How much have we improved?

[Shaolin Fantastic]

I think we've gotten slightly worse, but the entire East aside from our friends in Boston and Cleveland has gotten quite a bit worse. So we'll have nearly as many wins.

Charlotte got better, Milwaukee should get better by virtue of simply internal development considering the age and potential of their core players. Philadelphia will be better if they're healthy at all. The teams that got worse are Indiana, Atlanta, New York and Chicago.

[Fully]

We haven't improved at all personnel wise but there's value in bringing back a good team year after year while your immediate competitors are trying to integrate major pieces. Plus the Conference is absolutely terrible this season which is probably worth a few wins for any of the top teams in the East. I think the Raptors will end up somewhere in the 50-53 win mark again.

[ebrian]

For the record, I voted 51-56, though I disagree entirely with the commentary associated with it.

The only real risk to the team's continued success IMO is if Serge's game falls off a cliff.

To be fair, Serge's game has been rolling down the hill for several years now, but from last year, he should be about the same.

[The Great One]

Exactly. Agree with what Paul Pierce said. Everyone wants to play like the Warriors and the Rockets. Run and gun 3pt shooting team. But you have to have the personnel to do it. We don't have the personnel to do it. Raptors are playing way too fast, they're taking way too many 3 pointers. And they're not making much. It's really dumb.

[KeonClark]

I think we've gotten slightly worse, but the entire East aside from our friends in Boston and Cleveland has gotten quite a bit worse. So we'll have nearly as many wins.

[Joey]

I think we get 50-52 wins this year, so I'll go with 51. I honestly can't say we've improved without seeing if there's been significant internal improvement from the young guys. Without that we haven't improved at all.

[MixxAOR]

If you predict less than 50 wins you're not a hater but if you're predicting more than 50 wins than you're a homer. Cool

[Mess]

At this point I'm really done debating this. Let's see how the year turns out with you folks putting us at like a 50 win floor.

Deal.

[planetmars]

Nice post....expect some cynical responses. There was one category you alluded to but should have factored in. When the Raptors play a game, part of what determines the outcome is the opponent. Yes, many stars have gone west but Melo and George left bad teams that we usually beat anyways. Butler leaves a team that we should have beaten but cosmically, could not. In our division, Boston, Philly and even maybe the Nets will be improved. Same for the Bucks, Wiz, Heat...maybe Bobcats. Not to mention the now improved West teams that we still have to play. I see a bit more parity this year. We're a better team than the one that started last year but that still might result in fewer wins in the regular season. So, 50 wins or less but still a better team.

edit....Hornets, not Bobcats. that will take a while

Good points about Indiana and NY already being bad with George and Melo last year. The good news is Millsap left Atlanta and that team looks like a D-League level team. And we've always had troubles against Atlanta it seems. So that could be 4 easy wins now.

[DanH]

For the record, I voted 51-56, though I disagree entirely with the commentary associated with it.

The only real risk to the team's continued success IMO is if Serge's game falls off a cliff.

[planetmars]

I don't know if they improved.. maybe stayed the same. I think we'll miss 2Pat and Tucker. I am worried about our defense more than anything else. If Serge continues to regress that's going to hurt especially since the drop off from him to the next PF in our rotation is really far.

I guess around 48-50 wins would be a decent season. The season is probably going to be a bit of a grind. Especially off the bat. First 15 or so games look rough. Could see them starting below .500 and getting one of those "Will the Raptors make the Playoffs?" type of threads really early this season.

[LJ2]

As always, the team goes as Lowry goes. No back to backs and being used off the ball more this season will hopefully keep him healthy. I voted 51 - 56 wins based on this.

Might be some growing pains with the youth movement, but I'm hoping the young players really adopt a scrappy mentality as coach has mentioned before. If Lowry is any leader and young players look up to him then I think this can be accomplished.

[Scraptor]

This poll isn't going to tell us anything because it's both skewed and the language is loaded.

Vegas has us at 48.5 wins, your best intervals will be equally split above and below that. Something like: 36 or fewer, 37-42, 43-48, 49-54, 55-60, 61 and over.

That said, I feel like talentwise we're in a slightly worse position than last year because we have limited depth and I'm not sold on Ibaka being enough to outweigh that loss. I think I predicted 46 wins in another thread and I'm fine with that prediction.

Organizationally we're in a much worse position than last year, because the limited flexibility we had left available to us is now gone, along with our picks for this year. Our only hope is that a few of our pieces boost their trade value enough to engineer a deal for a legitimate game changer. Sadly I think most of the potential targets are off the board and there will be little activity at the deadline this year.

[SkywalkerAC]

Hard to say, a lot depends on our young guys staking a modest step forward, and being able to hit open 3s.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

At this point I'm really done debating this. Let's see how the year turns out with you folks putting us at like a 50 win floor.