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Are Raptors prepared to rebound?

July 31, 2009 09:54 AM | Posted by   Paul Jay  

Trades like the Toronto Raptors' swap of the aging and ineffective Devean George for young Italian guard Marco Belinelli have a way of skewing reality for supporters of a sports franchise.

On the surface – and beneath the surface for that matter – the deal seems so one-sided in the favour of the home squad, it leads to potentially irrational optimism among the team's fans.

Suddenly, in their minds, the Raptors go from an interesting team to a contender. Suddenly proposing a trade involving Marcus Banks doesn't seem so far-fetched. In a world where a 31-year-old forward on his last legs equals an intriguing young player who happens to be the countryman and international teammate of one of your team's cornerstone players, anything appears possible.

Raptors bench new and improved

It's not the first time Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo has pulled off something like this, either. In his first season with Toronto, his first deal was to send Rafael Araujo to Utah for Kris Humphries, a younger and superior player.

But it's probably worth mentioning that Humphries, for all his worthy contributions to rebounding and his less-worthy moments of, shall we say, offensive decisiveness, didn't exactly make the difference between success and failure for Toronto.

The same is likely true for Belinelli. Competing for minutes at shooting guard with DeMar DeRozan, Antoine Wright and possibly Jarrett Jack and Roko Ukic (when they are not playing point guard), Belinelli is more likely to have a modest impact as he fights for minutes.

Yet assuming the Raptors are nearing the completion of their off-season overhaul – and that's far from certain given the number of moves they've made so far - it's fair to say the Raptors bench will be both unrecognizable and much-improved.

Replacing last year's bench squad of Ukic, Jason Kapono, Joey Graham, Pops Mensah Bonsu and Jake Voskuhl with Jack, Wright or DeRozan, Belinelli, Reggie Evans and Rasho Nesterovic is, by any measure, an improvement.

What about the boards?

Two questions remain, however.

One is whether Turkoglu (who, like Bargnani is a tall three-point chucking perimeter player) and whoever wins the starting shooting guard position represent a tangible improvement over Shawn Marion and Anthony Parker, the two starting players from last year's squad now plying their trade elsewhere.

Which brings up the other issue. Though Marion and Parker both appeared last season to be less effective than they were a few years before, both could be counted on to rebound, an area few other Raptors excel in. So who is going to rebound for this team when Bargnani, Belinelli and Turkoglu are launching from deep?

Chris Bosh, Jarrett Jack and Reggie Evans are the only players on the roster I would say excel at rebounding, and though the seven-foot-tall Nesterovic is a poor rebounder for his size, he has historically been adept at boxing out opponents, and as a result his presence can inflate the rebounding numbers of his teammates.

But point guard Jose Calderon, Turkoglu, Bargnani, Belinelli and Wright are all below average rebounders, and rookie DeMar DeRozan wasn't known for his rebounding despite his athleticism.

This is the challenge before head coach Jay Triano: either he'll have to engineer some way to turn this team into better rebounding squad or he'll have to find a way to get them to shoot considerably better than their opponents.

Based on the roster, I suspect he'll have no choice but to go with option number two.

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