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No. 6: Toronto Raptors
Last Season: 49-33
4th place in East; Lost 4-0 to Washington in Round 1
The 2014-15 Toronto Raptors set a franchise record with 49 wins, won their second consecutive Atlantic Division title and galvanized a nation behind them. Yet when the Raptors sputtered in the second half and were swept out of the postseason by the Washington Wizards, none of those accomplishments kept the campaign from feeling like a failure.
In hopes of a better ending this time around, Toronto general manager Masai Ujiri retooled the roster this summer with an emphasis on defense. The Raptors made a bold splash in free agency by stealing forward DeMarre Carroll away from the East rival Atlanta Hawks and also brought home native son Cory Joseph to lead the second unit. But the health of point guard Kyle Lowry will probably go further in determining whether Toronto can win a playoff series for just the second time in team history.
The Raptors began last season by picking up where they left off in 2013-14, when they went 20-10 after the All-Star break. They reached Thanksgiving at 13-2, and even an adductor injury suffered by 2014 All-Star DeMar DeRozan the following game couldn't slow Toronto down much. The Raptors were 24-8 and battling the Hawks for the top spot in the East as of New Year's Day.
Beneath the surface, however, warning signs lurked. Toronto was winning despite having slipped to 16th in defensive rating the first two months, per NBA.com/Stats, down from ninth the previous season. The Raptors had grown reliant on an unexpectedly potent offensive attack that ranked second in the league on a per-possession basis despite DeRozan's absence. While the addition of Sixth Man Award winner Lou Williams gave Toronto additional perimeter firepower, the team couldn't keep it up.
The single biggest change was Lowry's injury-related regression. Voted an All-Star starter on the strength of his 8.1 wins above replacement player before the All-Star break, good for fifth in the East, Lowry posted just 1.3 WARP thereafter while battling a bad back. The Raptors were still strong offensively down the stretch, but their defense actually got worse as the season went along and the team won just half its games in calendar 2015.
Toronto was able to rally slightly down the stretch, winning seven of its final 10 teams to secure home-court advantage in the first round. However, any good vibes quickly disappeared against the Wizards. Led by Raptors nemesis Paul Pierce, whose move to power forward Toronto never found a way to counter, Washington won three close games to start the series and finished off the sweep with an embarrassing 31-point win in Game 4.
The way the Raptors' season ended created speculation about Dwane Casey's job security, but Ujiri decided to retain Casey -- although not all of his assistants -- and give him more defensive-minded personnel. That started on draft night, when Toronto swapped backup guard Greivis Vasquez to the Milwaukee Bucks for a second-round pick and a 2015 first-rounder originally belonging to the Los Angeles Clippers.
Dealing Vasquez, a poor defender, freed up more cap space and Ujiri quickly put it to work. On July 1, the opening day of free agency, Carroll committed to a four-year deal for $58 million that makes him the Raptors' highest-paid player. After failing to convince Wesley Matthews to join up, Ujiri used the rest of Toronto's money to fill out the bench. The Raptors signed Toronto native Joseph to a four-year deal worth nearly $30 million and added Bismack Biyombo and Luis Scola as a backup frontcourt.
The moves did come with a cost. Toronto had to let go of Williams and veteran leader Amir Johnson, who stayed in the Atlantic Division to sign with the Boston Celtics. Their departures put more pressure on a pair of players entering their fourth NBA seasons. Center Jonas Valanciunas, who agreed in August to a four-year extension worth $64 million, must now anchor the defense without Johnson by his side and wing Terrence Ross will move from the starting lineup into Williams' old role of high-scoring sixth man.
The Toronto Raptors finished 23rd in defensive efficiency last season, so adding players that could D up was a major priority. Enter DeMarre Caroll. The Raptors got the D-and-3 weapon, who can guard multiple positions, for $60 million over four years in free agency. The additions of Bismack Biyombo, Luis Scola and Cory Joseph should also help.
"We've been getting by with Terrence Ross and DeMar DeRozan, who are really twos, playing the three and physically trying to go against bigger threes," Raptors coach Dwyane Casey told NBA.com. "Whether it's been on the boards or guarding them, it's been a challenge for those guys. I thought they did an admirable job two years ago, but it took a toll on us this past year, offensively and defensively. DeMarre gives us some size and physicality at that position. And Cory Joseph is a solid defender. He gives us a little juice, a little size, speed and quickness. He comes from a winning program, so his pedigree is good. Biyombo gives us some rim protection behind everybody. And Scola gives us a veteran IQ to make plays with the ball, a decent pick-and-roll guy at the four position."-- Mike Mazzeo
Projected Real Plus-Minus for starters
Kyle Lowry, PG: +4.5
DeMar DeRozan, SG: +0.4
DeMarre Carroll, SF: +2.5
Patrick Patterson, PF: +2.7
Jonas Valanciunas, C: -1.2
Scouting reports on every player on the Raptors
Using shot data from 2014-15 and projected starters, Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry ranks each team's offensive efficiency based on square footage.
DeRozan flung 319 shots at 15-19 feet last season, where he shot 34 percent. The left baseline: 31 percent. From 3? Let's ... not (28.4 percent). There's inefficient, and then there's DeRozan.
Valanciunas doesn't stray too far from home: 90 percent of his shots are at the rim, where he shoots nearly 60 percent.
All About The Space: 6th (450 sq. ft. of above-average offense)
To identify players who stretch offenses the most, ESPN Stats & Information created the Kyle Korver effect -- a metric on a 1-100 scale, factoring in 3PT%, 3-point attempt rate (percentage of total shots that come from 3-point range) and influence on teammate FG%.
Korver effect: Whatever Ross (88.6) provides on offense is nullified by his ineptitude on D (-3.6 defensive RPM).
For all the new faces, the most unfamiliar one at Raptors media day might have been Lowry, who slimmed down after adding bike riding and extreme Pilates to his offseason regimen. The results in preseason have been stunning. Lowry leads all players in exhibition scoring and has been getting to the paint at will. Even if Lowry merely can play at the same level he did between the 2014 and 2015 All-Star breaks for a full season, Toronto will have a much better chance of postseason success.
Beyond that, the Raptors must get back to where they were defensively in 2013-14. In addition to the defensive upgrade on the wing with Carroll, Toronto has also made tactical changes. Former Chicago Bulls assistant Andy Greer was added to Casey's staff with an eye toward adjusting how the Raptors defend pick-and-rolls to force them to the baseline -- something no team in the league did better than Chicago under Tom Thibodeau.
If the Raptors can marry a top-10 defense with a top-10 offense as they did in 2013-14, they could emerge as the leading threat to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East. But if Toronto is unable to improve defensively and is no longer as potent offensively without Williams' bench scoring, the Raptors might slide out of the top four spots in the East. If that happens, more changes will be in store next summer, when DeRozan can become an unrestricted free agent.
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