Kyle Lowry (left) and Jonas Valanciunas (right), courtesy Bleacher Report
7-5 to start the season. 6th in the Eastern Conference.
Is that what GM Masai Ujiri and Head Coach Dwayne Casey had in mind when they retooled the Toronto Raptors in the offseason?
Not likely.
Don’t get me wrong, they haven’t looked bad…they just haven’t looked good.
They dropped a thriller in the late-going to the now 12-0 Golden State Warriors last night and held their own in doing so, but a loss is a loss.
The Eastern Conference in the NBA is not the walk in the park that it had been over the past two or three seasons.
Every game is becoming more and more meaningful because there’s a good chance 45 wins this season won’t guarantee the Raptors a playoff spot.
Going into the season the Raptors were considered a contender for a top-3 playoff spot in the East alongside the Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls but the emergence of the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and the resurrection of the Miami Heat leave the Raptors in more dire straits than they may have anticipated.
Offseason acquisitions DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph and Luis Scola have slotted in to their new roles nicely but ultimately it takes time to gel completely into a new system with new teammates.
I believe the Raptors have the personnel to be serious contenders for at least a division title, and a high playoff seed as well but in order to do this they need to win the games that they’re supposed to win which has hurt them so far.
Of their five losses, three have come against teams with records below .500. That simply isn’t good enough anymore.
Beating the Warriors is a tall task. Beating the Orlando Magic is not. If the Raptors want to be taken seriously, they cannot afford to lose games to beatable teams on a consistent basis.
In my opinion, consistency is they key to the rest of the Raptos ’15-16 campaign.
They are blessed with two stars in Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, but neither of them are superstars. Stephen Curry and LeBron James can win a basketball game pretty much single-handedly…Lowry and DeRozan would be a lot more hard-pressed to do that.
Each night needs to be a complete effort right from their stars down the the last man off the bench. There isn’t enough wiggle room to be relying on one or two players to save a game for this team.
Overall the Raptors start to the season has been very average. Things could be a lot worse, yes, but with the changes in the offseason bringing even more potential to a team whose window to win is right now, I don’t think 7-5 is good enough.
Raptors fans are tired of mediocrity being acceptable and the team has shown signs that they share that sentiment.
The turnaround needs to start sooner rather than later and when it does, the Raps have more than enough talent to carry themselves to a high playoff seed and a lengthy playoff run.
That’s one man’s opinion. What say you?
The Charity Stripe 
