I dont know if you agree or not, but right now in the playoffs the teams remaining (denver, l.a, cavs, magic) all have somthing in common in my opinion, they all have the SAME CORE, for example l.a has kept its core of kobe gasol fisher, cavs have kept lebron, denver has kept melo martin nene, magic have lewis hedo and howard. Basically this core has been together for atleast 2 years, the know how to play together. In my opinion the reason why raptors failed miserably this year was because they dont have the same core as 2 years ago, no mo pete no garbo no delfino no tj no rasho etc, every single season raps are making a trade and not letting these guys to learn how to play together. I mean best example is detroit they went to the conference finals every year with billups rip prince wallace as soon as one got traded the team was destroyed!!! so I truly believe if raps had a core in the first place and kept it they wouldev been a competitor atleast (42 + wins a season)
Doesn't really matter. The champs last year were a completely different team. Lakers were completely different before the Gasol trade last year. This year, the Nuggets traded for Chauncey, who was not part of their core before.
the raps have had the same core of bosh, bargnai, caledron and parker for several years but it simply hasnt worked. we simply suffer from a talent deficit, simple as that
Billups, the addition of Birdman. Nash to Phoenix Detroit kept basically the same core, just lost one guy and they blow this year Miami lost most of its core to get Shaq and i believe the won the chip the biggest example is Boston Also, like someone mentioned, we have a lot of the main players from that 47 win year: Bosh, Jose, AP, Bargs so quite obviously this is not the reason the raptors suck
The reason the Raptors suck is poor team chemistry, lack of scoring in the paint, and reliance on outside jumpers. Not to mention a team of mentally weak players with no drive for success. Also, we had a shallow roster with a bunch of players who shouldn't even be in the league anyways.
point taken, but my point is when raps gave up on garbo and delfino THEY GOT NOTHING IN RETURN, whereas those team went and got a VETERN, i mean best way to prove my point (this current one) raps gave up on O'neal got Marion and all the sudden when the veterns clicked they won 7 games in a row i think. See my point is raps let some real good players go for nothing, look at the Champs yes they did change their roster BUT Paul Pierce was ALWAYS the main guy so boston's core was simply paul pierce, lakers' main core was simply kobe fisher and odom, so yes they added a VETERN/s but the main guy was there, whereas raps let garbo go (i dont care what you say if it wasn;t for him raps wouldnt have got 47 win that year) and let Delfino go (who was suppose to be a key player off the bench) and they didnt add anyone to replace them. Bosh is a good player but he cant be the main guy, AP was always too old, Calderon WAS A BACKUP PG! and Bargs was jus way too inconsistent. All in all raps sucked real bad this year because when O'neal came in everything was a mess, raps didnt have a core what so ever the original plan (47+ win) was destroyed!
I think the reason the Raptors won more after they got Marion was because he was a better fit for the team, and also just overall a better player than Jermaine. The problem with Garbo was that his injury was pretty severe, bad enough that he probably couldn't contribute that much in the NBA level. Toronto handled his situation horribly, requesting things like insurance for his contract if he injured himself playing for Spain, and the player-team relationship just soured. Even if we managed to retain him, I doubt he would have provided much help, not to mention back in Europe he's treated as a superstar. It's no coincidence that no other teams picked him up after he left Toronto. As for Delfino, he would have gotten probably a 2-3 million dollar contract in the NBA at best, but by going overseas, he significantly increase his paycheck. Here he's a backup, over there, he's probably got a lot more freedom to do what he wants. Raptors do infact suffer greatly from a fairly shallow roster though, but since they don't have many assets, it's hard to see them bring in veteran help.
When a player goes overseas they arent grantueed the money that they sign for, there the owners pay by seeing how effective the player is and then they eventually get pay checks. I agree that Raptors dont have much to offer but some teams like Grizzles that will make horrible trades. The Marion trade also helps raps do a sign and trade, sign for max and trade deal so it works out, I expect BC (knowing his Job is on the line this season and the entire raps fans and organization is looking at him for some sort of movement) to make a real good deal and bring raptors back to the playoffs atleast!!!!
I don't think it was a matter of chemistry or class, I think it was a matter of courage. The Raptors are gutless.
Well that depends on what you're expecting this team to achieve. I expected this team to be a 7-9 seed this past season. For a modest goal like that I don't think we were shorthanded.
