Damned If You Hedo and Damned If You Hedon't

[verbatim]

The Raps have been losing because of lack of defence. Then, however, more recently they play solid defence against Denver and Miami and still lose.

The new problem is that the Raps have no one to execute on offence down the stretch. Triano is as inept as Smitch in drawing up plays out of a timeout. So, the Raps have this guy, Hedo, who is supposed to be the clutch guy = execution. But, defensively, he brings a lot of dribble penetration and close-out problems, which sap the Raps' will to fight through games.

So, here is the problem, in theory:

Hedo in = better execution, Bosh doesn't get the ball so much out of position, fewer turnovers, "star" calls in dying seconds, better chance of winning close games

Hedo out = better defence, less help required leaving Bosh and Bargnani in better position around the rim, fewer blowouts but still no wins

Can we demand better defence of Hedo? If Hedo plays, do the Raps need better defensive bigs and better perimeter defenders at the 1 and 2 to hide his poor defence?

[MattyG-Ray]

Can we demand better defence of Hedo? If Hedo plays, do the Raps need better defensive bigs and better perimeter defenders at the 1 and 2 to hide his poor defence?

You can always demand better of your players, and you always should. Hedo's defense has been bad this year, but I don't think he has been the major problem defensively. People forget, Hedo was on the best defensive team in the league last year. Now Orlando had Dwight Howard, but besides him they didn't really have another good defender. Pietrius is a good defender, but he missed half the year due to an injury.

For Toronto to be a good defensive team with Hedo playing 30 minutes a night, they need to start by addressing the defense at the PG position. Jack is a mediocre defender, and Jose is downright awful. You can't have both Jose and Hedo playing on the same team, and expect to be good defensively. And since Hedo is here for the long-haul, Jose must be traded while he still has some value. You need to bring it a top notch defensive PG to play with the first unit. Both Kyle Lowry and Raymond Felton are great defenders at the PG spot, and both are free agents. If you can get one of them then great, if not, then you move on to plan B.

B in this case is for Banks. Marcus Banks for all his faults is a great defender and will go out there and compete for you every night. If he can knock down the corner three with consistency, then he can be effective in limited minutes. Now I wouldn't want to start Banks, so I would bring both him and Hedo off the bench, Hedo would still play 30 minutes a night though. This allows Hedo to play 15 minutes a night where the ball is going to be in his hands a ton, and it helps to hide Bank's weaknesses.

As for the shooting guard spot, a great perimeter defender would certainly help, but both Weems and Derozan have the potential to be great perimeter defenders, and should be given the chance going forward.

Hedo can still be a very good player for The Raps, the fact that he is getting older isn't to much of a concern because his game was never about beating the other team with superior quickness or athleticism. He has always been a crafty player, and that isn't going anywhere. You just need to be smart when adding players to the team. Hedo isn't a great defender and is best when he has the ball in his hands, so naturally you would want a point guard who is a good defender, and doesn't mind playing off the ball.

[cornbreadd]

This is the dilemma I have notices too. I Hedo was playing, I do believe we would have closed out the game, but conversely, if he was playing we may not have built the lead up in the first place.

[insight_tor]

So far, Hedo was a disaster for Raptors. It is difficult to blame entirely Hedo for his poor contribution, I strongly believe that Raptors coaching staff/management set him for failure. With 2 weak defenders at PG and mediocre defense help from SG, Hedo won't be able to cover his deficiencies on defense. On offense, Hedo needs the ball in hands early on clock to be effective but the ball starts in either Jose or Jack's hands. Using Hedo to play Kapono or Morris Petterson role, won't do any good to this team, neither to Hedo.
Hedo had the perfect environment in Orlando, with Howard holding the fort in defense and getting offensive rebounds when Hedo missed the jumpers. Also, Howard would create space in paint by attracting big guys to double team them giving Hedo enough space to handle the ball around the rim. In Raptors system, there is nobody to collect Hedo missed attempts, Bosh and Hedo didn't really develop any chemistry, as a matter of fact I don'y know if Hedo develop any chemistry with any of Raptors player.

[DarkKnight]

You know what? Most people's analysis, I find, are very valid, and make sense, but it never seems to matter, because no matter how much "fixing" the Raptors done, they still lose in the end. The worst criticism you can put on a team is "they don't give a consistent effort every night." I was just sitting back and thinking, most of us were actually overjoyed with the Denver loss because we actually made a close game out of it - because the Raps actually played hard for the whole game. Holy shit, that is so sad. Way too talented but way too inconsistent. You never know if we're gonna get blown out, or beat a top tier team out of nowhere. You just don't know what to expect.

[Rasho Layup]

Triano is as inept as Smitch in drawing up plays out of a timeout.

While I agree with pretty much everything else you said, I couldn't agree less with this. The team has actually run a ton of really good out of bounds plays this year. It's night and day compared to Mitchell. So many times they'll score out of a timeout, and I'll say "Wow, that was a set play. And it worked. Imagine that!"

The problem lately with the offensive execution has been Bosh taking the air out of the ball.