Music: {allcanada} Raptors hoping less equals more

The Toronto Raptors are just over a week into their first training camp of the post-Chris-Bosh era, and the changes so far go beyond the obvious.

Somehow, head coach Jay Triano needs to find a way to make less accomplish more in time for the team's Oct. 27 season opener against the visiting New York Knicks, a difficult task even at the best of times.

And these are far from the best of times for the Raptors, who watched their star player join the Miami Heat over the summer after a 40-42 season cost the team a trip to the playoffs. But after five days in Vancouver capped by Wednesday night's 129-78 pre-season drubbing of the Phoenix Suns, the foundations of a new approach have been laid, and the building can now commence.

"It's funny," general manager Bryan Colangelo said this week from Vancouver. "It's not that we're treating our players differently this year -- there's a little less focus on any one player, there's no one you have to defer to. It's actually quite refreshing from the standpoint of the way I think Jay is dealing with the players, and with the way the players are reacting to that approach."

Colangelo's words are reminiscent of how some Toronto Blue Jays felt this season about life after Roy Halladay. While the ace's dominance on the mound was dearly missed, the "tightness and tension walking around the clubhouse," as sophomore lefty Brett Cecil put it in July, was not.

The hole Halladay's departure was expected to leave instead provided room for others to grow, and the Blue Jays were able to far exceed expectations. The Raptors can only hope the same happens for players like Andrea Bargnani, DeMar DeRozan, Amir Johnson, Linas Kleiza and Sonny Weems, and that they too turn dire pre-season predictions on their ear.

Maybe that's why Colangelo boldly feels his team is likely to "exceed expectations."

"I don't think you're going to see any one player replace Chris, but a combination of the pieces, a combination of the things will certainly lead to a new storyline," said Colangelo. "Jay's taking a new approach with the team, it's obviously less star-centric, there's no reason to cater to one player, to design an offence around one player, you design an offence and a defence around team strengths.

"Right now, with the youthfulness we have, the athleticism we have, we're able to coach the team a little bit differently. Like it or not, when you have a star player, you've got to treat him like a star."

That's not going to be an issue anymore, and it doesn't have to mean a train-wreck season looms.

The Milwaukee Bucks for example went 46-36 last season featuring a deep roster of good, not great, players each doing their job, contributing to a greater whole.

Sure, the Raptors won't have Bosh's 24 points and 10.8 rebounds a night to lean on, but they never advanced past the first round of the playoffs with him, so maybe they can find another path to success without him.

"I anticipate that Chris's departure will help a young player like Andrea Bargnani blossom," said Colangelo. "DeMar is a year further along in his development, Sonny is a year further along in his development, and you add a Leandro Barbosa, who dramatically improves our guard play at both positions.

"(Kleiza) is really coming into his own as a player, and at his age, 25, it's the right time for him."

Not many are buying into Colangelo's theory.

The early over-under lines for Toronto wins this season sits at 27.5, a number which portends a top-five draft pick next summer. But these things don't always end up as predicted.

The addition of Hedo Turkoglu, among other moves last summer, was supposed to catapult the Raptors into 50-win territory, and help convince Bosh to stay. That all backfired in a big way, with Turkoglu demanding a trade which was happily obliged.

Kleiza, signed as a free agent from Denver, is the new Turkoglu.

"I would be hard-pressed to guess anything less than Linas is going to give us a lot more than what Hedo gave us last year," said Colangelo. "That's not a knock on Hedo per se, that's simply an acknowledgment that the deal didn't work out in our favour.

"You can have great individual performers, but having those pieces doesn't necessarily add up to or guarantee success. Sometimes a team that blends pieces together, or is even dealt with differently, managed differently, coached differently, responds perhaps better. ...

"I think we're probably going to exceed expectations, at least based on what the early estimates are for our productivity this year. But I can't say that, I have to let the team act it out. We have an exciting season ahead of us."