Nylon Calculus: The real reason for the Toronto Raptors’ playoff disasters

The Toronto Raptors have been marked as post-season failures for years now. After their first round losses in the playoffs despite homecourt advantage, they did not earn the trust of the NBA world, even last year when they made it to the Conference Finals. They needed seven games for each of the two first rounds — somehow the Pacers outscored them overall during the first round, even though the Raptors were the No. 2seed — and they were destroyed by the Cavaliers.

Again, this season, they were destroyed by the Cavaliers; and it was the second round this time. Young teams, and young franchises, are often judged harshly, but Toronto was just swept and had a few tough stretches against a weak Bucks team. I’d understand a legitimate fear from their fans at this point, and what’s important now is to identify a real cause for their playoff performance issues beyond randomness or general poor play.

The cause of the extinction

At the team level, the first thing one notice about Toronto is that their offense completely craters in the playoffs. One would expect some drop-off in offensive efficiency because of the increased play of the competition, but they’ve far out-paced their expected efficiency based on their opponents. You can see those numbers in the below graphs; the ratings are adjusted based on their opponents’ regular season ratings. Their efficiency drops substantially on both ends of the court, with two exceptions: their offense in 2014 and their defense from this year.

There are many possible explanations here, but one arises pretty quickly for many — this offensive slide is supposedly evidence that Kyle Lowry is a faux-star and that his inability to score and compete when the game matters most puts a ceiling on his value. But the Raptors don’t fail when Lowry’s on the court in the playoffs; they fail when someone else is.

Typically, I ignore raw +/- stats because they are so many other factors to consider and they’re so volatile. But when there’s a strong pattern over multiple seasons, I’ll pay attention. Toronto has not had a ton of playoff minutes over the past few seasons, but the stats are so extreme that I think it’s significant. DeMar DeRozan has some of the worst +/- numbers I’ve seen from a starter, and what’s strange is that Kyle Lowry’s numbers are usually a lot better, even though they obviously share a lot of time together on the court.

ON COURT

ON-OFF

Source: b-ref

DeMar DeRozan’s true weakness

There’s no easy-to-find cause here either. For a couple of years, DeRozan’s efficiency was terrible in the playoffs, as he was missing jump shots, not getting to the foul line, and taking more mid-range shots. But in 2014 and this season, his shooting efficiency was fine. One could argue his offensive game was virtually indistinguishable from his regular season form. However, he has long been an underwhelming force on the court, as his presence rarely moves the needle for his team and he creates so little for his teammates.

In fact, according to NBAWOWY, Toronto had an offensive efficiency of 110.0 with just Kyle Lowry on the court for these playoffs, and they were worse with both on the court: 106.9. That’s a concerning but common pattern for the Raptors. As I’ve pointed out before, the engine for the Raptors has been Kyle Lowry, not their leading scorer DeRozan. Using Jonas Valanciunas as a constant, the lineups are best without DeRozan entirely, and the ones with just him are worse offensively and are a disaster on defense. The real problem here is that even if his jump shot is falling and he’s getting to the line, his defensive issues are enough to sink the Raptors.

Table: efficiency 2015-2017 with Jonas Valanciunas

source: NBAWOWY

At first, my working theory was that DeMar DeRozan’s game did not translate well to the playoffs because fouls were being called differently, making it tougher for him to get the line. DeRozan without his free throws has all the efficiency of a 1970’s American muscle car. While that did not happen this year — he actually got to the line more often — he’s still more of a ball-stopper and may make it easier for opposing defenses to predict and react to the Raptors. Nonetheless, the real problems are on defense. Where most players and teams in general increase their effort level, DeMar, who has long gotten a free pass on defense, remains an inert object on defense, rarely pressuring, getting into a defensive stance a shockingly low percentage of the time, and just being a bystander on that end of the court.

One plausible counter is that DeMar DeRozan must anchor a lot of weak defensive units, but that is simply not the case. I have a few Venn diagrams below showing the overlap in minutes with him, Kyle Lowry, and some of their better defenders. DeRozan actually plays more often with their notable defenders, and in fact Lowry’s backup, Cory Joseph, is a pretty good defender too.

You can go through the video for this. DeRozan is normally guarding someone on the perimeter, looking inattentive on the play until the possibility of a defensive rebound arises. His awareness is pretty poor — on this play he’s facing the wrong way and doesn’t realize Channing Frye, a renowned outside shooter, is open in the corner. When he has to cover Kevin Love in a semi-transition set, he can’t stay in front of him and lazily reaches in; and this is all absent from the box score, as poor Jonas Valanciunas picks up the foul inside.

It’s difficult to assign blame, but I have to wonder what he has thinking here: he’s one of the first who crosses the half-court line to get into position, but he just kinda wanders aimlessly inside while a Cleveland player, Kyrie Irving, is able to set-up for an open 3-pointer right in front of him. No one was picking up Irving, but it seemed like it should have been DeRozan, since Jonas was tracking the other center, Tristan Thompson. It’s way too easy to find examples of his listlessness.

I imagine that due to DeMar’s all-star status, his athleticism, and his size, people have just assumed he’s a capable defender, and sometimes when we ignore an entire category we either weigh it very little in our overall evaluation or assume a huge chunk of the people involved are all at the same skill level. But his defense warrants closer investigation, and there’s an argument he should get just as much negative attention as James Harden has for his defense.

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The Toronto Raptors have some severe problems in the post-season, but if they want to fix them — and if we want to discuss them intelligently — we have to address what’s actually wrong. Kyle Lowry’s injury problems are a concern, true, but when he’s on the court the team is usually fine. DeMar DeRozan is the weak link in the chain, and unfortunately he’s going to make north of $25 million a year for them until 2021. Unless he can correct his glaring deficiencies, we should get used to them coming up short. He’s too much of a liability.