Toronto's (Somewhat) Dramatic Off-Season Makeover

Much has been made about Bryan Colangelo's nearly complete overhaul of the Raptors roster following a disappointing 2008-09 season. Despite relative optimism surrounding the moves, a popular line of thinking has emerged that it will be tough to be very successful this season, given the amount of change from one season to the next. In other words, while a playoff spot could be expected or hoped for, it's tough to expect much else.

While the net result of that argument (a lack of a deep playoff run) is likely to happen (especially since three of the top four teams in the league reside in the East), I'm not sure the premise actually holds up, for a couple reasons. First, is there any sort of historical basis for the argument that a lot of roster turnover prevents a very successful season? Secondly, when you think about it, how much will this Toronto team actually change from last season?

Let's deal with the latter question first. Yes, from one opening day to the next, Bryan Colangelo will have just three of the same faces in a Raptor uniform. Undeniably, that is a small number. But let's put it in context: the three players who return are key cogs of this franchise. While they account for just 20% of the roster, they chew up roughly 45% of the available court time, and will likely score about half of the 8,000 or so points the team will rack up next season. So, should the rapid rebuild be a storyline for this upcoming campaign, of course. But take all of it with a grain of salt.

Now let's deal with the first question: Is there a historical basis for the (seemingly) common-held belief that roster turnover is a roadblock to a deep playoff run? Since we've just finished the "aught" decade (2000-09), I thought it would be appropriate to look back at this decade of NBA basketball to see if any trends emerged in terms of year-over-year roster turnover. I defined "success" or a "deep playoff run" as a trip to the Conference Finals. Therefore, there were 40 teams that made it to the conference finals over the last 10 years, and I looked at how different their roster was from one season to the next. Keeping up with the argument from the previous paragraph, I was only looking at the top eight players (in terms of minutes played) on each team. Why eight? For most teams in the modern NBA, there are two significant drop-offs in minutes played: There are usually a top three or four on each team that play heavy minutes, then a supporting four or five who fill roles. After the key eighth man, in most cases, you'll see the minutes drop off fairly significantly. Are there exceptions? Absolutely. But a cut-off had to be made, because it would be almost completely insignificant whether a team changed their 13th-15th roster spots from one year to the next.

So, 40 teams made it to the Conference Finals this decade, let's breakdown how many returning players from their top eight in the rotation that each team had:

EIGHT - 1

SEVEN - 3

SIX - 12

FIVE - 9

FOUR - 11

THREE - 3

TWO - 1

(average returnees to top 8: 5.0)

Very bell-curvish isn't it? 80% of the teams return between four and six players to their top eight year-over-year. 10% return seven or eight, and 10% return just two or three.

Let's see if there's any other trends that emerge from looking at these numbers:

NBA CHAMPS: 5.2

2000-04: 5.2

2005-09: 4.8

LAKERS: 4.8

SPURS: 5.5

PISTONS: 5.6

Not much changes when looking at each year's champion. You can see that in the latter half of the decade, there has been slightly more changes to each conference finalist (but not a very significant drop). And two of the most successful franchises of this decade have an above-average year-over-year retention. Speaking of those three teams, I didn't realize how little parity there was in the NBA until I looked at these numbers. Granted, the NBA is known as a league of dynasties but I thought it had changed a bit in this decade from the days of Jordan's Bulls, Bird's Celtics, and Magic's Lakers. However, those three teams listed above account for 8 of the decade's 10 titles, and 17 of the 40 Conference Final berths.

Anyways, let's get this back to how it relates to this year's Raptors, and we'll do that by taking a look at the four outliers on the low end of the spectrum. They are the '08 Celtics, '06 Suns, '06 Heat, and '04 Timberwolves. Two of the teams don't fit a profile that matches very well with the Raptors: The '06 Suns and '06 Heat were both returning to the Conference Finals for a second straight season, so the changes weren't because "something wasn't working." They were made either through necessity (an injury to Amare Stoudemire) or through tinkering (signing Gary Payton in a complementary role). On the other hand, both the '04 T'Wolves and '08 Celtics were both coming off disappointing seasons and were undergoing radical transformations. I'm going to take away the Celtics as a comparison here because what they did (adding two hall-of-famers to their roster) was something we'll probably never see again, and is pretty much useless to compare to.

So that leaves us with the 2004 Timberwolves. Back in the 2003 off-season, Minnesota was a franchise that was stuck in a rut. They were a 13-year old franchise that had never made it past the first round of the playoffs. Granted, they had made the playoffs in seven straight seasons (thanks to Kevin Garnett), but they had never made a real impact (sound familiar Raptor fans?). So, they pulled a trigger on a multi-player deal that landed them three new starters (Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell, and Ervin "Not Magic" Johnson). They surrounded those new starters with new role players as well, adding Trenton Hassell, Fred Hoiberg and Mark Madsen to the fold. This revamped team finished atop the Western Conference in the regular season, and made it to the Conference Finals before losing to the Lakers.

In many cases, that makeover was even more drastic than Toronto's. The only returning player of substance was Garnett (Sczcerbiak was injured that season), who had to learn how to play with a brand new team. But, what created a bit of continuity was the fact that the head coach and best player remained the same from one year to the next, which is a key pattern with this year's Raptors.

Am I predicting anywhere near that kind of result for the Raptors? Absolutely not. However, the point I'm trying to get across is that the changes on this team are not as drastic as one might suggest. Consider this fact: Toronto will be returning three of their top four players from last season, and that was a key indicator for teams making a deep playoff run from this past decade. 75% of the 40 teams returned at least three of their top four from the year before.

CONCLUSION

The numbers show that teams returning three or fewer players from their top eight are against the 8-ball when it comes to making a deep playoff run. However, because of who the three players are that the Raptors are returning (and their roles with the team), it could be said that the Raptors don't exactly fit the usual mould for teams that have gone through such significant roster changes.