Raptors Cage

A comprehensive evaluation of Terrence Ross

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Terrence Ross2With the newly acquired DeMarre Carroll poised to assume starting small forward duties it would appear that, after a frustrating year of inconsistent play, Terrence Ross’ role has been redefined significantly. The new roster additions and restructured depth chart undoubtedly has huge implications for Terrence Ross and the trajectory of his career. But perhaps his new role might afford him a more realistic standard of expectations.

Since the departure of Chris Bosh the Toronto Raptors have been feverishly seeking top tier, pseudo-star, two way talent to fill both forward positions. The arrival of Rudy Gay in the January of 2013 was marketed to be a transition into a new era in Toronto basketball. Brought in to represent management’s expressed commitment to building a contender, Gay was supposed to be a dynamic offensive talent that could space the floor, create for himself, and use his length to provide some versatility on defence. Needless to say, that experiment didn’t work out.

In the December of 2013, Raptor’s general manager Masai Ujiri found a taker for Gay’s massive $18 million contract and the role of starting small forward was handed to sophomore wing Terrence Ross. Thus far in his career Ross had been stuck behind two ball-dominant wings in DeRozan and Gay and hadn’t truly been given the opportunity to get any significant NBA minutes under his belt, but this trade was indicative of management’s intention to let Ross play in order to observe what value he possessed as an asset. And early on, Ross genuinely showed real signs of promising talent.
After spending the first 19 games of the 2013/2014 season coming off the bench averaging just 6.5 PPG in a mere 18.9 minutes per game he managed to finish the month of December with 11.6 PPG on 25.6 minutes while shooting a staggering 46% from beyond the arc. He was earning his minutes and he continued to elevate his game by finishing the month of January with averages of 13 PPG on 31.3 minutes a game, almost doubling his production from that time the year prior. The team began to win consistently and their success was in large part due to the effectiveness of their perimeter players, Terrence Ross included. He had everything you wanted in a ‘3 and D’ type wing player; He had range, he was a pesky defender, and he was as athletic as they come. Ross was playing his way into being a permanent starter and was garnering attention from around the league (who remembers that 51 point game against the Clippers?). Fans were starting to believe that management had really found a diamond in the rough with Ross.

And then the play-offs happened.

Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports
Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports

Now, it’s important to keep in mind that Raptor’s fans (and the city of Toronto in general) don’t often get to enjoy these extra couple weeks of entertainment in April and May, so the argument can be made that we as a fan base should be able to enjoy just being at the party a little bit. But we’re Toronto sports fans and it doesn’t work like that. If a team elevates its performance then we elevate our expectations, and not always in that order.

In all fairness, the 24 year old was a big part of what worked with the Raptors that year. Between Lowry, DeRozan, Vasquez, and himself there was no gun-shyness coming from this team’s backcourt. But Ross seemed to lag further and further behind the other three in performance the closer the team got to the play-offs, and what happened when they finally got there wasn’t pretty. Ross’ play in that seven game series against the Brooklyn Nets marked the beginning of a torturously painful decline in his game. Let’s not even talk about the abuse he took from Paul Pierce and Joe Johnson. In the first four games of that series he played 76 minutes and scored a grand total of nine points on 3-17 (18%) shooting. That’s bad. To put that in perspective he also had exactly nine turnovers in that same period. When a player’s turnovers are an par with their point totals across four whole games then you’ve got to question how on earth he is staying on the court, and everybody in the city (except Dwayne Casey) was wondering the exact same thing.

Let’s fast forward a year and some change to the present. It’s not that Ross has become even worse, though that is certainly up for debate. It’s that he’s shown literally no signs of even minor improvement. None. No refined ball-handling, no desire to attack the rim, no ability to effectively guard his position, and most disappointingly of all, he’s shown absolutely no drive and determination to be an effective player. And thus, the Raptor’s have now spent a whopping $60 million on his replacement. So what does this mean for Terrence Ross now?

Since the Rudy Gay trade he has been given every opportunity imaginable to run away with the starting gig, even under a coach that isn’t exactly fond of giving his younger guys big minutes. This is almost certainly not going to be the case this year. DeMarre Carroll will be eating into the majority of minutes at small forward, and don’t look now but there’s a guy by the name of Norman Powell that has been turning heads lately. If Terrence Ross doesn’t bring something of substance to the table this year he could find himself on the bench more often than not.

But things aren’t all bad in the world of T-Ross. His one undeniable NBA skill is his jump shot and he has at least been able to nail a respectable number of his shots from beyond the arc. This will keep him employed in the world of basketball for quite a while.

And that’s about where the positives end. It’s kind of a good thing the NBA doesn’t release a yearbook isn’t it?

On this year’s depth chart Ross will most likely be filling in at either SG or SF behind DeRozan and Carroll. In another interesting possible line-up Ross could spend some time at SG while sharing the court with DeRozan and Carroll at the same time. He will likely experience a minutes reduction from last year’s 25.5 MPG down to around 20-22 MPG in more of a ‘6th man’ role. Coming off the bench might be a better fit for Ross. Particularly, with the losses of Lou Williams and Greivis Vasquez  the bench will need scoring and he will have a chance to turn his career around being a primary option with the second unit. He also won’t be asked to be the Raptors’ primary perimeter defender, having to guard top tier players from Paul Pierce to John Wall. Replacing Ross with the physicality and defensive IQ of DeMarre Carroll is like putting a defender where there wasn’t a defender before.

Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Another thing to think about is the fact that this move to the bench relegates T-Ross to playing the majority of his minutes against other team’s second units as well. After a couple years of playing significant minutes as a starter against the league’s top tier of talent he should be able to perform respectably against the NBA’s second tier of talent. Most Raptor’s fans would likely be satisfied if Ross functioned as a reliable offensive option off the bench who was familiar enough with the starters as well as Dwayne Casey’s system to be able to play in lineups with the first unit if need be. This role, however, pales in comparison to what most of us thought we were going to get out of Terrence Ross long term, but he has left us with no choice but to dramatically lower our expectations of him.

Let’s be completely candid about Terrence; he is not as good as we thought he would be. It’s really just that simple. Sure, he has the tools to be a special player, but he has never really been able to put all the pieces together for an extended stretch of play. This is not a story of a promising young talent who was plagued with injury woes or lack of opportunity. This is the story of a promising young talent that was given every opportunity but either wasn’t good enough or just didn’t have the desire to improve enough. Let it be known that Terrence Ross had the full backing of the organization from management to coaching staff – even Drake supported him when he represented the Raptors in the Dunk competition in the 2013 NBA All-Star game. Let it be known that the fan base only turned on him when his performance on the court took a remarkably fast turn for the worst. Terrence Ross’ moment has come and gone. The fan base no longer has high expectations of him, management has given more money to his replacement than any free agent in their history, and he will soon find that minutes will be harder to come by than ever before. But perhaps, as we should have known, Ross is a bench player and not the starter we tried to turn him into.

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2 thoughts on “A comprehensive evaluation of Terrence Ross”

  1. How many times, or how long, will we be reading the same stories, over and over again, about TRoss? This is getting tired, now. You guys just find different ways to word it, but it boils down to the same TRoss issues. Isn’t there anyone else on the roster, the franchise, the organization to write about? Geez!

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