Jay Triano: A New Look For the Struggling Toronto Raptors

The timing was just right when the decision was made that the Raptors need a change in the coaching department.

Sam seemed to be getting okay with being average, and that is not acceptable from any team's view—especially a Raptor team that should be in the top half of the conference.

Granted, O'Neal has had some (minor) injury issues and Calderon missed a few games, but injuries can not be to blame. Chris Bosh has been playing like an MVP, and sits third in scoring and top-five in rebounds.

O'Neal has been doing a great job rebounding and defending—which is exactly what he was brought here to do—and Jose Calderon has developed into one of the top-five point gaurds in the league. Jose is second in assists per game and is leading the league in assist-turnover ratio at an amazing 5:1, and he has not missed a free throw yet all season with over 40 attempts.

You add that to the fact that Andrea is becoming what he was supposed to be, and there is no logical reason for the Raptors to have a losing record.

So replacing Mitchell is Jay Triano, who has become the first Canadian head coach in the history of the NBA. Triano has been with the team several years and knows exactly what he has and what they are capable of.

This team has routinely given up huge leads and has shown that they can come back from big deficits. So why are they 8-9 if they can score in bunches like that?

The team seems to lose focus easily and needs to be a little tougher. I understand that they are one of the best shooting teams in the league and while they lead the league in field-goal percentage and hit a crazy amount of three-pointers, they become very one-dimensional at times and are easy to defend. 

Triano can implement whatever strategy he feels is right, and I'm sure that he has a system ready to be put in place. But this team needs to do two simple things to improve.

First, they to be more aggressive on both ends of the floor.  They need to establish the inside presence and with Bosh, O'Neal and Andrea. There is no reason they can't.

The other thing this team needs to do is RUN RUN RUN. They get too slow too often, and allow defensive teams to get set up and control the flow.

This is a Toronto Raptor team that can do some big things, and they need to start doing them now.

Good luck, Jay Triano. I sincerely hope you can turn this around while there is still time—and make the league take notice that the Raptors are contenders and not underachieving pretenders.