Vincible

Perhaps the most puzzling question of the season so far is also the most simple: Why aren't the Raptors winning?

Injuries haven't been a big issue -- Antonio Davis and Jerome Williams were nicked up for a bit, but other than that they've been healthy as can be. They didn't experience any notable drops in talent in the offseason, as exchanging Charles Oakley for Hakeem Olajuwon was their only important personnel move. Also, they're mostly a young team with players that could be expected to improve from a year ago.

The puzzle only grows when you look at the stats. Usually when a team disappoints it's because of a poor defensive effort (see Portland, Utah and Atlanta), but the Raptors have been fine. Their defensive efficiency record of 100.1 rates ninth in the league, and in fact it's a big improvement on last year's mark of 102.3 (which was 14th).

So they're a young team, with the same guys, playing better defense, and staying almost completely healthy. And yet last year they won 47 games, and this year they're 13-12. What gives?

Here's a gander at the main problem. See if you can figure out what's going on:

Toronto Player PER

		2000-1	2001-2
carter,vince	27.31	24.78	
williams,alvin	16.78	15.09	
peterson,morris	13.02	11.80
davis,antonio	16.34	 9.95
olajuwon,hake	21.61	12.95
clark,keon	11.15	15.14
childs,chris	 4.96	 8.56	
williams,jerome	16.08	13.98	
murray,tracy	 8.82	11.63	
curry,dell	14.29	13.53	

Amazingly enough, Keon Clark is the only one of their young talents who is playing better than a year ago. Jerome Williams, Alvin Williams, Morris Peterson and of course Vince Carter were all expected to take another step forward this year, but instead they're moonwalking. The kids' non-development has been exacerbated by the fact that Antonio Davis forgot how to play and that (less surprisingly) Hakeem Olajuwon has failed to repeat his efforts of a year ago. In fact, if not for surprising seasons from retreads like Chris Childs and Tracy Murray, the Raptors decline would be even worse right now.

The amazing part about this is that there are few coaches more patient with young talent than Lenny Wilkens. His track record with younger players has been outstanding, and the team's defensive record shows that the effort is there, so why they're struggling is a bit of a mystery.

But there's no mystery that this team's offense is not where it was a year ago. Last season they were tied for 10th in offensive officiency at 104.1; this year, they're 19th at 101.1. Part of the problem is that they're making more turnovers: 12.9 per 100 possessions this year compared to 11.8 a year ago, which was actually the lowest total in the league.

But that only explains part of it. The rest is explained by their shooting. The Raptors have fallen in points per shot attempt (PSA) from 1.031 last year to 1.003 this season. Oddly, both totals are 20th in the league, but that's an anomaly caused by how other teams bunched up - the league average has hardly changed at 1.04. As a result, the Raptors have gone from being close to average shooting the ball to being "masonically challenged."

Why does their PSA make them look like a team full of T.R. Dunns? Part of the answer is certainly shot selection. I think everyone who's seen the Raptors this year has noticed that they take an awful lot of long jumpers with 16 seconds on the shot clock, and wondered what the Raptors were doing out there. It doesn't help that Antonio Davis' decline has essentially killed their post game and made them reliant on winging J's all game.

You can see the jumpers in the stat sheet. Only five teams have taken fewer free throw attempts than Toronto, and none of them have Vince Carter. Meanwhile, the Raptors are sixth in three-point attempts.

But in a way it's good news for the Raptors. If it's just a question of taking better shots and being more patient on offense, that's a lot more encouraging than other problems (like lack of talent, for instance). Hopefully Davis can come back and give them more of a low post presence. Maybe Lenny can sell the wonders of shot selection to Vince, Alvin and especially the conscienceless Mo P (31% of his field goal attempts this season have been three-pointers, and he always seems to be shooting them with a man in his face as the shot clock hits 23. He plays like he watches Jason Williams and thinks to himself, "That guy gets it.").

Regardless, it's way to soon to write off the Raptors. The fact that they're young kids haven't made strides this season is a little disturbing. But their problems appear abundantly fixable, and their defensive improvement means that the effort is certainly there. Toronto beat a pretty good Indiana team on the road last night, and it was encouraging to see Peterson taking the ball to the basket so much more; perhaps his light bulb may be starting to switch on. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Toronto ripped off 10 straight wins and got back into the Central Division race. But time's a-wastin'.

Pot Shots

There's a lot to talk about from last night's Toronto-Indiana game. For starters, I didn't agree with Isiah's post-game hissy fit for one very important reason: Reggie Miller didn't get fouled. He kicked his legs out into the passing defender to try to get a call and the officials weren't buying it. Technically, in fact, that play should be whistled against Miller, but few officials have the cojones to make that call.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Toronto played almost the whole second quarter with Vince Carter at point guard and Keon Clark at small forward, and Dick & Hubie didn't even feel this was worthy of comment. What, we were supposed to expect this? Vince didn't do badly actually, but as usually happens when an oversize point guard is used, the fast breaks immediately stopped.

What an interesting game, there's so much more to talk about. Bennett Salvatore was handing out T's like they were halloween candy and anyone who set a pick was immediately whistled for an offensive foul. And how about Eric Montross and his -6.31 PER getting 29 minutes of burn? Amazingly enough, he looked OK out there (game score 7.2). But I still don't know what Lenny was thinking about - he'd have been better off moving Antonio Davis to center and giving Jerome Williams more than 19 minutes...

7 straight, break up the Wizards! On a related note, last night makes it even clearer that all is not well with Atlanta. Dion Glover (PER 15.11) got a DNP-CD last night for reasons that aren't real clear to me, while Kruger left Toni Kukoc out there to get lit by MJ. Atlanta's defense has been near the bottom of the league all year (24th in defensive efficiency), so perhaps when (or maybe I should say if) Theo Ratliff is healthy they'll be able to make a charge ... Andre Miller's stellar 36 point game in Boston last night, on 14 of 18 shooting, earned a game score of 33.9. Antoine Walker wasn't far behind at 33.1.