On July 9th, Antoine Wright was shipped to Toronto in part of the Marion/Turkoglu trade. Since that time, I have seen countless articles and posts on whether he should be starting or coming off the bench from the SG position. I didn’t know a lot about the kid, so I decided to do a little research.

Wright went to school at Texas A&M and was drafted 15th overall in 2005 by the New Jersey Nets. He was eventually traded to Dallas in the Jason Kidd / Devin Harris trade on February 19th, 2008. I was surprised to see that Wright started in 53 games last season, largely as an byproduct of the sentiment that Jason Terry is a better player coming off the bench to provide energy.

As I watched some clips of his game, I have to admit that he plays much more like a small forward to me. I say this because he is a HORRIBLE shooter – his career clip is .416 with coupled with a paltry .291 from downtown. You can tell right away that his three pointer takes too long to set-up.  He doesn’t have a good release and takes a long time to get his legs into the shot.

Wright has the ability to shake down his defender from the top of the key. He has a good first step and he is explosive in the lane. His length is deceiving and he has a gangly way of finishing at the hoop. He’s also pretty adept at finding his own spacing, with or without the ball – which was an asset in offensive minded systems like Dallas and New Jersey.  What makes Wright a unique player is his propensity to get out ahead on the fast break and find open spots in a half-court offensive set.  With the way he drives and finishes around the bucket, I am surprised that he shoots so poorly.  This is a direct result of his jumper shot mechanics and something he’s going to need to work on a lot if he wants to be considered a double threat and a candidate to start.

The thing that boggles my mind, is that I never really know if Colangelo wants to turn this team into a fast-paced run the floor team or run a slower half-court offense.  I don’t think he really knows.  There was the failed 100 shats experiment with Mitchell, then we traded Ford for O’Neal and really started to slow things down.  Then O’Neal was traded for Marion and the tempo picked up in transition.  Now we have Turkoglu, and he’s not exactly known for his speed in transition.

Wright seems more in line with a running type of offense. He’s used to a Jason Kidd throwing him great outlet passes and playing with a really good althetic passing SG in Carter. Assuming the Raptors continue to play more of a half-court offense, I could see Calderon missing Wright a lot as he outlets on the wing in transition. This is assuming that he plays the wing at all.

Our most glaring hole is SG, but do you really want an athletic slasher with no jump shot to be your starting SG? You want continuous downtown threats that can slash – and I’m not sure Wright is quite there. This role is definitely more suited to DeRozan, of course we’re not sure yet on how he will adjust to the NBA game (and if he’ll improve on his three point shooting). However, an aspect of his game that shows some promise is at the high pick and roll. He used to set the screen up top for Nowitzki and I could see him doing the same for Bosh, in addition to Reggie Evans.

The hilights I have watched don’t indicate a lot of defense, but I did see a nasty help defense block on a Calderon drive & scoop. It seems that he defense is going to be based on his positioning and quickness and his ability to stand up to guards driving the lane.

I’m a little worried about his fit with the Raptors, mainly because he’s played in such good offensive systems. I would charaterise our offense as lacking a system, but hopefully having a consistent threat like Turk in addition to Bosh, an improved Bargnani and a healthy Calderon will create spacing for him to play a Delfino-type role (a topic of another post altogether) with the club. Time will tell.

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