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Fantanking — When fans root for their team to lose in order to improve the team's draft position.
Thirty-one games into the 2008-09 NBA season, I am officially throwing in the towel on this Toronto Raptors team. Their offense is subpar, their defense is even worse and their rebounding flat-out stinks. This situation can't be fixed by upgrading one of the wing positions because the only reasonable trading pieces Bryan Colangelo has for that kind of trade are Chris Bosh, Jermaine O'Neal and Jose Calderon — and trading one of those guys would simply open a new hole while he attempted to plug a different one.
I understand that the Raptors have had the fifth-toughest schedule in the league so far, but recent losses to the Thunder and Warriors don't give me any confidence that this team can turn things around by stacking up wins against so-called "weaker teams". For the Raptors to even hit .500 at the end of the season, they need to go 29-22 the rest of the way. And even if they do manage to hit that mediocre mark... so fucking what? That would be the second season in a row they went 41-41 and when you consider that they have exactly one young prospect (Roko Ukic) who even borders on intriguing, it's clear that it's time to rebuild.
This team is going to have to get worse before it can get better. They need cap space and draft picks, and the only trades I'm interested in Colangelo pursuing are ones that bring those assets to the Raptors. Trading Bosh is probably a non-starter because it would likely be box-office suicide, and trading Bargnani is also probably not worth discussing because he has no value. That leaves O'Neal and Calderon as potential trading pieces.
Here's what I came up with in the ESPN Trade Machine: O'Neal and Jason Kapono to Cleveland for Anderson Varejao, Wally Sczerbiak and Eric Snow. Would Cleveland do this? You could make the case that they'd pull the trigger because it would improve their interior defense and scoring and they're trying to win a title this season so they might as well "go for it". Of course, you could also make the case that O'Neal isn't really that significant of an upgrade over Varejao, and besides that — why does a team that is 26-4 need to change anything?
For the Raptors, that trade would free up $29 million in cap room after this season since Szczerbiak and Snow are in the last year of their contracts and Varejao will most likely opt out after the season. With this cap room, Colangelo could make competitive offers in the 2009 off-season to guys like Varejao, Ben Gordon, Trevor Ariza, Hedo Turkoglu and Mehmet Okur. I like the idea of adding Gordon and Ariza on the wing positions and then trying to land Haseem Thabeet (seven-foot-three center from UConn, averaging 14 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks this season, compares strikingly to Mutombo in his prime) in the draft.
In the meantime, I would stick Bargnani in at starting center for the rest of the season, ban him from taking threes (bench him if he does) and let him sink or swim. Would this lead to a ton of losses this season? Most likely! But hey, that's kind of the point, right? We're fantanking here.
I expect there are three types of people who will say this is a ridiculous post. The first group will say that they don't believe in fantanking and no real fan would ever support that. The second group will say Cleveland won't make that trade so forget about it. The third group will say that the Raptors would be better to hold off until the superior 2010 free agent class to make any significant signings. This last group is the only one I'm really interested in listening to (although the second group is probably right) — but the risk with that plan is that if the Raptors aren't competitive by next season, they're probably going to lose Chris Bosh.
Ah, who am I kidding... this is definitely a ridiculous post. But it's more fun to dream up crazy scenarios like this than comtemplate the rotting carcass of this sorry season — so expect posts of equal and escalating ridiculousness over the next few months. 
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