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I was wondering if anyone else has made this early observation.

Most seasons we end up with a tough early schedule and get off to a slow start however..

I can remember the majority of games being a mix of either:

- Tough loses.
- Winable games completely given away at the end.
- Bad officiating at the end of games impacting outcome.

What's most concerning is we aren't really in any of these games and they aren't finishing close.

Whether its a lack of fight, effort, defense, the Raptors (atleast when trying to win) historically had a respectable level of those qualities..
keeping games close or rallying late to make it a game.

Does anyone else see this as majorly concerning?

It's usually a sign of something quite discouraging.

We’re not good because we haven’t even solved for basic problems. No PG, no big with interior presence, and wings that lack fundamental offensive skills (BI excluded).

The defence and rebounding is atrocious. Even when we’re shooting lights out we’re still losing.

IQ off to a rough start and Jak hobbled or not playing.

No guarantee that those two issues will be resolved but if they do I don't have any concerns.

C_Money wrote:The defence and rebounding is atrocious. Even when we’re shooting lights out we’re still losing.

This and that’s the end of it. Offense in the early season has been fine, even good sometimes.

Tonight we gave up 27 fast break points on 10 turnovers.

How? We only had 4 offensive boards. How aren’t we getting back?

We have no animals
Barnes has moments of aggression
RJ Quick BI are not good defenders not hard players to blow by
They aren’t great at getting after the loose ball

#1 - Coaching. Current coach is not a win-now coach in anyway.
#2 - Rim protection. Poeltl is not the same from last season and we have no real backup 5.

Address both. Wins will follow.

I agree...the Milwaukee game was easier to stomach, it was close game against a very good team.

But the last 3 losses have just been horrible defensive efforts. You never felt like we were control or even had a remote chance of winning...not good.

IQ let Thompson blow past him yesterday with a crossover like he was prime Allen iverson while the game was kinda close. With D like that, you’ll be running uphill every game sadly.


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Early Casey days I remember even when the team was struggling you could see competitiveness that would lead eventually to wins. In the past 3 years you don't sense that with Darko and his staff.

The fundamental problem is the foundation of this team is not suited in defense and effort. You can see everyone on the floor is trying to pad their stats. No accountability.

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When you try to half ass a rebuild, this is the result.

Our coach sucks. Darko cannot coach, and that is beyond obvious.

His defensive schemes are beyond flawed. He thinks having guys running all over the court looking like their hustling means good defense. But this is the NBA players past with precision and know how to find the open man. We probably give away 20-25 points a game on pure open looks and there is always a Raptor player looking like they are running back trying to block the open guy on the baseline, looks like a strong effort, but the opponent has already taken an open shot.

I'm calling it now, Darko gets fired before 20 games this season. I guaranteee if it was Nick Nurse, the teams record may not be better, but the point differential and defense would be for sure!

Too small

Too young

Defensive scheme that relies on pressing the ball-handlers when TOR has weak back-line support to protect the paint and rim makes no sense

Suspect coaching, iffy PG play, and (without Jacob) exactly zero Cs

Look, folks, everyone knows it. The Raptors were a great team, a beautiful team, before Masai came in with all his big ideas that totally fell apart. He kept saying he had a plan, a brilliant plan. But guess what? No plan! Terrible roster decisions, no shooting, no direction, just chaos. Other teams are upgrading and winning, and we’re sitting around pretending everything is fine. It’s not fine. Masai should’ve fixed it, he didn’t, and now we’re paying the price. Very sad!

Other issue for us is IQ. Last year the Davison/Shead combo at PG was key. IQ doesn’t disrupt the other teams ball handler like Davison did and it makes a world of difference. It’s like people guarded by OG always looking to get rid of the ball

Too early... let's see what is going on with Yak... he's a huge part of this team...

Walid wrote:We’re not good because we haven’t even solved for basic problems. No PG, no big with interior presence.......

This.

I think there are leadership issues as well. Scottie is the annointed leader & its not a goood fit. He isn't disceplened enough to be a good leader at this stage in his life. I think he'll get there sometime around 26-28 y/o, but his immaturity issues are a problem.

You look at the leaders in the previous era. Lowry, Gasol, Ibaka, Green, etc. Hell, even Derozan & Fred were pretty good leaders.

Now we have........Scottie.........and the rest of the guys are trying to figure out where they stand. The team says Scottie is the leader, so I guess we hve to follow Scottie. It's kinda forced.

Maybe that all gets figured out this season.....who knows.

I do know that there has been a certain level of chaos that has followed Scottie since he arrived here & it all stems from immaturity & being inflexable.

TGM wrote:Our coach sucks. Darko cannot coach, and that is beyond obvious.

His defensive schemes are beyond flawed. He thinks having guys running all over the court looking like their hustling means good defense. But this is the NBA players past with precision and know how to find the open man. We probably give away 20-25 points a game on pure open looks and there is always a Raptor player looking like they are running back trying to block the open guy on the baseline, looks like a strong effort, but the opponent has already taken an open shot.

I'm calling it now, Darko gets fired before 20 games this season. I guaranteee if it was Nick Nurse, the teams record may not be better, but the point differential and defense would be for sure!

Yeah, the amount of wide open looks & straight line drives they give up is alarming. It's usually because of overhelping & guys chasing the ball. Sometimes it looks like 10 year olds playing house league.

I can't figure out if its mostly a coaching problem or.a player problem.

It looks bad though.

TGM wrote:Other issue for us is IQ. Last year the Davison/Shead combo at PG was key. IQ doesn’t disrupt the other teams ball handler like Davison did and it makes a world of difference. It’s like people guarded by OG always looking to get rid of the ball

Davion.

Agreed though. The defensive scheme looked much better with him and Shead.

Charlie Sollers wrote:Look, folks, everyone knows it. The Raptors were a great team, a beautiful team, before Masai came in with all his big ideas that totally fell apart. He kept saying he had a plan, a brilliant plan. But guess what? No plan! Terrible roster decisions, no shooting, no direction, just chaos. Other teams are upgrading and winning, and we’re sitting around pretending everything is fine. It’s not fine. Masai should’ve fixed it, he didn’t, and now we’re paying the price. Very sad!

Masai went the way of Joe Dumars

we have a really flawed team