Bryan Colangelo's Toronto Raptors: Post 50 Game Status Report

A lot has happened in the 2009-10 season to Bryan Colangelo's Toronto Raptors. After fixing one massive error last season, Colangelo has rebuilt his team back into a playoff contender.

It's now a fifth place team with a 27-23 record at the 50 game mark of the season.

And this season, the Toronto Raptors are finally Colangelo's team. The Raptors GM now has:

1. His own choice as head coach in Jay Triano;
2. His first major free agent signing in Hedo Turkoglu; and,
3. Has purged the team of all pre-Colangelo era players except All-Star Chris Bosh and TJ Ford's replacement, Jose Calderon.

Most of the last vestiges of GMs past have finally been swept away.

This was Bryan Colangelo's second and more thorough house cleaning since he arrived just ahead of the 2006 draft. And by bringing in nine new players (again) plus a "new" coach, Colangelo almost guaranteed the Raptors would get off to a slow start.

Unfortunately for Colangelo and the Raptors, the team got off to a better than expected start, beating Cleveland in their home opener and winning five of their first 10 games. A nice start raised expectations that would not be met.

The next 10 games quickly corrected that impression, as the Raptors fell to 7-13 following a brutal five game losing skid. Fans and media started deserting the floundering team as fast as they could.

Bryan Colangelo rebuilt his Raptors around skilled offensive players and it shows in the team's current fourth best scoring average in the NBA. But it wasn't until the team started to hold their opponents to a more reasonable number of points did they manage to win more games than they lost.

Starting at the 29th game of the season, the Raptors held their opponents under 100 points four games in a row and finished the 10 game stretch 31-40, giving up only 98.3 points per game.

Combined with the Raptors ability to score points, in games 31-40, the raptors had a scoring differential of +4.3 over their opponents. That differential is solidly in the top eight of the NBA.

The Raptors were rewarded with their first 7-3 mark of the season and the accolades for this defensive prowess heralded a new era of Raptors basketball. Or so we thought. At least the seats in the ACC were full again!

What was being masked by that streak of holding teams under 100 points was that after Jose Calderon returned to the lineup, the Raptors changed their style of basketball yet again.

With Jose's return, the Raptors began to routinely put up 108 points or better. This was a huge jump from earlier in the season, but not completely unexpected, based on the offensive talent Colangelo had put together.

Unfortunately, those days of holding opponents to under 100 points on average have disappeared.

In the games from 41-50, the Toronto Raptors have become the high scoring, weak defensive team that was envisioned at the start of the season. Still winning seven of 10, the Raptors averaged 108.1 points, but gave up 104.8 for a differential of +3.3 points per game. A good points spread, but no longer at a top eight level.

The good news is that these Raptors are good enough to win more games than they lose, and Bryan Colangelo's 50 win prediction, while optimistic, is not impossible. That is, assuming the recent injuries to Hedo Turkoglu and Jose Calderon will not require them to miss many more games!

The obvious news is that these Raptors will require a major acquisition before the trade deadline if they are to finish any better than fifth in the East and risk another early first-round playoff exit.

Unless, of course, Boston's injury woes continue to get worse!

Now that the Raptors have picked up Bryan Colangelo's option year, guaranteeing his position for next season, the Raptors GM has confirmation of ownership's continued belief in his decision-making. It is very hard to see Colangelo sitting back and counting on a Boston collapse to boost the fortunes of his team.

Can a major acquisition to the Raptors lineup be coming in the near future?

Note: For a table of the Raptors performances on a 10-game basis, go HERE .