Before I start this article, I want to acknowledge where the Raptors are since the beginning of Dwane Casey’s tenure and where they are now. When Casey came here, he gradually improved the team, but looking back at some of the past and present misuse of players might be a sign that Dwane Casey will never get this Raptors team over the top.
Looking across the NBA, there are a lot of really talented players that the Raptors had at one point, and would be perfect fits on this team right now. Instead, the Raptors are essentially putting the entire weight of their success on Kyle Lowry and Demar Derozan having monster nights, and it is simply not enough of a fight to beat the good teams in the NBA.
Yet, looking back, the Raptors have misused and mismanaged several pieces in the last four seasons to the point where the Raptors could have really relied on more than Lowry and Derozan if they were all utilized properly.
The theme has been the same every season. Every year the Raptors have a lot of talent, and every year they seem to be overused or underused to the point where they become seen as expendable.
Let’s take a look back at some past players the Raptors have let go that could really be helping this team if they were properly integrated into our offense.
Rudy Gay:
This choice is going to spark up some controversy, but let us look at this from a talent perspective. Rudy Gay is an incredible talent, and he was completely overused in Toronto to the point where he became the problem. However, his 92 offensive rating in 2013-2014 was a result of poor coaching and putting Gay in a position to fail. Gay had a 30% usage and was often cleared out to go 1 on 1 with little to no off ball movement to free up a good look. Basically, Gay had the same role that Harrison Barnes has in Dallas right now, which was to create everything for himself, and as an inefficient volume guy, the results of averaging 19 points per game on 19 shots before being dumped out were not surprising.
However, Gay has fit in well on the Kings, and though they are not seeing much winning success, Gay has efficiently averaged close to 20 points per game on the Kings, while shooting a very respectable 37% on his 3 pointers before getting injured this season. Rudy is overpaid, yes, and I am not saying he is a realistic solution to this Raptors team right now, but he is an example of a player that the Raptors completely misused under Dwane Casey’s tenure, only to see him take him off in a system that can get the most out of his talent.
The same cannot be said about someone like Demarre Carroll, who was brought in from a system that got him over half his looks from three to be wide open. Carroll has been an obvious bust and it is safe to say that if he went somewhere else, he would not be any better.
This is one example of many of the Raptors not being able to maximize their player’s ceiling, and instead having to rely on guys with low ceilings to do their jobs and fill shoes that they are not capable of filling to put this Raptors team over the top.
Gay’s ceiling was not met, but a small forward and stretch four hybrid like him with the upside to be a big impact on both ends if used properly would be really nice right about now. To sum up how poor the usage of Rudy Gay was, Kyle Lowry took 7 shots per game in Gay’s final month in Toronto, and the Raptors were ready to dump Lowry to the Knicks after him “not realizing his potential”, despite the fact that he was almost another great player that the Raptors misused and then gave up on. Luckily James Dolan thought Masai Ujiri was fleecing him and backed away from the offer.
Lou Williams
Lou Williams might have won 6th man of the year in Toronto, but he was very frustrating to fans here because of how he was used. He was often told to isolate and he was notorious for being the guy who was asked to dribble out the shot clock and take a contested three at the end of quarters. Lou was a fun player, but he was seen as part of the problem in Toronto for creating this hero ball mentality.
Was Lou the problem here? Or was Dwane Casey the problem for allowing this culture to snowball and essentially lead to the Raptors getting swept in the first round of the 2015 playoffs?
Lou has a much higher ceiling that Cory Joseph offensively, and he has a better defensive rating than Joseph does this year. Lou is another example of a high ceiling guy that the Raptors overused and ended up casting him to be part of the problem. The Raptors let him walk and he went to the Los Angeles Lakers.
This season, Lou is averaging 19 points per game in 24 minutes and is ranked 20th in Hollinger’s EWA stat with an 8.0 score. This is higher than Paul George, Nikola Jokic, Hassan Whiteside and Mike Conley.
Lou has a PER of 22, and is having one of the best seasons of his career. The Raptors lack consistent secondary scoring, but chose to give up on Lou’s ceiling because Casey didn’t know how to use him properly. Now that he is being used well in LA, he is a candidate to win 6th man of the year award and lead the Lakers in points per game, despite playing such few minutes.
Lou already has more assists this year than he did with his entire season with the Raptors.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a guy like this who can score 20 points in his sleep any night of the week, without having a drop off on the defensive end? Though Joseph is labelled as a better defender, his 112 defensive rating and constant allowing of guys to blow by him speaks against that label.
Gay and Lou Williams are two examples of players who were overused with the Raptors and not allowed to reach their full potential.
Hassan Whiteside
I’ll keep this one brief as this was a short stint if you can even call it that, but I do recall Hassan Whiteside’s summer league with the Raptors. Whiteside averaged over 20 rebounds per 36 minutes, and over 3 blocks per 36 minutes with the Raptors summer league team. Yet, the Raptors chose to keep a veteran big with no upside in Greg Stiemsma. As I’m sure you all know, Hassan ended up signing with the Heat, and his upside has clearly been reached with a max contract.
This is another example of the Raptors not recognizing and giving a ceiling a chance. Instead, they went with Stiemsma, who had already proven that he was not an NBA center, and lost out on the chance to see if Whiteside could bring some of those summer league stats to the NBA.
James Johnson
Another player who I have mentioned before is James Johnson. He was a guy who always had a big ceiling, but was replaced in the rotation by Tyler Hansborough (Not in the NBA), Luis Scola (12th man on the worst team in the NBA), Amir Johnson (fringe rotation player on the Celtics), and Terrence Ross through his struggles every single night. What do all of those guys, besides Ross, have in common? They had no ceiling. JJ was always extremely hardworking and talented, but his “lapses” on defense that every other player would make and live to tell the tale, were what essentially put him in the doghouse. JJ got paid 4 million to play in Miami this year.
The Heat have won 9 games in a row, and Johnson is playing a massive role in this. He is averaging 13 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 block and 1 steal per game since January, and has been guarding every team’s best player for the entire month. Jimmy Butler went 1 for 13 against the Heat with Johnson primarily defending him. Last year, Jimmy Butler scored 40 points in a half against the Raptors with James Johnson listed as a DNP-CD.
He has finally reached his ceiling, and is an incredible two way player right now. Yet, the Raptors felt compelled to use guys with no upside at JJ’s expense and they limited his role to the point where every time he touched the ball, if he screwed up, he would be sat down by Casey.
The big knock on JJ was that he couldn’t shoot and thus not space the floor, yet he is shooting better on 3 pointers than both Patrick Patterson and Demarre Carroll this year..
This is another example of the Raptors not recognizing a player’s ceiling and buying low and casting him out to be the problem when he fell out of favour and was misused by Dwane Casey.
Norman Powell
I have shown many examples of players that the Raptors have completely misused, and Norm Powell is another one. What does Norm have to do to crack this Raptors’ rotation? Carroll provides nothing on the offensive end, and frankly has been completely exploitable on the defensive end as well overall this year. Norm has averaged 15 points per game, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal as a starter, while playing excellent defense as well.
Last year, when the Raptors rested their regulars, Norm had some monster games in April, yet was an afterthought in the playoff rotation and last resort for Dwane Casey. Norm is a player showing another great ceiling, and if the Raptors are not careful, they might see yet another player like Norm become a part of a trade package which will come back to burn them later.
Conclusion:
The Raptors have chosen to take players with high floors and low ceilings for the most part during Masai Ujiri’s tenure. Dwane Casey is a big part of the blame, as he has had a lot of talent that he has not known how to utilize. The Raptors overused Rudy Gay, but if he was used as a stretch 4/small forward hybrid properly, he would have been a massive asset to this basketball team.
Cory Joseph and Patrick Patterson are decent players, but Lou Williams and James Johnson both provide so much more upside at their position, and their upsides are being reached in new places. Joseph is a liability at both ends most nights, and Patterson is a solid two way player, but his inconsistency from three point land makes him someone who is hard to label as a high ceiling.
The point of this article is not to say that the Raptors should have never let Rudy Gay, James Johnson and Lou Williams go, but the point is that they misused them which made them the problem. The talent level in all three guys could each severely impact this team in a positive way right now, and it is a shame that the same misusage is happening with Norman Powell, and that the lack of recognition for upside is hurting this team right now.
Considering Ujiri was willing to trade Kyle Lowry at the point when he was being misused the most, letting James Johnson go for nothing when he was being under-utilized, and casting Rudy Gay out to be a problem when he has shown he can be a great secondary piece in Sacramento, is not a good sign.
At each time, the players were indeed a problem, but the Raptors really could be in a much better position if these players were utilized properly and one or two of them were still on the roster. Let’s hope the Raptors don’t make the same mistake with Norman Powell and start utilizing his talent more.
