The most successful Raptors team ever finished 2017/18 with 59 wins and claimed the No. 1 seed in the East for the first time in club history. With a revamped offensive approach and a dynamic bench, the Raptors appeared poised to make a deep playoff run, but for a third straight year, LeBron James and the Cavaliers made quick of Dwane Casey‘s club in the postseason.
While no one in the Eastern Conference has defeated a LeBron-led team in the playoffs since 2010, Toronto’s four straight losses reflected particularly poorly on the club, considering the Pacers and Celtics both pushed the Cavs to seven games. As a result, Casey was dismissed and the Raps enter a second straight offseason weighing whether or not to make significant changes to a roster that won 50+ games.
Here are five key questions facing the franchise this summer:
1. Was firing Casey and replacing him with Nick Nurse the right move?
Casey, who was named the 2017/18 Coach of the Year by the National Basketball Coaches Association last month, is also a finalist for the NBA’s official Coach of the Year award. When the league announces the winner of that award next week, it’s entirely possible that Casey, now the Pistons’ head coach, will be formally recognized for his excellent work with the Raptors.
Why would a coach who had so much on-court success and who was so highly regarded in Toronto be fired, especially since the club eventually replaced him one of his top assistants? If the Raptors really felt they had to move on from Casey, wouldn’t it make sense to go in an entirely new direction? Wouldn’t Nurse, an assistant on Casey’s staff since 2013, already have shared many of his best ideas?
Those are fair questions, but I still believe there’s some sound logic behind the change. As good as he was at building a culture and developing players, Casey struggled with in-game adjustments, which hurt the Raptors at key moments in the postseason. Additionally, there were whispers in Toronto that Casey, a fairly conservative, defensive-minded coach, was more inclined to lean on his defense-first assistants like Rex Kalamian rather than Nurse, who received much of the credit for the Raps’ new-look offense.
While Nurse may not have been the Raptors’ first choice – the team reportedly coveted Mike Budenholzer before he was hired by the Bucks – he’s a creative thinker who will be willing to take some risks and experiment with new approaches. That could be just with the team needs.
2. Will the Raptors break up their All-Star backcourt?
Best friends Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan have excelled in the regular season for years, but remain inconsistent in the Raptors’ biggest postseason games, raising questions about whether the team can ever seriously vie for a title with Lowry and DeRozan as its best players.
Even if the Raptors decide to trade one of its two star guards, it’s unclear if either player would return the sort of value the team would want. Lowry’s abilities as a play-maker, shooter, and defender are underrated to some extent, but he’s also 32 years old and is owed $64MM+ over the next two years.
As for DeRozan, he has established himself as one of the game’s most effective scorers, expanding his shooting range in 2017/18, but he’s still not a consistent three-point threat, and he’s a below-average defender. Like Lowry, he’s pricey too, with three years and $83MM left on his contract.
Lowry and DeRozan have positive trade value, but moving contracts of that magnitude is complicated — when the Pistons traded Blake Griffin and his $29MM+ salary earlier this year, the deal involved six players, plus draft picks. Putting together a blockbuster trade with Lowry or DeRozan at the center that would appeal to both the Raptors and another team would be tough. Making it a deal that allows Toronto to rework its roster without taking a step backward would be even tougher.