The Raptors Remain a Work in Progress

Back-to-back losses to Orlando and Miami over the weekend might have dampened the enthusiasm of Toronto's 5-0 start, especially when you add in DeMarre Carroll missing Sunday's game with plantar fasciitis, Terrence Ross continuing his inconsistent play, and the continued questions of whether Jonas Valanciunas will ever get a larger role in the offence that he's earned with his efficiency in the low post. But two straight defeats also served to remind everyone that this Raptors team—despite two meaningful victories on the road against Dallas and Oklahoma City earlier in the week—is still very much a work in progress.

Despite first-round losses in consecutive years, and with plenty of room for improvement after an overhaul of the roster in the offseason, the consensus coming into the season was pretty straight forward for this Raptors team: any incremental gains made in the regular season would only translate to true progress in the postseason. In that sense, the 82-game schedule seemed reduced to a six-month long process under evaluation not for the results—wins and losses in this case—but the team's ability to find a balance on both ends of the floor, and for the core group to show there was a higher ceiling beyond just a middle-of-the-pack team in the Eastern Conference playing in a favourable division.

Evaluated under these terms, the defensive improvement that was especially visible in the fourth quarter of back-to-back wins over the Mavericks and Thunder was encouraging. Even in defeat, this team showing it could win after shooting under 30 percent in the first half and allowing 42 points in the third quarter, as Toronto did in Oklahoma City, felt like a breakthrough—a team that spent all of training camp and the preseason preaching ball movement and being competitive on the defensive end, and then backing up the rhetoric with actual results in games that mattered. In winning both those contests, the Raptors decided to forego moral victories and instead earned actual ones, and earned satisfactory grades both in process and result.

Still, questions remain, and become more evident in losses, as they usually do. This is still a team that counts on DeMar DeRozan to create most of its offense in late-game situations. And while he frequently gets to the free throw line, those attempts are also offset by difficult mid-range jumpers that a contending team might not want to rely on come April. Valanciunas has become a regular in the fourth quarter, and is contributing when he's seen the floor late in games. On Sunday against Miami, Valanciunas went 8-for-11 from the field in the first half, and then attempted just one shot in the second half. Credit the Heat defence, but if you're a perimeter-oriented team like the Raptors, and you're finally committing to your starting center in terms of meaningful minutes, creating more opportunities for an efficient low-post scorer feels like a priority.

A 5-2 start is still encouraging given the road-heavy schedule, and the upcoming slate of games (at home against New York, at Philadelphia, home vs. New Orleans) offers a reprieve before the Raptors head out on a five-game West Coast trip followed by a home date against Cleveland. For the rest of this season, as it has been the case through two weeks, this will be a Raptors team placed under the microscope less so about the results, but tidying up the flaws that remain from previous seasons that ended their playoff runs all too early.

A few other thoughts…

• Dwane Casey talked to Sean Deveney of The Sporting News about the Raptors losing their identity on the defensive end last season: "I think your team takes on the personality of certain players, and Lou Williams is one of the top scorers in the league and I think we kind of took on his personality a little bit—which wasn't a bad thing because we needed scoring, but I thought it tilted the pendulum a little too far the other way." Per Synergy, through seven games this season, the Raptors are 17th in the league in isolation plays as a percentage of their total offence. The Lakers—Williams' new team—are second, and last year's Sixth Man Of The Year leads his team in fourth quarter shot attempts.

• Luis Scola hit a huge corner 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter against the Mavericks this week. He's 4-for-6 from deep on the season, which is even more impressive when you consider he only made 10 career 3-pointers heading into the 2015-16 campaign. Consider: Scola has made four 3-pointers in seven contests this season after needing 631 career games before this season to nail 10.

• In the same Deveney article mentioned above, DeRozan said this about the team's playoff loss to the Wizards: "It sucks. It was a long summer. Especially when we know we can beat a team like that. We beat them all season. We understand we were a better team than that. That's something we have got to play with the whole year." The two teams will face off Nov. 28 in Washington.

• Ross signed a three-year extension with the team last Monday, and in four games since has proceeded to shoot 3-for-19 from the field, 1-for-12 from long range, and scored seven points in 72 minutes. The Raptors are betting on Ross becoming a more consistent player for the duration of his contract. The early returns have not been great.

• Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Norman Powell is amazed at how much Canadians love ketchup chips.