How they might spend the next few days

While sitting here trying to figure out what we’ll do next week to preview the opening of the regular season, a couple of thoughts come to mind.

To wit:

Since the night of the NBA draft, Jay Triano has been suggesting that the best – and maybe only – way to get minutes for rookie DeMar DeRozan would be to start him for six or seven minutes in the first and third quarters and then get into a regular rotation of wings.

Well, now, obviously, that’s not cast in stone, as this quote from Jay yesterday indicates.

“I haven’t really had an opportunity to see anyone beat him (DeRozan) out yet. Now that Antoine is back, I’d say the job is wide open and that will keep our young rookie honest.”

Personally, I think that’s a bit of a shot across the bow at the kid and he’ll end up being the starting shooting guard on opening night.

The kid, shooting woes aside, has shown flashes in these pretend games. He’s willing to go to the rim (although it’d be nice if he’d be a better free throw shooter when he did) and his defence, while spotty, is not despicable.

Work ethic? They say it’s good but the one thing he could improve on is his attention span. It seems to waver during games, a byproduct of being a rookie, I think, but still troubling if it’s still happening with regularity after seven games.

I still think that the best way to ease the kid into the league is for him to get 12-14 minutes a night in that starting role. But, according to the coach, there’s competition now, which means it’d be really, really cool to get into practice and see the scrimmages, since that’s where the battle will be one.

Too bad we can’t. Guess I’ll have to try to get spies to tell me what’s going on.

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The three most important things to work on in these practices leading up to Oct. 28? Well, if you ask me, and I just did, they are:

Play, play, play

Forget shooting drills and shell drills on offence and defence. They need to scrimmage, first unit against second, for as much time as is physically possible, and then go another 15 minutes.

There have been signs that the four key guys – Jose, Turk, Bosh and Andrea – will work well together but there have been a few turnovers created when one guy zigged when another thought he would zag; the necessary familiarity is only going to come through time on the court together.

Get to the line (and you know who you are)

Players, some players, have a tendency to take the free-throw shooting part of practice a little lightly. That can’t happen.

Foul shots are gimmes and they need to be collectively better at them. As a team, they’re only shooting 73.5 per cent from the line through seven games, that’s simply not good enough.

Run, run, run

I don’t have to actually do it so it’s easy to suggest but if conditioning’s the concern, they need to get strength and conditioning coach Francesco Cuzzolin on his game and work these guys hard.

If that means an extra half hour in the gym, so be it. If they have to blow off some weight room work to get some cardio in, do it. Conditioning cannot be an issue when things start for real and I think eight days between now and opening night should be enough time to get ‘em in passable shape.

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A quick question:

When the Raptors scrimmage in practice, do you think each team scores at will?

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Haven’t had too many digressions of late so here we go:

I know Tim McCarver states the obvious far too many times but he and Joe Buck are exponentially better than Chatterbox Martinez, The Other Caray and Whatever Ex-Pitcher it is they have over on TBS.

The TBS folks do basketball well. Baseball? Not so much.

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I don’t think there’s any correlation between pre-season record and what happens in the ensuing regular season. There are too many variables – scheduling and injuries to start the season and pre-season opposition chief among them – but what the heck, maybe this gives you something to talk about:

2008

4-4, 33-49

2007

6-2, 41-41

2006

7-1, 47-35

2005

3-7, 27-55

2004

3-5, 33-49

2003

5-2, 33-49

2002

3-5, 24-58

2001

5-2, 42-40

2000

4-4, 47-35

1999

4-4, 35-47

Or maybe it just bores you and you entirely disregard it.

I can’t imagine which.

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One about the process of gathering stuff and why, over the course of the many, many off-days between now and the start of the season, you may see similar stories each day if you read more than one publication.

It’s pack journalism, pure and simple, because that’s kind of the way things are structured post-practice.

While we’re waiting around to be let into the gym, members of the team’s PR staff canvass the gathered scribblers on who we’d like to speak with, just so that guy doesn’t sneak out before we can horse-collar them.

And those guys are plucked off, one-by-one as they leave, setting up a series of different scrums; I’ll go listen to the guy Faux wanted to talk to, M. Grange ™ will listen to who I want to talk to and the day’s representative of The Little Paper That Shrunk will stop to listen to whoever.

It sets up a series of scrums rather than a series of one-on-one interviews so we’re all privy to what everyone else gets.

And if the player picked by another guy provides the best quotes, or insight, or whatever, all of our ears perk up and he becomes, often, the subject of The Story Of The Day.

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Because you don’t get a whole lot of WNBA news anywhere else around these parts, here’s a story out of Detroit today.

I don’t know what, precisely, it says that a team that’s won three championships in the past seven years and played before soldout houses in the playoffs this season would pick up and move, but I’m pretty sure it can’t be good.

Seriously, where else can you find out stuff like this?

-

Best chant of a night watching TV. “Beat L-A, Beat L-A” from the Philly fans.

Stole it from basketball, guess that’s why it sounded good.

Comments

[pooks]

That's absolutely stunning about the Shock. Detroit can't get a break. That's sad...they were always one of the WNBA teams to watch.

Doug who ya got for the World Series? I think you've been too busy bemoaning the early exit of your beloved Sox to give us a pick.

Blogger's note: I think I like the Angels a lot.

[Blake Kennedy]

You can say whatever you want about DeRozan and try to point out all his flaws, but when is the kid going to get his due? In preseason he has accomplished the following:

He is the fourth-most efficient player offensively on the team with an Offensive Rating (i.e. points produced per 100 individual possessions) of 106.9, while bearing (a surprisingly high) 18.5% of the team's possessions while he's on the floor. Further, he has an individual Free Throw Rate (FT / FGA - measuring how often you get to the line with a bonus for making them vs. shooting from the floor) of .518. Last year the Raptors were 20th in the league in FTR: they needed some help badly in that regard and DeMar is providing a ton of it.

The only thing DeMar has done surprisingly poorly so far is rebound the basketball. That is one way he can contribute even when he's having other issues on the floor and he needs to pick it up in that regard. But from a production standpoint you can't really take too much issue with what the kid's giving so far.

[jk]

2005
3-7, 27-55

2004
3-5, 33-49

2002
3-5, 24-58

So of the 3 years with a sub-500 record in pre-season we ended with a sub-500 record in the regular season. Hmmm, interesting.

[Jamie]

too bad about the shock, I def appreciate the wnba updates. If there was team in TO, I would have season tickets through the summer for sure, a good number of games (compared to that other crazy summer sport with like 80 home games), and it's a good family atmosphere.

[Lu Galasso]

Whether or not Antoine is starting, I'd like to see him get more minutes than DeRozan. If it's a reversal of roles from the Wright/Terry thing in Dallas last year, that's fine.

[LeeZ]

To be filed under the heading: Ohhhhh my.
Today's article about the N.J.Nets offering up a player -- ANY player -- to those who fork over 25 grand for courtsides, for an hour-long appearance at...dinner for you and your pals, bah mitzvah, etc. Wow. Double wow. I can't believe the players' union doesn't have a SERIOUS beef with this. But it's a neat idea, and maybe we can import it to the beat grunts. In return for a modest contribution to the respective paper's charity, we could get you, Stumpy or the First Lady of the Beat to come shoot pool with us, be part of girls/boys night out, serve as Chippendale dancers...the mind positively boggles. Are you down, Doug?

Blogger's note: Except for the Chippendale part, sounds intriguing.

[George]

"still troubling if it’s still happening with regularity after seven games"... Just wondering why you picked 7 games as the window to determine DeMar's aptitude. A sub-conscious jab at the pucks' plight after 7?

Blogger's note: Actually, it's because that's how many pre-season games they've played

[anthony.mackay]

Congrats on making it through the off-season Doug, you hung in there when I'm sure there were times would would have been more fun to toss the PC out the window then write an article when there was no new NBA news.

Its almost go time! Who do you expect to have a better record, a healthy KG led Celtics team or a rested Kobe led Lakers (no Olympic summer commitments).

Blogger's note: Haven't really given that too much thought yet. That's a weekend job for next week's preview.

[Henry]

I know this is pre-season and I shouldn't panic, but I'm panicking anyway. It must come from living in Toronto and watching every professional team in the city fail, year end and year out. The new Raptors have looked pretty crappy so far. They looked more like a D-League team against Boston. Here's hoping things improve, or they have been holding out on us, or something.

[Tim W.]

Considering that DeRozan was shooting 87% (24-30) from the foul line before the Boston game, I'm not particularly worried about his free throw shooting. The fact that he's not once had a game of shooting 50% from the field is a little troubling, but many of those misses seemed to go in and out, so hopefully they'll start falling when he relaxes a bit more.

jk, preseason records mean nothing, so don't start looking for meaning or correlation. I remember many, many years ago , the Clippers had two or three preseasons in a row when they went undefeated (or close to it), and then ended up being one of the worst teams in the league. That's when I realized preseason games mean nothing.

[Rob.V]

LeeZ - Would you really like to see Doug dressed as a Chippendale's dancer while you were out shooting pool??

Doug, we may have to institute a "Don't Ask.. Don't Tell" policy here at the blog as this is clearly TMI.

Actually, kind of reminds me of a very funny skit on SNL with Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley going back a few years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgEVUWIwNLw

Maybe you could re-create this skit with LeeZ while out shooting pool one night... I actually might pay to see that. Maybe get Colangelo involved to collect the proceeds for charity!

[Tony]

All this talk about starting Derozan is crazy talk and there's no way it will last even if it gets to see the light of day. The kid's been great, the only reason he's being critiqued is because we're trying to put him in a position he's clearly not ready for. The Wright choice is right in front of their eyes and the Wright decision will soon be made. The starting unit needs an injection of defence and that's what many of us have been saying all along.

[GM]

The pack journalism thing really sucks. There must be a way to defeat it. Would it be in the team's interest to have different stories in different papers, or do they care? If it would serve their interests, maybe they could set up individual interviews for the major papers and let the fake (or smaller) journos do the scrums. I know it would serve the papers' interests to have different stories than their competitors because people would be picking up all the papers to get the various stories.

Blogger's note: We try, and sometimes we succeed but not often enough. It's one of the more challenging parts of the job in a four-paper market.

[AA]

Doug,

The preseason/regular season record you posted definitley shows a pattern. Like another poster said above, every time they went below .500 in preseason, they went below .500 in the regular season. The year they went 7-1 in preseason, they had their best season.

Your thoughts?

Blogger's note: I think the pre-season record means absolutely nothing. It depends entirely on scheduling, quality of opponents, integration of new players. Entirely, absolutely meaningless in my mind.

[Peter]

I want to agree with you Doug, about the pre-season. I want to say that the preseason means nothing. My fear is that the preseason record is not meaningless, it just means less then it should.
An example would be the preseason records this year of all the teams that you would expect to be having good seasons. Most of those teams have solid winning records. In our past, when we had a solid preseason, we had a solid season.
Like I said, I "want" to agree with you, but I'm afraid that there is some evidence to support an alternate theory.

[Tim W.]

AA,

You're taking a small sample size and trying to find a pattern. There isn't. Was Triano trying to win games? Was that why the bench has played so much? Do you really expect a young team with so many new faces to play well in preseason? Are they really do what they can to actually win, or are the other things that Triano is concentrating on? Here's a question for you, how many times have Bosh, Turkoglu, Bargnani or Calderon played at least 30 minutes in the preseason. Answer: Once. Bosh played 31 minutes against Boston. What exactly does that tell you?

[The J]

I would also say to follow up with what Doug said in the last blogger's note above, that the preseason means even less when you have a new coach. I say that because his goals for the preseason and what he is trying to get out of preseason can vary quite a bit from previous coaches. For example, the year they went 7-1, Sam Mitchell may have been actively trying to win those games. Right now, it doesn't seem Jay Triano is all that concerned with winning games, and more about assessing the many new players on his roster.

I would also point out that although the season that would follow the 7-1 preseason was quite successful, it started off really slowly before they started winning. Perhaps winning games rather than developing the players and team, was a mistake that season.

[Paul]

re the Pre-season record... we all know (well, most of us know) the record is meaningless. But maybe someone should tell the writers... Headlines I recall from the last couple of weeks:

"Raptors losing ways continue"
"Losses mount for Raptors"
"Raptors struggle to find win column"
"Reggie Evans for President"

(ok I made the last one up)

And it's not just the papers. Broadcasters asking things like "When is it time to panic, coach?" and "How do you turn this thing around?" during the preseason is a little ridiculous.

Oh, and speaking of broadcasters: Please God may I never have to listen to Sherm Hamilton call another game... Worst. Announcer. Ever. I am forced to mute the games on Raptors TV. Then I realize I'm watching a pre-season game on mute... the things we do when every single other sports franchise in town is indescribably awful.

[Dr. Tamias]

so, I am a stats nerd, and just did a quick correlation of the data you provided - pre-season vs. regular season. There is a positive correlation between pre-season and regular season (r = 0.707, P = 0.0221). There is one outlier - in 2000 the Raptors were 4-4 but 47-35. Without that year, the relationship strengthens (r = 0.874, P = 0.002). So, while there is some variation around this relationship, it does look like this could be a long season. If the raptors win their last pre-season game, I am predicting a 29-31 win season based on these statistics. If they lose, well my prediction is a VERY ugly season.

[LordofCheese]

Urrr, who the heck is Faux?
The whole Grange trademark thingy is weird enough...
As for DeRozan, any indication on how patient they will be with guy in the starting role? I like the idea in principle, but if he struggles, is working with the second unit going to be any easier? Since it could easily be assumed that he would be expected to be more of the focus in the offense coming off the bench. Whereas with the starters he would be under a lot less pressure to fill a stat sheet.
Really curious to see how strong or fragile the kid is mentally and how he reacts to any difficulties.

[Peter]

Cleveland is 3-3 in the preseason right now. Do you think anyone is worrying about them having a .500 season?

The preseason does not correlate to the regular season.

In the second Boston game, Bosh had, what was it, 4 field goal attempts in the whole game. He'll obviously get more touches if that were the regular season. (Although he did get to the foul line quite a bit, but still.)

[Tim W.]

Dr. Tamias,

As a stat nerd, you should know that the sample size you have is far too small to make any predictions. Especially when the tiny sample size also doesn't take into consideration strength of competition, minutes played by the starters, etc, etc.

The whole discussion is a little ridiculous.

[chris]

Doug - i still don't get it....what is the rational behind starting the rookie? Why would that be the best time to get him minutes?

While i get that its valuable to play with the best players on the team, how does that compare with getting killed on defense every game while trying to keep up with the likes of Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Joe Johnson, etc? Defense is the hardest thign for rookies to pick up....why throw him to the wolves?

Confidence is important, and crushing a rookie doesn't make sense to me. Why not let him go up against the other team's second stringers? There's also something to be said for not being the weak link on the starting 5, which is a LOT of pressure for the kid.

Blogger's note: Again, and it's been said often, there is less pressure playing with starters as a role player than being asked to carry a bigger load as a backup; he won't be asked to score; he will be playing with better players who are more able to help him defensively (and, again, no one player can stop any one other player anyway) and games are not often won or lost in the six or seven minutes to start each half.
Many don't agree, and that's fine.

[Aditya]

derozan missed a few free throws in his last game and you're panicking....

[kevin]

Mr. Smith,
Two Part question…..What are the Raps missing that you’ve seen so far in the 7 preseason games and furthermore how do they obtain it i.e. via trade or is there someone on the roster that can fill that.

Blogger's note: This is far more mailbag than comments. Maybe there later on. I will only say this: Trade?!?!?!??! You're kidding, right? No trades.