Re-brands exist. They’re not always successful (“The Shack,” “Xe,”) but sometimes they’re necessary. Scandal, low brand equity, a need to be aggressive in the face of stiff competition, there are good reasons that companies roll the dice. Burberry managed to go from fringe hooligan-wear to luxury heritage brand. Pabst Blue Ribbon flipped its economic frat-boy North American image to become a high-end lager in China, the world’s largest beer market. BackRub changed its name to Google shortly before taking off. A slight change in branding approach can make a major difference, especially entering a new market or a new stage in the product life cycle.
And so Raptors Republic thought it only appropriate to rebrand Terrence Ross as Terry Ross early in the 2015-16 season. Terrence would be the call-back in the event Ross reverted to his old, inconsistent, disengaged ways, while Terry – perhaps even “Headband Terry,” as Ross experimented – would be the new, improved, matured, consistent, and, of course, well-paid version of Ross.
The re-brand went smoothly for all of two games, and the Terry Ross brand is now buried in the marketing mausoleum with New Coke. There’s been no Terry Ross over the last four games. There may not even be a Terrence Ross anymore. Now, thanks to Daniel Wiser, there is a third incarnation of the Ross brand: (Alba)TRoss.
@ekoreen shall we consider a new nickname: AlbaTRoss
— Daniel Wiser (@wiser) November 9, 2015
It’s too early to make judgments on the three-year, $31-million contract extension the Raptors signed Ross to a week ago, but the early returns are concerning. Ross’ calling card has long been inconsistency, both in production and effort, and the four games since he put pen to paper have vindicated anyone who was staunchly opposed to extending the 24-year-old ahead of restricted free agency.
He’s scored seven points on 4-of-19 shooting, grabbed five rebounds, and dished two assists in 72 minutes of action, woeful production. In the first three games of the year, he scored 37 points with eight rebounds and three assists and shot 13-of-25 in 51 minutes.
It’s a drastic turnaround, one that speaks to the general trend with Ross rather than any implied change in approach once long-term money was secured. Basketball isn’t so easy as to allow players to be good one week when their situation calls for it and then be terrible the next, and even if Ross’ mentality was such, it would serve no end to intentionally miss open shots. The slump also doesn’t mean the extension was a bad idea. While the financials are striking in nominal terms, there were understandable, if arguable, reasons for making the deal in the new NBA economy. A $10.5-million annual salary is not untradeable, and general manager Masai Ujiri has sent strong signals he believes he’ll have to build the team through the draft and through trades rather than on the free agent market. Ross’ deal was a calculated risk, one that can’t be knocked after four games, however bad.
And bad they’ve been. Really bad. Ross’ offense is a flaming tire fire right now and he hasn’t been bringing enough effort on the defensive end to make up for it. On the season, the Raptors are 7.3 points per-100 possessions better with Ross on the bench than on the court, as Ross and Patrick Patterson have conspired to make the second unit terribly unproductive. Patterson’s is a case for another time, but Ross was supposed to be the team’s sixth or seventh man, and head coach Dwane Casey was optimistic entering the season that Ross could find his offensive footing as a microwave man of sorts off the bench.
That’s probably in large part why Casey opted to give James Johnson the start in DeMarre Carroll’s absence on Sunday. No, Ross hadn’t been playing well enough to warrant a start, but he’s familiar with the non-Luis Scola starters, and Johnson hadn’t been playing at all. Instead of promoting Ross and then promoting someone else into a reserve role, Casey opted for role consistency, something he’s been preaching all through the early parts of the season, keeping Ross in his first-wing-off-the-bench position.
He didn’t answer the call Sunday and it’s now unclear exactly what the team needs to do to shake Ross out of his funk.
It’s somewhat reductive to say, but right now Ross is simply missing shots. His teammates are getting him open looks in the flow of the offense and he, like Patterson, is simply misfiring. His shooting will eventually regress to the mean, and his 28-percent mark from long-range will correct closer to his 37.1-percent career mark. Considering he’s firing 7.4 threes per-36 minutes, the shooting correction will have a major impact on his total output. Again, it’s reductive, but he needs to just keep shooting, because shooting is the one thing he does definitively well.
It would be different if Ross were chucking contested jumpers off the bounce, but he’s not. He’s shooting 35 percent on catch-and-shoot threes, he’s only attempted four triples off the dribble, and only six of his attempts have been late-clock scenarios with seven or fewer seconds to go. Per NBA.com data, 18 of his 3-point attempts have been classified as “open” or “wide open,” and he’s canned just five of those looks. He’s missing makeable shots, one’s he normally knocks down, and the only real solution for that is patience, unless you think Ross has suddenly become a fundamentally worse shooter.
In the meantime, it’s on Ross to contribute elsewhere. While the assist numbers aren’t there yet and he remains inexplicably allergic to the free-throw line – seriously, is he the most athletic player ever to average fewer than 1.5 free-throw attempts per-36 minutes over a 243-game sample? – he has shown improvements attacking closeouts. His handle looks a little tighter than in years past, and while his passing isn’t as sharp as it needs to be, he’s making reads that he wouldn’t have seen as recently as last season. Creating for himself and for others remains a major work in progress, but there have been two or three plays each game during which you can notice positive changes in his approach.
But a good deal of his poor performance, particularly the defensive effort, falls on him without the shield of development or patience. An athletic two-guard should be able to get more than five rebounds over 72 minutes in support of his frontcourt, especially when he’s not often tasked with guarding the best wing player on the floor. The defense, as always, has been inconsistent, with Ross looking like a lock-down defender on some plays and other times losing his man on a baseline cut and not realizing until the play’s gone back the other way. He has some Johnson in him, in that he can be great on the ball but falls asleep guarding off the ball, except that he’s also not quite reliable on the ball yet.
The defensive shortcomings are borderline inexcusable in his fourth year under the same coach, but what’s the cure for inconsistency? Defense and rebounding fall on Ross, and there’s little solving to do in those areas – either Ross starts doing those things or he doesn’t.
Casey doesn’t have much recourse when Ross doesn’t. Ross just signed a sizable three-year extension and even if he’s benched temporarily as a teaching tool, he’s going to find his way back into favor eventually. The Raptors are about present-day wins rather than development, so a detractor would be entirely justified in saying, “Casey needs to play the players who give the team the best chance to win, regardless of long-term development goals.” Except that sadly, Ross would still be in the rotation under that approach.
What are Casey’s options if he wants to bench Ross? He gave the starting nod to Johnson, and Johnson turned in a great first half before trying to do way too much in the third quarter and getting sent back to the bench. Norman Powell is a high-effort rookie with defensive chops, but one who the team may not be comfortable with guarding threes yet and who has been retooling his jump shot with the coaching staff (if Casey were to “send a message” with Ross’ minutes, Powell’s my choice to get them on a short-term basis). The Raptors are already using Kyle Lowry-Cory Joseph lineups for over 10 minutes per game on average, despite their reticence to have DeMar DeRozan play the three for long stretches (he’s averaging about seven minutes per game there). Anthony Bennett is more a four than a three and hasn’t looked great, anyway. Patterson has been as bad as Ross, so sticking with a power forward for 48 minutes and lessening the need for wings is out, too. Without Carroll, Ross is necessary, and even with Carroll, Ross isn’t leaving the nine-man rotation for more than a handful of games.
One of my primary concerns entering the season was a lack of wing depth in the event Carroll got hurt. That’s on display now, as the Raptors’ only real long-term recourse for Ross’ bad play is “be patient.” That’s a lot to ask of fans (and coach) after three-plus years of practicing patience with a wildly inconsistent performer, one whom the Raptors just paid handsomely to be an answer to apparent wing-depth issues. But that’s the answer, probably. Be patient and hope Terry re-emerges when the shots start falling.
