So who are the real Raptors?

Five games in, we know at least this much about the Toronto Raptors this season:

• They are going to take a lot of threes
• They are going to give up a lot of threes
• If they make more than the other team does, they’re probably going to win
• If they make less than the other team, they’re probably screwed

Basically, the Raptors are the Orlando Magic-lite; and frankly that’s not a bad place to be. The only difference really between the two teams is Orlando has far superior rebounding, which allows for many more chances to launch threes on second and third chance possessions.

With that said, the Raptors walked into New Orleans tonight and won a road game slightly more than the Hornets lost a home game. Just slightly.

Jose Calderon played by far his best game of the year by simply being more aggressive. Instead of turning the corner and depending on his currently-wonky jumper, Calderon looked to push the ball in transition and drive to the net more often. Although this didn’t always result in layups and even ended up with some blocked shots and bad passes, it’s essential for a point guard to put dribble penetration in the mind of his defender. Simply getting into the painted area creates opportunities and cutting lanes for teammates and if Calderon continues to look to get into the lane, he will have plenty of opportunities to shoot himself out of his slump. He’s not all there yet, but there were glimpses of the floor general Toronto fans have been expecting for over a year.

Meanwhile, the real story for the Raptors this year continues to be Chris Bosh. As inconsistent as Toronto’s shooting and team defence continues to be, Bosh has been a rock throughout this young season. Consider these gaudy numbers:

• 29.5 points per game (5th in the NBA)
• 13.0 rebounds per game (2nd in the NBA)
• 16.3 FTA per game (1st in the NBA)
• 11.8 FTM per game (1st in the NBA)

More impressively, Bosh is doing this on .472 per cent shooting while chipping in 2.2 assists and 1 block per game. These are not good numbers. These are mind-boggling-why-isn’t-ESPN-drooling-over-him numbers. If — and this is a huge if — the Raptors crack the top four seeds in the East this year and Bosh continues his torrid pace, it is completely conceivable that Bosh is in the running for legitimate MVP consideration. The most impressive part still is how Bosh is doing all this. Unlike previous years where the Toronto offense simply ran isolation plays and ground to a halt around Bosh, this year the lanky Texan is scoring points relatively quietly in the flow of the game. It’s an easy 27 points, and this speaks to Bosh’s lack of ego as much as it does to his unique basketball talents.

Yes, it’s a contract year but if anybody (myself included) had any doubts over whether Bosh is worth a max contract; this five game body of work is a tantalizing, if small sampled, rebuttal.

Individual performance aside, neophyte head coach Jay Triano has managed to keep Bosh’s minutes down under 40 a game, an important and under-reported fact that will protect his star power forward from wearing out before the games matter. This is a concern mainly because it happened last year, when Bosh got off to a similar start but gave out after a 42 minute per game workload. On top of some successful tweaking of the Raptors offense and some work-in-progress defensive philosophies, Triano has done a good job thusfar. How much progress that defence ultimately makes will be the deciding factor between “good” and “great”.

With an equally encouraging outing was Hedo Turkoglu, who each game looks more and more comfortable with his new teammates. Ball movement is clearly a strength for the Raptors, so as these relative strangers continue to learn tendencies and build chemistry the Raptors have only up to go. How bad the Raptors can be is a known commodity. How good they can be, however, is seemingly still beyond anyone’s guess — and that has to be encouraging if you’re a fan of the Dinos.

As for the Hornets, after watching New Orleans steal an overtime game from Dallas this week they had no right to win, the Chris Paul’s simply ran out of luck tonight against a good shooting team.

Anemic offense coupled with lacksadaisical perimeter close-outs were symptomatic of a team that seems to have completely quit on Byron Scott. Normally a frustrated superstar gets angry at his teammates but Paul’s attitude and body language completely indicate a player discontent with his greater lot in life.

There were no coach-player discussions taking place, no strategizing, asking for advice or mentoring moments from Former Champion Point-Guard to Current-All-Star-Point-Guard. That is not a good sign. Consider that a gritty veteran leader such as James Posey has been not just bad, but lethargic, and you wonder how long Scott has left in the Big Easy.

This is not to say the Raptors were not impressive tonight however. As discussed, overall the Toronto offense was firing on all cylinders and clearly had a role in making New Orleans’ defense look bad. But much like the first Toronto win against Cleveland this year — the result probably says more about New Orleans than it does Toronto.

After all, the Raptors can’t be this good.

Can they?