Back in the glory days, I was all-in on the Raps. I swear, there were a couple years where Vince Carter hit 90% of the game-winning shot attempts he took (note: this is definitely not a real stat). But it wasn’t just Vince that got me hooked, it was the whole team. They had a core of players that fans could easily get behind.
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| Alvin Williams, and the rest of the Raptors' role players, helped make the Vince Carter era so great |
All of Toronto loved JYD. He may not have ever averaged more than 10 points per game during his time in T.O., but damnit, we loved watching Jerome Williams hustle around the court. Antonio Davis? I know at least one of my buddies had his replica jersey. Alvin Williams was an awesome guy to have running the point for this team, and when he couldn’t play, Chris Childs stepped right in. As a kid, I just loved this group. The Raps’ role players had almost as much to do with my fan-ness as Vince did.
But leading up to the 2009-10 season, they had lost pretty much anyone likable.
I’m not going to go into depths on the Vince Carter trade. Toronto got 30 cents to the dollar on that one—if they were lucky. That disaster could be the subject of its’ own book; plus, I just don’t really want to re-live all of that. The trade was a franchise killer, and was the beginning of the end for a lot of fans.
I stuck with the team for a bit though, and there were some good times. In 2006-07, the Raps won the division and had home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs behind the teams’ new star Chris Bosh, and a spattering of European talent (Jose Calderon and Jorge Garbajosa from Spain, Anthony Parker from the Israeli league, etc.). Sam Mitchell somehow won Coach of the Year; Bryan Colangelo took home the hardware for the league’s best executive.
But it soon took a turn. It all went horribly wrong. Injuries played a part, sure. But really, Colangelo screwed it all up. For fans and the front office alike, it was slowly becoming a possibility that Bosh was going to leave at the end of his contract. Clearly, the team needed to see some post-season success if Bosh was going to resign. Colangelo unleashed a plan that would sink this team for years to come. The Raps GM tried to convince Bosh to stay by signing a slew of “big” names in the league.
He traded the rights to Roy Hibbert for Jermaine O’Neil before 2008-09 season (just an awful, awful deal in retrospect). When the duo of O’Neil and Bosh began to struggle, Colangelo traded O’Neil for Shawn Marion. This was all in the same season. The following year, Colangelo again tried to get a “big”name: Hedo Turkoglu. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, both for Bosh as a player, and me as a fan. Hedo was so unlikable, it just made it so hard to watch my favorite team. He had no chemistry with Bosh and the rest of the team. You could just tell he was unhappy, and a bit of a jerk (remember this interview?).
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| This picture pretty much sums up the Hedo era in Toronto |
The Bosh era was painfully coming to an end. He was obviously going to leave at the end of the 2009-2010 season. Colangelo’s plan of overpaying for underachieving “stars”, at the expense of the rest of the roster, had failed miserably. The team was in shambles. Bosh left. Hedo left (or was kicked out, or somewhere in between). And the franchise became an embarrassment.
In 2010-11, 22 different players got on the court for the Raptors. Big names like Alexis Ajinca, Joey Dorsey, and Trey Johnson all inexplicably registered over 80 minutes of floor time during the season (I know 80 minutes isn't a lot over the course of a year, but who are those guys?). The team had no identity, finishing near the bottom in the league in both defensive and offensive efficiency.
There was a little stretch where I thought I’d never care about Toronto basketball again. The last two years have provided some fantastic basketball throughout the league, and it had become so much easier to cheer for, say, the Thunder and their young core, than to watch a clueless Raptors team go through the motions on the court. Even they knew they had no chance in most of those games.
This offseason, though, saw a dramatic turnaround for the Raptors. They started doing something I thought Colangelo was incapable of doing: they started signing good, young players, and developing a definite culture. (To be fair, the Raps’ culture—one of prioritising defense first—really started with the hiring of Dwayne Casey before the 2011-12 season).
First, there was the acquisition of Kyle Lowry. I’ve been a big Lowry fan for the last couple years. He’s one of the best defensive point guards in the league, and fits in perfectly with Casey’s game plan. He can be a leader for the team on the defensive end, and has just enough of an offensive game to be a nice two-way player.
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| New addition Kyle Lowry could end up anchoring the team, on both ends of the court |
Then, it was Landry Fields. Did Colangelo overpay? Definitely. But again, the Raps got a defensive talent, who is still young. If he can manage to return to his rookie form, the Raptors got a great piece for their rotation: a guy who can shoot from range, and defend wing players from the three-point line to the rim.
Sure, it’s tough to like Andrea Bargnani and his inability to play tough; sure, I’ve always hated Linas Kleiza; sure, Aaron Gray is still on the team (and making about $2.5 million... yikes). It doesn’t matter. With Lowry and Fields, with DeMar DeRozan slashing to the rim, with Terrence Ross (hopefully) providing some scoring from the wing, Toronto has a slew of young, likable players for the first time in a long time.
It won’t all be rosy for Toronto. Two drafts ago the Raptors selected a true back-to-the-basket center, Jonas Valanciunas (who will make his debut this year), just as some of the league's best teams were seemingly leaning towards smaller lineups. Valanciunas will play a major role on this team, and while the early impressions of Valanciunas are all very good, it's almost a guarantee that he will struggle for stretches of the year as he adjusts to the fast pace of the NBA. Here's hoping for the best.
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| Jonas Valanciunas is the Raptors' biggest wild-card this year |
It’s been a tough couple years for the Raps, but it looks as though the future is relatively bright. They may not make the playoffs this year (in fact, I’m pretty sure they won’t), but for the first time in a long time they have a coherent plan. They're going young, and they're going defensive. But it's not just the blueprint for the team that is promising. For the first time since the JYD/ Antonio Davis/ Alvin Williams days, the Raptors have a core of likable players.
I’m still not sold on Colangelo (I'm sure he'll do a couple more things to convince me he's an idiot), but for now I’m buying into this team.
For now, I’m a Raptors fan—again.
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