Raptor Talk 2013-14 A Corner Turned??

I am not a "fire the Coach" kind of guy but I may make exception in the case of Dwane Casey!

Losing patience with him quickly he says one thing and does another! I do not like how he is handling the roster at all in particular Valancunias Lowry and Gay.

He cannot sit J-V in the 4th every game and Gay seems bullet-proof but is doing nothing to help us! I would trade him in a second also Lowry but we have no backup. The other guys are not starting NBA PG's.

I'm not sure any team can win with those two dominating the ball!

Bang on coach... on every point I agree

The way its looking Ujuri should move now. This is going nowhere with Casey he is not getting it done.

He repeats the same mistakes over and over and its not going to take us anywhere.

They need to activate Buycks and give him a shot at the backup point guard spot.  Augustin really looks lost out there.  He wasn't a bad point guard, only a couple of years ago. Not bringing back Lucas was a curious move at the time. It looks worse now.
 
Not sure this half court, walk it up, offense suits this personnel.

WoW Coach... never see you this negative.

Deciding not to foul last night is so unacceptable... its beyond me... it completely baffles me... and wonder if any of the asst. coaches mentioned it to DC. Why were they thinking they could get the rebound (assuming they are going to miss)... then call a timeout... and have enough time to get a shot off.

They are so disorganized coming out of time outs. There is very little fluidity. And the defense, although seems better than last year, still makes too many missed rotations.

The softness continues... I know its early but it just seems too similar to last year.

I really am indifferent about this team and organization and am so glad TSN is picking up a lot of college games... including every Kansas game starting tomorrow night.

I thought Casey would be so much better. He does not appear to be NBA caliber as a Head Coach at this time.

Always something with this franchise... great defensive effort but some real poor decisions on the offensive end (especially DD on the transition)... and a lack of sharpness (how many easy missed shots).

They had a chance and couldn't take advantage... that lack of mental toughness is still missing - hopefully it can improve but I just keep thinking - same old habits!

This offense looks very pedestrian, with poor ball movement, predictable, almost announced passes, few assists, and a lot of forced, contested,  late in the clock shots.  Gay is a high volume shooter, and gets his points, but his percentages are very low.
 
If the purpose of this half court offense was to get guys good looks and high percentage shots, it isn't happening yet.
 
The defense is actually pretty good, but the offense doesn't inspire confidence.

The ball is too sticky in too many hands.

In particular, the perimeter guys (Lowry, DeRozan, Gay) need to be more unselfish and not force their games!

Seriously, do you guys even care anymore?

There is very little that I like in this team... and I've never been so disengaged.

Not sure if he is my scapegoat in this... but I cant stand Lowry... I try - but just cant stand him.

I watched the game from the lower bowl against Portland.  They gave a good Portland team a very tough contest but lost in OT.  The effort was definitely there, no question. But Portland gave them a lesson in ball movement.
 
They are relying too much on DeRozan and Gay to do the scoring.  No idea why JV didn't play down the stretch. Lots of one on one basketball, with DeRozan or Gay facing two defenders, and everyone else standing around.
 
As erratic as Lowry has been with his passing, shooting, and decision making, the alternatives aren't promising either.  Buycks is averaging less than half an assist per game, and Augustin looked pretty lost out there during his run.  Stone doesn't look to be able to match up against the quicker point guards.  He could play some D against a bigger 2/3.
 
Basically this offense looks pretty sluggish and the shooting percentages reflect that.  Lowry, Gay and DeRozan are well under 40%.
 
With both Gay and Lowry potentially heading for free agency, it will be interesting to see what they do with this group.  Coach Casey is apparently demonstrating patience and is willing to wait them out.

I don't get how these guys don't move the ball around.

Look at Miami and San Antone... they whip the ball around like it is on fire.

Its a team game ffs.

Maybe your right coach... Casey is showing to be out of his element - at least on the Offensive side.

Thank God TSN covers all the Kansas games.

Folks - to me, this first part of this nba season has strangeness, mundaneness, and perhaps aimlessness or listlessness to it, among other things - only 2 competitive teams in the east, and consequently, the inability of certain eastern teams over the course of numerous seasons to rise above mediocrity or lower; the cumulative effects of the free agency scramble on many teams, ie the knick, the rocket; the chronic and cumulative effect of injuries on players, teams and the league's competitiveness in general; the petulance and ego of the superstars as rich men take twitter shots at each other and then say it was in jest; the fact that the rap are a mediocre team but are in the middle of the early playoff race in the east and orlando holds on to the last playoff spot with a 4-7 record; the openness of the 'tanking' issue and the manner in which the basketball press has been salivating over the 2014 draft 'freshman'; - not sure what this means in the big picture other than these together may be indicators of deeper structural isues in pro bball, esp the fiscal bottom line. It actually means opportunity for the rap this season, if they can improve on their current lethargic-like approach, which I think has been well documented on this page. I haven't been following them as closely as some of you, but I actually like for example DeRozan, but think he is unmder-developed and maybe more so, under motivated. This fellow has outbreaks of super athleticism, followed by mediocrity, a fairly established pattern with him I think. I think that JV has a huge upside but I am not certain the curent coaching staff have the wherewithall to develop that. I agree that the bench/depth is shallow and weak. If it's true that teams are tanking to reach for the top, I find it ironically fitting that multiple teams with a losing record have the ability to make the playoffs in the eastern conference. Anyway, just wanted to share some thoughts... Enjoy the posts... Bernie

I think the NBA needs to keep a close eye on this tanking phenomenon.  There are four or five top shelf blue chippers coming out and various teams seem to be positioning themselves to get in the bottom three.  After watching Parker from Duke play, he looks a lot like a young Lebron James -- a franchise player.

The Celtics and Sixers stripped their rosters of much of their talent.  And other teams may be encouraged to do the same as they fall out of contention.

The NBA tried to discourage this practice years ago after the Rockets appeared to tank to get Sampson and then Olajuwon.  They eliminated the coin flip and put in place the lottery.

If people are forking out four or five thousand dollars for seasons tickets, I think they should have a right to be very agitated if a team appears to be trying to provide something less than their best competitive product. So should advertisers and sponsors.

The question is, how blatant does the tanking have to be to merit the League's investigation and sanction.  Right now the League appears to have its head in the sand as this is a potentially ugly issue.  Stripping draft picks or voiding trades could be potential solutions.  This occurred in the early 80s when the league stepped in to protect the Cleveland franchise and instituted the right to review and void that team's trades and the rule that prohibited trading of first round picks in subsequent years.

This team has no personality, no character, no leadership.

I am very close to not watching at all... boycott style.

They are getting scorched in the point guard matchups.

The Star mentioned that Augustin and Lowry played well against the Wizards. Yeah. John Wall only scored 37 on them. And Nate Robinson and Ty Lawson just dropped a combined 39 points on the Raptors in their loss to the Nuggets.

Some of the shooting percentages on this team are incomprehensible. They bespeak a team with poor ball movement and a predictable offensive approach.

Not sure if anyone noticed but that one transition play (I think after a Gay steal) Rudy was near half court and had DD ahead to his left... but got fouled instead of pushing the ball ahead.
Leo commented twice how you need to push the ball with the pass.

And I'm thinking no sh1t... Casey has to sit him down and hold him accountable. that was such a fundamental error for even a high school player.

ANd how DD got stripped right at the end of the half... and the ball was inbounded back to him with 1.8 sec... instead of launching a prayer... DD had a tantrum and waited til the clock went then threw it 15 feet over the basket.

like seriously, wtf Casey

Up 27 in the second half and they lose the game to GSW.  Perhaps their toughest regular season loss ever.

This is interesting reading about some of the defensive gaffes that contributed to the fourth quarter collapse:

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/24326312/anatomy-of-a-comeback-warriors-6428-run-to-beat-raptors

Another issue appears to be the use of the bench.  Coach Casey appears to have lost confidence in several of the guys.  Surely there should be a way to make better use of some of their skills and talents.

didn't watch it... watched the Duke Michigan game on the internet - which was an ugly sloppy game.

this team is plastic to me

thanks for the link

It appears Casey may not make it to Christmas . Or just as possibly to the end of this road swing.

Something's got to give. We are in a God-awful division but things are bound to pick up Knicks and the Nets. Surely we're better than the Celtics!

Coach Casey was a great support coach... that doesn't mean those skills transfer to being a great lead coach.

And to boot... the new assistants have very little NBA experience.
which seems very evident now.

There is plenty of talent on this team and they should be at least a .500 team.

I know it's still early but I don't see this team reaching that level after 82 games if things remain status quo.

Trying to sort through this trade.  Looks like two useful pieces came back:  Vasquez (should give them 15 to 20 minutes behind Lowry at the point, and can be given a qualifying offer at the end of the year) and Patterson (could be a back up four man and the team may or may not try to qualify him at the end of the season).

The other two guys look like salary match throw ins and not really upgrades of any kind.

Mixed feelings on this one, but the Rudy Gay experiment didn't achieve the desired results -- he and DeRozan had redundant skill sets and there weren't enough touches for the other guys.  They tried it for a year and a half which was long enough to see it wasn't working.  Plus the uncertainty of whether he would opt out at the end of the year hobbled team planning processes.

I liked Acy's game, but Dwayne Casey chained him to the bench.

When you lose five in a row and can't win 40% of your games, I guess something had to happen. The ball just wasn't moving enough on the floor.

Big performance by Amir over the Lakers, who looked even more out of snyc with Kobe back than did the Raptors without Rudy.

I was not a fan of Rudy Gay's game at all. He was the supreme ballstopper and shot so many clangers. Ugly ugly takes and totally out of rhythm.

Painful to watch with J-V starving for a touch in the post! Unless it was the first possession of the game of course! I do not get that at all!

Writers are speculating it is the beginning of a major tank for the Raptors but I for one will enjoy watching them more minus Rudy (don't show me my stat line) Gay!!

Jeeze Coach you stole my thunder lol!

Only thing I will add is that they will be a better team for it... so the trade lessens the chance at the lottery.

Although Dwayne Casey seems like a thoroughly decent guy, I think one of his bigger failings with this team has been the failure to develop a consistent second unit. His substitution patterns have been scattershot. Guys need to know their role and to be given a chance to get comfortable in that role

These late game losses often came after the starters had logged heavy minutes. With this trade comes depth and the coach should find a way to make use of it.