Raptors must build on last season’s euphoria: Arthur | Toronto Star
“Hell, yeah,” said DeMar DeRozan, fresh off a summer on Team USA’s gold medal-winning group at the World Cup. “Yes, it do. Just the energy and the positivity of everything, and not the, ‘what ifs,’ so much. It definitely do. It do feel different.” He told a story about talking to Kyle Lowry from a plane headed to the Philippines when Lowry was re-signed — “I spent $45 talking to him,” said DeRozan — and Lowry, for his part, turned up Monday looking less like the fire hydrant he’s sometimes compared to, and more like the pit bull he’s often compared to. General manager Masai Ujiri says he’s never seen his point guard in better shape. “Those people who thought I’d (be out of shape), they’re idiots,” said Lowry. “The people who were expecting me to come back in shape, they’re smart.” “I never was worried,” said DeRozan. “I never gave him a sales pitch throughout the same time, there, because I was just trying to be there for him honestly as a friend.
Raptors’ Lowry won’t slack off after big deal | Toronto Sun
“Kyle Lowry has been phenomenal,” said general manager Masai Ujiri, who inked Lowry to his new deal. “He’s in unbelievable shape. These guys, they took the summer seriously. You win games in the regular season, but you get better in the summer.” Lowry, far more comfortable with the media and in Toronto than he was just two years ago, definitely subscribes to that school of thought. “Me, I like to work, I like to actually put work in, it’s fun. I mean, this is my job,” Lowry said. “I like to get in the gym, I like to lift weights, I like to play basketball, I like to do everything, I like to just get better.” Getting better than he was last season will be a challenge. Lowry emerged as one of the NBA’s premier point guards and should have been named an all-star.
Raptors still working on getting respect | Toronto Sun
Casey is confident that the Raptors will take another step this season, and hopefully win the Atlantic again and move on to at least the second round of the playoffs. And aside from players like DeMar DeRozan, Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross improving because they have another year of experience in the NBA, Casey is looking for two key factors in helping his club develop into a true elite NBA side in 2014-15. For one, he wants to his club to play like they don’t get any respect around the league, which historically they haven’t. “That’s huge for me right now,” said Casey. “The greatest 16th man on our roster was we felt like the league didn’t respect us and we were scratching and fighting for respect. “And we still don’t have the total respect of the NBA, so we’ve got to make sure we gain that respect and keep that respect,” the fourth-year Raptors head coach said. “We’re the only ones who can control that.”
Lewenberg: Raptors embrace target on their back as camp opens | TSN
“You have to embrace it,” Casey said, holding court during Monday’s festivities, held on the upper level of Real Sports Bar & Grill, across from the ACC. “This is the first time this organization, since even before I got here, had heightened expectations, and I think that’s a good thing. It’s something we’ve got to embrace, we’ve got to take it and run with it, because it’s going to be there. There’s no pressure, it’s good pressure. We’re defending division champions and we have to go out every night and play like it.” “I don’t do predictions, unfortunately,” said Ujiri. “We’re hoping to win and grow as a team. The NBA is full of surprises, issues, growing pains, adversity. We’re ready. It’s our job to fix [problems]. We’ll keep grinding it out.” Like the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs – the model for sustainable success in basketball and throughout pro sports – the Raptors are banking on continuity and internal growth to take them to the next level.
No room for complacency for Raptors this season | Toronto Sun
They’ve already lost the one playoff series they should have won, the only playoff series we’ve seen in the Dwane Casey and now Masai Ujiri era. Playing well, entertaining people, turning Maple Leaf Square into a playground, is a wonderful goal. Winning is more important than that. Establishing a winning culture, year in year out, a team that can challenge for the Eastern championship, a team that should win in the 50-game range (something no Raptor team has ever done) is not just important, it’s necessary. “We’re going to win in this city,” said Ujiri, the general manager, without a single expletive in his sentence. “We’re going to win big. “We’re still a young team, young guys. The question is, what did we gain from the experience of last year? How much did we learn? Anybody can win one year. Our job is to do it every year.”
Raptors’ Williams ‘excited to be here’ | Toronto Sun
Williams is an elite scorer and has spent the majority of this career coming off the bench and scoring in bunches. He doesn’t see anything changing in Toronto. “I’m excited to be here,” he said. “I’m happy to be with a group that wants me. These guys really respect what I have done over the course of my career and I look forward to getting started. I’m ready. I’m back to 100% now. Last year was probably one of the more difficult seasons I have had in my career. I’m excited to get this season going and get back on track.”
Raptors Media Day: A View From The Scrum | Raptors HQ
Beginning at around 10am for the first time at Real Sports Bar & Grill, the hoi polloi of Toronto’s sports media were on hand to meet and greet this year’s team. The majority of the morning, however, felt like something of a reunion. The Raptors approach the coming season with most of last year’s team intact and momentum on a definite upswing. The event had a fairly loose and informal air to it, but the question of expectations seemed to be on everyone’s mind.
Ranking The Top 7 Small Forwards | Mike’s Mind
DeRozan is looked upon as a shooting guard by many, but the reality is, him and Terrence Ross are essentially interchangeable, with either one having the ability to guard all the twos and threes in the present day association. The 25-year old from from Compton, California is coming off a career year, scoring 22.7 points a night, though his field goal percentage is lacking the beauty that one might be expecting from a top five player, at his position. He has continually improved his defensive game, one that should continue to be on an incline, and there is little question that his effort is fully given, every night. The Raptors have the possibility of ending up being a surprise team in the East, taking care of the favorite Bulls or Cavaliers.
DeMar DeRozan talked with me about being irked by the ranking he was given by Sports Illustrated and ESPN, playing in the Drew League with Terrence Ross this summer and how the World Cup helped him grow.
Raptors Are A Team That Is Still Developing Core Players | Pro Bball Report
From the start of last season, right up to and including the seven-game playoff series with the Nets, Casey insisted the Raptors focus was on developing Ross, Valanciunas and DeRozan. DeRozan earned an All-Star nod, but Ross and Valanciunas were going to play significant minutes even with a playoff series on the line and more veteran players available on the bench. Not much has changed for Casey this year except last year’s sophomores are more experienced. “That’s the funny thing,” Casey said. “We are talking about taking the next step with third year players and DeMar is further down the road (now), but those two guys are core guys (that) still got to get better and develop, so that hasn’t changed at all.”
Toronto Raptors: An Interview With Bruno Caboclo | Hoops Habit
“The picture I have in my mind from what I watched on TV from my house in Brazil is the Raptor’s fans going wild supporting the team. Sold out games, outside at Maple Leaf Square hundreds of people cheering. So, my ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment will be in our first home game, when I come out from that lockeroom wearing my No. 5 Raptor jersey and see all that people supporting us. Then I would feel my stomach cramping and think, ‘this is it.’ If I get some playing time and the fans scream my name, oh man, this will be an indescribable feeling.”
