The Cavaliers were short handed tonight and the Raptors pushed them around. The Raptors outrebounded them 46-33 and they held the Cavaliers to 38.1% shooting from the floor. With all of that considered I’m a tad surprised that they only won by 20 points. Andrea Bargnani led the way for the Raptors in this game with 20 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists and 1 blocked shot in only 30 minutes on the court. Linas Kleiza also had a good game finishing up with 19 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. DeMar DeRozan had a solid game with 14 points and 5 rebounds tonight. Leandro Barbosa and Sonny Weems helped out offensively tonight as they scored 13 points each in this game. The Raptors are now 1-1 on the year.

The Raptors only shot 38.3% from the floor and it killed them on the scoreboard tonight. Andrea Bargnani led the way for the Raptors tonight with 22 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Jarrett Jack got the start at the point tonight for the Raptors and he filled up the stat sheet with 16 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals in 31 minutes on the floor. Linas Kleiza (13 points and 5 rebounds) and Leandro Barbosa (13 points, 2 rebounds and 1 assist in 24 minutes) had decent debuts for the Raptors tonight. Reggie Evans drew the start at power forward tonight and he had a very interesting line of 0 points, 16 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals and 1 blocked shot in 33 minutes on the floor. The Raptors start the post-Chris Bosh ERA 0-1.

The Raptors were 40-42 last season but that was with Chris Bosh & Hedo Turkoglu playing at forward. This year the starting tandem at forward is going to be Amir Johnson & Linas Kleiza. You can see where I’m going with this. I have a hard time seeing the Raptors winning more than 25 games this year as the Eastern Conference is really improved from top to bottom. I would have to take the under for Raptors wins in 2010-11. The Raptors are 250-1 to win the NBA Championship this year and not even head coach Jay Triano would put a dollar on that.

Raptors’ head coach Jay Triano is likely in for a long year in Toronto. Chris Bosh left the coop for Miami over the summer and the Raptors didn’t being in a very impressive array of new talent. The Raptors would probably give Triano a nice contract extension if he can repeat the 40-42 record the Raptors had last year. Triano is now 65-82 (44.2%) in parts of two years as the Raptors’ head coach. He will have to be able to pull a rabbit out of his hat in order to win 30+ games with the talent on hand this year.

24-year old Andrea Bargnani might have to score more this year and I’m sure he won’t have a problem with that. Bargnani played in 80 games (all starts) for the Raptors last season and he averaged 35.0 minutes, 17.2 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 1.4 blocked shots per game. He has now played in 301 games (194 starts) in his first four years with the Raptors and he has averaged 29.0 minutes, 13.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.0 steal per game. Bargnani is the rare center who can nail three pointers as he has hit 37.6% of them so far in his NBA career.

30-year old David Andersen will be Bargnani’s back up this year. He played in 63 games (0 starts) as a rookie for the Rockets last season and he averaged 14.1 minutes, 5.8 points, 3.3 rebounds and 0.7 assists per game. The Raptors will be happy with Andersen if he can give Bargnani a break for 10-15 minutes per night.

24-year old Patrick O’Bryant will likely be #3 in line for minutes at center when the season starts. He played in 11 games (0 starts) for the Raptors last season and he averaged 4.6 minutes, 1.7 points, 1.0 rebound and 0.1 assists per game. O’Bryant has now played in 90 games (3 starts) in his NBA career and he has averaged 5.8 minutes, 2.1 points, 1.4 rebounds and 0.3 assists per game. Don’t expect O’Bryant to get much P.T. this year.

22-year old Solomon Alabi was acquired from the Mavericks in a draft day deal. He played in 32 games for Florida State last season and he averaged 11.7 points, 6.2 rebounds, 0.5 assists and 2.3 blocked shots per game. Alabi played in 77 games in his three years in college and he averaged 9.1 points, 5.4 rebounds, 0.4 assists and 2.1 blocked shots per game. The Raptors are going to bring Alabi around slowly this year.

PROJECTED GRADE FOR THE RAPTORS CENTERS IN 2010-11: B