emember, to visit the photo albums for Raptor
pictures (or, at least, Raptor players before they were
Raptors) and the links section. Also, visit the calendar
for the results of lastnight's game against the Heat
and for dates of other sports events. <br><br>Okay
... well...<br><br>The Raptors have been struggling,
as of late, on the offence end (although they
slightly improved their field goal percentage in the last
game) and committed way too many turnovers. The lack of
organization in the team's offensive play may come from the
fact that the Raps don't have a true offensive scorer
with experience at guard. The team, also, lacks a
"general" who can lead and control the offence. (Yes, Dee
Brown can shoot and has some experience playing point
(at Boston), but the fact that he hasn't developed
the essential "pass-first" attitude of a point man,
should indicate that he will never be a pure point guard
- he's better as an offensive shooting guard).
<br><br>With the players the team has now, the Raptors do have
the potential to rise above mediocrity. They just
need to alter their rotation during the game. The
coach needs to create a better fixed rotation that will
exploit the players "pure" talents and help build better
team chemistry on both ends of the floor. I will,
however, acknowledge that its still early in the season
and that the players and coaches had minimal time to
prepare (and all the lockout "trimmings"). But I, like
many, have already detected flashes of those dreaded
early expansion years in the last several games,
particularly in the latter parts of the game. So as a Raptors
fan, I can't help but panic or be more critical of a
poor play or coaching decision during a game. I'm also
tempted to, carelessly, pretend to be a
sports-know-it-all by offering coaching suggestions to the team, as
I'm about to do right now. <br><br>Okay ... let's
see... if I were coach ... <br><br>(Article continues
next message - "Part 2")