-OK, I'm back just in time to catch the Colangelo show as it makes its return to Phoenix. And would you believe it, BC is on the air with Chuck and Leo!!!!! Listening to him makes me wish he was our announcer, too. He could be a groundbreaker: the fist GM/announcer in NBA history! Hell, if they let the clowns/homers from Boston on the air, what possible argument could they make about letting BC be the voice of the Raps'? Plus, he seems emotional enough that you know he would just be unable to hold back at times and would criticize the hell out of anyone and everyone. As an example, he just blurted out "that's offensive goaltending!!!', and you could tell he knew he was lucky to have not yelled "for fuck sakes, that's offensive goaltending". As a sidebar, Bargnani just had a sick dunk after running the floor like a gazelle. Wow, that was sick. I have mixed emotions about seeing highlight dunks like this: on the one hand, I'm happy because it shows me how good it is, on the other I'm sad because I know I'll have to listen to the Swirsk near piss himself about a million times over the next decade or so.
-Is it just me, or does Bargnani seem to be able to get his shot off more or less at will? I mean, its unblockable because he releases it from about 13 feet off the ground, it has a really high arc (as opposed to the flat bricks we see from, say, Fred Jones) AND he gets it off super-quick. His upside may ultimately turn out to be this: he becomes a scoring force unlike just about any other, a big with an inside/outside combination never seen before from a big like him. As my fellow Raptor fan Cheese likes to say "it's all about matchups, and he's a mistmatch". The fact that he might even turn out to be a decent defender (see: 6 blocks the other night) makes his potential all the more exciting.
-Jose's injury really has 3 upsides: first, it means more D-Mart!!!!. Seeing as how I think our GM should also announce, I don't think it should come as a surprise that I think D-mart should be officially given a player/coach designation. Someone needs to make this happen, and soon. I could get my wish next year. Here is how I envision it playing out: he signs on as an assistant, but keeps himself in "game shape" (a term I use extremely loosely) and he becomes our 16th man who signs ten-day contracts when needed due to injury. Don't laugh, I am dead serious. You heard it here first. Secondly, it means Jose's value might decreaase and hence we can get him cheaper in the offseason, although with the non-lifethreatening injury, he will be back sooner than expected. And third, it only helps us come closer to deciding to officially enter the Greg Oden/Kevin Durant sweepstakes. On this last note, with Bosh's injury looking worse by the day, we may be going in the tank sooner than later. I'd love to see a starting line-up of: Uros at centre, Bargs at PF, Tucker, Joey G and the Hump. Trade MoPete, sit down Rasho and Parker and let Jorge in the game only when neccessary (ie. when the Hump is in foul trouble). Wonder how David Stern would feel about that? As I've often opined, we need one more high draft pick if we want to be good for a long time, and this is the draft of the fucking decade. Wouldn't it just be very Raptor-like of us to be a solidly middle of the pack team and lose our draft pick to Charlotte when the chance to get a great player at 10-15 is highest? By the way, it's top 16 protected. Pray that the Nets don't suck so much that we actaully win our crappy division.
-Jalen Rose: is this the rematch against your old team that you had in mind? The next time we see him it will be on RaptorsTV, which is something I personally can't wait for. He's my second choice behind Colangelo to replace Leo.
-Note to Kurt Thomas: you can't guard Il Mago. The Italian Assassin just showed Thomas his baseline drive move, which is quickly becoming his go to move when driving from the mid-range.
-PJ just made a nice place down-low on Amare. I'd love to see him get lots more burn, particularly in place of the Hump, who has gone from being a "wow, maybe we have something the Jazz missed" type of player into a "well, he ain't ever gonna be a piece on our championship team" type of player in about 5 seconds. He is the exact opposite of PJ: the more you see him, the less you like his game and the more you see how limited he is. PJ, on the other hand, has the type of game that you start to appreciate more every time he's on the court. The more he plays, the less ridicolous the idea of a 6'4" power forward seems.
-Favourite D-Mart moment of the game: when the Swirsk mentioned that he spoke to the fan-favorite before the game and asked him if we was "thinking he'd get 20 minutes", to which the savvy veteran replied "more like 20 points". No career-15th-man in league history has had as much confidence in their abilities as D-Mart. I'm sure he is convinced that he could go off for 50pts/20assts/10rebs. at any time if just given the right chance. He is bordering on delusional, which only makes me like him even more.
-The Swirsk is getting a bobblehead? What is the world coming to? We're going to have to listen to Chuck talk about this for years.
-Pat Burke + Jalen Rose on the court at the same time = garbage time. 0-1 for the Burkester. HUGE defensive rebound, met with cheers. Blown past by Bargs. PJ, continues to look good, scoring a bit. Oh my GOD, TJ just hurt his back. He's holding his back, and walking like an old man. Between him, the Weepy-One (Calderon) and the sympathy crier (Greta Garbo, who also didn't play the second half with a calf injury) we might be the biggest pussies in the world. Charles Oakley is rolling over in his fucking grave. On the bright side, things are looking up for D-Mart.
-December 20th, mark it on your calendar, it's official: time to tank. No Bosh, no Calderon, no TJ, no Garbo = great reasons to toss in the next 60 games or so. When taken in consideration with the post on Oden/Durant above, the choice is clear.
-Pat Burke just hit career trey number 4. As would be expected, the place erupts. D-Mart comes right back to stick it in his face!!! Is there anything better than garbage time? And look, it's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's Slokar!!! Let me officially add this to reasons for tanking the season: 5 months of nothing but garbage-time-all-the-time. Holy Shit Slokar just hit his first NBA bucket!!! And now it's Slokar v. Burke, mano-e-mano, a battle of titans!!! Slokar drives to the basket wildly, getting by Burke before tossing up a brick!! Wow, could this game have ended in a better, more fitting way? And with that, i'm out, because there is no way I can top what just happened.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Temporary Hiatus
Hey all, I'm on hiatue until the 18th or 19th due to exams. Hope you'll come back afterwards!!!
Saturday, December 2, 2006
Why is Uros not in the D-League?
Update: This article over at the Sun was written before my post, but I just found it now. It has his stats from last year, but other than that it more or less just has the same conclusion as me: Uros Slokar is not going to be in T.O. for long. Just as importantly, there is a nice little blurb about D-Mart's clutch 3.
While I understand that it could be doing him some good to be practising with vets like Rasho, Greasy Garbo and, of course, player/coach D-Mart, the simple fact is he needs to get some serious burn if we want him to improve. Does anyone else remember the good it did for Pape to go down, get some minutes, put up some numbers and gain some confidence? The irony here is that were it not for Pape's injury I wouldn't be writing this entry and Uros would be in Italy, maybe playing more minutes, maybe not.
Pape was getting a ton of chances with the Raps to show that he was capable of providing something (anything!!) of value to the team. When his opportunity came knocking, Spiderman Sow accomplished one thing: he managed to get it through managements thick skulls' that he needed more experience of the non-NBA variety before he could be ready to contribute! When he returned to the Show, he was still a player with obvious limitations, but he was nonetheless a better player who was that much closer to being an asset, potentially of the tradeable variety. Can you imagine how crowded the frontcourt would be if he was still around? I doubt he'd be getting much playing time, but I guess that's a moot point either way due to the neck injury.
The case for sending down the Slovenian Assassin is even more clear cut than it was for Sow (I'm posting that just so I can call plagiarism on the Swirsk when he inevitably comes up with a nickname for the kid). Unlike Pape, Uros isn't exactly playing much . When your career stats read "No Data", I think it's a sign that maybe a change of scenery might be a good thing. He essentially hasn't played major minutes in years after being stuck behind Il Mago and others at Bennetton. If he is expected to improve, he needs to play a lot of games while getting a chance to make his mistakes far from the bright lights of the ACC, so that if he ever does play for us he won't have to go through the growing pains while hurting his team in the process (we all remember how fun that is with Hoffa, don't we?).
On the bright side, when he has gotten a chance to play, he has not looked like a rusty player. He looked good in the Summer League at times, all the internet reviews of his play at Jr. and Sr. International competitions has been postive, and he has showed glimpses of certainly having the potential to be an NBA-caliber player. My major concern is that if he doesn't start to play, and soon, he may never get there.
Speaking of his potential, I see Slokar as being the able to take over a lot of the minutes that the club is currently giving to Rasho, likely to begin some time in mid-2007 or 2008. If Colangelo is to maintain good control of the salary cap over the next few years it will certainly be helpful is he able to replace our current Slovenian Big-Man's production with a younger, and more importantly, much much much cheaper version.
While I understand that it could be doing him some good to be practising with vets like Rasho, Greasy Garbo and, of course, player/coach D-Mart, the simple fact is he needs to get some serious burn if we want him to improve. Does anyone else remember the good it did for Pape to go down, get some minutes, put up some numbers and gain some confidence? The irony here is that were it not for Pape's injury I wouldn't be writing this entry and Uros would be in Italy, maybe playing more minutes, maybe not.
Pape was getting a ton of chances with the Raps to show that he was capable of providing something (anything!!) of value to the team. When his opportunity came knocking, Spiderman Sow accomplished one thing: he managed to get it through managements thick skulls' that he needed more experience of the non-NBA variety before he could be ready to contribute! When he returned to the Show, he was still a player with obvious limitations, but he was nonetheless a better player who was that much closer to being an asset, potentially of the tradeable variety. Can you imagine how crowded the frontcourt would be if he was still around? I doubt he'd be getting much playing time, but I guess that's a moot point either way due to the neck injury.
The case for sending down the Slovenian Assassin is even more clear cut than it was for Sow (I'm posting that just so I can call plagiarism on the Swirsk when he inevitably comes up with a nickname for the kid). Unlike Pape, Uros isn't exactly playing much . When your career stats read "No Data", I think it's a sign that maybe a change of scenery might be a good thing. He essentially hasn't played major minutes in years after being stuck behind Il Mago and others at Bennetton. If he is expected to improve, he needs to play a lot of games while getting a chance to make his mistakes far from the bright lights of the ACC, so that if he ever does play for us he won't have to go through the growing pains while hurting his team in the process (we all remember how fun that is with Hoffa, don't we?).
On the bright side, when he has gotten a chance to play, he has not looked like a rusty player. He looked good in the Summer League at times, all the internet reviews of his play at Jr. and Sr. International competitions has been postive, and he has showed glimpses of certainly having the potential to be an NBA-caliber player. My major concern is that if he doesn't start to play, and soon, he may never get there.
Speaking of his potential, I see Slokar as being the able to take over a lot of the minutes that the club is currently giving to Rasho, likely to begin some time in mid-2007 or 2008. If Colangelo is to maintain good control of the salary cap over the next few years it will certainly be helpful is he able to replace our current Slovenian Big-Man's production with a younger, and more importantly, much much much cheaper version.
Friday, December 1, 2006
Update on the MoPete Trade Speculation
Michael Grange has a good article over at The Globe about the MoPete situation. From what Colangelo is saying, MoPete is definitely going to be available (he said that he is "definitely moveable player"). I hope that isn't just BC fluffing the market in hopes of getting more for him, but, like I've said before, he should just try to get whatever he can in the way of future assets. Hopefully MoPete lights it up when he gets back and some team falls in love with him. Either way, I think he's done before the deadline, assuming there are no major injury developments.
Meet TJ's new personal coach. And F.Jones', Greasy Garbo's, Joey G's....
Well, Colangelo has added a shooting coach, and check out this Star article about him. My favourite part is him entering the 3-point contest for 500 g's. If he wins, we should sign him. I refuse to believe he's that good. He sounds like the "Swirsk of Shooting" to me. That is not a compliment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)