I watched the game last night on Raptors TV and came away pretty impressed with this year's team, here are a few of my observations;
Frontcourt
- Bargnani looks like a different person out there on the court, more energy, more agressive and a lot more confidence. It looks like his time working on his post game has paid off as he showed off a few of the moves he had learned and looked pretty confident, now the shots just have to start falling. You can see the reports of him putting on 10-15 lbs of muscle aren't exagerated as he looks a lot bigger and more athletic in his movements.
- Humphries also looked pretty good out there last night. He still takes a few too many shots for my liking but if he is bringing energy and hussle like last night it is something I am sure the Raptors can live with.
- JO looked like a guy trying to find his way on a new team but I am sure he will come arround. He looks like he is in great shape which should help a lot towards him staying healthy this season.
- You can tell Bosh played all summer with team USA as he looks like he is in mid-season form. If he had played regular season minutes last night he might have gone for 40+ pts and 15+ boards.
- Moon looked a lot like last year, decent shot, great athleticism but he really needs to work on his ball handling.
Backcourt
- Calderon looks OK but it is clear they are going to keep his minutes low for the preseason.
- Solomon looked pretty good and it seems like Sam is leaning towards him as the backup PG. It does scare me a little bit that he is a scoring PG as we have all seen how much Sam can fall in love with those type of guys.
- Ukic looked pretty good, he doesn't seem to have much of a shot but he can get into the lane and looks comfortable making runner and shots in the lane. He also looked decent at the defensive end which could be a big plus on this team.
- Parker was his usual self, very efficient and if you leave him open he will drain it from anywhere.
- I really wish Kapono would play more like him instead of trying to do too much when he gets the ball. Anything less that 50% of Kapono's shots being 3s is just unacceptable to me. The guys is the best 3-point shooter in the league and percentage wise one of the best ever, to not use that is just foolish.
- Adams didn't really stand out to me at all but then again that is probably a good thing. He is going to be an end of the bench guy and more times than not those guys will stand out for the wrong reasons anyways.
Overall they need work on D and rebounding but when you bring in a new guy to be the anchor of your D that should be expected. It is also hard to judge a team's D based on a game against a D'Antoni coached team, especailly this early in the pre-season.