<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Last season, when the Toronto Raptors missed the playoffs for the third consecutive year, the team employed three rookies -- Matt Bonner, Pape Sow and Rafael Araujo, their much-maligned No. 1 draft choice. Heading into the 2005-06 National Basketball Association campaign, the Raptors are planning on adding an additional three greenhorns to the mix: this year's top draft selection, Charlie Villanueva, second pick Joey Graham and Jose Calderon, a free-agent addition from Spain. The average age of the inexperienced six-pack is 24, a number that shrinks even further when you factor in Chris Bosh, Toronto's talented power forward, who is heading into his third big-league season but is just 21. With that in mind, it does not take a rocket scientist to deduce that additional tough times are in store for the Raptors as the maturation process of the players continues. Even Rob Babcock, Toronto's perpetually optimistic general manager, will admit that matching last season's 33 victories might be a stretch and that a playoff berth is out of reach. "I would say it's probably a long shot," Babcock said in a telephone interview yesterday. "A lot will depend on the learning curve of our young players because we're committed to playing those young guys and we've got three rookies this year and we've got three rookies returning from last year. And Chris Bosh is just a third-year player. "There's a lot of players on our team who are young . . . and we think they're going to be good players for us in the future. It just depends on how quickly they adjust and how quickly they develop." While willing to admit his team may struggle this season, Babcock angrily dismissed as "irresponsible" a headline in a Toronto tabloid yesterday that suggested he believes the Raptors have "no chance" for the coming campaign. "The message that we want to get out there is basically what our plan is," said Babcock, who is entering his second season as Toronto's GM. "And our plan is that we're building for the future. "Coming in, we knew that this was going to be a situation where it wasn't going to happen overnight, it was going to be a three-year deal." Babcock's rather bleak expectation for this season has not done anything to faze Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell, whose job remains to get the most out of his players. "As far as I'm concerned, we haven't played a game yet, have we?" Mitchell said last night on The Fan 590, an all-sport radio station in Toronto. "Everybody's 0-0 right now. I don't know what Rob may or may not have said and I'm not saying he did not say those things. As a coach and as a competitor, I like to think our team has just as good a chance as anyone else."</div> Source
I bet if the Sun article was titled similar to this one we wouldn't have anyone bitching and moaning about what Babcock said. All he said was that it is probably a long shot to make the playoffs, but a lot of it depends on how quickly the young guys gel together. If they gel together relatively early in the season, we might have a shot at besting our previous win-loss record. (which is indeed a long shot and gelling will more likely take the entire season)
