Reggie Evans is a rebounding specialist. His single-minded focus on grabbing rebounds has made him one of the most productive rebounders in NBA history. His career total rebounding percentage (TRB% — the percentage of available rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor) of 20.8 is higher than any other active player with more than 10,000 minutes played.
9: Toronto Raptors – The Raptors are also working off the no-defense, all-offense model. In their efforts to persuade Chris Bosh to stick around, they’ve basically surrounded him by a whole bunch of players who can shoot and pass (and Reggie Evans, who does neither of those things). If it’s gonna work, Bargnani is going to have to give more than we’ve seen so far, and Turkoglu has to return to his 07-08 form, but there is talent here.
It says here that Demar will not only be given a chance to start, but he will excel. Given the talent in the starting five, his liabilities can be hidden, and his nose for the ball and athletic abilities will shine within the opportunity.
However, once the season really gets going, the rookie will undoubtedly get tired. It’ll be up to Jay and his staff to manage his minutes appropriately — given the depth of the team, that shouldn’t be a problem.
The first glimpse we got of Hedo Turkoglu and Chris Bosh at Raptors camp today was them walking from the gym to get some treatment – much to the glee of the folks gathered in the hallway and at least a little to the dismay of the team.
Neither guy, as expected, did anything during a morning session split about equally between drills and scrimmages.
Bosh, with the hamstring, isn’t going to do anything all week; Turkoglu, with some fatigue and a sore knee, might get on the court later on.
Jay’s not ready to completely count him out:
“He’s going to work with Cuzo and Jonny and Scott to make sure he rehabs his knee as well as gets to a point where he can be at 100 per cent. There’s no point beating him down in October after the summer he’s had.
“I don’t know if I can say the whole week but for the first part, he won’t practice.”
Cuz, Jonny and Scott being strength and conditioning coach Francesco Cuzzolin, assistant strength and conditioning coach Jon Lee and trainer Scott McCullough. They’ll be big this week.
The team might have a new philosopher, too.
While power forward Reggie Evans is not Charles Oakleyesque in his worldviews, he offered a Zen-like approach to practice.
"Practice is a good time to take a lot of problems off of your mind, be stress-free," Evans said.
Yes, he is talking about practice.
We won’t know about the win total for months – For now, I find Colangelo’s decision to make any sort of numbers-based prediction quite interesting. It’s a here-we-go-again statement from the GM, after telling fans that last year’s team was his best yet, “on paper.” If you’re Colangelo, why not talk about progress, optimism and future success without mentioning a win total? Will a 46-win team now qualify as a failure? For me, no. But for many fans, maybe.
On the other hand, many Raptors fans will remember hearing former GM Rob Babcock utter these words in 2005, after dealing Vince Carter and bringing a young, inexperienced roster to training camp:
The Raptors GM, who’s been known to pause during news conferences to read a message on his BlackBerry, won’t be able to type on or answer a call from his smartphone during practice this season in keeping with a rule set by coach Jay Triano.
"If you value coming to practice that much, that should be why you’re there, not to do your homework or return calls," Triano said Tuesday on the first day of Raptors training camp. "I understand Bryan (Colangelo) and some of the management might have a call, and all I’ve asked is that if you get one, excuse yourself and take it somewhere else."
DeRozan is in a different position than many lottery picks. When OJ Mayo came out of USC, the Memphis team he was drafted by was lacking in talent. He ended up playing heavy minutes (11th in the league), and taking the second most shots on the team, to Rudy Gay. Mayo ended up being the top rookie scorer, but his play noticeably declined as the season wore on, and he’s starting to pick up some of the bad habits one does when being thrust into a main role too early. Due to the heavy offensive load, Mayo’s defense started to suffer, and because of a lack of offensive options, he’s becoming known as a selfish player. He’s got a world of talent and it would be a shame for him to end up going down the same road that Damon Stoudemire went down.
As for right now, Jay Triano has the Raps scheduled to do two-a-days today, tomorrow, and Friday. He’s giving them a bit of a break with just one 2 – 2 and a half hour session on Thursday. And remember … the sold out scrimmage / intra-squad game goes at 1pm on Saturday.
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