There has been just so many lowlights to the Raptors second half of the season so far. Here’s just a couple that come to mind …
(1) Watching Hedo Turkoglu pass away wide open shots against Minnesota. He was brought here to shoot, what good is he to this team if he doesn’t take wide open 3’s? Clearly his confidence is at an all time low.
(2) Jarrett Jack not boxing out Ronnie Price (Averaging under 2 PPG!) ten minutes into the second quarter in, allowing him an easy put back basket while the other Raptors watched idly by. Did he get any uglier than their home blowout loss to Utah last night?
(3) Numerous shots of a dejected Chris Bosh. You know he is just counting down until he can leave the team.
(4) Andrea Bargnani allowing guys like LaMarcus Aldridge to grab eight offensive rebounds in a lopsided loss to Portland.
(5) A complete inability by Jose Calderon and the rest of the guards to even muster up a token amount of D on guard penetration. Derron Williams has 16 rebounds the other night, rookie Tyreke Evans got his first ever career triple double, Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry combined for 66 points … the list of guards dominating this team goes on and on.
I could have done about five more on just Hedo but I think you get the point. With the team going 4 – 11 in their past 15 games I can only think of one solution to salvage what’s left of the season …
It’s time to tank!
Think about it, right now there best case scenario is they string together a bunch of wins and end the year with the 7th seed for the playoffs. That just means they get killed by Vince Carter and the Orlando Magic instead of by Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. I’d rather lose to Lebron than Vince; I think most Raptor fans agree with that sentiment.
The only positive I can think of for making the postseason is maybe it sways Chris Bosh to stay. It won’t. Chris Bosh is gone, no matter what happens for the remainder of the year.
A four game playoff run will do nothing to cure what ails this team. The only reason there even in the playoff discussion is the Bulls gave up on their season the moment they treaded away John Salmons & Tyrus Thomas. Throw in the injuries to Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah and Chicago gift wrapped the final playoff spot to the Raptors.
If the team starts tanking right now they could end up being in the bottom six in the standings. Maybe they get lucky at the draft lottery and move up a couple spots. Right now Toronto has a better chance of getting the top pick of the draft (Let’s say 1%) than winning a playoff round against Cleveland, Orlando or Atlanta.