The past years the Raptors have been struggling. Personally I think since Chris Bosh left the team, they just couldn't find the piece that is missing. Now with the Rudy Gay upgrade it seemed that they can indeed have a chance to find the pieces and put them together. The reason I'm saying this because individual talent is there, but there wasn't any kind of teamwork on offense, it seemed like a chaotic try at best. Now I know I'm being way too harsh with words here, but it's what I think. They weren't bad in my eyes and had some true fighting moments, but they lacked the true clutch and always went down in the 3rd and 4th quarters. Now that Rudy Gay, who is an accomplished clutch player is there to stay for now, the Raptors could be making some impact. I mean it's time already. Let me break it down.

Kyle Lowry is a very good player, though I still see him getting better as he hasn't reached is potential yet. With Rudy Gay being on the team there is no more struggling for unnecessary attempt to score. With this DeRozan is back at the shooting guard position where he belongs. That should make the back court strong enough to overcome the usual downfall in the second half of their games. The fight they've put against a currently strong Indiana Pacers was just a what I call a "main even" caliber match. I was finally able to see what the front is made of. Amir Johnson is showing me that he is indeed the player I always believed him to be, but continued to let me down, not now though. He became a well balanced offensive and defensive player. Though I believe that the center position is weak at the moment as we saw versus Indiana. Valanciunas can be a good or really bad match up for taller centers like Hibbert and personally I think that he can't match up to Chandler or a more athletic center like Dwight (even though he isn't really playing his game), but he can be good against the likes of Kaman. Gray is kind of the same, but a better on the defensive end of the position. Personally I think that the Rudy Gay trade didn't simply add one player, it made the team re-balance their play style and rethink their strategies. I'm always the kind of guy, who watches the PG and SG backups and I see some great potential in Lucas. He can be great or do nothing at all. If he finds the "balance" to be in the middle then the back court of Toronto will be a force to reckon with.