"After undertaking a thorough evaluation process, it is clear that Jay (Triano) is the right coach to guide this team in the future." - Bryan Colangelo
The 2009 NBA off-season is rich with small forwards looking for new contracts, and it just so happens that the Raptors have a gaping hole at this position now that both Shawn Marion and Joey Graham are free agents. With the free agent negotiation period beginning at midnight tonight, this seems like an ideal time to evaluate the crop of available small forwards — pinpointing their strengths and weaknesses, and estimating what it will probably take Bryan Colangelo to convince each player to sign on the line that is dotted.
One of the reasons it cracks me up when mainstream sportswriters shit on bloggers like me is that most of the amateur (meaning non-professional) bloggers that I read and respect seem to have a better understanding of the sports they write about than the so-called "experts". For example, SI.com's Ian Thomsen wrote on Friday that, in trading for Jamal Crawford, the Atlanta Hawks "now have one of the best clutch shooters in the league to pair with their All-Star in (Joe) Johnson." Even if you believe in the whole concept of "clutch shooting" — and I don't put a lot of stock in it myself — who in their right mind would think Jamal Crawford is a great clutch shooter?
First of all, Crawford rarely plays in games that actually mean anything, so these co-called "clutch shooting opportunities" arguably don't even exist. The dude has played in 597 regular season games and exactly zero playoff games. That's the longest streak of its kind among active players in the NBA. Ignoring all that, just because Crawford apparently fancies himself a clutch shooter, that doesn't make it so.
The title of this post is my lame attempt at a nickname for our newest Raptor, DeMar DeRozan. It's a play on the Springsteen song, "The Rising" and the fact that DeRozan is a high-flyer. What, you think you can do better? Admittedly, it's not as good as my new nickname for Shaq in Cleveland.
Although I don't expect him to have much of an impact in his rookie year, I still think DeRozan was the right selection for the Raptors at the ninth pick. He seems to have as much upside as anyone in this draft. He's a tremendous athlete with the motor and quickness to develop into a good defender and explosive scorer. As a bonus, he seems to have a good attitude and work ethic, and he's already embraced the city of Toronto.
Join James Borbath, Holly MacKenzie and me for the 2009 NBA Draft liveblog on theScore.com tonight at 7pm ET. James and I will be counting down the picks and providing analysis of the prospects and teams, while Holly will be Tweeting live from the draft room floor at Madison Square Garden.
While you're waiting for the draft and the liveblog to get started, check out The Basketball Jones draft preview show (um... from 2008) and here are some links to pre-draft articles and videos from NBA.com.
I know this is a weird time to bring this up again — what with the draft and all — but I just read last week's John Hollinger chat on ESPN.com and this part raised my prodigious eyebrows:
Ed (Toronto): Why would Bosh sacrifice his pay day to be second fiddle to Wade or LeBron. He wants to get paid too and BC doesn't do a sign and trade out of the goodness of his heart.
John Hollinger: That's still the biggest point in Toronto's favor -- they can offer more money than anyone else. But remember, some of that advantage is eroded by Florida's lack of state income tax. It's not what you make that matters, it's what you keep.
Add this to the several other reasons (2010 cap space, location, Wade, championship possibilities) why Miami is most likely the biggest threat to steal Chris Bosh from Toronto after next season.
Ball Don't Lie — the Yahoo! blog run by the legendary J.E. Skeets — is running a mock draft over the next three days where bloggers representing each of the teams in the first round make picks on their team's behalf. Here's how the first eight picks went down, with links to each blogger's rationale.
Unless you have somehow managed to avoid celebrity gossip altogether over the past decade or so, there's a good chance you're aware of the awe-inspiring dating record of comedian/actor David Spade. His list of paramours reads like a who's who of hot female celebrities: Pam Anderson, Carmen Electra, Heather Locklear, Jillian Barberie, Teri Hatcher, Krista Allen, Kristy Swanson... you get the picture. Seriously, Derek Jeter thinks David Spade is a stone pimp.
If you're like me, you might wonder how a skinny, five-foot-five, actually-not-all-that-funny comedian manages to pull so much impressive tail. On an Adam Carolla Podcast episode with Bill Simmons, Adam espoused the theory that Spade attracts so many hot babes because most women have low self-esteem — and these women are attracted to Spade because they see all the other hot babes he's dated and they want to be included in that group. Sure, it's a somewhat misogynistic theory, but have you got a better one? "Maybe he's just a great guy!" Yeah, OK.
A few things before we get into the draft talk... I attended the sports blog conference, Blogs With Balls, in New York City over the weekend. It was my first trip to New York and it was a cool opportunity to meet fellow sports bloggers and attend panels featuring some of the top sports journalists and bloggers out there. Hard for me to say what the highlight was, but I spotted Kris Humphries at Pearson Airport before my flight to NYC and I told him that I thought he was better than Reggie Evans. Locker room dissent!
I'd also like to take this opportunity to brag about nailing my NBA Finals prediction of Lakers in 5. Hey, I'm wrong so often on this blog that I have to point out when I'm occasionally right. As for all you people doubting Phil Jackson's legacy — stop hatin'. Every coach needs great players to win championships, but not every coach with great players actually pulls it off. I'm not trying to debate whether or not Phil Jackson is better than Red Auerbach, but Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn, Sam Jones, John Havlicek and Frank Ramsey (all Hall-of-Famers) were among the players on Red's nine championship teams. Besides, it's absurd to compare eras more than 40 years apart. I'll ask you this, however... if Phil Jackson isn't the best NBA coach of the past 30 years, who would you put ahead of him?
There have been many attempts to predict college players' stats in the NBA. None of them works all the time (after all, nobody could have predicted Gilbert Arenas exploding or Adam Morrison completely busting), since a lot more comes into play than simple statistics: basketball IQ, work ethic, character, athleticism, injuries, opportunity, and system. However, it is always a fun exercise to do these projections, at least just to compare to a fan's hunches on draft night.
What surprised me most about the news that the Raptors traded Jason Kapono to the Sixers for Reggie Evans was the fact that Bryan Colangelo actually found somebody to take Kapono off our hands. I maintain that he was the worst player in the NBA who played over 1500 minutes this season. I think we all felt a similar emotion when Colangelo traded Rafael Araujo to Utah for Kris Humphries and Robert Whaley in June 2006. But hey, you know what they say — one man's trash is another man's... well, Hoffa was still trash but the Jazz didn't know that at the time.
I try not to write about personal stuff too often in this blog, but I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who donated in support of the "Walk Now for Autism" event I participated in on Sunday. Thanks to your generosity, my wife, Katrina, and I were able to raise $4,000 towards autism research and awareness in Canada.
My son, Max, (pictured) is autistic and he is currently unable to verbalize the gratitude that Katrina and I have for all the support we've received — both in donations and from people who promoted our cause on their sites. Kat, Max and I hope to participate in this event every year and continue to raise autism awareness and promote the need for government-funded treatment and behavioural programs. With your continued support, hopefully Max will be able to thank you himself one day.
Here are some photos and video from Sunday's walk, if you're interested.
While it was never really in much doubt, it was actually quite helpful of Chris Bosh to announce that he will become a free agent after the 2009-10 season and that he intends to ask for a maximum contract. This is what most of us would do in his situation, so as much as we might fantasize about Bosh extending his contract this off-season (for the maximum allowable three years) for less than the maximum amount, he is going to do what is best for him professionally and financially. He's going to hold off until after next season when he will likely sign a six-year contract in the range of $130 million dollars.
Where he signs that contract could (and actually should) be decided as soon as the NBA Draft on June 25th. If Bryan Colangelo is smart, he will trade Bosh now when he might still get 80 cents on the dollar for him. If he waits and tries to trade him before next season's trade deadline or in a sign-and-trade at the end of the season, Colangelo will get even less in return.
Thank you, Bruce Buffer, for the great intro! I'll be liveblogging Game One of the NBA Finals tonight at 9pm EST with Tas Melas of The Basketball Jones. Join us on theScore.com if you'll have a computer or smart phone handy.
As for my prediction, I think the Lakers match up well with the Magic — unlike the Cavs. Bynum has the capability to manage Dwight Howard in single coverage and Phil Jackson can throw Pau Gasol, Trevor Ariza and Lamar Odom at Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu so the Magic won't shoot 48 percent from three-point range this series, as they did against Cleveland. I say Lakers in 5. What's your prediction?
Leading up to the 2009 NBA Draft on June 25th, I'll post "Draft Talk" updates at least once a week so we can discuss the latest rumours, combine results and various draft news tidbits.
The full measurements from the draft combine are now up at Draft Express. In terms of players that should interest Raptors fans, James Harden performed really well with excellent scores in bench press, vertical, agility and 3/4 court sprint — all in spite of having one of the higher body-fat percentages. If there was any doubt before that Harden will be the first shooting guard to go in the draft, there shouldn't be, now. The Raptors will definitely have to trade up into the top five picks if they want to grab him.
It's always exciting when your team gets into the NBA playoffs. Players start talking about stopping the opposing team's star, coaches discuss progress from the year before, general managers get the accolades for assembling a playoff team and, most of all, fans get to hope that their team will go all the way to the Finals. Unfortunately, only one team ever lifts the Larry O'Brien trophy in June – and it's always one of the top regular-season contenders that wins it all. There are no Cinderella stories in the NBA, so to speak.
Leading up to the 2009 NBA Draft on June 25th, I'll post "Draft Talk" updates at least once a week so we can discuss the latest rumours, combine results and various draft news tidbits.
One of the hardest things for people to do — especially on the keyboard warrior realm of the Internet — is admit when they're wrong. But I want to set an example here and speak for all us when I proclaim... we were wrong about the Rashard Lewis signing.
That's right, I said "we". Come on, are any of you going to claim that you thought it was a good move when Orlando committed a mind-blowing $110 million over six years to Rashard Lewis in July 2007? At the time, I remember that the widespread reaction outside of Orlando was a mixture of confusion and incredulous laughter. Sure, Lewis was a nice player but that seemed like wayyyyy too much cap space to commit to a complementary scorer. It was widely assumed that Magic fans would be rueing that deal as soon as, say... now.
Most of you probably already heard about this, but Jose Calderon announced on his website yesterday that he's skipping the European championships this summer so he can rest up and return to the Raptors fully healthy next season. It's nice to see that Jose has his priorities in the right order — unlike a certain other former Raptor who fucked us over by ending his NBA career when he played for Spain even though he was hurt.
Jose took a lot of flak this season but when you consider that he wasn't 100% most of the time, it really isn't fair to judge him on his 2008-09 performance. There's no denying that he has his limitations — mainly that he's a lousy defender, he can't throw alley-oops to save his life and he's obviously not very comfortable on the fast break. It was easy to focus on these deficiencies when the Raptors were losing, and they were exacerbated by the fact that he was playing hurt for most of the season.
The biggest shock of last night's NBA Draft Lottery was the fact that the Sacramento Kings thought it was a good idea to send Chris Webber as their representative. Seriously, do you think "good luck" when you think of C-Webb? OK, he made $175 million in his NBA career and got to slam Tyra Banks in her prime — point taken. But it's not like he was ever known for coming through in the clutch. Even if the Kings did win the lottery, I expected him to panic and pass the pick to Larry Bird and the Pacers.
Of course, what actually happened is that the Kings got boned by the ping-pong balls and ended up with the fourth pick in this year's draft. They probably needed a top-two pick more than any other team — not just because they suck but because they could have used a potential superstar to re-energize their moribund fan base. Instead, I hope Sacramento is hyped for the beginning of the Jordan Hill Era!
I've always been intrigued by the different styles of play on a basketball court. Some coaches, like San Antonio's Gregg Popovich and Cleveland's Mike Brown, prefer the slow-it-down-to-a-crawl style, while others, like Golden State's Don Nelson and New York's Mike D'Antoni, prefer the speed-it-up-and-throw-up-the-first-available-shot style. Does one coach know something that the other doesn't?
