The Toronto Raptors Thread

[marcwagz]

did you suggest the raptors move to the states?
seriously? were you here when VC was in his heyday?
Those games at the ACC were some of the best sports entertainment Toronto has ever got, the ACC was always rocking.
The raptors are rebuilding now.

[ArgoRavi]

The raptors are rebuilding now.

Haven't they been rebuilding for the last five years?

[Will]

They've been rebuilding since the 2008-2009 season.

[marcwagz]

Haven't they been rebuilding for the last five years?

no
when they had chris bosh they were trying to win

[DanTheFan]

Colangelo has seemingly just "woke up" in the past year or so and realized the team needs to be re-built properly. When Bosh was around, he brought in a few names with the intent on getting into the play-offs and making a run. I think when he signed O'Neal, he claimed that addition would make them a top-4 East team with hopes of getting to the conference finals. The next year, he made some more moves to add depth to the squad (namely Turk, but also guys like Jack and Bellinelli) and complement Bosh in hopes to keep him here. I'm just glad I was too busy with university studies to give their second-half collapse much attention.

The 2010-11 offseason also showed some intent of forming a team that could be a playoff contender by bringing in Barbosa and nearly acquiring Tyson Chandler. This year he just stuck to bringing in short-term veteran contracts, and seems to be asking for patience. With the Jays and Leafs in large playoff droughts, it's getting awful tough for me to be patient, but I understand the need to build through the draft.

[Will]

The Raptors were heading in the right direction during the 2006-2007 season it seemed. They had surprisingly won the Atlantic Division and Sam Mitchell was the NBA Coach of the Year. Although, they made the playoffs in 2007-2008 they never replicated that success. I think it was the 2009-2010 season where the Raptors were heading for a playoff spot and seemed solid, but ended up fading badly during the second half and then Chris Bosh left the team after that thus pushing them into a full blown rebuild. It's clear that the significant problem with the Raptors is retaining their stars (Carter, McGrady, Bosh, etc.), but also the Raptors were never able to give them a complimentary player. Lamond Murray was oft-injured and Jermaine O'Neal and Turkoglu didn't work out in Toronto.

[DanTheFan]

The games have been getting uglier as the season moves on. We need Bargnani to get healty to spark the offense, but this isn't the season we need to rush him back into the lineup. I wonder how Bayless is doing?