With all the Raptors recent center issues it sounds like Aaron Williams has emerged as the frontrunner to start this Friday's game vs. Utah. Williams has been the best of the Raptors' bigs manning the center position lately and his play of late probably will get him the starting nod.
Another Williams is looking to see more game time action as well. Eric Williams played his first minutes in Monday night's loss to the Cavs but may see increased action due to his defensive abilities. In the meantime however it seems that Eric is settling into his life here in Toronto and has remained active with his life outside the game of basketball.
One player who the Raptors could probably use for defensive purposes is current Raptor Joey Graham's brother Stephen. The identical twin of Joey is in town currently after being cut from the San Antonio Spurs training camp roster. In all likelyhood he'll play in the NBDL this season and while the Raptors are already overloaded at the guard positions, Stephen like his brother Joey, was a defensive force at Oklahoma State.
In any event Sam Mitchell knows his team must execute better on BOTH ends of the court if they want to have any chance of beating the Utah Jazz on Friday. The Jazz are one of the league's best executing teams thanks to head coach Jerry Sloan. Mitchell contends that his team is not panicking about the 0-4 start however and simply needs to translate their play in practice to game-time situations.
While Chris Bosh had his first monster game of the year, besides Morris Peterson, Jose Calderon has been the Raptors' most consistent player so far. In limited minutes the young point guard has shown poise running the team and this is probably no surprise to those who know of his upbringing and past. In fact Calderon has moved up to the fourth spot in this weeks's NBA.com rookie rankings with his play of late.
And finally, GM Rob Babcock took some time to go one on one in an interview with Peter DeWolfe of RealGM.com. Among other things Babcock discusses the financial flexibility the team has gained and hopefully this translates into a "drama-free season."
FRANCHISE