No question this season was a disappointing one for the Toronto Raptors, although it was not far off my pre-season prediction where I pegged them for 39 wins and to finish ninth. Considering the referees blew at least three games (of which the NBA ‘apologized’ for two), the results were quite close.
Several post-season articles have recommended the Raptors make significant changes. I’m not a fan of change for change’s sake. If a team fires a coach every two years, you’re not creating an identity or even giving them a chance (Doc Rivers had a .343 winning percentage the two seasons before the Celtics got Kevin Garnett and won a NBA Championship).
But something has to give.
While we warned against overpaying (via talent) for Rudy Gay, his fit appears to be much better than anyone would infer.
We screened for the best lineups (minimum 250 minutes played together) and were surprised at one of the results. When we sorted by net points per minute, most of the usual suspects rose to the top: Miami (two line-ups), Oklahoma City, New York, San Antonio, Memphis, the Los Angeles Clippers, Indiana and… the Raptors.
Toronto’s starting lineup in the last part of the year of Lowry/DeRozan/Gay/ Johnson/Valanciunas was the fifth, yes fifth, best lineup in the league. You can find the complete list here at basketball-reference.com.
This Raptors’ lineup played 343 minutes together, a reasonable sample size. It was not adjusted for strength of opponent. So while their performance may regress somewhat, this is surely and encouraging sign if they are kept together for an entire season.
One of the thesis for acquiring Gay was to free up DeRozan from double teams (or vice versa). So we reviewed NBAwowy.com and there appears to be some evidence of truth to this: DeRozan had a 44.3 effective field goal percentage (50.1 per cent True Shooting percentage, 1.04 points per possession) when he was not playing with Gay and a 49.6 effective field goal percentage (56.5 per cent TS%, 1.12 points per possession) when playing with Gay. This is a significant difference.
The emergence of Jonas Valanciunas
Given the strength of that lineup, we also thought it was worth examining how Jonas Valanciunas compares to some of the league’s similar centres in their rookie season.
On a per 36 minute basis:
Valanciunas is similar or better than the average of these all-stars, despite being towards the younger end of the group. While he only played about two thirds of the average minutes as players in this sample, it’s still a fine comparison.
If we look at additional advanced statistics, it shows Valanciunas in an even better light:
Valanciunas is at the top of the list for true shooting percentage, effective field goal percentage, offensive rating and win share per 48 minutes. He’s also near the top in block percentage. Given the quality of this list, it bodes well for his future.
Now the Raptors are their record. And obviously changes have to be made.
We will address the following in a follow-up post:
1) Bringing in a veteran (or two) / Upgrading the bench
2) Matching talent with better intel (analytics)
a. Address wing three-point shooting
b. Aggressive weak-side help defense