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The news today that head coach Dwane Casey will remain at the helm of the Toronto Raptors for the 2014-15 season is as unsurprising as it is disappointing. This will now be Casey’s fifth year coaching the Raptors, and barring significant improvement will likely be his last, as his contract expires at the end of the season.
I’ve made my feelings on his place with the Raptors abundantly clear. However, there is something to be said for the composure Raps’ GM Masai Ujiri showed in retaining Casey after an embarrassing first round sweep. He’s not panicking, and he’s not making a knee-jerk reaction that could do more harm than good. The best NBA franchises are typically models of stability and long-term trust – the San Antonio Spurs did not win five championships by hiring a new coach every few years.
But to me, Casey’s detriments to the team outweigh those arguments. First and foremost, he’s shown no signs of being a good developer of young talent. If the Raptors want to contend for championships, they’ll need the young players on the roster now to improve drastically. Unfortunately, Casey’s hard-nosed style of basketball appears to be at best a learning experience for lottery picks Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross – and at worst a complete disaster. Casey has shown over and over a trust in veterans over young players, and this has been toxic to Ross and Valanciunas’s growth as players. Last season, John Salmons played 1281 minutes for the Raptors. John Salmons is horrible.
If the Raptors were winning basketball games, this would all be fine. But this was a middling team for the majority of the 2014-15 season, a mediocrity punctuated by their first-round undressing at the hands of the Washington Wizards. As it stands now, Casey will have one more year to gum up development on this roster, leading it to another division title and no-show in the playoffs.
Maybe Casey will play Valanciunas in fourth quarters. Maybe Ross gets the freedom to do a bit more on offense. Maybe Bruno Caboclo actually gets minutes. Maybe Ujiri overhauls the roster to fit with Casey’s defense-first, grind-it-out attitude. These are big ifs, though, and I’d much rather a new start be paved for the franchise.
Casey Sherman is the Toronto Raptors Beat Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @shermham
