Things have not been going well for the Toronto Raptors lately. Expectations were high for them going into the season, and rightfully so – the team was coming off the best regular season and deepest playoff run in playoff history, went through the offseason without losing anyone significant(sorry Biz!) and their all-star guards Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan spent the offseason striking gold in the Olympics. Coming into this season the only debate about the Raptors was about whether they would be the clear 2nd best team in the East or if they would have competition from a revamped Celtics squad. The question wasn’t whether the Raptors would be good, it was whether they were a contender alongside the Cavaliers, Warriors, Spurs and Clippers or if they were merely the best of the rest.
The beginning of the season went more or less according to plan, with the Raptors already potent offense taking it up another notch and easily dispatching the competition they were supposed to beat while standing toe to toe with the league’s elite. It was a continuation of last season, except with an offense that was challenging the league’s all time great offenses(made necessary by a mediocre defense, of course). Because it wouldn’t be a Raptors season if it didn’t generate at least a little big of angst that train has since been derailed, and the promising start and good feelings that came with it have been replaced by an extended string of mediocrity and weeks of torment for the fanbase. The negative feelings are understandable given the teams play of late, and the return of DeRozan hasn’t fixed what ails them, but there’s still a lot to be optimistic about provided you look at things from the correct angles.
Was the Raptors strong play an illusion?
For some reason this question always seems to come up as soon as the Raptors stumble, and I honestly don’t understand why. I can’t think of anywhere else in life where a change in results would be said to invalidate everything that happened before. If you were performing an experiment and got a statistically significant sample size of results within a certain range and those results suddenly changed in subsequent tests you wouldn’t just assume that the first set were incorrect. If your car consistently did 0-60 in under 7 seconds and it suddenly started lagging a bit to 10 seconds you wouldn’t just adjust your expectations because the new results were the “real” results. In both cases you would endeavour to find the reason for the change.
In sports, and especially with the Raptors, that’s not how it works. It seems you’re only as good as your last game and as soon as you stumble that now defines who you are. Those 56 games you won last year? That was last year. That 28-13 start? That was three weeks ago. As soon as the Raptors started to stumble there was talk of regression and paper tigers, like most teams don’t go through ups and downs like this. Obviously there is some reason to give greater significance to recent play but nobody pretends that the Washington Wizards were never a mediocre team because they’ve found their groove lately so we shouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that this is what the Raptors should have been and will be all year. I don’t think there has ever been a team that has played at the same level for an entire season with no ebb and flow, and if there has been they are the exception and not the rule. There is a very good chance that the Raptors bounce back from this. The team has steadily climbed the ranks for 5 years now, they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt and a little patience.
What’s changed?
It’s tempting to chalk it up to injuries that and has certainly been part of it. Patrick Patterson is the teams second best 2 way player and DeMar DeRozan is the teams offensive workhorse – both have missed significant time. The pair has been fairly durable during their time in Toronto but have taken turns missing games in the new year, sharing the court for only 3 games in the 2017. The loss might not seem that significant at first glance – neither is the best player on the team and Patterson doesn’t start most of the time – but losing your best overall defender is always a significant blow and it can be tough for players to make up for DeRozan’s usage on the offensive end with little preparation.
That’s only part of the story, however. The Raptors struggles started before either player got injured, when the team was in the midst of their extended west coast road trip. Part of it was inevitable, their hot shooting to start the season was never going to last, at least not with the long range bombers on this roster. There’s more to it than just cold shooting, though. The team has struggled to find a consistent rotation all year long, with a few core lineups that work but a lot of lineups that are inconsistent at best and quite a few questionable player combinations getting heavy minutes. They might be the best team in the league whose most played lineup is a significant net negative, currently sitting at -79 for the season.
The Raptors also lack the defense necessary to survive any extended cold streaks; for better or worse this is a team that will live and die by their offense and in the new year that offense has been failing them more often than not. The Raptors have actually taken a significant step back on that end in the new year, which really highlights just how valuable Patrick Patterson is to the team; you can argue that the offense falling off is mostly due to the absence of DeRozan but the defense is typically better without him and it’s 3.8 points per 100 possessions worse in the new year. Every game that passes with Patterson out of the lineup and the Raptors struggling as a result strengthens the argument for Patterson being the teams second most valuable player.
Why isn’t the sky falling?
This bad stretch has been really frustrating to watch but there are some encouraging things to take away from it, assuming the Raptors are learning from their mistakes and paying attention to what has worked. Being forced to play atypical lineups with DeRozan and Patterson in and out of the rotation has revealed two important truths for the team that can make a big difference going forward.
1 – the team can survive without Lowry and DeRozan on the floor. The trio of Cory Joseph, Norman Powell and Terrence Ross have shown that they can hold their ground for stretches, especially with Lucas Nogueira manning the middle; the 4 most played lineups with that foursome are all significant positives. Obviously the sample size is small and you wouldn’t run with them for a full game but if it means giving Lowry and DeRozan some extra rest the team should feel comfortable throwing them out there for an extra 4-5 minutes per game and saving some mileage on the two stars. This is important because the durability of each of them is now a legitimate question mark and getting them a bit of extra rest is crucial. A legitimate fear right now is that coach Dwane Casey may panic and shorten the rotation and neither of the Raptors star guards will be operating at full capacity come playoff time.
2 – long thought to be the teams biggest area of need, if used properly the frontcourt may be their biggest strength. The Raptors have three very good frontcourt players in Valanciunas, Patterson and Nogueira who don’t have a lot of overlap in their strengths and weaknesses which allows them to trot out a solid pairing for almost any situation. Valanciunas is the only one who we could call a good rebounder and post scorer, Patterson is the best shooter as well as the smartest and most versatile defender defender while Nogueira is the longest and most athletic of the bunch. Need to put up some points? Put Valanciunas and Patterson out there, the Raptors score 119.2 points per 100 possessions(and post a net rating of +14.4) with the pair on the floor together. Need to compete with a small ball unit? Nogueira and Patterson are more than up to the task, using their length and mobility to help and recover while holding offenses to a stingy 102.7 points per 100 possessions(and posting a net rating of +16.7) Need to defend a bigger lineup or having trouble keeping teams off the offensive glass? The Valanciunas and Nogueira pairing holds offenses to an incredible 95.4 points per 100 possessions while grabbing 82.2% of their defensive rebounds and posting a net rating of +9.3. There’s a big man combination for every situation, ranging from elite offense with average defense to elite defense with average offense. When the team is healthy that trio can easily take up most of the big man minutes – if they each average 28 mpg the team only needs to fill in 12 minutes with DeMarre Carroll at the 4 in a small lineup or with one of their other big men. The Raptors have been terrible with Pascal Siakam, Jared Sullinger or Jakob Poeltl on the court,they should now realize that they don’t need to play any of them significant minutes on a regular basis and their insistence on forcing one of them into the regular rotation has been costing them games.
It wouldn’t be a Raptors season without some ups and downs but there is no need to blow up the team just yet. Their lineup is versatile if used correctly and their recent injury issues have uncovered utility in valuable places where I don’t think anybody really expected to find it; the Valanciunas-Nogueira pairing makes no sense on offense but manages to get by while everyone has always assumed the offense would just fall apart without Lowry or DeRozan on the floor and that hasn’t been the case. The big question, of course, if whether the team sees this and will adjust their lineups accordingly. Given what we’ve seen recently that’s certainly in doubt, with Sullinger and Poeltl both getting significant fourth quarter minutes in a tight game while Valanciunas inexplicably rode the bench, but there’s no urgent need to blow up the roster and rebuild if the major issue they face is less about who is available to play than it is who ends up playing and when. That 56 win, Eastern Conference Finals team from last year and the 28-13 team from this year is still in there somewhere.
