The “who is that chubby guy in black with one earring sitting on the Cats bench” edition.
Adams – a cabbagepatch kid. it just occurred to me that we have spent some of our cap space on a Cabbage Patch Kid. Sweet.
Bargnani – the trade-talk continues to swirl around him amongst the interwebs. I have always been riding him, but this year the flashes he is showing makes me wonder what is underneath that layer. Is he just increasing his value or is he trying to re-pay BC’s faith? Either way, he is making me sit up and take notice. Much more active on both ends of the floor than he has ever been. Even followed his shots a few times, looking for a rebound.
Bosh – incredible game. Classic take-over game. The refs got in his head again and he took charge. Unlike another player who sat watching, he saw the mismatches and took advantage of them. He singlehandedly won this game and tore the heart out of the Bobcats and made the crowd turn on the hometeam. This may have been one of the best single-man Raptor performances I have ever seen. 2.5 blocks on one possession, never looked gassed, and he was having fun. Stats? How about 30/15 and 12 of 19? Sick. Wicked. Nasty.
Calderon – Felton made Calderon look lost. Maybe I should just leave the name of the opposing PG blank every game and make it easier to fill in, since it seems Calderon can’t stop one ant with his foot, let alone another professional PG. He did make some nice shots though, thereby stemming what was then a Bobcat tide. We can’t keep relying on him offsetting his weakness, though. I would love to see a scrimmage with him up against Solomon and see how many times Will burns him.
Graham – you ever been to a restaurant, order something you’ve been looking forward to a long time, but you end up getting something else served to you by mistake? You’ve been Joey Grahamed.
Humphries – get outrebounded by a bunch of stumpy men, so what do you do? Insert Jason Kapono!!! Humphries is still riding the “coach-will-love-me-soon” train. He was put in for just over a minute to close the game and didn’t do himself any favours, though.
Jawai – dreading the first heartstopping Raptors game. Who knows what could happen??
Kapono – dead-eye shooter and only 2 shot attempts in 21min? That’s kinda like having a kickstand-like penis and being a virgin. I’d be okay with it if he was being shut down or made up for it with great D, but that would be far from the truth. A pathetic game on both sides of the ball.
Moon – like Bargs, every game brings with it the anticipation or dread of watching Jamario taking jumpers or chances on defense. Today was a good day. 10pts, 9 boards in, like Bargs, a very active game. His teammates did a good job of feeding a hot hand and, as per usual, his offensive game somewhat disappeared in the second half, but he stepped up defensively being as active around the boards as he has been all season.
O’Neal – please feign surprise when I say he got in early foul trouble, didn’t hit a shot from the field the whole game, did grab 9 boards, but at least 4 of them were against people that barely could reach his nipples. The $20mil man sat out the fourth quarter and, once the starters were taken out in garbage time, was not sitting anywhere near them. This HO needs a pimp hand bitch slap and soon. This Twin Tower tandem should have had their way with a Bobcat front line, especially with Okafor with the flu. Instead, it was Bosh and Bargs that made the opposition pay when it mattered.
Parker – a horrible, horrible start to the game, but he turned it around some in the second half. Still, not good enough. While never an allstar, at least last year he was consistently good. This year even his defensive stance is in need of work. He entered a summer of uncertainty, being a moveable piece, so I expected much more from him to start the season to show he is worth keeping. Disappointing.
Solomon – beautiful pass, albeit late, to Bosh in the low post and very active hands coming up with a timely steal, but playing like a third-stringer at best. Bosh and Bargs hitting their shots allowed him to amass 6 dishes, but I can do that after eating chinese food. Still appears that he has the nod as the backup to Jose in Sam’s eyes. Scary.
Ukic – why the long face? Not your fault you aren’t up to NBA standards. Oh wait…it is. Get to the gym, lad. You have a lot..and I mean A LOT…of work to do.
Driving The Bus: Chris Bosh
Under The Bus: Jason Kapono
Game Theme: Indeed.
29 Raps
I thought Solomon did a good enough job. At least he had one play where there was some DRIBBLE PENETRATION done by him which opened things up for a Bosh dunk. I didn’t see that once from Mr. half-court Calderon.
Is it evil that I’m starting to think we should have kept Ford and traded Jose?
Not evil at all. Hell, if our GM got HO for TJ, we probably could have received a Kobe/Bynum package for Jose or..or…all the Lakers and Spurs in a package deal for Bosh!!!
Salary Cap be damned!!!!
Seriously though, TJ was right behind Jose in PER last year, and he CAN stop an ant with his foot. Oh well, can’t live in the past I guess.
Here’s hoping that Bargs becomes more consistent though today he was money playing against the shrimps.
P.S. good and timely recap. Keep up the good work.
Calderon was a +16, Felton a -10. Kapono was being watched very closely. And played decent D in first half.
JO got all his points from the line.We now have a second big who can get to the free throw line. 9 rebounds in the first half and once again he just makes people think twice about coming inside.
Bargnani continues to look good. Sam is showing confidence in him and it appears to be paying off.
well, it didn’t look good for a looong time. that horrible (i mean, really horrible) call on bosh at the and of the 1st Q seemed to take them out of the game. then AP’s ukic-like foul on felton from half-fucking-court at the actual end. oh, and sam’s T before that. what’s that, an 8 pt turnaround? nice.
anyway, can’t disagree much with any individual assessments. no one’ll know what went on during halftime, but it’s clear (at least to me) that moon had a, uh, talking to from someone…he came out in the 2nd half & did EXACTLY what the team needs of him, showed a great nose for the ball & was much sharper on his closeouts…and even ventured into the key ON OFFENSE! i know, i nearly shit my pants too…
JK – wasn’t looking for his shot, but his D was ok – i liked how he was getting right up in the grill of felton, forcing him to put it on the floor. i guess if you don’t have a shot of stopping the drive whether you’re playing off or not, might as well take away the jumper & hope you have help.
JO – wouldn’t bag on him too much for the foul trouble, one was simply a bad call (should have been a charge), and he had a few others in which the perimeter guys (ahem, mr. calderon) let their guy go w/o much resistence, and JO got over late to help. was pretty good on the glass – i could care less against whom he was rebounding, point is, he got the fucking ball. split hairs much?
bosh – no need to say a thing. my man crush is in full bloom.
bargs – enjoy it, ’cause that’s probably the best all-around game we’ll see out of him. lord, please let me be wrong. just think…this was as good as i’ve seen him play in quite a long time, yet he’d have to AVERAGE these kind of #s for him to not be considered a bust. yeah, i see that happening. but hey, enjoy it, i will…his good performance only drives up his trade value. oh wait, i forgot, bargs is untradeable. question: has there ever, in the history of sports, been a player less deserving of the ‘untradeable’ tag that BC seems to have bestowed upon him?
AP – i dunno, he just seems to be slow, mentally & physically. his age & early heavy minutes seem to be taking a toll. we don’t expect much, but he does have to be steady & provide a deep threat to keep D’s honest. he’s such a good guy, it’s hard to bag on him, and he is trying, but still. starting 2’s in this league don’t get much worse. that may not be nice, but it’s honest, at least with how he’s playing now.
will – thought he did a pretty good job, his penetration opened things up for bosh, and he had some really nice feeds, and excellent on-ball D.
bench – what you’d expect. joey was stellar. i had a nice laugh when he & hump battled each other for a rebound in garbage time, and lost it to the kitties. superb.
Didn’t we say that the best game we saw from Bargs was his 19 point game against Golden State. How soon we forget! Now I ain’t anointing him or anything but lets give credit where credit is due. So far this season we seem to be seeing more of the potential from his rookie campaign.
Tinman
Just feel I need to remind all of someones preseason’s picks.
@ Phi [L]
vs GS [W-?]
@ Mil [L-?]
vs Det [L]
@ Atl [L-?]
@ Cha [L-?]
Khandor, you had them at 1-5. You should find another sport.
Another gut-wrenching display by the Raptors … almost like playing musical chairs bball-style …!!!
Interesting game tho … If you think fast, you can play fast, but if you think slow you definitely cannot play fast.
In the second half the Raptors played up-tempo PHX-style and overwhelmed the Bobcats with our bigs going to the hole. That plus defending against the in-out at the arc. It took a lot of effort but it payed off as the Bobcats whithered all because they had no really big men in their frontcourt.
This is how the Raptors must play to win, but can they sustain such an effort with such a short bench rotation? Solomon did okay as did Moon, but is this only a flash in the pan display? Mitchell will have to wind up the team and force them to think fast and crash the boards too.
The Raptors must learn to play an up-tempo style of game because slow deliberate half-court sets just won’t do it. Perhaps Mitchell will find a few more effective players sitting on the bench if he makes this change.
If Bosh continues this production, he will definitely be an All-Star starter.
Here’s why I’m ecstatic about this year so far: development. I really had my doubts about whether Bosh would develop into a true franchise player, the kind of guy that can put a team on his back in the playoffs, but he seems headed in that direction. And let’s be realistic here, this team is 2 years away from a deep playoff run at the least – you’re not going to get out of the second round when you’re paying 20 million to your third fiddle for single digit scoring and rebound games. So what matters is how things are shaping up for when JO either resigns for a lot less money once his contract is up or a trade, and things are looking solid. Bosh is developing, he and Calderon are going to have a couple years of working together to hone that pick and roll game, Bargnani is showing enough signs to convince some optimistic GM that he’s worth trading for (or dare I say, actually developing?), and we’ve got enough spare wing players to make some deals work financially. I know that doesn’t make watching this team struggle out of the gate a bit any less painful, but it’ll be worth it in 2-3 years.
Ugly game until the 4th quarter. Yertu – love your comments on the whole, but don’t see how you can proclaim we’ve seen the best all around game out of Bargs’ 5 games into his 3rd season. How many NBA players peak at 23 years old? I think we’re nowhere near seeing the best of this Kid. Not too long ago the naysayers proclaimed Bosh would never be a 4th quarter player, would never be a leader, would never be a 20-10 guy, blah blah blah. Not saying Bargs is anywhere near the level of Bosh, but we’ve seen a lot of progress from last year, and I think he’s only going to get better, not worse.
Trade talk re: Bargnani? Unless you’re talking about Doug Smith’s mailbag, we must be on different interwebs.
Love the site (dynotherms connected and all) but that’s lazy blogging.
Not sure, G…(and congrats to your parents for the amazingly simple to remember name)
In our chat today, a Bargs/Wallace swap was mentioned, then we have:
http://www.raptorschat.ca/forums/index.php?showtopic=14562
http://mykes.sportstwo.com/Thread/View/NBA/TORONTO/2058387
http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96492 http://hoopsaddict.com/2008/01/11/before-the-trade-deadline-andrea-bargnani/
amongst others.
===
yertu, I wouldn’t bag on HO as much either, except we are seeing some consistency in early foul trouble and his ass on the bench in the fourth. Tough to watch at times. Everybody has off games, though, and maybe his success on Friday took something out of him since he looked pretty gassed after that game. Here is hoping he was sitting in the fourth to rest up for tomorrow, but that said, he should have been taking advantage of his opposition today.
Celtics are playing the Pistons tonight, so lets hope they are a step behind us tomorrow.
re. bargs – i’m actually an admitted apologist. i didn’t have a problem with the pick, and defended it fairly vigorously, and still do (for that draft, at the time, it made sense. sort of. ah, fuck it, who am i kidding?). i don’t think he’s a horrible player, i’ve been really impressed with his defensive improvements, and am happy to see he’s rediscovered his shooting touch (somewhat). all the things he’s improved on are either through hustle/determination/conditioning or tweaking his shot. the areas in which he continues to struggle (body control, positioning, rebounding, moving without the ball, moving with the ball, dribbling without either turning it over or committing a charge) are things that are more basic in terms of actual basketball ability – some times, guys either ‘get it’ or they don’t…and he may actually ‘get it,’ apparently he’s a pretty smart dude, but i have to wonder. i don’t expect him to be dealt, and i’d be more than happy to eat my words if he does become better than i think.
mark – really? up until this season, you weren’t sure about bosh? hey, that’s cool, i guess he isn’t the prototypical superstar, and he certainly has stepped it up, which is something i wasn’t sure he’d be able to do. the only thing i’d like to see him improve on is his tendency to fall in love with his jumper when facing a good low-post defender. but that’s picking a pretty fine nit.
The Raps lose and we pick on all the players and coaches and they win and, well, we pick on all the players and coaches! Look at the line-up and I don’t think anyone is thinking championship, but so far we’re winning some games, what’s wrong with that? I think JO will get better, maybe not significantly, but maybe in a few weeks or so he might get better at scoring again. And I like what Bargs is doing so far. The only guys that bug me are Moon and Kapono who have some freaking talent, but just lack something…
A trade for a decent 3 or 2 would be nice, but so far so decent. I’m not going to complain too loudly about a win (even if it’s super ugly). Thank the basketball gods for Christ Bosh though!
I’m with mark on not being sure of whether or not Bosh was franchise material. Last year I thought his defense and offense were both sooooooo SLOW! Almost like he was working in slow motion or something. This year he seems faster and stronger. Definitely a star worth putting some Raptor hopes on!
Tinman,
When you lie about someone else …
I’m sorry. I didn’t know that forums and a raptors webchat from (in the order of your links citing the most recent post) May 08, Dec 07, July 08, Jan 08 qualified as “continued” or “swirling.” I find your examples especially questionable in light of the legitimate and current trade talk swirling around Gerald Wallace, Al Harrington, etc. Anyone can find suggested trades for almost any rotation player on realgm, espn or any of their teams’ sites/forums but, like the trades mentioned in the Torstar mailbag, that talk is largely insular, unfounded and speculative. Are there grounds to say Bargs is increasing his trade value in the light that, as yertu (and Colangelo) has said, Bargs is untradeable?
Simply, I think that your glib comment re:Bargs and unfounded trade talk is not to the usual blogging standard I find when I read rapsrep.
…
And congrats to you for being you. :P
What makes talks “legit”? Major media coverage? Forums and mailbags don’t count as interwebs? The supporters of a club shouldn’t have an opinion?
Bargs salary as a number one pick coupled with his play over the past few years has made him virtually untradeable. He might bring value in his last year, but, as always, you have to measure future vs present. When you have to do that with a guy that goes hot and cold like Melanie Griffith during menopause, it’s tough to do. And having to rely on the guy who selected this mountain of desire #1 to make a decision that we all know will have to amount to him admitting he made a big mistake doesn’t sit well with some.
Too bad you weren’t around last year to let us know about all that fascinating speculative talk about the Primoz trade before it happened. Could have had a scoop.
In the Bob Marley vein: One love.
Legitimate as in possible, not legitimate as in valid. I never dismissed the validity of non-MSM trade talk, but I do question the talk when, as the situation stands, the trades suggested aren’t a possibility.
You can One Love all you like but you took the passive-aggressive shot at my monosyllabic parents. For shame.
Reading all the above comments I wonder if any of you watched the game and saw that the Raptors WON the game. 6 down 76 to go, still a work in progress @ 4-2 & 3-1 on the road, with lots of room to grow. Don’t think they will win the NBA championship this year, but everything else is still a possibility.
Bosh is definately a Franchise Player and All Star. This is his team.
Calderon is an All Star player, and team leader, averaging 9.3 ast’s.
Bargnani will be a Star, maybe not this year, but he will not be traded by BC as long as he continues to grow his skills, as he has shown this year so far.
Sam Mitchell is Colangelo’s choice as coach, and he will remain as coach of the Raptor’s.
O’Neal is taking fouls trying to take charges, but his timing is off right now. His line of 9RBS,3ORBS,2AST,2STLS,1BLK,5/6FT’s was a solid contribution to the win.
Will Solomon has contributed 12 Assists in his first 3 games of the season, a good beginning and will continue as the back-up PG.
Ummm, I guess none of you have noticed this before maybe Im seeing things but Bosh always seems to have career games against bottom of the barrel teams. Would he drop 35-40 points Against Boston, Detroit, NO, LA?. No way does he make the same impact that he made today. Against top teams he manages to get shut down. Fact.
Okafor with the flu you say? Charlotte one of the worst teams in the league? Cool.
This is what I consider trade talk swirling amongst the interwebs:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081110.RAPANALYSIS10/TPStory/Sports
http://dimemag.com/2008/11/the-truth-about-the-gerald-wallace-trade-rumors/
Current, not insular, not unfounded… and it will propagate throughout the interwebs at large. But, true, it’s speculative. If your comment re: Bargs/trade was Grange’s impetus for his article, then this site has the voice/influence you want. But to say that there was trade talk swirling without any proof was journalisticallly misleading and lazy and I said something about it. The last thing I’d like to see is someone consider any writer at this site the blogging version of Marty York.
LOL Tinman
Yo G (if that’s your real name)….now Chisholm is talking about it.
Seems my peeps in the office know of what they speak.
Yours?
and, looky looky, Doug Smith also says there is truth to the rumours.
Lets see, 2 beat grunts who have daily access to the team and management talk about/confirm the rumours. Yup. Really out on a limb there, G-money.
Aren’t you talking out of two sides of your mouth? You explained my comment about lazy blogging with links to months old forums. NOT that you had “peeps in the office”. I would have much preferred it if you had lead off with the fact that you do have an ear in the office and that you could attribute your comment to a source (even if you have to qualify it as “anonymous source”, “team source” or as Grange did “league source(s)”). That’s the difference between being throwing up a lazy comment in a post and being a responsible blogger. I stand by my comment.
And. I did give you preemptive (speculative) props in my last post. But you’d rather snark than acknowledge that.
“If your comment re: Bargs/trade was Grange’s impetus for his article, then this site has the voice/influence you want. But to say that there was trade talk swirling without any proof was journalisticallly misleading and lazy and I said something about it.”
Also. Look at post 22 again. Then look at Chisolm’s article. It references the Grange article I linked. Grange is Patient 0 in this case. Or, to call back your metaphor, he’s the initial cool breeze that led to the swirling trade talk that is now amongst the interwebs (but hadn’t been, as you stated in the OP).
I don’t have an office source. I get my news from papers, websites and guys like you. If your office source is legit and you weren’t yukking it up, you and Raps Rep could’ve been that first wind with an insightful trade senarios article (citing an anonymous source) rather than having it be an unfounded aside in a props/disses column.
Either way, though, who is to say what is and what isn’t “legit”? If someone reads it in a beat grunts column and thinks it’s the gospel truth, yet poo-poos forum talk thinking it is without merit, I (personally) believe that is folly. At the end of the day, nothing is “legit” until a GM comments on it.
Case in point, although not trade related, someone posted online before the start of last season what the intro song/theme would be. It was shrugged off, but damn if they weren’t right. Granted, not the same scope, but same theory.
Initially, the reader should consider the source to determine if it’s legit or not. And ultimately, time will prove whether or not there was legitimacy/veracity. That doesn’t necessarily mean readers should blindly trust the MSM but there are vetting and editing processes that their writers need to go through before they can go to press. And if a writer abuses what can be considered a source, they’ll end up writing in the Metro News about how a source says VC wants to come back. And no one ever considers them legit.
As far as forum talk not having merits, that depends on whether I’m interested in news or opinion. It seems as if you’re trying to cast me an anti-interwebs light when I’m in a pro-news-right-now! light. If a member of a forum can consistently provide news that I can’t get from the MSM, I’m all for it.
This is an awful awful example that makes your’s extremely manly and relevant… but there’s a poster on the televisionwithoutpity and fansofrealitytv forums who has consistently leaked who’s won America’s Next Top Model for the last 5 seasons or so. Even if she provides bad info for this season, I’d still read what she says for next season and consider her legit. If the intro song dude comes back to you guys later with another production change story, maybe you make it an article. Or maybe it’s just not news-worthy. I thought your initial comment needed more explanation and a source. But I apologize if that’s me coming into your house and telling you how to run it.