When will we become a team?

[RocLaFamilia]

I keep hearing from players/media/posters of this board use the " we are integrating 9 new players" chant (or to some an excuse). Now for me I do believe it does take time to integrate 9 new people and a relatively new coach (and staff). MY question is when will be this time? Will it be 15, 20 games? Or will it be after a winning streak/losing streak.

What will indicate or allow people to stop using that line? I mean we can't be going into ASW saying we are still trying to integrate 9 new faces can we?

Not trying to stir the pot for the REALGM homers, so I don't want to hear how Jose sucks or BC made a bad team or Triano can't coach. My question is simple, just trying to gauge where people think along these lines.

I think by 20 games we should be able to be integrated, unless there are serious injuries to multiple players. I think that is enough games for a team to acclimated to each other and the system being implemented.

[mowcrowbar]

Every game so far, our defense has been improving, especially the help defense. During the Memphis game you could not have said that. There are definitely signs of the team chemistry improving through help defense.

[execoftheyear]

when we know what we have in each individual player. Marco's starting to show his true colours as well as Amir, Jack's not quite there yet but I expect him to figure things out, Weems is looking like a good role player, Evans and Wright need to come back healthy.

I say once we have our whole team healthy and on the same page in terms of knowing their role and where their opportunities will come from for at least a good 3-5 games then we'll have a good idea of what this team is capable of.

[ZKS_STAL]

1995.

/thread.

[damadmonk]

I believe we are pretty close if not there...

We just lost to the best team in the NBA by 1 pt on the Road and held them under 10 ppg under their scoring average.

Thats not too bad...

Edit; Forgot to mention that Wright didn't play either...

[Chandler55]

do you honestly think we're even close to
boston, spurs, lakers, cleveland?

and then theres a bunch of other teams that are a tier higher than us, orlando, atlanta, denver, dallas, phoenix, possibly the heat and blazers.

everyone else is pretty much trash (including us)

if triano moves off his philosophy of inside d > perimeter d then maybe we have a shot at defending the 3point shots. but the raptors have not had any perimeter d since the 90s so im not confident. this is something that can be fixed with a system, I really hope the raptors get blown out by like a bunch of threes soon so triano realizes this isnt a low percentage shot in reality.

bosh is horrible in clutch time, he gets an amazing bucket once in a while, but most of the time he goes inside blindly and flails his arms looking for a call. hes added strength this year to drive more than shoot, but so far he's still butter fingers On the plus side bargnani looks like an absolute stud, and this guy will be dirk pretty soon. (without rebounding but who cares).

jose is kind of redundant as well as turkoglu does everything he does, maybe colangelo sees a future without jose? turn the 1 position into a pure lockdown defender or shooter, cause turk can definitely become the team's ball distributor

[D-Wins-RingsIMO]

I believe we are pretty close if not there...

We just lost to the best team in the NBA by 1 pt on the Road and held them under 10 ppg under their scoring average.

Thats not too bad...

Edit; Forgot to mention that Wright didn't play either...

That's not impressive considering there were 9 less possessions in the game than their average.

[D-Wins-RingsIMO]

We already are a team

5-5 is pretty good considering the schedule. We're in range for what everyone was projecting.

[Kabookalu]

I think 10 more games in and there really should be no more excuses for anymore piss poor performances. Our offense doesn't seem like it has hit its peak yet and our defense has been getting better and better every game as one poster noted. The short answer is though we'll finally become a team when Triano frikkin realizes that Jack can't play minutes alongside Calderon and Wright shouldn't be getting anymore than 10 to 15mpg.

[Undefeated]

The Raptors will probably become a team during/after a winning streak. We saw it last season as well when we were on a six game winning streak, everyone stepped their game up to another level. Every aspect of the game, we’ve been improving, but it’s just too inconsistent right now. Once this team gets into a winning streak, the players are going to be motivated to continue to win and put more effort on both ends of the court to make our O and D a bit more steady.

[SkywalkerAC]

Just gotta get through the next month with a record around .500, the team will be on the same page and the schedule will lighten up.

[Legal Non-Conforming]

This Raptors team is going to be learning all season long. Yesterday was the first time they played together in a game that came down to the last shot. They still have to integrate Reggie Evans into the rotation. Don't underestimate experience. The Raptors have a long way to go. It's going to be fun to watch.

[DG88]

I believe we are pretty close if not there...

We just lost to the best team in the NBA by 1 pt on the Road and held them under 10 ppg under their scoring average.

Thats not too bad...

Edit; Forgot to mention that Wright didn't play either...

That's not impressive considering there were 9 less possessions in the game than their average.

The whole point in beating the Suns is to limit the number of possessions.

[damadmonk]

I believe we are pretty close if not there...

We just lost to the best team in the NBA by 1 pt on the Road and held them under 10 ppg under their scoring average.

Thats not too bad...

Edit; Forgot to mention that Wright didn't play either...

That's not impressive considering there were 9 less possessions in the game than their average.

The whole point in beating the Suns is to limit the number of possessions.

Didn't mention that we also held them under to .449 fg% and .333 3pt% down from their season average of .490 fg% and .462 3pt%.

This is all without our "Top Defender" in A. Wright...

[Winggfly]

We already are a team

5-5 is pretty good considering the schedule. We're in range for what everyone was projecting.

I agree that our schedule has been pretty rough to start, but games like Orlando, San Antonio, and Phoenix have been relatively close, now if the Raps want to be an elite team, were gonna have to win some of those close games and hopefully as the season goes along this team will start to gel and become a better team to earn those wins.

[deck]

I believe we are pretty close if not there...

We just lost to the best team in the NBA by 1 pt on the Road and held them under 10 ppg under their scoring average.

Thats not too bad...

Edit; Forgot to mention that Wright didn't play either...

That's not impressive considering there were 9 less possessions in the game than their average.

This makes no sense at all. Limiting the number of possessions that the other team gets is a critical component of playing good defense...

[KJS1508]

I believe we are pretty close if not there...

We just lost to the best team in the NBA by 1 pt on the Road and held them under 10 ppg under their scoring average.

Thats not too bad...

Edit; Forgot to mention that Wright didn't play either...

That's not impressive considering there were 9 less possessions in the game than their average.

Ummm what ? The way you beat the Suns is to slow them down and not let them play their game. Them having less possessions showed our game plan worked.