Under Masai Ujiri’s tenure, the Toronto Raptors have built upon continuity and growth. The core pieces haven’t changed, but they’ve become a markedly improved team in each of the last three seasons.

This summer, Ujiri chose the status quo. He brought back Dwane Casey, re-signed DeMar DeRozan, and replaced the overpriced Bismack Biyombo with an underpriced Jared Sullinger.

Keeping the core intact makes sense for where the franchise is at the moment. But by keeping the talent the same, the Raptors will have to rely on internal development in order for the team to continue improving.

Here’s how each (notable) Raptor can improve in 2016–17:

(Note: I discussed this topic on this week’s episode of Raptors Weekly. Check that out below.)

DeMar DeRozan — All-around impact

I have no issues with the Raptors re-signing DeMar DeRozan for something close to the max. It might not be the best value-per-dollar investment, but retaining him makes a lot more sense than allowing DeRozan to walk.

But the idea of committing $139 million to DeRozan did give me pause, especially on the heels of his ugly playoff performance. Don’t forget — before the Raptors redeemed themselves with two series victories and two wins off the Cleveland Cavaliers, the talk around the team was how much DeRozan and Lowry struggled to score.

For Lowry, he can lean on other parts of his game when his shot isn’t falling. Lowry can still run the offense, create for others, stretch the floor with his 3-point shot, push the pace in transition, defend like crazy. He’s Lowry, he does it all.

For DeRozan, not being able to score efficiently is a death knell. There’s nothing to fall back on. He’s hesitant to cough up the rock, he’s not a threat from deep, and he’s a poor defender.

The Raptors were 7.2 points per 100 possessions worse with DeRozan on the court during the playoffs. They were 26.9 points per 100 possessions better with Lowry.

My point isn’t for DeRozan to produce like Lowry. That’s unrealistic. My point is that DeRozan shouldn’t be so one-dimensional in his game — at least, not at the price the Raptors are paying. He’s a hardworking player who’s always added things to his craft, but there’s still work left to be done. In order for DeRozan to be considered a true №1, there needs to be more in his game.

Defense, spot-up 3-point shooting, facilitating, playing off the ball — if DeRozan wants to take the next step towards developing into a superstar, he needs to add the little things to his game and become a well-rounded player.

Kyle Lowry — Stay healthy

During his first week as a freshman at Villanova, Lowry was scrimmaging with some local cats from the Y and he tore his ACL. His whole career could have been ruined in that one moment.

But Lowry didn’t do what 99 percent of players would have done, which is the sensible thing, which is to rest and rehab. Instead, Lowry routinely skipped out on meeting with team doctors and played on a daily basis at the school gym, on one leg, with any students who dared to spar.

Fortunately, Lowry didn’t damage his knee further, and he learned to play around it. He would return to the Bulldogs two months after his injury and became one of the key pieces of Jay Wright’s squad.

What this parable should tell you is that Lowry is a bit of a maniac. He’s always going to be taking charges and diving on the deck. Nobody is going to tell this dude to stop working so hard. That’s not how he’s wired.

But, if there’s some middle ground to be struck, the Raptors should really look into curbing Lowry’s minutes. They’ve already proven themselves in the regular season by winning more games than any other Eastern Conference team over the last three years. The goal should be the playoffs, therefore the goal should be to keep Lowry as fresh as possible, and that has yet to be accomplished.

It was a sprained wrist vs. Washington. Against the Pacers, Lowry sported a fat sac of pus on his elbow due to bursitis. Raptors fans have yet to see a fully-healthy version of Lowry in the playoffs, so it’s no surprise that they’ve generally struggled in the postseason.

Managing minutes for Lowry comes down to Casey. Now that he got his extension, and now that the Raptors have established themselves, Casey needs to find a way to buy Lowry more time off. That won’t be easy — he’s far and away their best player — but the goal isn’t to retain the meaningless crown of Atlantic Division champions for a fourth-straight season. Find a way to succeed, or at least tread water, when Lowry is out. Save him for when it matters most.

Get Lowry right. Nothing comes before that.

Jonas Valanciunas — Awareness

Is it possible for a player to gain basketball IQ? Because more than anything else, it feels like what’s holding Valanciunas back isn’t his ability.

Valanciunas just isn’t a very intuitive player. He looks mechanical. He often stuck on a loop; flat screen, roll blindly to the cup, reset, screen again, repeat. He reacts instead of anticipating. He completely loses his bearings whenever he’s covering screen action involving a big who can shoot. He moves with his own purpose, but often fails to account for how it affects the team.

Even with these shortcomings, Valanciunas is an extremely effective player. There just aren’t many 7-footers with his touch around the basket. He’s got fantastic hands. Valanciunas even improved his quickness after coming back from a hand injury last season. He has tremendous ability and he leverages it into efficient production.

At the moment, Valanciunas is a piece that the team can work with. But in order for him to become a player who the team can work around, there has to be more nuiance to his game.

For example, look at his post game. He’s got it all down in terms of scoring. The pump-fake, hard dribble, going middle with his sweeping right hook is easy money. And we’ve seen over the last two seasons that if defenders sit on his right hand, he has the ability to spin baseline away from the pressure to get off his 10-foot jumper. Although he’s hesitant, Valanciuans can even knock down the midrange jumper at a decent clip. Posting up Valanciunas can be a very effective play.

But it’s not that easy. He doesn’t carve out post position very easily, and it takes a while to get the play set up. If he gets doubled, Valanciunas isn’t very adept at finding the open man (to his credit, he’s getting better at this.) It’s hard to make that play call because there’s just one option. That wouldn’t be the case if Valanciunas could read the defense and distribute.

Over the last four seasons, we’ve seen Valanciunas improve, but he’s turned into a better version of the same player, not a different player altogether. Fans keep expecting the later.

DeMarre Carroll — Finding a niche

There was talk of Carroll getting an expanded role upon leaving Atlanta for Toronto. Injuries cut short the experiment before it fully played out, but the early results were predictably uninspiring.

The Raptors had Carroll run pick-and-rolls early on, but those led nowhere. Carroll isn’t good at pull-up shots (37.5 percent), he’s not hurting the defense to the point where he can create looks for others, nor is he a particularly good driver (26 percent; knee injuries didn’t help), and most importantly, it took away from what Carroll does best, which is spot-up shooting (57.5 percent last season).

Related: A deep dive into DeMarre Carroll

I didn’t mind the ambition. It was a good idea to explore what they had, but the team learned quickly that it wasn’t benefiting either Carroll, nor the team, for him to have the ball in his hands.

In terms of role players, Carroll is more Trevor Ariza than Andre Iguodala. Carroll is at his best when he’s not getting his number called. He was one of the most efficient players in the league during his time in Atlanta by sticking to his role: cutting to the basket, leaking out in transition, and knocking down spot-up threes. He’s there to supplement the offense; he’s not the offense itself.

Hopefully Carroll, and the Raptors, can find a more suitable role for the upcoming season. He’s an excellent player when used properly, and when healthy.

Patrick Patterson — Finding the middle ground

Patterson, like Carroll, is a great low-usage player. He continues to sharpen his defensive acumen, he’s a willing passer and an effective screener, and he can knock down threes.

That’s his role, and he generally shouldn’t come outside of it. Patterson’s first option should always to be shooting the three.

But relying solely on the 3-point shot can lead to uneven results. Patterson hit 30.3 percent before Jan. 1, then hit 40.9 percent the rest of the year. That’s a massive gap, and it basically marks the difference between a productive offensive player, or a detrimental one.

Knowing this, Patterson tried to show off other aspects of his game, especially when his shot wasn’t falling. He drove to the basket more than ever, and although his dribble moves are limited, he was surprisingly effective when he got near the basket. Missed drives always elicited frustration since Patterson was deviating from the script, but on the whole, having something else to fall back on when the longball isn’t falling would be useful. It would make Patterson less of an all-or-nothing player.

Only shooting threes also makes Patterson really easy to defend. Teams got away with switching wings onto him because he really wasn’t a threat on the offensive glass, nor would he dare try posting up. That cut into his effectiveness on ball screens.

Again, I’m definitely not advocating for Patterson to ditch the triple. That’s his bread and butter (more as a decoy than someone actually shooting the shot.) But when the shot isn’t falling, having something else to fall back on would be nice.

Cory Joseph — Increasing stamina

Joseph was tremendous in his first season with the Raptors. He proved himself to be one of the best back-up point guards in the league, he meshed beautifully with Lowry, and he spearheaded a dominant second-unit that ranked second to San Antonio for tops in the league.

He’s already exceeded expectations. Now it’s about whether Joseph can bring even more to the table.

Joseph excelled during the first half of the season, but he became noticeably worn down as the year trudged on. His defense took a step back, and he never quite had legs beneath his jumpshot.

Here’s his splits from before and after the all-star break. Notice how Joseph shot substantially worse from the midrange and at the basket as the season went on.

The answer there is simple: Joseph logged a career-high in minutes. He jumped to 1444 minutes in 2014–15 to 2046 last season, then added another 452 throughout the playoffs. He wasn’t ready for that workload.

Joseph needs to work on pacing himself so that he can last the entire season. That won’t be easy ask for such a high-energy player, but the Raptors need him to be at his best during the playoffs.

Jared Sullinger — Picking his spots

First and foremost, Sullinger has to find his place within the team before anything else. There’s no obvious fit for him other than at backup center, but the Raptors have already stated that he would see some time at power forward as well.

Chances are he’ll play alongside Valanciunas to start games. If that’s the case, Sullinger will have to make some adjustments since they’re both high-usage bigs who thrive near the basket. Becoming more accurate from distance would be a start.

Sullinger likes to get the ball in the midrange area before either popping the jumper, or driving to the cup. Valanciunas can’t stretch the floor, so there will be help defenders waiting in the paint. If that translates to an increase in midrange jumpers, then that’s a bad outcome for the offense since Sullinger isn’t particularly great at knocking them down.

Spacing might also be an issue. Sullinger has never shot better than 29 percent from deep. To put that figure into perspective, DeRozan hit 34 percent last year. He needs to shore that up because the starting unit can’t handle three non-shooters.

Ideally, if Sullinger were to play with the starters, he would need to take on a Luis Scola-type role where he picks his spots and mostly looks to facilitate. Scola was a net negative, but he did provide an outlet to reset plays when DeRozan, Lowry, or Valanciunas got stuck in the offense. Scola also gave the Raptors a capable facilitator around the elbows — a role Sullinger played in Boston. Little things like reversing the ball to the weakside, or nailing the occasional jumper when the initial action failed — those mattered.

But having been signed to a below-market one-year deal, can Sullinger afford to not get his numbers? Probably not. That’s why spending most of his minutes with the second unit would help. He fits nicely alongside a low-usage big like Patterson, and could be afforded far more latitude to score.

The problem with Sullinger is that he’s a jack of all trades but a master of none. If you lean on one skill too much, Sullinger won’t help the team. But if the coaching staff can find a role for Sullinger that leverages his offensive versatility within a mostly one-dimensional frontcourt rotation, there’s something there.

Terrence Ross — Get more people

Raptors fans would feel a lot less dissonance if they accepted the fact that Ross is pretty much a premium version of Gerald Green.

They’re both hyper-athletic but shy away from attacking the basket. They’re both great shooters who are a bit streaky. They’re both inattentive on defense and too weak to guard small forwards. They’re bench players.

And you know what, I’m fine with that. Despite all his flaws, Ross is a very useful player. Once I stopped expecting reliable production from Ross, I found watching him to be far more enjoyable.

What Ross needs is for people to stop counting on the spectacular and just learn to appreciate the ride. Because for every one of these:

There’s one of these:

Ross needs more people and less expectations.

Norman Powell — Adjust to the adjustments

I’m in love with Norman Powell just like every other Raptors fan. I might not call him the second coming of Russell Westbrook, or call for DeRozan to be traded to free up minutes, but goddamn Powell’s future excites me to no end (watch out, Ross.)

Having heard legendary stories of his work ethic (he’s apparently shot over 100,000 threes since coming out of college), I’m fully buying into the hype. I trust that his 3-point stroke is real, I believe in his ability to produce on a nightly basis, and I think he’ll usurp Ross by the end of the season.

But after breaking onto the scene in his rookie year, Powell’s name will now be included on scouting reports. Teams will know his tendencies and he won’t catch as many teams by surprise. He won’t be left wide open for threes nearly as often and he’ll be challenged to finish at the basket.

Transition dunks aside, Powell struggled to finish in the paint. He needs to shore that up if he’s going to be an effective player in halfcourt settings. His in-between game can also use some work.

The hype is legit, but along with the adulation from fans comes the attention from defenses. In order for Powell to take the next step, he’ll not only need to improve upon what he already thrives at, but also develop his counters.