Has The Raptors' Defence Improved This Off-Season?

[Built Ford Tough]

A nice read on RaptorsHQ. Not going to post the entire thing, but I hope you will take the time to click on the link and read it all.

 

For instance one of the team's biggest defensive sieves, Hedo Turkoglu, was no longer with the club, while the Dinos added athleticism and shot blocking via the draft. Even smaller moves, like replacing Patrick O'Bryant's non-existent presence on the glass with Joey Dorsey's rugged rebounding and man-to-man D.

 

The counter to this of course is that the team lost its best perimeter defender, Antoine Wright, and Chris Bosh, who although no Dwight Howard on his own, now takes his 9.4 rebounds and 1.2 blocks a game on average to Miami.

 

So what's the truth here? Are the Raptors better off on D thanks to their off-season moves, even by the smallest of measures?

 

Before a single game of the new season has been played, it's admittedly tough to do much analysis. However by using the database over at the fantastic website, Basketballreference.com, as well as a few other sources, I put together a rudimentary view of what fans might expect.

 

http://www.raptorshq.com/2010/8/30/1656488/has-the-raptors-defence-improved

 

Again, I hope you will take the time to read through the entire blog, as I thought it was a nice read. RaptorsHQ is probably the best Raptor blog site that I have stumbled across and their blogs are generally very good reads.

 

I definitely think that you can make the case the Raptors improved defensively over the summer. Losing Bosh sucks for the team as he did so much for them, but that was more so on the glass and offensively. Johnson was actually the Raptors best interior defender last season, certainly better than Bosh, so if he is the one who gets most of the minutes that Bosh would've played, it would make sense to think that the Raptors will be better off defensively when it comes to the power forward position.

 

Of course, to counter this you can argue that Johnson is still unproven, last season could've been a fluke year and that he will need to keep his fouls down or else he won't even be on the floor enough to have a noticable impact on the teams defense, all of which would be legitimate counter-arguments.

 

Anyways, what do you think on the subject? Has Toronto's defense improved, stayed the same or gotten worse over the summer?

Edited September 4, 2010 by Built Ford Tough

[Real Deal]

It makes sense, really, because Bosh was not a five. Toronto has been seeking bigs, also...and it's only obvious they were looking for defensive-minded bigs by bringing back Johnson and selecting Ed Davis.

 

Bargnani is a different story, but they have to have some offense, too. The Suns wouldn't toss Nash for a defensive-minded point, even though Nash is one hell of a matador on that side of the ball.

 

I'd have to see how well they play as a unit, though. Teams can bring in the defensive talent, but help defense plays a pivotal role in how the team does overall.

[Guest RSZ]

NO THEY WILL SUCK [expletive] B/C THEY LOST THEIR FRANCHISE PLAYER. STOP POSTING [expletive]ING BOOKS WHEN U TYPE. UR TEAM SUCKS AND SO DOES CANADA.

[*Swish*]

Yeah I think they improved a little bit. DeRozan worked a lot on defense this off season and I think Bargnani will have more blocks then last year. Ed Davis is also one of the top defenders of the rookie list so I really do think Raptors will be a better defensive team..

[Clutch]

NO THEY WILL SUCK [expletive] B/C THEY LOST THEIR FRANCHISE PLAYER. STOP POSTING [expletive]ING BOOKS WHEN U TYPE. UR TEAM SUCKS AND SO DOES CANADA.