Evaluating The Toronto Raptors Pre Season

Pre Season Record: 4-4

The pre season so far has been ok I guess from a fans perspective. From a coaches perspective, it's probably been pretty productive. The Raptors chose to keep their roster slim and trim, focusing on only signed players with guaranteed contracts and not inviting anyone to participate in training camp. This put a lot of strain on the players but also allowed the coaching staff to really focus on line ups and possible substitutions. Now Sam Mitchel and the rest of his crew have a really good idea of what to expect for their regular season line up.

Toronto Raptors 104 - Cleveland Caveliers 84

I was unfortunately unable to view the first game against the Cleveland Caveliers. My local cable provider is only airing Raptors Pre Season games that are home games. I guess I could make comments on some of the things that went down but what's the point really?. Why don't I just provide you a link or two to the Recap and Boxscore? It's just easier that way right? By the way leBron barely played as he doesn't need to play in the pre season cause he's a basketball god who was designed to be the ultimate basketball player since his inception. Movin' on.

New York Knicks 111 - Toronto Raptors 113

Game 2 however was broadcast and I was able to see the New York Knicks do there thang under new coach Mike D'antoni. From what I can remember it was pretty back and forth for the majority of the game but the Raptors seemed to have things in control. It was the first time I was able to see Jermaine O'Neal in action as well and I was stoked. He was looking a little rusty but all in all I felt good knowing that there was another big body down low. He got dunked on pretty hard by Wilson Chandler but that's only because he tried to go for the block. He knew he was late but still tried. He got posterized but an A for effort non the less.

The bench really did a good job with Andrea Bargnani (15 pts, 5 rebs) and Chris Humphries (13 pts, 6 rebs) really stepping up in a big way. The bench production will be major this season as there are a couple new faces and some vets from at least a year ago that will come in ready when needed. There aren't very many surprises as far as the starting line up goes, except for how O'Neal will mesh with the rest of the guys, but the bench will need to be whipped into shape if there's any chance of this team meeting expectations for the regular season. Some additions are questionable showing flashes of talent but also a little inconsistency witht he play of new comers Roko Ukic and Willie Solomon.

Roko Ukic has a bit of flash in his game which reminded me a bit of the dearly departed former Raptor T.J Ford. Roko has a slim frame with blazing speed and a few fancy moves but his jump shot has a lot to be desired. I have a feeling his flashy ways will make him turn over prone but hopefully Jose and the coaching staff can show him a thing or two to keep that in check. Willie Solomon finished this game with a pretty nice stat sheet of 13 pts, 5 ast, but committed 3 TO's 21 minutes.

Philadelphia 76ers 85 - Toronto Raptors 79

Next up was the Philadelphia 76ers with another big time acquisition landing Elton Brand. This game had a lot of energy behind it as:

A: They are an Atlantic Division rival
B: They have a new addition down low to comparable to Jermaine O'Neal
C: The Raps square off against them in Philly for the season opener

This game was a little hard to stomach. It was sloppy, slow, and full of stupid mistakes. I highly doubt their upcoming match up on October 29th will look anything like this gong show of a game. Just to clarify, I'm not bitter that they lost, this is the pre season remember. I just thought the raps played like a bunch of losers and it just was an unpleasant experience throughout the entire game.

For example, both teams shot terribly from the floor averaging 40% for the 76ers and 37.8% for Toronto. This meant a lot of missed opportunities for both teams to work on their offensive and defensinve rebounding. It's no secrete that Raptors are damn near the worst rebounding team in the NBA, 29th last year I believe, so with all these missed shots, I was excited to see what Jermain or Jamario or Kris Humphries or would do to resolve this matter. Well folks, we got out rebounded by 51 to 37. That's disgusting. Toronto only pulled down 6 offensive rebounds which essentially allowed Philly to capitalize on practically every single missed shot! Seeing how we were 28 and 74 from the floor, that's a whole lot. To sum things up it was ugly. U-G-L-Y ugly and I hope they get their collective shit together because nobody wants to see this sort of thing repeat itself when things really matter.

CSKA Moscow 78 - Toronto Raptors 86

Not to say I was surprised or anything, I mean, I cover Euroleague action, I know all about this CSKA Moscow. They have won two of the last three titles in Europe's principal club competition, the Euroleague, making the final in all three seasons. They're the current defending Euroleague champs and brother, they can ball. True they did get slapped around like a red headed step child by Dwight Howard, but they really had no answer for that guy (who does really?) CSKA held the lead for more than 3 quarters and it took a boost from the starting line up to eventually take, and maintain the lead to squeeze this one out. In a post game interview with Sam Mitchel, Mitchel states that he sat a couple of choice players for the second half due to them not being able to perform drills and things they were supposed to be learning and executing during game time. It wasn't hard to crack this code as Jose finished off the game while Ukic and Solomon rode the pine.

You could tell the Raps are still a little rusty but are definitely starting to tighten up the screws. This was a much more entertaining game to watch then that Philly game by far. Even though they were down most of the game, the way they went on crazy runs leaving CSKA in their dust was hopefully a glimpse of things to come.

Updates to the remaining games will be published once the pre season has concluded.