Disclaimer: Stats used in this article were from Nov 6th when the Raptors were 10-1; any subsequent statistical changes are a result of further games played past this point.
After many years of strong and consistent play in the regular season, the Raptors are yet again blazing the Eastern conference, with a team best 6-0 start and a 10-1 tie for the best standing thus far in the season. Led by Kyle Lowry and our new superstar Kawhi Leonard, let’s take a closer look at what’s changed for this team in such a short timespan and what to look forward to in the upcoming future.
Led by their Stars
In comparison to last season, the Raptors are still doing a phenomenal job with a small increase in their pace, scoring up to 101.2 points per 100 possessions, up from 97.4. The season is still young, but the raptors are ranked #2 in the league for offensive rating (116.0) behind the Warriors. Kawhi and Lowry have PER’s of 26.97 and 24.46 respectively, and as a duo, they’re absolutely killing it together.
Furthermore, Kawhi Leonard who has just started playing for the first time since rehabbing his quad injury again has looked amazing. Although he’s had to rest due to a sore ankle and injury precautions, he’s averaged 26.1 pts, 7.6 rebounds and 2 steals a game on 50.4% from the field with a team second best 3 point percentage of 44.8%. With a defensive efficiency rating of 104, his rating has dropped in comparison to past seasons in his career, but for someone who hasn’t played a full season in a year, he’s still as sharp as ever on the defensive side and the intangibles he provides cannot just be measured by one rating.
Just take a look at this. Words aren’t even needed.
As of now, he’s only allowing his opponents to shoot 40.7% against him. In comparison to players known for their defense in the league, he’s doing well defensively thus far.
With a team high usage of 28.9% and an offensive efficiency rating of 123, Kawhi’s also provided solid production on the floor when looking at other top-players and their usage ratings.
With Kawhi, the raptors are 7-0, and the value he adds to this team defensively along with his ability to score in multiple ways and shoot the three ball is allowing the raptors for better spacing and playmaking overall.
Although Kawhi has had a huge role in this amazing start, let’s not forget Lowry. Looking more into his contributions, he’s played a huge role as the true leader of the team. Last year, we saw him go through some shooting slumps and injuries that kept him out for a short amount of time. But this year is different. Lowry has shifted to become the main playmaker and has been leading the league in assists, averaging 11.5 dimes per game thus far. He’s also averaging 17.9 pts per game shooting 50% from the field and 40% from the 3 with a 60% eFG making his 130 offensive rating all the more impressive. He’s been incredibly efficient and the added ball movement for the Raptors has been amazing, leading to everyone getting better shots.
While on the floor, Lowry is assisting on 46.4% of his teammates field goals. Just take a look at the passes and high field goal % shots he provides to his teammates.
Lowry’s been setting up the bigs a lot more and giving them better opportunities to score and this is one reason for such drastic improvements in the efficiency of some of these players which we’ll touch on soon. It’s now Lowry’s duty to step up when needed and to continue playing at this level.
Efficiency from key-players
The Raptors’ success however is a combination of several key-players that have been extremely efficient in their playing time. Players like Jonas Valanciunas, Danny Green, Pascal Siakam, and Serge Ibaka have played just as efficiently as the two stars of the team during this tenure.
Nick Nurse has been very fluid with the lineups and rotations he’s used, using both Serge and Jonas at the centre position depending on different matchups. Currently, the most consistent starting five has included Lowry, Green, Leonard, Siakam, and Ibaka. Alongside Jonas, these 6 players have positive Box Plus/Minuses, led by Lowry and Kawhi. With Lowry taking a backseat to scoring, other core players are contributing to the offense. This is correlated by Kawhi, Jonas and Ibaka’s high usage percentages of 29, 27, and 26 percent respectively.
The addition of Danny Green has also helped tremendously on both ends of the floor. He’s been shooting a team high 47.6% from three. He has been most effective on quick catch and shoot opportunities, where 7.5 of his points per game come from, and he’s even more efficient here shooting at 50% from the three. Defensively, he’s an above-average shot blocker averaging 1.3 bpg, and his length at the shooting guard position can be troublesome for opponents, who are only scoring 43.2% of their shots against him and 35% from the 3 (in comparison, Derozan allowed 45.4% field goal and 39% from the 3 last year).
Ibaka has also improved immensely averaging 18 ppg and 7.2 rebounds in just 26.5 minutes a game while shooting 59.3% from the field. In addition, Siakam is averaging 11.7 ppg, 7.4 rebounds, and a steal in 27 minutes on 60.6% from the field. Both of these players have increased their points per game and increased their field goal percentage by 10% from last year.
Currently, the 2nd best starting 5 in the NBA is held by the Raptors with Lowry, Ibaka, Green, Siakam and Anouby on the floor. This combination nets an astounding 155.8 offensive rating and 89.1 defensive rating on 78.1% TS.
Delving deeper at the top net ratings by duos with over 200 minutes, we can see that four of the top 5 duos are from the Raptors. 1. Kawhi Leonard/Kyle Lowry: 19.7 net rating
2. Lowry/Pascal Siakam: 19.0 net rating 3. Lowry/Danny Green: 18.8 net rating 4. Green/Siakam: 17.9 net rating
5. Kevin Durant/Draymond Green: 17.2 net rating
Front-court efficiency
If you’re a Raptors fan, you need to be pleased by what the front court is doing. Nick Nurse has been playing Jonas and Ibaka at the 5 interchangeably and it’s working extremely well. Placing Jonas on the bench has allowed both players to play to the best of their offensive capabilities. Shots are less forced and taken within the flow of the game. As Ibaka gets more comfortable playing the 5, the ability to pick one or the other in a specific matchup is extremely useful.
Last season, 53% of Ibaka’s shots came off catch-and-shoot opportunities, while 13.7% were pull-up jumpers with 29.6% of attempts taken within 10 feet of the hoop. So far this season, his catch-and-shoot attempts are down to 41%. Only 7.5 % of his shots have been pull-ups and now the majority — 50 % — have come within 10 feet. He’s doing much better than last season overall in the same playing time and is giving what Raptors fans expected him to do when he was first traded to the team.
Furthermore, in just 19 minutes a game, Jonas is averaging 13.6 ppg, 7.2 rebounds, and 1 block on 55.3% shooting from the field. He’s thriving in his new role coming off the bench, and despite the fewer minutes, he has career high PER-36 minute averages of 25.8 points, 13.6 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks a game. He’s also got the best defensive efficiency rating of any key player on the team right now at 100.
The Raptors have found a potent one-two punch at centre, and the credit has to go to Nurse for moving away from playing the two together and maximizing their respective abilities early in the season.
Looking forward to the future
Kawhi’s not 100% back to his usual self and the Raptors will take precaution throughout the duration of the season to ensure he’s not exerting himself as he works his way back up. However, he’s still the best player on the floor for the Raptors when he is on the floor and there's no telling where he can take the Raptors.
Last season, the Raptors’ bench made a major impact. In the 2017-2018 season, Toronto’s bench produced 41.8 ppg and boasted the fourth-highest scoring bench in the NBA. The bench's efficiency rating of 51.4 and net rating of 8.3 was the best in the league among second units. A pleasant surprise is that despite having six or seven core players, the bench is still producing an average of 37.1 ppg.
Last season’s bench prioritized use of players like Siakam, Powell, VanVleet, Wright, C.J miles, and Poeltl.With Poeltl being traded, and Siakam taking a starting role, players like Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby, and others mentioned are doing well thus far scoring off the bench. The numbers will improve as Wright recovers fully from his groin injury and as Nick Nurse plays around with rotations.
Needs for improvement
If the Raptors want to go above and beyond and continue to improve, they’ll need certain key players to improve on their liabilities.
Fred VanVleet
VanVleet is a great role-player and can be seen as the second unit’s leader, getting 24.3 mpg and averaging 10.6 ppg, 5 apg, and 2.7 rebounds. He can do it all: he’s got great vision and handles, he can penetrate and dish it off and make a play, or shoot the 3 ball. He’s even a decent defender and rebounder for his size. However, his offensive and defensive ratings have fallen off a cliff from last season, and his field goal percentage is an abysmal 38.6%. This isn’t acceptable for someone who attempts nearly 15 shots a game.
If VanVleet can get out of this shooting slump and back to his old self while improving on pull-ups (above 40% is reasonable), the bench mob is easily going to improve its scoring.
Delon Wright
Delon is still slowly coming off his injury and getting used to the game but his much needed length and quickness on the defensive end disrupts the opposing team’s ball movement (1 spg in 20.8 minutes of action last year). He should look to improve his offensive consistency when shooting the three ball and look to be more of a defensive threat given his role in the second unit.
Pascal Siakam
Siakam needs to extend his shooting range. Siakam is playing 27 minutes a game while getting almost 3 more shot attempts (8.8 a game, up from 6.1 last year). Siakam shot only 22% from deep last year and is only shooting 16.7% from the 3 this year on roughly the same number of attempts a game (1.5). We know he can score inside the paint (68.4% from within 10ft) but when he has the confidence and consistency to start shooting outside shots, the Raptors will be even more of a threat to the Eastern Conference.
Conclusion
Overall, with a net rating of 8.7 and a 55.7% eFG, ranking 5th and 3rd respectively, the Raptors will only get better from here. There are a lot of things to look forward to as a Raptors fan. However, we’ll have to see how Nick Nurse can transform this Raptors team that performs well in the regular season, to one that can also perform in the playoffs. The Raptors may have fallen short the last few years, but they now have the pieces needed to make a long playoff run granted improvements are made consistently.
Sources used: nba.com and basketball-reference.com
By: Shan Bal and Khashayar Akbari
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