Raptors Cage

Raptors 2012-13 Season In Words

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I can’t wait for the Bryan Colangelo presser on Monday. Accelerated rebuild, growth, consistency, and all the usual hoopla (BS) is what you can expect, and the sad part is he’s likely going to get away with a relatively easy media session due to the Toronto Raptors‘ strong finish to the season.

Much optimism highlighted last offseason for the Raps, bringing in explosive point guard Kyle Lowry along with the arrival of rookies Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross. Landry Fields was supposed to return to his rookie form and start for the Raps, but sadly, nothing really went well for this team to start the year. Let me remind you…

Lowry started the year on fire, putting up all-star numbers of around 25-6-5-3, and this team looked very solid in the first few contests. The offense was very free-flowing, mostly because Casey wasn’t too sure how to run it, and this allowed Lowry to excel. Then, Lowry went down with an injury against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Jose Calderon took over at the point for a few games before Lowry returned, at which point the team looked like they had no idea what they were doing. As Casey tried to get the offence to make somewhat of sense, the defense took multiple steps backwards and this team just didn’t look very good. The 4-19 start is something that this team will look back at and wince.

Lowry went down once again, and Jose took over for a much longer period of time. The Raps started winning games as the schedule eased up, and Lowry remained on the bench once he returned. He was passive, and just wasn’t playing like the point guard the Raps invested a draft pick for.

Did people forget about Andrea Bargnani? Coming off a solid 2011-12 campaign, Bargnani was expected to take that step forward. Instead,  he had a injury filled season, yielding a career-low in rebounds and his lowest points-per-game total since his sophomore season in the 35 games he played in. 

As the trade deadline neared, the Raps were losing once again, and Colangelo swung the blockbuster trade, shipping Jose and the blossoming Ed Davis out of town for star small forward Rudy Gay. As crazy as this was, they were knocking on the door of the playoffs, sitting 3.5 back of the Bucks until it fell apart again.

However, the Rudy Gay era has left Raps fans with some optimism, going slightly over .500 with his time here, and the Raps ended the year with a 5 game winning streak. Finishing the year with a 34-48 record isn’t something to brag about, but this team certainly made some progress.

The real reason we’re disappointed with this season as a whole has to be the potential wasted. This team was supposed to make the playoffs, but injuries, close losses, inability to close, and refs really handicapped the Raps this year. The classic Raptor ending occurred once again, with a winning streak of meaningless games, and leaving the team with some “continuity” for next year. What could have been was the case this year once again, but hey, there’s always next year!

Dwane Casey said this was ‘three seasons’ for the Raps, with their awful start, improvement, and solid play. The team was very inconsistent, but when Gay-DeRozan were clicking, the Raps looked like they could compete with any team in the league. The development of JV as well as DeRozan was fun to watch, and Ross winning the dunk contest was one of the more exciting moments this franchise has had in a while.

In all seriousness, the Gay-DeRozan duo leaves Raptors fans with something to look forward to next year, and the offseason full of question-marks coming up should be very interesting. I’ve said that the Raps need that one piece, will they get it? Will Colangelo remain GM?

We’ll see what happens, but at this point, all the Raps can do is enjoy the playoffs, and continue to wish how much they were there.

Here are some video clips of the high’s and lows of the season:

More in depth player analysis and off-season coverage will be released. 

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