2/9/09
by: Scott
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If you're on Facebook, there's a good chance somebody has sent you a "25 Random Things About Me" list and encouraged you to create your own list. This will probably surprise most of you, but I don't consider myself nearly interesting enough to compose a list of 25 things that you may or may not have known about me. I mean, who would care to know that I was born with a functioning six-inch tail?

So instead of boring anyone with my random minutiae, I challenged myself to bore you with a list of 25 things about the Raptors that you might not have noticed or realized, or that you've been trying to block from your mind so you don't pick up a drug habit to cope with your increasing despair. I really had to fight to come up with 25 of these, but the last one might be the most interesting one of all.

25 random things about the Toronto Raptors

1. Anthony Parker is second on the Raptors in minutes played this season. Jamario Moon is fourth and Jason Kapono is sixth. When three guys like this are in your top six for minutes played, this is what happens.
2. The Raptors were second in the NBA in three-point shooting accuracy last season (.392). This season, they're 12th (.373).
3. The biggest culprits in their drop in trey-shooting efficiency are Anthony Parker's 49-point drop from last season — plus the fact that Jamario Moon, Chris Bosh, Will Solomon and Roko Ukic have launched over a quarter of the team's three-point attempts but have only made 29 percent of those shots.
4. Don't blame Jose Calderon for #2 — he's improved his three-point shooting percentage in each of the past three seasons and he's currently ninth in the NBA at 44.4 percent. He could stand to shoot those more often, though. He only averages 3.3 attempts per 36 minutes. In comparison, Rashard Lewis averages 6.8 attempts.
5. Andrea Bargnani has only made 34 percent of his field goal attempts over the last seven games. Clearly, he hasn't "turned the corner" like so many people thought he did.
6. Bargnani's Player Efficiency Rating (PER) for the season is 13.3 — an "average" PER is 15.
7. The Raptors are 26th in the NBA in rebounding differential — they've been outrebounded by an average of 2.88 boards this season.
8. The Raptors lead the league in free throw shooting percentage (.825) but are 20th in free throw attempts — even though they've played more games (53) than any other team.
9. Don't blame Chris Bosh for #8 — he's fourth in the NBA in free throw attempts and tied for first in free throws made.
10. The Raptors were 8-9 under Sam Mitchell, and they've gone 11-25 under Jay Triano.
11. Average final score for the Raptors this season: 99.9-96.8.
12. The Raptors have amassed four separate five-or-more-game losing streaks already this season. The Washington Wizards have five separate similar losing streaks. The Oklahoma City Thunder have done this three times — but to be fair, one of them was a 14-game bender.
13. According to 82games.com, here is the Raptors' Net PER Production by Position (Bosh's floor time is split between C and PF): +1.1 at PG, -5.2 at SG, -3.1 at SF, +0.2 at PF and +3.5 at C.
14. According to 82games.com, 76 percent of Bargnani's shot attempts are jump shots, compared to 66 percent for Jermaine O'Neal and 64 percent for Bosh.
15. The last year Bryan Colangelo managed a team for a full season and finished under .500 was 2003-04, when his Suns went 29-53.
16. At their current winning percentage, the Raptors are on pace to finish this season 29-53.
17. The Raptors have the eighth-worst record in the NBA. If they finish the season in that position and land the eighth overall draft pick, nbadraft.net has them drafting freshman power forward Greg Monroe from Georgetown, while Draft Express has them picking junior small forward Earl Clark from Louisville.
18. Roko Ukic has a fan page consisting almost entirely of content copied from his Wikipedia page.
19. Jamario Moon's personal site has a blog he's never posted to and video and photo sections with one file on each page.
20. Jermaine O'Neal's personal site features a video from May 2007 where you can check out his car collection, which includes a custom Lamborghini, a Rolls Royce Phantom, Ferrari Spyder, and two BMWs. One of his Beamers "isn't driven that much".
21. Chris Bosh has a Twitter page but it's not nearly as much fun as Shaq's. Shaq posted on Feb 4th: "Im tryn talk steve nash into joining twitter."
22. Jay Triano is an inductee of The Basketball B.C. Hall of Fame and his jersey was the first one ever to be retired by Simon Fraser University.
23. Will Solomon has called five different countries his home during his pro basketball career: U.S.A. (Memphis, 2001-02), Greece (2002-03), Israel (2003-04, 2005-06), Turkey (2004-05, 2006-08) and Canada.
24. Jake Voskuhl has averaged 6.5 personal fouls per 36 minutes over nine seasons and 6,336 total minutes. In 133 minutes with the Raptors, he's committed 37 personal fouls.
25. From Kris Humphries' Wikipedia page: "His first success in sport came in competitive swimming, where he was the top 10 year old in the nation in 6 events, second only to a young Michael Phelps in the remaining events. Kris Humphries still holds the US national record for the 50M freestyle for 10 and under boys, at age 12 he gave up swimming to pursue a promising career in basketball."

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