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Raptors upbeat after nightmarish season ends

After just 22 wins on another season that had ended too early, Jay Triano’s biggest surprise when he met with his players one last time Thursday: their optimism.
Reggie Evans; DeSagana Diop
Toronto Raptors forward Reggie Evans (15) is fouled by Charlotte Bobcats centre DeSagana Diop (7) during first half NBA action in Toronto on Wednesday.

TORONTO — After just 22 wins on another season that had ended too early, Jay Triano’s biggest surprise when he met with his players one last time Thursday: their optimism.

The Toronto Raptors were surprisingly upbeat and hopeful about the future as they packed up their lockers on the heels of their third-worst season in franchise history. Amid the mounting losses and frustrating injuries, the players said team chemistry was at an all-time high, and they were unified in their support for their head coach Triano.

The feeling was mutual. Asked if he was keen to come back next season, Triano said “Absolutely. I don’t think anybody wants to raise kids for two years and then put them up for adoption.

“I think we have a great thing going with our young players, with their attitude, with the way they respond to the coaches, with the way our coaches respond to them,” he added. “And I want to be part of that and grow with these players.”

Nothing is a given however in this off-season of uncertainty, including Triano’s job with Toronto. The Raptors have an option for another year on his contract that has to be picked up by June. The contract of president and GM Bryan Colangelo also expires in late June.

The players would like to see both back.

“They did a great job, always keeping us positive, always talking to us, helping us, working with us every day,” said DeMar DeRozan, the team’s second-leading scorer and the only player to appear in all 82 games this season.

“No matter if we win or lose, it was the same attitude coming in: we’re going to continue to get better, and we’re going to keep working at it.”

A day after losing 97-79 to the Miami Heat in their season-finale, the players met with the media one by one before they left the Air Canada Centre for various points abroad, and the recurring theme was how well the team stuck together to weather a tough season.

“The chemistry was great,” said Jose Calderon. “Even when we lost, it wasn’t a bad thing in the locker-room, everyone was the same way, everyone was out the next day trying to get better. “It’s tough to lose a lot of games. But it was a good group of guys, we worked, and it was fun.”

The veteran guard added that doesn’t mean the team was satisfied with its 22-60 record, which was third-worst in the NBA.

“I’m not comfortable because we just won 22, I cannot go home and be happy about it, I’m really frustrated, I don’t like this kind of end,” Calderon said. “We’re not happy with 22 wins and 60 losses for sure. I hate that.”

The Raptors struggled defensively, a weakness made more glaring when hard-nosed forwards Reggie Evans and Linas Kleiza were sidelined for about half the season apiece with injuries.

The low point was a 13-game losing streak that began in the middle of January and stretched into early February.

“It’s tough because you start pressing a little bit, especially when you’re a young team,” Triano said. “And when you look at that stretch and who was out of the lineup for us, Reggie missed all 13 of those games, Kleiza missed 10 of them, and (Leandro) Barbosa missed 11 of those 13. Those are pretty veteran players. That’s where it became tough, because you could see the season starting to slide a little bit during those 13 games, but you could also see the confidence start to waver a little bit.”

Andrea Bargnani was once again a key contributor to the Raptors’ defensive woes. While he became the team’s leading scorer in the first season of the post-Chris Bosh era, averaging 21.4 points a game, the Italian big man remained frustratingly inconsistent at the other end of the floor.

“I just have to be more focused, because defence and rebounding is nothing you learn in the gym, practising hours by yourself,” Bargnani said. “It’s much more difficult to do the things on the offensive things, so you’ve just got to be focused, it’s an effort thing.”

Triano said the gameplan changed with the mid-season injuries, and the focus turned to developing the young players such as DeRozan, Amir Johnson, and Ed Davis, with the aim to add to the young core through this summer’s draft and free agency.

Whatever the draft and free agency brings, Triano is convinced the current roster has plenty of potential for improvement. He’s particularly excited about the future of DeRozan, who was the 14th-ranked rookie in scoring last season, but moved up to third this year behind Golden State’s Stephen Curry and Sacramento’s Tyreke Evans.

“I showed him his numbers today from his first year to the second year and the improvement that he made, and they were on par with what Kobe Bryant did in his rookie year to his second year,” Triano said. “He’s a driven kid, he wants to be good. I think he wants to be great.”