Throw another shrimp on the barbie! The Raptors just traded a second-round draft pick to the Rockets for Australian center David Andersen, according to Houston Chronicle reporter Jonathan Feigen. I'm going to be up-front and admit that I know very little about this guy, but here's what I've dug up about him so far.
I've tried to avoid joining the Chris Bosh pile-on that is happening right now. The fans and media started turning on him even before he left the Raptors as it became increasingly clear what a pathetic attention whore he's become. I already pointed that out 12 weeks ago and I didn't feel the need to beat up on the guy now that he's gone. Bryan Colangelo himself has now said he thinks Bosh checked out in the second half of last season: "Whether he was mentally checked out or just wasn't quite into it down the stretch, he wasn't the same guy. I think everybody saw that, but no one wanted to acknowledge it." I'd already drawn that conclusion and I didn't think I needed to call attention to it. Let's move on, right?
Well, I received an email in my RaptorBlog inbox from Bosh's management team which conclusively proves that he wants to be viewed as a celebrity outside of the basketball court. It's all so desperate and sad and hilarious at the same time that I couldn't resist posting it here and making fun of it. I fully recognize this is classless of me, but there isn't a hell of a lot going on right now and this email might have made me grind my teeth into a pulp if I didn't deconstruct and mock it here "Fire Joe Morgan style". Let's begin.
Let's shoot the shit about a few random, minor news items involving the Raptors and one not-so-minor ongoing storyline involving a disgruntled and diminutive point guard. Commence the randomness...
Turbo_Zone is a an artist and humourist who has become somewhat legendary on the RealGM Raptors forum for his outstanding signature graphics. It's really kind of unfair that someone with his artistic talent is also extremely funny. He emailed me his new wallpaper featuring recent Raptors draftee Solomon Alabi and some other dude I feel like I should recognize, but I just can't quite put a name to the face. Anyway, this is now my desktop wallpaper at work, and Turbo_Zone granted me permission to share it with you. Click below to download the full-sized wall.
I've been trying to map out DeMar DeRozan's career path using the Player Season Finder on Basketball-Reference.com (I wish the site would allow you to use more than four statistical criteria in your search) and in so doing, I see an interesting parallel with Andre Iguodala's 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons. They're both athletic wing players with similar heights, and they both played with ball-dominant "alpha scorers" early in their careers — Chris Bosh and Allen Iverson. Early in the 2006-07, Iverson was traded to the Nuggets and as a result, Iguodala became much more prominent in the Sixers' offence as you can see in his stats comparison of the two seasons in question.
The Turkoglu trade is finally official now, right? I mean, Phoenix isn't going to renege on this deal, are they? I don't even know who's calling the shots over there right now. Is it Robert Sarver? Is it Alvin Gentry? Jerry Colangelo is still listed on the Suns' staff directory as a chairman. Did Bryan Colangelo make a trade with his dad? Is that why we made out like bandits here? Bryan's did wouldn't renege on a deal with his own son, would he? ("Dad! You gotta help get me out of this jam! The fans are going to string me up by my balls if I don't get this Turkish pigrone out of here!")
Update: The trade between the Bobcats and Raptors is apparently dead, while the trade sending Turkoglu to the Suns for Barbosa is still likely to be completed. Let's pretend this post never happened, OK? Oh yeah... F. M.J.
Positive steps will see your goals
Whether it's dollars or control, feel the gold
I aint helping you climb the ladder
I'm busy climbing mine.
- "Stay Positive" by The Streets
As I have expected for a while, Chris Bosh will join Dwyane Wade with the Miami Heat next season. What I didn't expect was that Bosh would be willing to leave a sixth year and approximately $30 million on the table and sign outright with the Heat for five years. Since Bosh and Wade can't officially sign their new contracts until tomorrow, it's still possible that a sign-and-trade could happen, but it doesn't look good. I'm going to write up a reaction post and publish it this afternoon when I get a chance, but use the comment thread here to vent and commiserate.
Edited to add: After some thought, I'm not going to write a reaction post until I know for sure whether or not this is a sign-and-trade deal. I'd like Bryan Colangelo to speak out today and let us know whether or not he's talking with Miami so we don't have to wait in suspense. I'm not going to write a "farewell to Bosh" post because I don't think it's worth the time. We never even won a damn playoff series with him. I don't hate him or wish him ill, I just don't want to waste any more words on him.
Second update:Michael Grange reports that Colangelo is still in talks with Miami, so a sign-and-trade might still happen. ("So you're saying there's a chance?")
On Tuesday, I wrote that Bryan Colangelo shouldn't wait to see what Chris Bosh should do (because it's pretty obvious he's not coming back) and that he be proactive in trying to re-sign Amir Johnson as soon as possible. Well, Bryan didn't mess around — he signed Amir to a five-year, $34 million deal on Thursday, the very first day teams could sign free agents.
