game up here and generating a nice hunk of revenue while freeing their long-suffering fans from having to take an extra preseason game on their season ticket package.
We get all that, although surely it won’t be long before Francesco Aquilini finds a partner and thinks NBA again for this town.
But there may be a more sinister reason the Suns and Raptors are here as well. The people of Vancouver might be the only types so starved for the NBA that they’d even consider buying such rubbish taken on the road by two teams that generate very little interest this season.
“When the team is not winning I hurt on the business side and I hurt as a fan,” Peddie says. “I don’t like sitting through a game when we’re getting blown out, I don’t like sitting through games in April that mean nothing.”
Why would he like it?
Each losing April means no home playoff dates which would generate about $3-million each in revenue, most of it profit. Winning generally translates to richer broadcasting deals, more lucrative luxury-suite contracts and more merchandise sales – and outside of cashing in on the playoffs, MLSE doesn’t miss many opportunities. Consider that the Zamboni slush from the final game at Maple Leaf Gardens was put into clear plastic pucks and sold for $50 each.
“This notion MLSE doesn’t want to win is bull,” says Brian Burke, the president and general manager of the Leafs. Burke is 22 months into a six-year, $19.5-million (U.S.) contract, awarded with the expectation that he’ll deliver a Stanley Cup to Toronto as he did with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007.
“They gave me complete support and independence and have given me the resources to fix it,” Burke says. “If we can’t turn this thing around, you can blame me. It’s the best-run company I’ve ever worked for. I’m proud to work for MLSE, I’m proud to work for Richard Peddie.”
Clearly, anybody involved with the team had to leave the season with regrets, at least a few. Head coach Jay Triano had some right away.
"Do I have to demand more discipline from these guys who maybe aren’t going to be professionals and act in a professional manner every single game? Absolutely," Triano said the day after the Raptors finished their season last April. "I have to make adjustments just like players have to get better in the off-season. I have to make adjustments as well."
Just a few days into training camp, Triano is trying to right the wrongs he believes he made last year.
He is still a player-friendly coach — he has said many times that he wanted to spend more time working on relationships with the players and less buried in a playbook — but he is, perhaps, accentuating his rough edges a little more.
"He’s definitely been a bit of a stickler for a lot more of the little things this year, not letting these little things build up and letting a [mole hill] become a mountain, so to speak," point guard Jarrett Jack said.
"He seems like a coach who thinks things through," new Raptors swingman Julian Wright observed. "He doesn’t stop too much, but when he does, he’s ready to say something. He just wants everybody to buy in. I’m still obviously trying to get used to the coaching staff, but they have no problem explaining things to me, and they expect you to pick it up fast."
It makes sense that Triano is trying to assert himself a bit more this year. There is no Bosh to lead by example, no Turkoglu to talk about his accomplishments with Orlando.
The more experienced players on the team — Jack, Jose Calderon and Reggie Evans — do not have a whole lot of winning on their resumes. Leandro Barbosa does, but he is new to the team and exudes more of a happy-go-lucky attitude.
At least to start, the intensity, the seriousness, might have to come from the coach.
The worst part of the Toronto Raptors’ training camp is over. Three straight days of two-a-day practices ended yesterday. "Oh boy," point guard Jarrett Jack said with a wide smile. "God is good." In the morning session, Raptors coach Jay Triano and his assistants have been focusing on teaching. In the evenings, there have been scrimmages. "This is what it takes," DeMar DeRozan, pictured, said. "Two-a-days, body sore, you get used to it. It’s good for us. I think it’s helpful. I hated it in college though … they run you to death. It was way harder in college."
They had done nothing forever with Chris Bosh, so I don’t see his loss as any sort of backbreaker. Hedo Turkoglu definitely wasn’t working out for them, so trading him for speedster Leandro Barbosa makes sense (although waiving the attached piece, Dwayne Jones, was a bad decision). Re-signing PF Amir Johnson at $7 million per for five years seems crazy, but I think he’ll surprise people. Don’t take that as my ringing endorsement of its length and worth because a) it’s too much of both, and b) I’m still curious how many minutes everyone in the frontcourt is getting. Draftees Ed Davis and Soloman Alabi should both help the interior defense eventually, which was sorely lacking last year. Signing versatile F Linas Kleiza away from the Greek league was a great move, although it’s gotten so much praise, he’s almost become overrated before even showing up. Toronto also traded for F Julian Wright and C David Andersen to help fortify the paint a little, although keeping Jones definitely should have been a part of that. All in all, not too bad if the Johnson and Kleiza contracts don’t muck things up in the future and they figure out how to play all these big men, which will be tough to do. Grade: B-
