The “sorry it’s late, but at least I have Bell, a PVR, and didn’t have to watch a pixel fragmented feed you Rogers saps” edition.
Adams – A is for An immense waste of money. Who the hell needs to get hurt in order for this stump to see the floor? Hell, the mascot is hobbled and our version of Mr Potato Head can’t get on the floor.
Bargnani – B is for Believe. I will fully admit when I read this morning that he would be a starter that I thought we would all bear witness to Andrea V1.0 where he looked as uncomfortable as a black man working in a bedsheet factory in Alabama. Instead he was AB2.0 and brought it. That drive and kick in the first was almost jaw dropping and the stare-down of the ref on that horrible offensive foul call was something that I’d love to see more often. He committed 4 fouls, which actually I didn’t even realize, but more than made up for it in determination and maturity.
Bosh – B is for Best on the team. While some may want you to believe he is hatching an ego or takes nights off, I just don’t see it. While he didn’t dominate today, he still left his mark. Simply put, tonight was an example of all our other wins this season: without him, we win none of them.
Calderon – C is for Calling in some favours with the man upstairs to make sure Jose comes back soon.
Graham – G is for Golly, I guess I should try harder in practice.
Humphries – H is for Hustle. If ever there was a night to whip out the video camera if you are Humphs agent, it was tonight. Passing on a dime, cutting to the hole, rebounding, keeping the ball alive, getting phone numbers from the girls in 121…if my boy was playing Monopoly, he’d own all your shit and be selling it back to you while playing footsy with your girl under the table.
Jawai – J is for Jumbo size heart…..and that’s not a good thing.
Kapono – K is for King of stepping on the line. Seriously, is there a record for most games in a row that a player steps out of bounds upon receiving a pass? At least he shot the ball today, though, going 50% across the board including two 3s. Actually did a passable job on defense too, but, man, buy smaller shows or learn to walk on your toes.
Moon – M is for Maybe get used to starting the game in warmups. While the first half was far from sexy, the second half saw our ‘bama boy come alive. Active on both ends and looking a little perturbed, he played what may have been his best half of basketball this year, which isn’t saying a whole lot. I still think if he came back to being a cutter or driver, he could slice up the second stringers pretty well.
O’Neal – O is for Oh look, I still can’t shoot to save my life. A good game which could have been great if he found the hole. 2 nice blocks (he had to rack up a few fouls before doing something productive of course) made the ACC lemmings sit up and take notice…and so it should for $10mil per. Liked his work on the boards, but still needs to step up and box out. His second best game of the year.
Parker – P is for Please for the love of God, must I always be defending these guys??! I really actually felt for him today. He has been going through a rough streak and now he has Dwayne Wade waiting for him on Santa Claus Parade day. Nice gift. Well, Wade got 29, but it took him 34 shots and 4 free throw attempts to do it. Parker, on the other hand, went 5 for 9 and won the game. Who’s got next?
Solomon – S is for See, I told you we didn’t need this Spanish dude. Willy made me look Da Man today, proving that, once and for all, Roko should be dressed up as a bellboy and made to carry a real ballers bags. Will had the hands of a cat burglar, the eyes of a panther, and the shot of…well…Matt Bonner. Still, if I gave you a stat line of 15 and 11 for Jose, you’d be happy. Getting that from Solomon is worthy of euphoria.
Ukic – U is for Understanding he shoulda probably stayed in Europe. Zero points and 4 assists in 14 minutes is worthy of Mateen Cleaves, not some guy a few fans thought would be doing 14 and 7 on the regular. Only way he’ll do that is by playing those numbers at the roulette table at Casino Rama.
Driving The Bus: Andrea Bargnani
Under The Bus: Roko Ukic
Game Theme: Indeed.
29 Raps
“at least I have Bell, a PVR, and didn’t have to watch a pixel fragmented feed you Rogers saps”
But do you have an HDTV? The stream was actually broadcast in 640×480 (a good change from the garbage justin.tv feeds), so if you output the stream to standard TVs, it would have looked almost exactly the same as any other game broadcast. It’s just that the high fidelity of computer monitors combined with having your face less than a meter away from the screen make the picture look less than par.
Hrm… “less than par” is a dumb phrase. Try “unappealing” instead.
why go through the hassle when I don’t pay for TSN2 and get it for free?
And, yes, I have HDTV, which I consider to be slightly better than useless, but only slightly.
Thank god for Il Mago putting on a show. I didn’t even know he could do half the things he did last night.
O’Neal makes 20M you Bell-loving twat.
Funny shit though, I’m waiting for you to run out of the Jawai punchlines but so far no luck. Ukic didn’t have a bad game, his AST/TO ratio tonight was 4:1, that stat made Calderon 8M per year, no reason its not going to value Ukic to epic status in no time.
Here’s what bugs me about Parker: Every time he makes a mistake or misses an open look he slaps his hands together and winces like a little bitch. Seriously, you can almost hear him saying “Gosh darn it”. Other than that, I don’t mind the guy except that I think he’s highly overrated by most analysts. Nice guy though, looks like Michael Scofield.
Yes, Arse, 2 blocks at 10mil per = 20mil.
Ukic just looks scared, fragile, and unsure of himself. Kinda like RapsFan with no books.
But seriously, a man with those qualities cannot hold down a PG position at the NBA level. Sure, as a third stringer, but not a primary backup.
Love,
Villa.
You sure can tell the career path of a player based on 6 games. Any idea what the ceiling for Chris Bosh’s yet to be conceived son is?
I lied earlier, I’ll make the PG post in the morning. In case anyone’s waiting for it.
Darn. And here I was putting raptorsrepublic.com on auto-refresh.
O’Neal makes 42 million over two years you dumb c*nt.
Ukic is 23 and Solomon is 30….Ukic deserves at least a year in North America before he has some cretinous Toronto geek commenting on his abilities.
Bosh is the best on a team full of mediocrities….so what….he fucking well should be “the best”. He still needs a bunch of stars in front of him to win against an elite team.
i always said parker looked like scoffield
well, at least the o’neal critiques are consistent. he definitely should be making a better % of his shats, though if we’re waiting on him to be a high (i.e. 50%+) perct. shooter, i wouldn’t hold your breath. and yes, he should really start boxing out. most of those rebounds were uncontested, or came off his own miss, or just fell into his hands. and the heat frontcourt was really sucky. and the blocks? meh. it’s not like they changed the tone of the game or anything.
i find it interesting that bargs STILL doesn’t have one game in which he’s pulled in more than 5 boards, yet he’s lauded for having a significant impact on a game, even though the majority of what he did came in the first half. i’m ecstatic to see he’s back to playing at the level he was as a rookie. i don’t expect much, and he’s delivering. just shows how little we expect, when he delivers a 12/4 line & we think it’s a considerable achievement. woohoo, he’s playing defense like an NBA big. sweet.
soloman played better than i thought, a few shaky moments here/there, a few missed opportunities (bosh had one great cut down the middle of the lane, and will saw him, but hesitated, like he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to make the pass), but for the most part, it wasn’t bad. a 15/11 game from jose would have had devlin creaming his pants & mentioning ‘all-star’ 658 times during the game (and a game like that from TJ last year would’ve had the haters out in force due to the 4 TO’s). roko…hmm, i’m thinking he needs some time. let’s just accept that ‘08/’09 will be his intro to the NBA, and temper our expectations until he can dribble the ball up the floor without looking like he’s gonna throw up.
hump – great game, exactly what they need from him, and why many think he’s got such great potential. could the message have finally been received?
parker – D’d up wade about as well as could be (well, for him), forced some tough shots and prevented (for the most part) the patented ‘i’m totally out of control, i’m going to flail my arms/legs & throw it up & hope to get bailed out with a call’ drives (and we wonder how the heat won it all…). also hit some shots. always nice when your shooting guard scores.
yertu, I am far from saying that Bargs is an NBA powerhouse on either side of the ball. However, he does look quite a bit different than previous years and might actually live up to this seasons hype….which is a lot to say for him. You take yesterday’s game, especially as a starter and how he came out, and apply it to last year and it’s probably a top 3 game for him last year.
With respect to Humph, I can honestly say as a big fan, he will be back to his usual ways in the next game or two. Either that or he will be back to the bench. The kid was on a hot streak yesterday, but his mind wanders.
alt – i hate slagging bargs, i do see improvement, but he was just so horrible last year, what he’s doing so far is really just a re-establishment of his game from late in his rookie year. he’s like the kid who failed 8th grade, and put up C’s the 2nd time around…a big improvement over the failed year, but C’s??? c’mon, shouldn’t this stuff be easy by now? the kid may turn out to be a scholar, but odds are, he’ll peak as a C+.
hump – exactly. how does his mind wander? i mean, it’s not like the coaches are trying to get him to do anything but hustle & bang, are they? he’s still really young, i’m just hoping that this is the year that a little light goes on in his head…like, he realizes what he needs to do to get consistent PT, which will lead to more opportunities for him to shoot. baby steps.
Yertu give Il Mago some credit. He’s playing in a different position and ATTACKED the rim on no less than 4 of his buckets. He defended inside and outside reasonably well, so maybe I just have low expectations, or maybe Bargnani is shaping into the guy we hoped he would be. As for the 4 rebounds… I say not his fault.
There was ONE occasion where I saw a long rebound and I thought he could have tried harder to get it (but then again it was straight on and hard to judge how high the ball went over his head) but the rest of the time it was O’Neal gobbling up uncontested rebounds like they meant something, even if it meant jerking it away from Bargs. He got the ones he got and just because O’Neal padded his board stats pulling down garbage (and eating the rest of the teams numbers) doesn’t mean Bargs didn’t work for the ones he did.
He should still box out with more ferocity though. I’d like to see HIM wrestle the ball away from O’Neal (as long as it doesn’t cause a turnover…) Miami could only contest a few boards, and this was not a game where Bargs lack of boards hurt the team, so I don’t get the downs pointed at him after that game.
Much too hardon O’Neal. He played the game we want from him. Him being our third or fourth scoring option and cleaning up the glass.
With Bosh and O’Neal(and yesterday Humphries) working the boards, we have to set a reasonable rebounding target for Bargnani. This season, expecting over six rebounds a game might be unattainable.
agreed. i’ll give bargs some credit, on the condition that the nick ‘Il Mago’ be put on ice until, y’know, he does something to deserve it. playing at an average level shouldn’t be considered ‘magical.’ i get no joy from being critical, i put myself out there as a bargs supporter in the past, and at heart, i still am. i was wondering how long it would take before the old ‘he’s playing a different position’ line would be brought out. i’m starting to wonder what ‘position’ he played in europe. was it PF? we know it wasn’t centre, or SF, since both are ‘new’ to him. must have been PF. you’d think he’d be a better rebounder or low-post player if that were the case. i guess PFs in europe play the game differently.
don’t get me wrong, i have no expectations that bargs will ever be a decent rebounder, i’m just getting a little tired about hearing how amazing he’s playing. pretty soon, we’re going to realize that ‘amazing’ is really just ‘average.’
that’s an interesting way to look at it…o’neal gobbling up all those rebounds that otherwise would have gone to bargs. JO, what a whore-ish stat-padder. i guess when bosh grabs 15, it’s ’cause no one else is working hard on the glass, and he has to step in. when JO does it, it’s cause he just wants the stats. squeeze that rationale in there…
Tinman, what Yertu said in his post above with respect to HO sums it up. Especially given how close he is to the rim on most of his missed shots this season. Again, I’m still giving him 20 games to catch his breath which is probably 10 more than he should get since he has been working out for most of this calendar year. And, as I said, he played a good game yesterday, easily his second best game of the year.
Yertu, I think expecting boards from Bargs is just folly. It’s not going to happen unless, like what happened on the majority of HO’s board yesterday, they just fall to him. I’m just happy seeing him take it to the rim and not relying on the outside shot so much. At least he is THINKING of putting it on the floor.
It’s always interesting to read what the Raptors’ local media and fanbase has to say, in-game and post-game, when the team wins … as far as attributing reasons for that specific outcome.
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FWIW …
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re: hump – great game, exactly what they need from him, and why many think he’s got such great potential. could the message have finally been received? – by yertu
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re: With respect to Humph, I can honestly say as a big fan, he will be back to his usual ways in the next game or two. Either that or he will be back to the bench. The kid was on a hot streak yesterday, but his mind wanders. – by AltRaps
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PALYER POS MP FGM-A 3FGM-A FTM-A +/- OR DR TR AST PF ST TO BS BA PTS
BARGNANI F 31 6-12 0-2 0-0 0 1 3 4 3 4 1 2 0 0 12
O’NEAL C 33+ 4-14 0-0 3-3 +9 5 13 18 1 4 0 3 2 4 11
SOLOMON G 33+ 5-9 2-5 3-4 +3 2 2 4 11 3 1 4 0 0 15
HUMPHRIES – 16 5-6 0-0 4-5 +9 4 5 9 3 0 0 0 0 0 14
… it’s not Hump’s ‘potential’ which is relevant … it’s HIS PERFORMANCE PRODUCTIVITY.
Hump is who Hump is; ‘good & bad’ … ‘nothing more & nothing less’.
Hump is consistent. It’s the way Hump is used which is not.
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The FACT IS … when the Raptors outrebound their opponent by a significant margin +17 [52-35] and get energy from Kris Humphries to the tune of a line like THAT ^^^ … in only 16 minutes of PT, relative to the production levels of other players on the roster … then, they can become a solid contending team for a Top 6 playoff spot in the EC.
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Now think back to that 1st Half against the Celtics … when the Raptors actually used Humphries and Graham and Moon and O’Neal and Bargnani, while focusing LESS of their OFFENSIVE OUTPUT on Chris Bosh … and, you should begin to see the roots of what a certain NBA Observer has been saying for quite some time now about this team’s most advantegous M.O. and its best chances for success this season, and beyond, with a Stalwart, like CB4, as its CENTER [i.e. it's 'Heart & Soul'].
It’s not an easy game to understand thoroughly … until you are seeing with 20/20 vision [not in hindsight but] in advance.
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It’s the start of a new week … and Hope springs eternal!
Were we watching the same game? O’Neal didn’t have to work hard at ALL for at least 9 of his boards. They just sorta fell at him NOT to mention that there were some boards that were right within his capabilities to get but he let some rooks from Miami outhustle him for it. I would be more impressed with his numbers if he cleaned up the boards HE NEEDED to get instead of grabbing boards anyone could’ve gotten.
Darien…agreed…I’m taking baby steps to try and warm up to HO. I remember 4 boards that came to him with basically nobody around him yesterday.
Yet, the HO lovers think he had an outstanding game.
oh, i get it, it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality that matters. silly me.
so, half of ‘HO’s’ boards ‘just came to him.’ what about the other 9? did he ‘work’ sufficiently for those? holy fuck, talk about looking for nits to pick.
i can accept that bargs isn’t going to ever rebound with any kind of authority, but he hasn’t grabbed MORE THAN 5 in a goddamn game. i mean, really? and we’re complaining about the QUALITY of the rebounds JO grabs? at least he’s getting some.
face it guys – Rebounding numbers have many variables. A big reason we ruined Miami in the differential is because we were playing great team defense (or possibly stale maimi offense) where we were denying paths to the paint which set up jumpers which meant very few offensive rebounds for the Heat…
AltRaps, nobody gives a flying fuck if you’re taking baby steps or giant leaps towards liking JO. Bottom line is that he’s provided a defensive stand in 7 of the 9 games we’ve played and his offense is coming around. Go ahead and mention what his salary is again because soon that’s going to be the only negative you’ll say about this guy (barring injury). Haters hate. Playas play. Yup.
Well, if his substantial defensive contribution makes us a .500 team, same as last year, what is the value added?
It’s a team game.
Vincenzo Esposito
Season G GS Min FG% FT% 3PT% O-Reb T-Reb Asst Stl Blk PPG
1995-96 0 0 282.0 36.00 2.56 23.21 4.00 16.00 23.00 7.00 0.00 116.00
Why did we ever get rid of that guy haha
If this was Bargs first year in the NBA, would he be high in the running for ROY .. yet ??!!!
Roko is still a boy amongst men in black.
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