We are hitting the halfway point of offseason, and so far, I’ve lived and haven’t done anything crazy to make it go by faster.
Remember this time last season? How many of us were looking forward to the 08-09 season? How many of us were excited? DO you even remember that far back?
Let’s REFRESH:
June 18th
- Finally released Jorge Garbojosa.
June 25th
- Draft Day. We were Drafting for Indiana when we selected Roy Hibbert 17th overall. It is OFFICIAL. TJ Ford and Jermaine O’Neal will be switching cities in July.
July 1st
– We resigned Jose Calderon to a long-term contract. By doing this we uninvited ourselves from the free agency party that would happen after July 9th.
July 3rd
- UNOFFICIALLY Matt Devlin becomes the new Play-by-play guy
July 8th
- We signed Hassan ‘What?’ Adams. This lead to people spending the next few days Youtubing and Google searching him. Most interesting thing we found out, he’s ambidextrous
July 9th
- OFFICIALLY Jermaine O’Neal and Nathan Jawai are finally Raptors. O’Neal and Jose have their Pressers. Everyone is excited. So long TJ Ford, Rasho Nesterovic (for now), Maceo Baston and Roy Hibbert
July 16th
- Roko Ukic to be signed for 3 years starting at 1.25 million/yr.
July 21st
- Carlos Delfino is going to Russia.
July 28th
- UNOFFICIALLY The Raptors dug deep and pulled out Will Solomon from the box of the Unknown. He was to be the next Anthony Parker.
Our Roster as of July 28th 2008:
C: Jermaine O’Neal, Andrea Bargnani, Nathan Jawai
PF: Chris Bosh, Kris Humphries
SF: Jamario Moon, Joey Graham, Hassan Adams
SG: Anthony Parker, Jason Kapono
PG: Jose Calderon, Roko Ukic and Will Solomon
Looked good on paper, didn’t it? Out of those 13 guys, only 4 of them are coming back next season. Every time I look back on last years roster, my head spins, thinking of the better teams we went up against. O’Neal, Solomon, and Adams were all gone before Trade deadline. Shawn Marion and his expansive Shadow, Marcus Banks, came in. We picked up Quincy Douby, Pops Mensah-Bonsu and Patrick O’Bryant. We actually made a little run to end the season, winning 9 out of 13 games. That doesn’t erase the 20-45 we had to watch prior to the winning streak
It was great how we ended the season but we had to remember that we still finished 33-49 and our Roster had gapping holes in it. Bryan Colangelo must have also seen this because he has given this team a face lift so far this offseason. From trading for Reggie Evans to bringing back Rasho Nesterovic, BC has shown interest in bringing his team to the next level. (Let’s not bring up Chris W Bosh, it’s all about nest season)
Our Current Roster(July 28 2009):
C: Andrea Bargnani, Rasho Nesterovic, Patrick O’Bryant
PF: Chris Bosh, Reggie Evans
SF: Hedo Turkoglu, Antoine Wright, Devean George
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Jarrett Jack, Quincy Douby
PG: Jose Calderon, Roko Ukic, Marcus Banks
Do you feel better about this Roster then you did last season? I know I do.
Last Season some of the issues we faced were:
- Lack of depth
- No toughness
- No identity, No idea what kind of team we were
- Lack of athleticism
- Unable to close games
So far this offseason, BC has tackled these issues. We have quality depth at each position (How well everyone will perform, is something we’ll have to wait and see). He Brought in Reggie Evans for toughness. He drafted DeRozan because of his Athleticism. He brought in Hedo Turkoglu for his closing and ball-handling abilities. Jack was brought in for depth and durability. Rasho was brought in for his leadership presence and the minor, yet major, things he brings to the court. Colangelo hopes this year we can be identified as an up tempo team and be consistent all season.
This isn’t the team to beat in the East. We still got some ways to go. It IS, however, a step in the right direction, that we have a right to be OPTIMISTIC about.
For now we play the waiting game.
