Archive for Raptor Rants

Raptor Rant – Show Me The Money

September 3, 2009 Nat Raptor Rants

boshmoneyI will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game *featuring you*, while singing your own song in a new commercial, *starring you*, broadcast during the Superbowl, in a game that you are winning, and I will not sleep until that happens- Jerry Maguire
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We may be in the summer of ’09, but the speculation over the summer of ’10 has gone into overdrive. Recently, ESPN had its panelist turn their attention to next off-season when the likes of Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are set to enter the free agent market. Of the 52 panelist, 49 believe that Bosh will be relocating next summer. I beg to differ…

Chris Bosh will stay… but it will cost “Max Money”
He may be the forgotten man when talking about the class of ’03, but make no mistake he has always believed he belonged. With the way the CBA is structured, the Raptors maintain leverage in contract negotiations – $$ and length of contract. It was evident from the day he signed the 3 year deal, he was positioning himself to get the most money at the same time leaving the door open to go to a different team. He is still young and not at a point where he is chasing a ring, if anyone thinks money isn’t the driving factor in Bosh’s decision – they are delusional.

As a player who has had a history of knee problems, leaving $30 million on the table would be a huge risk. One bad break and he may never recover that money over the length of his career. The only way he would leave that cash is if he was guaranteed to make it up in endorsement dollars south of the border. With the economic climate unpredictable, and a significant amount of competition from other sports/teams, its highly unlikely that Bosh can be assured to have any major marketing money thrown his way. It doesn’t help that his style of play and position carry a low demand compared to Lebron, Tiger, Kobe, Jeter and Wade.

The option of leaving $30 million (approx.) on the table would only come into play if the team regresses to a point where he loses faith in the direction the team is going. If this is the case the likely destinations mentioned are New York and Miami. Both teams can give him a max contract (albeit less than what the Raptors can), but would be handcuffing the team by doing so.

New York has only 1 max contract available if projections of the luxury tax and salary cap for next season are on point. If that contract goes to Bosh, it means they can’t add Lebron or Wade to play alongside him. What is the lure to go to another struggling team that is essentially in a worse position than his current team? Miami could retain Wade and give Bosh a max contract but it would cripple the team in terms of depth.

Theoretically, it may sound like a good idea for Bosh to try to get in the spotlight, but realistically there are too many factors that make leaving the Raptors illogical at this point in his career.

Is he worth a Max Contract?
Bosh is going to get paid – one way or another. There are only a handful of superstars the rest of the teams have cornerstones. Chris Bosh may not be a 1st team All-NBA, but he is a franchise player who is the face of the Toronto Raptors. When a team is in a position to retain its franchise player, its highly unlikely that they pass on the opportunity.

Bryan Colangelo loosened his collar and went to work this off-season. One can make the case that these drastic changes were made to keep Bosh in Toronto. But, even if Bosh walks, the moves made this summer have left the team in a good position moving forward. The pressure is on Bosh to earn his contract as much as it is on anyone else in Toronto right now.

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Raptor Rant: Quick Change

August 27, 2009 Nat Raptor Rants

I turned to my twitter followers yesterday and asked them to tell me in 140 characters or less, what they think/expect from the new look Raptors.

@raptorshq: A better showing than last year, but without solid defenders and rebounders in the starting five, another first-round exit.
@stackmack: excitement. enthusiasm. passion. intensity. competition. work ethic. unknown adventure. dunking prowess. athleticism. camaraderie. change.
@basketballbuzz: Raps will finish 5 or 6 in the east with a record of 45-37. CB4 all-star again. D is still an issue they will allow over 100pts pts!
@norsktroll: Lets say I’m happy my team isn’t on the hook for $130 million for Hedo, Bargs and Jack :)
@dinonationblog: A break out year for CB4, improved 3 point shooting but a team that will still have challenges on the Boards and D. Playoff team 5th
@altraps: team will not make the playoffs (barely), it will be an injury plagued season, Bosh will be traded in the summer. Raps win 38 games.
@Liston: 6th place. Balanced scoring. Better offensive system. Still allowing easy looks. Bargs still not tough enough. CB4 shines – best yet
@davesenior: I expect lots of talk about transition buckets without seeing any, and even less defense then last year.

Consensus: Mostly Positive

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Since this is my blog I figure I can use a lot more than 140 characters to tell it how I see it!

Going into the off-season it was evident that the product on the floor was not working and needed some repairs. As a man who hates to lose, Bryan Colangelo got to work. He pulled off this transformation in record time, leaving the Toronto Raptors looking they paid a visit to Joan Rivers’s Cosmetic surgeon and settled for the most expensive package – Result: completely unrecognizable!

On cue, I will now break down the Raptors post-surgery…

The Good: You go under the knife because you are unhappy with the way you look. Colangelo did just that with the Raptors, reworking every part of the team that wasn’t doing what it was supposed to. With 13 new faces on the roster from opening night last season, “new look” is a major understatement.

Weakness at the wing? Enter Hedo Turkoglu. Backup PG? Enter Jarrett Jack. Lack of toughness? Enter Reggie Evans. Need some veteran presence? Re-enter Rasho Nesterovic. No Bench? Enter players like Antoine Wright, Marco Belinelli and Amir Johnson.

It’s unclear if Colangelo went into this with a definitive plan but from the way it has gone down the new look Raptors should be vastly improved. With any cosmetic surgery, its all about “expectations”, and the real the result will only be visible once the bandages come off. If everything comes out as expected the team should be a shoo in for a post season appearance.

The Bad: Every type of cosmetic surgery has its healing time before the bandages come off. In the case of the Raptors, a major concern is how long will it take for this team to work out the kinks. With this level of change, I fear the adjustment period will go on longer than most would like. Every position on the team has been modified in some capacity. There are many steps the team will have to take before it the results translate into wins.

Rebounding was an issue in the past but until players settle into their roles and commit to working on crashing the boards, it will remain an issue. Team defense was non-existent, inject 10 new players and its bound to take time for them to get used to where each guy is usually on the floor, meaning there will still be issues with rotations and help defense. To top it off, all this change has to be managed by a rookie coach. He is respected by the few who were on the team last year, but building a relationship and understanding with the new faces is not going to happen overnight.

The fans will need to be patient. If the team tries to take off the bandages prematurely in order to get it rolling – there is a risk of breakdowns later in the season. Optimistic I may be, but a fair amount of growing pains are expected through the first part of the season.

The Ugly: There is always a risk when you opt for surgery and even the best surgeons can slip. Colangelo worked his scalpel to the best of his ability, but there is that chance that when the bandages come off that things don’t quite look like you had pictured them to. The newly constructed team is not immune to freak injuries, locker room issues and so forth. I have complete faith in Bryan Colangelo but one major injury could set this team back a year and a whole lot of $$

With the winds of change blowing through Raptorland, I found it fitting to share one of my favorite halftime shows. What Bryan Colangelo pulled off was almost as mind boggling as these two.

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Raptor Rant: Speechless

August 20, 2009 Nat Raptor Rants

Just as the chatter in Raptorland was dying down from the Amir Johnson / Sonny Weems acquisition, Doug Smith from the Toronto Star dropped this little tidbit. Fans in Toronto have been on a constant high this summer but if Bryan Colangelo does in fact manage to move Marcus Banks, I for one will be setting up shop in front of my newly created shrine…bcshrine

Words of praise from the believers

@gagangandhi I heard it happened, but there’s no footage. Can Bryan Colangelo really walk on water?

@leperdusier If Bryan Colangelo manages to get Matt Carroll (or a basketball) for Marcus Banks, I think we may have to declare another #BryanColangleoDay

@stackmack 9 new faces, 2 new coaches. 1st-year head coach Colangelo does not fear failure, he refuses to stand still w/ disappointment.

@dinonationblog If B.C moves Banks I have a new religion and it is Colangeloism and I suspect many Raps fans will convert.

@allancayenne Colangelo continues to work magic this off season. From now on I will call him Gandalf

@EliteGirlJen Is there anything Bryan Colangelo can’t do? I swear he once made wine from water…

@hoopsaddict If I were a GM and Colangelo was calling I wouldn’t pick up the phone

@the_tigercub If BC rally trades Marcus Banks, I’m gonna get drunk. Hammered. Beat me if you can.

@DeenLen I dreamt last night that Rob Babcock became NBA Commissioner & denied all BC trades, I woke up in the fetal position!

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Raptor Rant – Never Underestimate an Athletes Will to Win (Race to 50K)

July 16, 2009 Nat NBA Observations, Raptor Rants, Where's your head at?

cb4 V/S cv31

These are the dog days of summer when it comes to the NBA. You are trying to get excited about next season and summer league ball just isn’t cutting it.

Enter twitter…

I joined twitter about a year ago (@Nat77) and used it primarily to connect with other sports bloggers and fans. It was different from facebook because it lends itself to discussions. Slowly it began replacing my RSS reader and before I knew it I was addicted. Twitter has become a primary platform for athletes to connect with their fans and several athletes on twitter have echoed my sentiment, admitting the addiction.

Sometime last week, Charlie V(@cv31) challenged Chris Bosh(@chrisbosh) to see who could amass 50 thousand followers first. It’s not uncommon to see athletes conversing over twitter and this was a chance for fans to take part. The wager was that the loser would have to star in the winners video on Youtube. CV wanted Bosh to do the Shane Mercado and Bosh left it up to his “twitter army” to decide CV’s fate if he came out on the losing end of this. Bosh started off the challenge behind Charlie by about 2k followers but with the help of some major twitter spam, live chats and a entire country backing him – he managed to take the lead. The two started pulling out all the stops. Bosh pulled out the free stuff card and CV raised using the charity card.

This was all meant to be in good fun but at some point along the way it started to annoy the diehards. These guys were straight up begging – Charlie V even offered up $3100 worth of diamonds if he won! At any given time my entire twitter feed was taken over by the two, lost in the mix were tweets from people that were actually offering up intelligent material to ponder over. It came to a point I just wanted one of them to win quickly so my twitter could return back to normal. I found it amusing at times to see these athletes showing how bad they wanted to win even though this duel wasn’t going to be settled on a basketball court. No one likes to lose, especially two guys who play a sport for a living – winning is everything.

Late Tuesday night,  Bosh was down about 500 followers with under 1000 to go. It was the 4th quarter, it was go time and for a change Bosh came through in the clutch. He thanked his fans, CV gave him a virtual pat on the back and the world was spinning again.

In other news…

Lets NBA! – Trading away Jawai and Humphries suddenly left the Raptors lacking depth at the 5 spot. It has been widely rumored that the team is interested in bringing back Rasho Nesterovic using their bi-annual exception ($1.9M) Rasho has openly stated that he has always loved the city and the feeling is the team would welcome him back with open arms. The reunion will happen, the only question remains is – when?

Jacked Up – We are at the halfway point regarding the waiting period to see if the Pacers are going to match the offer sheet signed by Jarrett Jack to join the Raptors next season. Multiple sources have mentioned they don’t believe that Indiana is in a position to match but as we have seen this summer (See: Marcin Gortat) it ain’t over till the clock strikes 12. For what its worth, Bosh did have Jack as a guest on one of his live chats where the two spoke about Jack coming up to Toronto soon to find a place to stay – that is if bosh doesn’t plan to set up the bunk beds in his home. The two were roommates in college and from listening in on the chat, they seem to have maintained a solid friendship. I wanted the team to draft this guy in place of Joey Graham in 2005 and getting him now with the experience under his belt would be so much sweeter.

D Squared – The heir apparent in Toronto coming through “As Advertised” at NBA summer league. In 4 games, he has averaged 16.3PPG and 4.5RB (DD stats) He has been aggressive in all the games, his jump shot has been falling and aside from the production at the FT line, DeMar DeRozan is already proving to be just what this team needs. He has not shied away from having the ball in his hands in late game situations and the coaching staff have trusted him to make the correct decisions on the floor. With just 1 game left to go, he knows what he has to work on for the rest of the summer. There has been nothing but praise about this guy from the day he got drafted – check out this interview by Holly MacKenzie from the score – and we are still a few months from seeing him take the court in Toronto, but I believe this rookie will be in ROY conversations by mid January.

Delfino – $5 million? Apparently that’s what its going to take to get the former Raptor to return to the ACC. News came out yesterday that he was offered $4million a season and he was none to thrilled by that number. Personally, $4 million is still too much for a guy who didn’t show us enough the first time around and I would be hesitant to bet the bank on him. Sure he fills in some of the leaky spots in the rotation but I would much rather have Jack split time at the 1 and 2 and sign a Matt Barnes or Linus Klieza to fill the holes at the backup 3 spot. Either way we probably wont see any movement on this issue until the Jarrett Jack deal is finalized.

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Raptor Rant – Draft History = Epic Fail?

June 18, 2009 Nat NBA Draft, Raptor Rants

draft The NBA season wrapped up earlier this week and now the only thing people are talking about is the draft. It’s that time of year when the possibilities are endless and we get a major overdose of the words “upside”, “potential” and “athletic”. Workouts and interviews, teams want to know what the prospects can bring to the team on and off the court.

Every team wants to improve and most go the best player available (BPA) route, but I am convinced that the Raptors rank towards the bottom of the list when it comes to draft success. I have been following the team closely since 1997 and each year I cringe when the commissioner reads out the selection. Things started off well for the franchise with solid picks including Damon Stoudamire, Marcus Camby, Tracy McGrady and Antawn Jamison (that became Vince Carter). You can knock Isiah Thomas for a lot of things he did while GM of the Raptors, but drafting players is not one of them. Since then it has been more of a hit and miss affair. When Glen Grunwald came on board as the GM, he brought along Jim Kelly as the head scout. Fans of the team often express their rage on draft picks and all fingers point to Jim Kelly who remains employed by the Raptors to date under the title of Senior Director, Player Personnel.

1st round picks since inception (1995): 15

Isiah Thomas Era (1995 – 1997): Damon Stoudamire, Marcus Camby, Tracy McGrady
Glen Grunwald Era (1998 – 2002): Antwan Jamison (Traded-> Vince Carter*), Jonathan Bender (Traded), Aleksander Radojevic, Morris Peterson, Michael Bradley, Kareem Rush (Traded-> Chris Jefferies*) Chris Bosh
Rob Babcock Era (2003 – 2005): Rafael Araujo, Charlie Villanueva, Joey Graham
Bryan Colangelo Era (2006 – 2008): Andrea Bargnani, Roy Hibbert (Traded)

The Raptors have never picked lower than 21st in the Draft and 9 of their 1st round picks have been of the top 10 variety. All that said, the names in the list above are far from stellar and there have definitely been some questionable picks along the way. I question why the team loves to draft based on a position they need to fill rather than the BPA. I question why the team is so caught up in character they overlook the pure talent of the player. I question the method to their madness! Of their 15 picks, the Raptors have pretty much blown 5 of them…
- Jonathan Bender was traded for Antonio Davis and that worked out better for the Raptors as Bender never lived up to the hype.
- Aleksander Radojevic played all of 12 NBA games and was the first of many big man busts to don the Raptor uniform.
- Michael Bradley managed to stay in the NBA 5 years but totaled only 173 games due to perpetually being on the injured list.
- Chris Jefferies had TMac’s sleepy look with no skill to go along with it. He made it through 2 years and a total of 72 NBA games
- Rafael Araujo somehow managed to suit up for 139 NBA games but to date this pick brings out the most rage from Raptor fans.

Every single one of these picks were made when Jim Kelly has had a major role in the scouting/draft process. I know its not fair to pick him out from what is probably a team but he has been the only constant during the time in question.

2nd round picks since inception (1995): 11

Isiah Thomas Era (1995 – 1997): Jimmy King
Glen Grunwald Era (1998 – 2002): Tyson Wheeler, DeeAndre Hulett
Rob Babcock Era (2003 – 2005): Remon Van de Hare, Albert Miralles (Traded-> Pape Sow*), Roko Ukic, Uros Slokar
Bryan Colangelo Era (2006 – 2008): P.J. Tucker, Edin Bavcic (Traded), Giorgos Printezis, Nathan Jawai

Looking at these names, there is not a single player drafted in the second round who has played at least 82 games in the NBA. That in itself is pretty telling number, because even though it’s not uncommon for players drafted in the 2nd round to never make it, a 0% success rate is sad. This information on its own may not mean much, but when you look at the percentages compared to overall draft results it gives you a clearer picture.

# of 2nd round picks – not including the Raptors (1995-2008): 400
# of 2nd round picks who have played** in the NBA – not including the Raptors (1995-2008): 136

This shows that 34% of players picked since ’95 have played at least 82 games in the NBA. The second round of the draft is where teams take that stab in the dark and the players picked are raw experiments, or as of late, cap decisions.  Bleacher Report and Hoop Doctors have covered the topic of some of the best players to come out of the 2nd round.

This information may seem like a loose end but I will be back later in the week with part 2 of this series to tie it in with players who were passed on by the Raptors. Part 3 of this series will involve comparing the draft success of teams who have enjoyed a similar level of success to the Raptors over the past 15 years.

(*) Statistics of player acquired were used for this analysis
(**) Must have played at least 82 games to qualify
All data was collected from NBA & Basketball-Reference

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