Mediocrity Attributed To Lack of Identity

I'm actually being nice by saying our Raptors are just "mediocre". I am so ashamed with this team right now. We've become dull and boring to watch and it's a damn shame to be representing Canada in this way. Man, a month ago I can't believe I was
actually pissed that they were showing games on TSN2. Now, I really just don't care.

Mr. Bryan Colangelo, could you please give us a sign as to where you're going with this team. It seems our franchise has been battling for years against this perpetual search for an identity. Who's our leader? What's our strategy? What's the system
we're running? With Mitchell, we tried the run-and-gun style and obviously we didn't have the right players to make that work. And now with Triano, we try to feed off our defense, but on offense we live and die on our jumpshots until we finally shoot ourselves out of the game and into another loss. WTF!?

There's no consistency in both our defense and offense and that's because the Raptors quite clearly need to develop an identity first. When we don't have an identity, we'll never develop a consistent system & without a system we'll never be
successful. We'll be mediocre forever as our theme goes from now until management finally decides which players will really help achieve the kind of system we want to run.

The system of this team is pretty much as follows and I'm only going to do our offense (again, the lack of identity means a limited system to work with):
Offense:
#1. Whatever Chris Bosh wants to do with the ball.
#2. Unleash our shooters: Parker, Bargnani, Kapono.
#3. Attack the basket.

This system is so inflexible, flawed and pathetic that opposing teams have the easiest scouting report to follow. All they have to do is contain Bosh, be aware of our shooters and don't allow our guys to attack the basket, so that we'll take all the unnecessary shots we're given. Our defense is unforgivable - outrebounded (since 1995), jumping on pump-fakes (because it's apparently fun), teams can pretty much attack the basket whenever they want using elementary school basketball skills & our weak perimeter defense is always exposed because none of our guys want to communicate properly.

Forget about who's the team leader right now because the Raptors obviously don't have one at the moment. Did you think Gregg Popovich named Tim Duncan team leader as soon as the Spurs drafted him #1? No! What they knew then was that he was capable of potentially replacing David Robinson and would also be an awesome foundation to build around. Like Rachel mentioned, some are born leaders and seeing Duncan in his first couple of seasons I thought he would never be a leader because of his timid and quiet nature. But it's about building yourself to have the heart of a champion and so if you're not born a leader then you build yourself as leader.

I think forcing Bosh to become team leader at such a young age has burdened him so much that he wasn't given the chance that Duncan had to build and acquire those leadership qualities the proper way. It's obvious Colangelo should start thinking of Bosh more as a base, a foundation to build around rather than giving him a title that he is yet to earn and that's for all of us supporters to give to him. The only way to build a sense of identity is to really think about the right pieces that will help the foundation of our team vs. the excess of the same players we pretty much have on our roster and we continue to shop for. And that's what it ultimately comes down to and it's plain and simple - quality vs. quantity.