<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">I want to begin by thanking all of you for your support. We had a challenging season and our fans have stayed with us throughout. Our primary goal this year was to establish our philosophy and develop a foundation that we can build on for the future. Our philosophy of team basketball with hard work, discipline and community involvement has been accepted by most of our players and all of our staff. We're not where we want to be in this crucial area, but I am pleased with the progress that we've made and I'm very encouraged about the attitudes of our young players. Our team and staff have been very active in the community, and we will continue to be committed to help our young people in every way possible. On the court, we certainly struggled at times, and we've had many issues to deal with. We have not shied away from any of our issues and have dealt with each one. Some of these issues are ongoing and are not solved over night. We continue to work on those. Despite these challenges, we made progress this season. While it may be difficult to see on the surface, we have laid the groundwork for a good foundation. Sam has instilled a style of play that is exciting to watch. Our point production was up 14.3 ppg over last year. Our assists are up and our turnovers are down. Our field goal percentage is up from .418 to .444, our 3-pt percentage is up from .356 to .385, our FT percentage is up from .750 to .774. We had some tremendous wins this year against some of the best teams in the league. We beat the world champion Detroit Pistons, the former champion San Antonio Spurs, and the Eastern Conference leader Miami Heat. Who will ever forget the magical night when Donyell Marshall tied the league record for 3 pointers and our team set the league record for 3 pointers in a victory over Philadelphia? Through adversity and some very tough losses, our players and coaches never gave up. We always bounced back to compete hard the next game. We certainly have some major deficiencies in the defensive and rebounding areas, and we will certainly address those areas in the offseason. Improving our defence and rebounding will be one of our major objectives for next year. We have some young players that we are very excited about for the future of this team. Chris Bosh had an outstanding season and with his continued hard work, we feel that he's a future all-star. Matt Bonner was one of the surprise rookies in the league this year and was very valuable to our team coming off the bench. He's a restricted free agent, we have the right to match, and we will make it a priority to retain him for the future. Rafael Araujo did not have the year that we anticipated, but he's a very hard worker and we still believe in his potential to be a contributor to this team. Pape Sow was able to get some playing time down the stretch and showed the potential that we saw when we drafted him in the second round. Like Matt, Pape is a restricted free agent that we will seek to retain. We have some solid veterans to help our young players along. Rafer Alston admittedly had some areas to work on, but he has worked hard to improve his game and we feel that he was the most productive of the free agent point guards that were available to us (Derek Fisher, Troy Hudson, Carlos Arroyo, Brent Barry). Jalen Rose had an outstanding season increasing his shooting percentages in all areas and averaged 3 ppg more than the 03-04 season. Mo Peterson also increased his shooting percentages in all areas and increased his ppg by 4.2, while giving us a consistent effort at the defensive end. Loren Woods is still a developing player but had some big games for us this year, and proven veterans Eric Williams, Aaron Williams and Lamond Murray are all capable of making contributions to our team next year. Alvin Williams continues to work hard to come back from knee surgery and we'll know his availability before the season begins. Donyell Marshall and Milt Palacio had solid years for our team and could certainly help us next year, but both are unrestricted free agents. Until the draft, trades and free agency are evaluated it's too early to determine if we'll retain them. This draft will be extremely important for our basketball team. It's not a draft that has a lot of instant stars, but it is a draft that's deep with potential. With two first round picks and two second round picks, we have the resources to add some young talent to our team or help facilitate trades. We really beefed up our scouting department this year adding a Director of NBA Player Personnel, a Director of International Player Personnel and another European Scout. I am leaving shortly for two weeks of scouting in five different countries in Europe. Our coaches have designed comprehensive offseason development programs for each player, and we anticipate major improvements with everyone. When I took this job last June, I said that it will take three years to get this team turned around. This season has been invaluable for our staff in that we now know all of our players inside and out, and we know what our strengths, weaknesses and needs are for the future. We have an outstanding company in MLSE, and my staff has learned how to work with the experience and resources we have to help build our team. Most importantly, we have learned what a great city Toronto is and what great fans we have. We know that the fans deserve a winning team that plays basketball the right way. We are committed to developing a team that will make our fans proud. Now that we know where we are, we can move forward with a specific strategic plan. Over the next two months I will be sharing with you portions of that plan as well as information on the draft and trade process. I am very excited about the future of this team and I want to thank all of you again for your support as we continue to grow.</div> This is the one you get in an email if you joing Raptors Insider, I never actually joined it, but I think one of my friends signed me up for it, they always send me the emails, it's annoying
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Our point production was up 14.3 ppg over last year</div> Sounds impressive but he fails to mention that we also gave up 12.9 ppg more than last year.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Eclipse:</div><div class="quote_post">Sounds impressive but he fails to mention that we also gave up 12.9 ppg more than last year. </div> Although I seemed to enjoy the style of Sam Mitchell more than Kevin O'Neil. When we had O'Neil we struggled on offense so badly, I enjoy seeing good offense and bad D than bad offense and good D. I also enjoyed seeing Bosh progress as a player.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting SkiptoMyLue11:</div><div class="quote_post">Although I seemed to enjoy the style of Sam Mitchell more than Kevin O'Neil. When we had O'Neil we struggled on offense so badly, I enjoy seeing good offense and bad D than bad offense and good D. I also enjoyed seeing Bosh progress as a player.</div> I agree with you, I also prefer the score 100 points, up and down style of play but we're not moving forward by taking two steps forward and two steps back.
