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"He tends to take some criticism because he has sort of a weird body, but he takes a lot of pride in his game." |
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For this Friday's commenter draft, we're going to pick moments that made you feel ashamed to be a Raptors fan. Maybe you've learned to laugh about it now, but every Raptors fan who has been following the team for at least the past few years can think of a moment that made you want to throw out your Raptors jersey — or, if you're Efman, pry your Raptors license plate off your car with a crowbar. The rules, as always: I make the first pick and then you each make your picks in the comments. Once somebody makes a pick, it's off the board. And once you make a pick, you can't make another until five more picks are made after yours. My initial instinct was to go with the obvious choice (hint: 81) but then I remembered Rafael Araujo drilling a dunk attempt off the front of the rim while he roared his Brazilian war cry. At that moment, I thought, "OK, this guy is never, ever, never, ever, neverino going to pan out." As you probably know, he was traded to Utah in June 2006 for Kris Humphries (who actually has turned out to be a useful big man off the bench) and ended up signing a one-year contract with Spartak St. Petersburg in Russia in the summer of 2007. He's not on their roster anymore (I can't read Russian but I went by the birth dates) so I don't know where he is now. All I know is that this moment brought home the horrible realization that the Raptors shit the bed with that draft pick — that and the fact that the most frequent forum poster and blog commenter during that time was RaptorBlog's own "PickedBeforeIggy". What Raptors-related moment made you want to stay home from work or school so you wouldn't have to hear about it the next day? |
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For some strange reason, a site for market traders (Is that what they're called? Can you tell I'm not anywhere close to being rich?) ranks NBA team nicknames and the Raptors come 23rd. In a similar vein, Supersonicsoul ranks NBA logos. Blog-a-Bull reports that CSKA Moscow has confirmed the rumor that they never actually made an offer to Ben Gordon. Somebody hand Ben a towel. You know, to wipe that egg off his face. I honestly can't understand why some Bulls fans continue to defend this guy. You've been... ThunderSucked! (Na na na nahhh na na nahhh nahhh!) I'm really only linking this because I'm a mental midget and this headline cracked me up. Anyway, another blog rightfully shits all over the the new Oklahoma City team name and logo. Ron Artest had the Houston Rockets logo shaved into his head, and it actually looks pretty dope. Once, when I was 12, my buddy Jeff shaved an "F" into the back of my head. You know, for "Foot". No, I wasn't the coolest kid in school. Why do you ask? Jamal Crawford has a blog. It's called "Crawful to Crawesome". Amazingly, he admits that he needs to improve his shot selection. |
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OK, I'm not going to waste any time getting right to this one. If I ran the NBA, I would institute a rule where a shot made from behind the halfcourt line was worth four points. Sure, some of you think that's a ridiculous idea. You know what else they probably once thought was ridiculous? Democracy! Also, the three-point shot, which was instituted in the NBA in 1979. I was four years old then so I can't remember what people thought of that rule at the time, but I'm sure there were blatherings about "the sanctity of the game" and "this is just a handout for unathletic white guys". (Dale Ellis begs to differ.) Before you dismiss the idea, consider this scenario: Your team is down by four points with three seconds remaining. You know you only have one possession left. Under the old rules, you'd be screwed. Under my new rule, you could go for the hail-mary halfcourt shot to send the game into OT. Sure, you'd probably only make one out of every 10 of those shots. But when one of those actually goes in? Tell me that wouldn't be one of the highlights of your season! As Raptors fans, this brings us to ask: Who would be the Raptors' four-point shot specialist when there's only a few seconds left on the clock in a quarter? Call me crazy, but I can think of a couple of reasons (one and two) why Mr. Christopher Wesson Bosh could very well be that guy. |
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Empty the Bench's latest post in his "Scribes of the NBA" series is an interview with yours truly in which I weigh in on such important topics as my favorite SCTV performer. The Oklahoma City Thunder website is live. Lame logo, boring colors. I have to agree with my co-worker, Lennon, who says it looks like an Arena Football logo. The Oklahoma City NBA Sports Blog doesn't like it either. They might want to consider coming up with a better name for their blog before throwing stones. I'm just sayin', is all. True Hoop suggests that Ben Gordon may have made up the offer from CSKA Moscow. Henry also reports that Monta Ellis probably isn't being entirely truthful about what caused his injury. ESPN reports that NBA rookies Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur were thrown out of the NBA's rookie transition program because they were caught smoking weed with some ladies in their hotel room. In case you didn't know, the purpose of the program is to teach young men like Chalmers and Arthur that it's not a good idea for NBA players to smoke weed and hang out with groupies. The ironing is delicious. SLAM Online plays "Truth or Myth" with Allen Iverson's legacy. In a conference call with Sixers media, Donyell Marshall credits Kevin O'Neill with becoming such a deadly three-point shooter from the corner. Hornets247 thinks the Hornets could win 61 games this season. Free Darko's Bethlehem Shoals puts the Republican Party on blast. I tend to avoid talking about politics here, but this rant was too good to ignore. |
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We've still got some time to kill before things get interesting in the NBA, so I'm starting a new series of indeterminate length where I proclaim what changes I would make if I ran the NBA. Being an online guy, I want to start with an upgrade I would make to NBA.com. As most of you have undoubtedly surmised, I'm kind of an NBA stats geek. I don't live and die by stats as absolute measures of players and teams, but they're certainly useful tools. But you know what's not useful? NBA.com's statistics section, which flat-out sucks. First of all, it's not intuitive or user-friendly. But more importantly, it doesn't have any of the cool advanced stats like True Shooting Percentage and Net48 I can get from basketball-reference.com or 82games.com. I know what some of you are thinking: Most fans don't care about advanced stats so why bother with that complicated junk? To which I respond: Is that any way to run a business? I've managed an online sports channel with over a half-million unique visitors per week so I know from first-hand experience that sports fans love stats and the more you give them, the more pages they'll click through. And more pageviews means more ad revenue. With this in mind, I would hire some of the guys behind Basketball Reference and 82games to beef up and improve the overall experience of the NBA.com stats section. I know for a fact that the NBA already collects the raw data they need for this. They just need to package that data in a pleasing way for all us fantasy basketball freaks and hoops stat geeks that currently look elsewhere for our fix. To give credit where it's due, I have to give the NBA props for its cool and useful NBA Hot Spots page that allows you to see every player's shooting percentage from 14 different offensive zones. It would be a lot cooler if I could link directly to a particular player's Hot Spots so that I could easily show you how ridiculously wet Steve Nash's shot is from anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, but I don't want to quibble. Because I'm a benevolent NBA commissioner who wants to receive suggestions from his lowly customers, tell me what you would like me to do to improve NBA.com. Just to get this out of the way, cheerleader nudie shots are not happening so don't ask. Pictures of Glen "Big Baby" Davis in a Speedo? Now, that could be arranged. |
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Arsenalist is concerned that the Raptors don't have any young prospects to fall back on if the the O'Neal/Bosh/Calderon plan doesn't work. Meanwhile, RaptorsHQ is worried that the Raptors don't have a perimeter player who can create his own shot late in the clock. If he can shoot like he did last season, I would assume that Jose Calderon is that guy. Doug Smith lists the three worst Raptors training camps he's been to. Barrie, stand up! DaBullz.com reports that CSKA Moscow has offered Ben Gordon a one-year, $5.5 million net contract — equivalent to $8.9 million in NBA money. It seems like nobody thinks he's going to take the offer, but I wonder if he's stubborn (and stupid) enough to do it just to prove a point. Hoopsworld lists the five teams most likely to become the next championship contenders. Guess which team isn't on the list? Wow, you got it first try. You're good. You know who's huge in Indonesia? Danny Granger. Would you like to hear a rap about Lenny Wilkens from the intro to the 1989 NBA All-Star Game? Silly question — of course you would! Edited to add: Because I was accused of "hating" on RaptorsHQ in the comments, here's my response showing that Calderon's shot-making ability at the end of the shot clock compares quite favorably to other players in the league who are considered the best at making those shots. I'm not saying that Jose is the ultimate late-shot-clock shot creator, but the numbers show that my statement has merit. |
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Josh Smith led the Atlanta Hawks to their first playoff appearance of the decade, he's a borderline All-Star at the age of 22 and he's unquestionably one of the most exciting NBA players to watch. In case you forgot, here are some J-Smoove highlights from last season. (Warning: terrible song, but sweet highlights.) It's not often that you can say that a five-year, $58 million contract seems like a bargain — but in terms of market value, the Hawks' new deal with Smith is a good one. Interesting note on Smith: He was the youngest player to reach the 500-block mark when he did it at the age of 21 years, 88 days. If he plays into his mid-30s, he's on pace to crack the Top 10 list for career blocks — and at six-foot-nine, he would be the only non-seven-footer in that group. Josh Smith portrait by Joel Kimmel — Click image to view larger version |
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Arsenalist finds a T.J. Ford interview on Youtube and wants to see Jamario Moon improve his mid-range game. According to NBA Hot Spots Jamario made 41.1 percent of his shots taken between 15 feet and the three-point line last season, which isn't great but was hardly the worst on the team. Comparatively, Bargnani made only 35.7 percent of those shots (ugh) while Bosh made 41.5 percent. Calderon, Parker and Kapono all topped 50 percent from that range. Dino Nation Blog had an interview with Eric Smith last week and follows that up with today's conversation with Paul Jones. Eric thinks Bargnani could have won Rookie of the Year in '07 if he hadn't missed a month with appendicitis and thinks "blogs have opened up a dangerous precedent". (Ed. note: This may the first time I could say that I've been potentially considered dangerous. *Makes gang sign*) Jonesy, on the other hand, likes blogs and reports that a Western Conference assistant told him that the O'Neal acquisition makes the Raptors the third-best team in the East. Cuzoogle worries that the Sixers' signing of Donyell Marshall could come back to haunt the Raptors. Considering that Marshall hasn't shot better than 35 percent on treys in any of the last three seasons and made only 28 percent of those shots last season, I'm not quaking in my Timbs. Sixersoul defends Iguodala's ability to play two-guard. I wasn't aware this was in doubt. Jamaal Magloire signed with the Miami Heat. Cue the people who think the Raptors should have signed him because he's Canadian. Jason Quick of The Oregonian has a lengthy profile on Blazers sixth man Travis Outlaw, who declares that "I shoot jumpers like layups". Conversely, I shoot layups like jumpers. Do you have a degree in Communications or Marketing? Then you might be qualified to be the Mascot Coordinator for the Phoenix Suns Gorilla. Knickerblogger is pretty low-key about the obvious PR value of the Knicks' latest acquisition — Patrick Ewing Jr.. They got him from Houston for Frederic Weis — who might still have Vince Carter's baguette imprinted on his forehead. |
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