Jonas Valanciunas will get more touches early in games this season according to Kyle Lowry, the Toronto Sun reports. "We have to start games off (feeding Valanciunas in the post), we need him, we're going to put some pressure on him to score the ball for

Valanciunas will get more touches early in games this season according to Kyle Lowry, the Toronto Sun reports. "We have to start games off (feeding Valanciunas in the post), we need him, we're going to put some pressure on him to score the ball for us," Lowry said. "We can't just do all guard-oriented types of things. We have to make sure he's more involved and have to put a little pressure on him to score the ball."

Analysis:

Valanciunas heads into his third NBA season having led the World Cup in field goal percentage for fourth place Lithuania, as well as getting in extensive offseason work with Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, so there's certainly reason to believe he'll be able to improve on last year's 11.3 PPG. The Raptors' offense will still run through Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, however, so don't look for a huge scoring jump from the young center.