Toronto Raptors 08/09 season

The Raptors are full of many talented athletes, however this season they greatly underachieved even though the outlook on the year seemed promising. The team is full of big name stars like Chris Bosh, who is the leading scorer and franchise player of the team, Jose Calderon, who has surprised everyone and has become one of the best free throw shooters in the league. Shawn Marion, who was just traded in this year but has had a major impact offensively and you cannot forget Parker, Bargnani, Kapona and Graham. With all theses amazing athletes the sports media believed they were a team to watch for and could only improve from their previous season. The signing of Bryan Colangelo as the General Manager and the revamping of the team roster greatly alleviated the team and they qualified for their first playoff berth in five years in the 2006-2007 season while doing this they also captured their first division title in the process. Last season they once again qualified for the playoffs giving high hopes to all raptor fans for the 2008-2009 season. However, when this season came along they looked like a completely different team, they showed no passion, no drive, and most importantly, they simply did not work hard enough. This lack of effort and the teams overall performance eventually cost Sam Mitchell his coaching job and he was replaced by interim coach Jay Triano however, the coaching modification did not magically enhance the teams overall play. Excuses could be made that they had too many injuries to the starting lining up and they had a significant amount of outside distractions regarding Chris Bosh’s contract however, they had players on their roster that had the potential to step up and take action unfortunately no one took that initiative. The season for the Toronto Raptors was a complete failure but maybe we expected too much from such an inconsistent team.