Check Out Ray’s NBA Plays Today!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re pretty much the worst team in the league,\u201d he was quoted as saying, and while he may have been ignoring the Wizards\u2019 potentially record-setting bad start and exaggerating for effect, there\u2019s no doubt that those November-into-early December Raptors were pretty bad.<\/p>\n
But since Bargnani opened his mouth, the Raptors have been on their best run in a few years. They have five straight wins, including a decisive victory at home over the otherwise red-hot Rockets, and are on a Canadian high as they head into tonight\u2019s game against the Spurs in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Who knew that the Raptors had this in them?<\/p>\n
Certainly not Bargnani, who has had to content himself sitting on the bench munching on crow while Toronto has gone on its run. Bargnani last played on Dec.[ad-6571516] <\/p>\n
10 when he suffered elbow and wrist injuries in a game against the Blazers, and he and teammate Kyle Lowry are out indefinitely.<\/p>\n
So if the Raptors are the worst team in the league WITH Bargnani, and they have won five in a row WITHOUT him, does that make Bargnani the worst player in the league?<\/p>\n
Not quite, but the Raptors discovered soon after taking him No. 1 in 2006 that Bargnani was a European big who really didn\u2019t want to bang. He\u2019s never averaged more than 6.2 rebounds a game, and he would be content hanging around the 3-point line and living (and mostly dying) with outside shots. He is what he is, and the Raptors would love to shed him and move on.<\/p>\n
On the plus side, the Raptors have been getting solid play from veterans Jose Calderon (14.2 points\/10.7 assists in his last six games) and DeMar DeRozan (18 points\/5 rebounds).<\/p>\n
Toronto will spend this week on the road, heading to New Orleans and Orlando for a Friday\/Saturday back-to-back before returning to Canada for an extended (6-game) homestand that includes several winnable games.<\/p>\n
THE PICK<\/strong> \u2013 While the Raptors are only 2-14 on the road this season and 6-10 ATS away from home. The problem for Toronto is that the Raptors cannot win (0-13) when they give up more than 100 points, and San Antonio almost always goes over 100 when it plays at home. <\/p>\nToronto will move heaven and earth to control tempo, so an under play would have some value, even against a San Antonio team that has had rest and is coming off a 129-91 win over Dallas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Raptors vs Spurs NBA Handicapping Wonder what Andrea Bargnani has to say for himself now. A few weeks back, you recall, the Raptors\u2019 7-footer and former overall No. 1 draft choice raised more than a few eyebrows by putting his own team dead last on his private NBA power ranking chart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":28091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[57491,22387,4045,23074,57184,3942,57492,57493,57494,57495,57496],"class_list":["post-58660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-boxing-day","tag-free-nba-hoops-prediction","tag-free-nba-picks","tag-nba-betting-picks","tag-nba-betting-prediction","tag-nba-handicapping","tag-raptors-spurs-free-prediction","tag-raptors-spurs-picks","tag-raptors-vs-spurs","tag-toronto-raptors-vs-san-antonio-spurs","tag-toronto-raptors-vs-san-antonio-spurs-odds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58683,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58660\/revisions\/58683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}