For years, the small forward position has been a glaring weakness for the Toronto Raptors. It seems every year the Raptors have a new player at the position. James Johnson, Sonny Weems, Hedo Turkoglu, Jamario Moon, Jason Kapono, the list goes on. While the majority of these names are respectable players, they haven’t had a player at small forward they can rely on to play quality basketball for a full season.
The Raptors clearly lacked scoring last year. Drafting a small forward can help that. Calderon is not a great scorer and Bargnani and DeRozan are not good enough to be go-to-scorers on good teams. Getting a small forward who’s a gifted scorer such as North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes will help the Raptors offense tremendously going forward.
By not having a talented small forward on their roster, the Raptors put themselves at a big disadvantage compared to the rest of the teams in the Atlantic Division. Boston has Paul Pierce, Philly has Andre Iguodala and New York has Carmelo Anthony. Those are three all-star players. If the Raptors don’t manage to get a small forward with All-Star potential, they will put themselves in a de ...
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Article written by Patrick Britton
NBA Draft 2012: Why the Toronto Raptors Must Draft a Small Forward
May 22nd, 2012 by Patrick Britton Leave a reply »
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