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"Hedo Turkoglu! Congrats, you're going to Toronto! You don't have to worry about the playoffs anytime soon!" - Dan Patrick at the beginning of his July 6th radio broadcast
I blogged about why the Toronto Raptors shouldn't sign Hedo Turkoglu three weeks ago, but I spent last weekend trying to talk myself into this move now that it's actually come into fruition.
Let's look at the positive points, shall we? He played a key role on a 59-win team that made the NBA Finals. He's a six-foot-10, multi-talented offensive player who can pass like a point guard, shoot like a shooting guard and create off the dribble like, well, a decent small forward. Plus, he appears to genuinely love Toronto and its rich Turkish culture.
(OK, I'm joking about the "Turkish culture" part. My office-mate, Stoeten from Drunk Jays Fans, asked his Turkish buddy about this report of a supposedly vibrant Turkish community in Toronto. He replied, "It's bullshit." So, yeah, we can all assume it's mostly about the money.)
Now, let's examine the potential downside to this signing. He's already 30 years old and coming off a season where he had his lowest FG% (.413) since 2005-06 and his lowest 3P% (.356) since his rookie season in 2000-01. While he logged impressive assist totals in Orlando (4.9 APG last season and 5.0 in '07-08) he coupled those with alarming turnover rates for a forward (2.6 turnovers per game last season and 3.0 in '07-08). Finally, despite the fact that Orlando had the best Defensive Rating in the league last season (101.9 points allowed per 100 possessions), it's debatable that Turkoglu doesn't deserve much (if any) credit for that. He's tall but not particularly strong, athletic or quick — which helps explain why he has career averages of 0.8 steals and 0.3 blocks per game.
More than anything else, here's my primary concern when I try to figure out how the Turkoglu signing will make the Raptors better in 2009-10: How will he help improve the Raptors' 22nd-ranked Defensive Rating (110 points allowed per 100 possessions) from last season? He seems certain to have a positive influence on the Raptors' offence — which also ranked 22nd in the league in '08-09 — but does he improve the team's overall talent level enough to make the playoffs next season?
The Chicago Bulls had the worst Defensive Rating (18th) of any playoff team last season. Combined with their 14th-ranked offence, they finished 41-41 — good enough for a seventh seed in the East. Going into next season, it's pretty safe to assume that any team finishing between sixth and eighth in the East will face either Cleveland, Boston or Orlando in the first round.
You see where I'm going with this? In a best case scenario, the 2009-10 Raptors will be a first-round knockout victim in the playoffs. Are you excited yet, Raptors fans?
Look, I understand the mentality that Colangelo had to do this to convince Chris Bosh that the Raptors organization is serious about winning so that he'll re-sign in 2010. But as you probably know by now if you're a regular reader, I would much prefer Colangelo to trade Bosh — or even let him leave Toronto without return compensation — than sign him to a max contract extension and doom this franchise to mediocrity in the forseeable future.
As much as some of you would like to convince yourselves that Turkoglu is the kind of difference-maker to bring this team to the next level (did you know that the only other players to average at least 15 points, 5 rebounds and 4.9 assists last season were Dwyane Wade, Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Andre Igoudala and Stephen Jackson? OMG!), he really isn't that guy. If he was, Magic fans would be a lot more broken up about losing him. Let's be honest, can you blame them since they replaced him with Vince Carter in the process?
"But Scott!" you protest, "They'll miss Hedo's super-clutch shooting!" Don't be so sure about that. You'll have to forgive me for linking this Clutch Table on 82games.com 27 different times this off-season in response to all the people who claim Hedo is soooo clutch, but Turkoglu had a .357 FG% and a .200 3P% in "clutch situations" (4th quarter or overtime, less than 5 minutes left, neither team ahead by more than 5 points) last season. As for Mr. Carter, he made exactly 50 percent of his two- and three-point shots — and he took more of them.
If Andrea Bargnani carries over his second-half performance into next season, there is a distinct possibility that Turkoglu will actually be the fourth-best option in the Raptors' offence next season. When you also consider that he's average-at-best defensively, it seems as though $50 million doesn't get you what I think it should.
When it comes right down to it, the Turkoglu signing is probably going to ultimately define Bryan Colangelo's legacy in Toronto. He's made it clear that he doesn't want to enter into a rebuilding phase and he's going into full-on "win now" mode with this squad. It could very well be that Turkoglu has a kind of almost indefinable postive impact on team success that you can't really measure with numbers — other than dollars, of course.
So to those of you who support this move, how good do you really believe the Raptors are going to be if this is their core over the next few seasons? It seems like a huge reach to believe that — barring catastrophic injuries to two of the Big Three teams in the East — this team is capable of ever making it out of the second round of playoffs before Turkoglu begins his inevitable decline. Then again, when your team has only made the second round once in 14 seasons, maybe that doesn't seem like such a bad deal to some people.
Oh well. On the bright side, I'm looking forward to seeing a few of these in the Air Canada Centre next season. It's a pretty sweet flag, don't you think? 
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