This is the second of the five off-season grades we at Nets Take Over will do. The first one was of the Boston Celtics. Today, we have for you our assessment on the Toronto Raptors. Below is a quick review of the grading system for you all.
Above a 50 means the team is taking steps in the right direction, whether it be intentionally going towards rebuilding or powering up their team and becoming contenders. A 100 means the most epic off-season ever, so nobody gets a 100.
A 50 means the team had an average off-season. They may have improved, but they hurt their flexibility, or something similar where the result balances out.
Anything lower than a 50 means that the team took steps backwards and took the wrong moves. That's bad, so they get a bad score. Simple as that.
Here's where the semi-complex part comes in. We add three new "variables" to the grades so to speak. Potential, Flexibility, and Depth. These are three main components that a team should look at in the off-season and can affect the grade of a team. Potential meaning how well the team is expected to play during the season, depth meaning how the team did in terms of depth, and flexibility meaning how the team's future looks in terms of cap space. Depending on how the respective team did, it will get a positive or negative P, F or D, with a positive letter being a good thing and a negative letter being bad.
Example: 71 +P +D -F means they had a good off-season and increased their depth and potential, but lost flexibility along the way.
Let us begin.
Toronto Raptors
Key Additions
Key Subtractions
The Raptors spent most of their off-season looking at one specific player, Steve Nash, and they hoped his roots with Canada would bring him over. When the Knicks threatened to offer Nash a deal, the Raptors went out of their way to offer Fields a ridiculous contract so that they would not be able to offer Nash and steal him from there. It turns out, the Knicks let Fields go and did not fight for Nash, leaving the Raptors with Fields him and his new contract. To make matters worse, they did not even accomplish their goal of attaining Nash, as he landed on the Lakers in a surprise signing.
Even with Field's contract, the Raptors improved their position at the shoot guard, replacing James Johnson with Fields. If Fields returns to his form as a rookie, the weight of the back loaded contract falls off. Of all the players that were lost this off-season for the Raptors, only Jerryd Bayless could be missed. None were very good in the first place on a not so very good team. Letting the players go was a good thing for the Raptors. The players that they brought in is a little puzzling. They clouded there guard slot by adding Fields, Lowry, Lucas III, and drafting Ross to play with Calderon. A bigger concern would be in the post, where there only true center is Valanciunas who will make his debut this season. Bargiani is likely to be moved to the power forward slot but can still play there. Still, Bargiani is a defensive liability at times and Valanciunas is a question mark at this time until he plays an NBA game. They were also looking to rid themselves of Calderon and his ridiculous contract as a backup but there was no luck there. He could be valuable as a trading asset later on in the year.
The contracts that were signed did not really hinder the Raptors. They owe around $57 million in guaranteed contracts this year and next year that money drops down to around $38 million in contracts. After failing to get Nash which they hoped would start a chain reaction of good free agent signings, the Raptors decided to hold off and sign cheap contracts that would not get in there way moving forward. But when the team is already paying as little as it is beforehand, it's hard to say it has deterred in flexibility. It's still there, and does not look like it's going anywhere.
After grabbing a few more guards to fill out the roster, the Raptors look to improve off of last season. In the past couple of years they have shown strides of improvement, increasing their win percentage from 26.8% in 2010-11 to 34.8% in the 2011-2012 season. Adding Kyle Lowry, bringing in Valanciunas, and signing Fields will improve the Raptors undoubtedly. But there are still holes to be filled and positions to upgrade. The Raptors look to be headed towards yet another season looking up in the standings as they miss out on the playoffs. They will improve yes, but not enough for them to push for that 8th seed.
If you look without context at what they did, the Raptors looked like they pulled off a good off-season. They did not hinder their flexibility, they brought in depth, and they definitely improved from last season. But there initial plan was to bring in Steve Nash, and they failed to that, which costs them some points in their grading. But despite that loss, they bounced back decently well and did not pull out any bad moves after.
Grade: 62 +P +D
Grading System:
It goes on a scale of 1-100.
Above a 50 means the team is taking steps in the right direction, whether it be intentionally going towards rebuilding or powering up their team and becoming contenders. A 100 means the most epic off-season ever, so nobody gets a 100.
A 50 means the team had an average off-season. They may have improved, but they hurt their flexibility, or something similar where the result balances out.
Anything lower than a 50 means that the team took steps backwards and took the wrong moves. That's bad, so they get a bad score. Simple as that.
Here's where the semi-complex part comes in. We add three new "variables" to the grades so to speak. Potential, Flexibility, and Depth. These are three main components that a team should look at in the off-season and can affect the grade of a team. Potential meaning how well the team is expected to play during the season, depth meaning how the team did in terms of depth, and flexibility meaning how the team's future looks in terms of cap space. Depending on how the respective team did, it will get a positive or negative P, F or D, with a positive letter being a good thing and a negative letter being bad.
Example: 71 +P +D -F means they had a good off-season and increased their depth and potential, but lost flexibility along the way.
Let us begin.
Toronto Raptors
Key Additions
Key Subtractions
The Raptors spent most of their off-season looking at one specific player, Steve Nash, and they hoped his roots with Canada would bring him over. When the Knicks threatened to offer Nash a deal, the Raptors went out of their way to offer Fields a ridiculous contract so that they would not be able to offer Nash and steal him from there. It turns out, the Knicks let Fields go and did not fight for Nash, leaving the Raptors with Fields him and his new contract. To make matters worse, they did not even accomplish their goal of attaining Nash, as he landed on the Lakers in a surprise signing.
Even with Field's contract, the Raptors improved their position at the shoot guard, replacing James Johnson with Fields. If Fields returns to his form as a rookie, the weight of the back loaded contract falls off. Of all the players that were lost this off-season for the Raptors, only Jerryd Bayless could be missed. None were very good in the first place on a not so very good team. Letting the players go was a good thing for the Raptors. The players that they brought in is a little puzzling. They clouded there guard slot by adding Fields, Lowry, Lucas III, and drafting Ross to play with Calderon. A bigger concern would be in the post, where there only true center is Valanciunas who will make his debut this season. Bargiani is likely to be moved to the power forward slot but can still play there. Still, Bargiani is a defensive liability at times and Valanciunas is a question mark at this time until he plays an NBA game. They were also looking to rid themselves of Calderon and his ridiculous contract as a backup but there was no luck there. He could be valuable as a trading asset later on in the year.
The contracts that were signed did not really hinder the Raptors. They owe around $57 million in guaranteed contracts this year and next year that money drops down to around $38 million in contracts. After failing to get Nash which they hoped would start a chain reaction of good free agent signings, the Raptors decided to hold off and sign cheap contracts that would not get in there way moving forward. But when the team is already paying as little as it is beforehand, it's hard to say it has deterred in flexibility. It's still there, and does not look like it's going anywhere.
After grabbing a few more guards to fill out the roster, the Raptors look to improve off of last season. In the past couple of years they have shown strides of improvement, increasing their win percentage from 26.8% in 2010-11 to 34.8% in the 2011-2012 season. Adding Kyle Lowry, bringing in Valanciunas, and signing Fields will improve the Raptors undoubtedly. But there are still holes to be filled and positions to upgrade. The Raptors look to be headed towards yet another season looking up in the standings as they miss out on the playoffs. They will improve yes, but not enough for them to push for that 8th seed.
If you look without context at what they did, the Raptors looked like they pulled off a good off-season. They did not hinder their flexibility, they brought in depth, and they definitely improved from last season. But there initial plan was to bring in Steve Nash, and they failed to that, which costs them some points in their grading. But despite that loss, they bounced back decently well and did not pull out any bad moves after.
Grade: 62 +P +D
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