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Raptors Season Review Part I

After an early post-season exit, here’s part one of a Raptors off-season preview.  I’m going to start off with what the Raptors need to do this off-season, I’ll start with what they have under contract next season:

PG: Ford, Calderon (RFA)

SG: Parker, Delfino (RFA), Graham
SF: Moon (team option), Kapono

PF: Bosh, Garbajosa, Humphies, Baston

C: Bargnani, Nesterovic (Player Option)

That essentially means that barring trades, Primoz Brezec is pretty much the only player who will be off next season’s team, with the possible exception of Rasho Nesterovic.  Nesterovic is interesting, since he holds a player option, and was really one of the Raptors best players the second half of the season while they were tanking, especially when Bosh was injured.  Now his success, along with the fact he was benched for much of the playoffs, might make it rather enticing to test the free agent market.

I haven’t heard anything about whether he’s picked up the option or not, so it’ll  be interesting to see whether or not he stays or goes.  But beyond these two players, it looks like GM Bryan Colangelo will have to work his magic through trades to upgrade this roster in the off-season.

The main need is for a slashing forward to the basket, as this is really a jumpshooting team that doesn’t get to the basket and shoot foul shots enough.  This was obvious during the playoffs and was really their downfall.

It’s so odd that virtually the same team that was on the uprise last season now appears to be on the verge of needing a major makeover after a disappointing season.

I honestly don’t know if a coaching change is necessarily part of the problem, but I’m very surprised that Colangelo didn’t go after Suns coach Mike D’Antoni more aggressively.  But that would’ve meant either firing Sam Mitchell to try and go after D’Antoni or showing a lack of confidence in your coach by going after another one behind his back.

Either way, I suspect Sam Mitchell will be on the hot seat entering next season, as the team really struggled in the second half of the season and post-season.  But no matter what the roster looks like next season, if the Raptors get off to a slow start then Mitchell could be the first to go.

But that’s looking at what the Raptors roster will have next season, later this week I’ll look at the free agent and trade options Toronto can go after.  Then next week I’ll look at the draft prospects the Raptors should take a look at.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Toronto Raptors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.