Wanted to write about the issues I’ve seen talked about on social media and in Raptors twitter lately, and whether they are real or imagined problems for the team. There’s a lot I’ve seen discussed, and sometimes when you go through a stretch like this, it’s hard to discern the real problems from the fake. But first, before we go into talking about problems, here’s a picture of a puppy.
This is Sasha, she’s the newest addition to the family for my wife and I, and she’s a 9-week old Labrador cross we are fostering to adopt from the local SPCA. So far, she gets along with our Husky pretty well, but our German Shepherd has mostly just been stressed out by the addition of a new dog. We’ll see how it works out.
Now that we’re finished with the puppy therapy I’m sure most of you needed as badly as I did this week, let’s talk about the Raptors. The team has lost five straight games, and tonight’s match against Milwaukee is by no means a sure thing. The Bucks are a tough, long, athletic team, the type that gives the Raptors issues even when DeMar DeRozan is in the lineup, which he likely won’t be tonight. The good news is, the schedule isn’t too tough coming up, so there is likely a light at the end of the tunnel.
Problem #1: Jonas Valanciunas isn’t a good enough defender.
Problem #2: DeMar DeRozan isn’t a good enough defender.
Wherever you stand on one of these two, you probably stand on the other side of the other issue, from what I’ve seen in the Raptors fan base. Both statements are accurate to at least some degree. Valanciunas will never be a true rim protector, he struggles to guard out on the perimeter, and he has a hard time covering when other guys blow coverage. He’s not Bismack Biyombo essentially, and he never will be. He can be good guarding back-to-the-basket types, and is a good rebounding center. If only asked to ‘stay in his lane’ on that end of the floor, he’ll get the job done.
Much the same can be said about DeRozan. He can be an adequate on-ball defender when he works for it, and we’ve seen, even in the last two years, some very good stretches even guarding some good offensive players. He plays the passing lanes well enough and will generate some steals and fast-break opportunities, that sometimes lead to overvaluing his impact on that end. But he also loses his man off-ball often, sometimes doesn’t come back at all in transition, and gives up blow-bys to some players he definitely shouldn’t. Maybe he has the physical tools to be a good defender, but thus-far his performances often are lacking.
They’re inextricably linked on the defensive end. Because a center like Valanciunas is fine defensively as long as your wings are sound, and you don’t need him to provide too much outside of covering his own man. And a guard like DeRozan is fine defensively if you have a good help defender behind him who can cover his occasional lapses.
But the truth of the matter is, neither of these guys is the problem on the defensive end lately. The team learned how to be an adequate, even sometimes good, defense, with both of them on the floor, so it’d be hard to blame them when that falters and they slip, especially given that DeRozan has missed the last two games. What the team does need, however, is consistent defense from the guys around them. They need Kyle Lowry and Cory Joseph to be the solid defenders we know they can be, stopping or at least slowing penetration at the point of attack and making sure their men are contained. The team needs Norman Powell, DeMarre Carroll, and Terrence Ross to contain opposing wing scorers. They need Patrick Patterson, Lucas Noguiera, and Jared Sullinger to be the help defenders that Valanciunas isn’t.
For the last two weeks, for the most part, all of those guys have been let-downs. The wings and guards have been letting penetration go with little to no resistance, and the big men haven’t been providing the help needed. That has to improve. Any Raptors fan should know what you’re going to get from Valanciunas and DeRozan at that end, the team needs to depend on the other guys to do what we know they can though.
Verdict: Real-ish issues. Neither of those guys will ever be shut-down defenders. Not, however, an issue that will impact the team long-term if they get the contributions they need from other guys.
Problem #3: The team needs a more complex, less predictable offense.
Problem #4: The team needs more consistency from their role players.
These two issues are also linked. It’s easy to both prop up and pick on the Raptors offense. It’s been historically efficient this year, and even against Memphis the other night, putting up 99 points against that defense with the pace they play at is impressive, especially for a team lacking their leading scorer. However, the concerns about how they perform in the playoffs are also legitimate. The Raptors had one of the best offenses in the league last year as well, before getting bogged down by tough playoff defenses that locked in on stopping DeRozan and Lowry. Often-times the team falls into sections during the game that simply look like the two All-Stars trading off possessions, and the other players fall into these trends too, with Joseph, Ross and Norm sometimes trying to play 1-on-5 for possessions. It looks much worse when the other guys try it, too, because they simply don’t have the talent of the team’s stars.
On the other side of things, the role players don’t generally provide consistent offense. It’s hard to predict who can give you 10-15 points on any given night when the team needs it, and this can be very frustrating when DeRozan or Lowry has a down night. There’s an expectation that either Ross or Valanciunas will be that guy, as they’ve both shown to be more than capable, but neither manages to put up those numbers on a nightly basis. Norm has outbursts where he puts up big numbers and looks like a future star driving to the basket with power and speed, but he gets tunnel vision as well when he does this, and that can get him into trouble. Joseph has one of the best floaters in the game, and when he plays under control it’s fantastic, but he’s gone through stretches this year where it seems like hitting a layup gives him trouble.
Here’s the thing though, the offense works. That goes for both the predictability of it, in that DeRozan and Lowry are the only guys given consistent opportunities to succeed and sometimes try to do too much, and the fact that the role players go through cold stretches. You can’t have one without the other. If you move to integrate the other guys more and get them the opportunities in order to demand nightly offensive success for them, you run the risk of hurting the overall efficiency because DeRozan and Lowry won’t have as much time with the ball, which has been a key ingredient of them developing into the All-Stars they’ve become. Most of us would love to see some simple adjustments, like having guys find the easy pass to Valanciunas to get him more scoring opportunities when he has easy chances, but it would be the safe bet to say that won’t change, and maybe we all need to be ok with that, given the efficiency on that end of the floor.
Guys like Ross, Patterson and Carroll get cold for games or stretches of games from 3-point range, and that’s definitely frustrating, but to some extent that’s just the nature of the shot. The three-point shot is both essential to modern offenses and high-variance, and there’s no one in the league who doesn’t get cold sometimes from there. It will happen, and might hurt the team some nights. That’s equal parts annoying and inevitable, and the best solution to a cold stretch from long distance is to keep shooting, and shoot your way out of it. Like it or not, the team will need those guys to hit shots to contend in the playoffs.
Verdict: Fake issue, but true. Both of these things are definitely true, and yet neither of them is truly a problem for the team, as constructed. Perhaps it’s a playoff problem, but we’ll have to see. It’s hard to be too mad when it definitely works to get the Raptors to the postseason though.
Problem #5: The team needs a new starting power forward.
We’re all tired of hearing about this one, and if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m pretty tired of writing about it too. I’ve written about why Patrick Patterson is the answer here, I’ve written about the options via trade and why they do or don’t make sense, but it’s the most talked about topic with regards to the team. Whether Paul Millsap, Derrick Favors, DeMarcus Cousins, Taj Gibson, or someone else, it seems like we’re constantly trying to ‘fix’ this position for the team. The truth of the matter is, there has been a problem here. Last year, Luis Scola didn’t fit beside Jonas Valanciunas and that caused the team to start slow, as the two of them were too slow-footed to not have defensive issues. This year, the majority of the starts have gone to the inexperienced Pascal Siakam, who has the potential to be a good defensive player but simply hasn’t had the time to grow yet into the player he might be in the future.
Since coming back from injury, it feels like the team has been trying to move Jared Sullinger into this role, and he’s also been too slow-footed to be a good match beside Valanciunas. As I mentioned above, you need a good help defender beside Jonas, to make up for his own deficiencies on that end. The other two pairings that he’s been part of, however, with Patrick Patterson and Lucas Noguiera, have been excellent. Both players seem to bring the help JV needs defensively to keep the team operating at a solid level on that end, while also spacing the floor on offense allowing DeRozan, Lowry, and Valanciunas to operate in the post when needed.
Not to re-hash the whole thing over again, but if Millsap or Cousins becomes available, you definitely make the move. You overpay if necessary, because those are franchise-changing players, and this organization can reach an entirely new ceiling with them on-board. Otherwise, though, stick with the pairings that work. If the team doesn’t want to start Patterson to keep him part of the bench units, start Bebe next to Jonas, and use him and Sullinger to keep Patterson from needing to play the massive stretches of consecutive minutes that have worn him out in the past.
Verdict: Fake issue. There’s enough talent here to make the pairings work on this end of the floor, without even going into the small-ball lineups that’ve seen success for the team.
Problem #6: The team needs to make a trade.
This one has started to pop up recently, and I didn’t even want to include it, but it’s started to become a pervasive argument within the Raptors fan base, so I thought I’d address it. Yes, it’s not fun that they can’t seem to stop this losing streak, and it’d be great to see making a move as the solution to turn the team around. But panic trades do not work.
Panic trades are how the Knicks and Nets ended up where they’re at. It’s how the Raptors were run under Bryan Colangelo, when it seemed like we were punting from former star to former star while throwing away young players and draft picks in the process. It doesn’t get you where you want, and it likely hurts down the road more than it helps. If there’s a trade out there that brings in a third star you definitely look at it, but the youth and depth the Raptors currently have is a good problem, and one that many franchises would kill to have. LeBron is still LeBron, and the Golden State Warriors are one of the greatest assemblances of talent in the history of the league, the odds are long to win a title no matter who comes through that door at the trade deadline.
But the Raptors have youth, and they have picks, and they have no bad contracts. The long-term path might not be sexy, and there’s certainly risks there too with Lowry aging and the length of DeRozan’s prime being uncertain, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
Verdict: Fake issue. Panic trades will not help.
It’s clear I don’t think this is a team with many issues, and I understand that many of you might disagree. It’s certainly easy to based on recent results. But it’s the opinion of this writer that the team will be fine in the long-term. Maybe a championship isn’t in the cards, but Toronto has come a long way from some of the darker periods in team history, and we should celebrate where we’re at more often, because there might be darker days ahead when this era ends. On that note, I’m going back to puppy training and familiarizing my dogs with each other, and hoping I don’t need too much puppy therapy after tonight’s game.
