In the world of sports, you’re either an optimist or a pessimist. If you’re a Toronto Raptors fan this season, you’re probably a pessimist. After an off-season in which franchise player Chris Bosh left town, it’s hard to see the glass as half full. Or even a third full. Most fans would be hard-pressed to say that the glass is anything more than completely empty. But let’s focus on the positive for a moment.
Leandro Barbosa is certainly the best thing to happen to the Raptors this off-season. He was picked up from Phoenix to replace the disgruntled Hedo Turkoglu. Barbosa is widely known as the fastest player in the NBA. He should help create the looser, faster, and more evenly spread attack that the Raptors are likely to adopt. The winner of the Sixth Man Award in 2007, he will certainly be an asset off the Raptor’s bench.
There will be a full season from Reggie Evans this year. A tough power forward, he played only 28 games last season after being acquired in order to give the team another rebounder. Now that the only other good rebounder, Chris Bosh, is gone, Evans will be expected to shoulder the load. At the end of October, Evans was doing well with16.3 rebounds per game. While it’s unreasonable to expect him to maintain that pace, it looks like he will be the strong, gritty rebounder that the Raptors have long needed.
At the moment, DeMar DeRozan is probably the Raptor with the highest ceiling. The Raptors’ first round pick last year, he’s an extremely athletic wing player whose stock is rising. This year, as the second option in the offence, he will get more touches than he did last year. With more chances to play and score, he should continue to improve his skills at an even faster pace.
Andrea Bargnani has been widely viewed as a mild disappointment. However, it’s possible that he will blossom as the focal point of the offence. After all, he did record a career that was high in points last year. We can always hope.
You can’t lose forever. When all else is lost, a sad sports fan can still cling to this thought like a pillow. Because of how the lottery system works (the worst teams get the best picks), if a team is terrible, eventually they must get better through the draft (see: Tampa Bay Rays). In sports as in life, what goes down must come up.
Now, as we take off the rose-coloured glasses, optimism floats away and realism comes crashing down. You can focus on the positive all you want, but 2010-11 just might not be an easy season for the Raptors and their fans. Let’s all hope the world doesn’t end in 2012, because it’ll probably take at least that long for the Raptors to reclaim the prestigious title of ‘good team’.
