Yup, we’re laughing stock.What’s worse than getting humiliated? Getting humiliated on national TV. Last night Chris Bosh, Jermaine O’Neal, Jose Calderon and the Raptors were in full view of the American public on ESPN as they got driven to the ground by the Jazz in such a systematic fashion that if you’re a basketball purist, you hardly care that the Raptors lost, you’re just impressed by how they dismantled us. The Jazz are basketball’s version of porn – you can get off watching them. The only reason you didn’t is because the team being f*cked was your Toronto Raptors.
This game was over after the first quarter. After we jumped to an aggressive 6-0 lead by taking everything to the paint on the first few possessions, the Jazz responded with a 17-0 run and in this stretch we reverted to taking bad perimeter shots and gave up any sort of momentum we had on our side. The quarter ended with the Jazz up 33-23 and more importantly their offense was clicking on all cylinders. It became obvious that our defense was overmatched and could not counter Utah’s efficient offensive sets because we’re not athletic, aware or talented enough to do. The amount of high percentage shots Utah got is even more unsettling because they didn’t had to work hard for them. If a simple PF to PG hand-off followed by a pick and roll is enough to throw us a curveball, we have no hope in hell of containing their weak-side cuts, slip-screens or scissor cuts. There’s hardly a team in the NBA that isn’t outmatched in the playbook when they’re playing the Jazz but what made things even worse is that pound-for-pound they have more talent than us at every single position except one and even Chris Bosh got embarrassed tonight. The Jazz are obviously the better team but are they 27 points better? Earlier in the year I would’ve said “No” but as the season has gone along and I’ve gotten a chance to see this bunch play more and more, I’m leaning towards “Yes”.
Our offense is very susceptible to the quicksand of one-on-one moves because we don’t know how to play as a team. We don’t have the cohesion or chemistry to function as a unit and staying with a team like Utah is a very tall order. Once our players realize that our sets are futile against a high-caliber team, their natural instincts tells them to improvise because there’s nothing else to fall back on. There’s no concept of an offensive system here and when you play the Jazz where everyone is on the same page, a night like this is the result.
The guy sitting next to me was a huge Jose Calderon fan and as we were getting blown out he kept on praising Jose. I asked him why, and he gave the whole AST/TO spiel, his potential injury and how his stats are never that bad. As he’s saying this they show Deron Willams and Jose Calderon’s stats on the screen which turn out to be very comparable and somebody who’s not paying attention to the game can easily come out with an opinion that they played each other to a draw when that’s the farthest thing from the truth. Jose Calderon’s numbers have been very hollow this year, his impact on the game is minimal and he’s almost a non-factor. In a game against a disciplined Jazz team we needed someone to throw their defense off so that they’d be forced to help, rotate and in the process give the Raptors an opportunity to score. Jose Calderon is the guy who’s supposed to be doing this, instead he’s always delegating to Chris Bosh and refuses to assert himself or be aggressive on offense. I don’t know whether its because of instruction or limited skill but he’s allergic to the paint. His idea of helping out with scoring is to pull up for a jumper every few minutes and if it goes in, great, if not, oh well, we’ll try again in five minutes or so. Unos, dos, brick!
Chris Bosh got outplayed by Paul Millsap and had a very weak performance in a very important game. I thought this was supposed to be a turning point in the season, instead we saw Bosh become passive on offense and settle for jumpers at an alarming rate. He even took a three with almost 16 seconds left on the shot-clock. That’s not what MVPs do. I thought not having Carlos Boozer in there would give Bosh a chance to abuse Millsap through his quickness but the exact opposite happened. Millsap used his size and footwork to get Bosh into very disadvantageous positions where he could make a simple head-fake or use his size to create a good shot opportunity. After being scored on by Millsap you’d think Bosh would come back and make him eat crow but instead he faced him up, faked the drive and launched 18 footers. It’s one thing to perform against Miami and Charlotte, he’s got to show up in big games and so far he hasn’t. Eric Smith countered this point a few days back with his stats against Boston and Detroit, but if you saw the game you know how he played when it mattered in the game.
This was the first game where Andrea Bargnani’s defense looked very shaky against an opposing SF. Jerry Sloan had a plan to test Bargnani and isolated Ronnie Brewer against him in that crucial early 17-0 run with great success. Bargnani tried his best but is limited by his lateral quickness against quicker threes, we knew this was a problem when he got the nod at SF and in the dozen or so games so far, this one resembled the Magic series the most. 7 points on 3-12 shooting is not going to do it and so far this year we’ve been cutting him some slack because of his improved overall defense but at some point we’re going to look for him and expect him to deliver good offensive numbers, not just satisfactory defense. That time is here. He was matched up against Okur as well and we saw just how superior and smarter a player Okur is. You could even say that in the best case Bargnani will turn out to be Okur. He doesn’t have the athleticism, hops or fluidity in his game to be a superstar, we should all accept that. If anybody is looking at him to suddenly break out of some shell and take over the team’s scoring and defense, don’t hold your breath.
I’m used to Anthony Parker’s low key, subpar and meaningless contributions so his 8 points make total sense to me now. I can’t wait to see who we get for him at the trade-deadline, or maybe we can sell him back to Maccabi Tel Aviv as some have suggested. Jamario Moon got in the game and immediately I turned to the Jose fan sitting next to me and go, “I hate Moon more than any Raptors player, ever”. And as chance would have it, Jamario (still tired from sleeping all day) throws a lazy pass which is easily picked off for two points . Moon’s reaction? “Oh well”. I still can’t get past Hollinger’s “defensive ace” comment but if he caught the game today he saw a few fine moments from Moon, one where he got faked out so hard underneath the basket that I thought he was going to break the Jazz players’ back when he came down. Disgrace.
I thought the effort was there today, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Denver and the problem was that we are too easily confused by the simplest of sets. We don’t know how to play defense and even if we did, we don’t have the talent to do so. If Jay Triano manages to do a sell-job on this team and commits them to playing defense, I still think they wouldn’t be able to – Jose Calderon, Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon and Jason Kapono all play significant minutes and cannot be trusted or counted on to make consistent defensive stands. None of these cats can pressure the ball and are always retreating and recovering when playing defense rather than dictating what the offensive player does. Having said that we still need to make-do with what we’ve got and Jay Triano has a very difficult task of instilling defensive ideas and techniques into this team. If tonight is any indication of what our defensive state-of-mind is its going to be very difficult to turn things around with this current unit of players, especially this season.
Sobering stats to think about: Ourebounded 52-38, Utah shoots 52%, 23 turnovers, Utah with 66 points in the paint, Second chance points 15-2 in favor of Utah. And this is without Carlos Boozer. How do you even summarize all this? The domination on the glass was embarrassing, Kirilenko and Millsap were keeping balls alive as their guards hit the glass. The thing about Utah is that they truly believe that rebounding is a team effort and not something that is the responsibility of your big men alone. We haven’t grasped that concept yet and that’s why we ball-watch so much. I already mentioned how easy it was for Utah to get high-percentage looks because they were able to confuse the Raptors as easily as I confuse my 5-year old nice with the coin-behind-the-ear trick. A general mess of a game where our core flaws are exposed by a superior team.
Jermaine O’Neal came up with a block in transition and went down funny. He went to the bench and looked to be in some pain. He comes back, plays about 10 minutes or so and then is done for the night since the game is technically over. Sitting on my other side is another Raptors fan, a tall funny guy who likes to drink like a fish, he turns around and starts blurting stuff as he’s spraying in my drink. I tolerate this offense in hopes of getting some sort of basketball wisdom from him. Turns out he drops some. He says that the Jermaine O’Neal in Toronto is reminding him of the Jermaine O’Neal in Indiana. He’s once again playing through pain and next thing you know he’ll be back to eating Advils with his cereal only to keep up appearances. I don’t know what O’Neal’s physical condition is but I sure want to find out and the way to see just exactly what he can do for us is to feed him the ball consistently. Let it not matter that it’s not the smartest offensive decision, let’s give him 20 post-up moves in a game and see what he gives us, play him 35 minutes for 10 games in a row and pretend its mid-season. At the very least it’ll give us an idea of what his physical condition is and what level of skill he still possesses.
Jay Triano says that the Raptors are trying to “relearn” things:
We have been through a lot in the last couple of days, trying to relearn things. I think until it becomes a natural thing for us to just flow, we are going to look a little lethargic like that. They were trying to do what we asked them to, so I applaud that.
It’s hard to be critical of the guy, he just took over. Let’s give him a few games before we unload reams of shit on him.
Raptors lose in Utah and go 0-3 on the roadtrip. Very expected. We finally come home to face the Trailblazers who’ll be looking at this game as a great chance to pick up a win. The first home game coming back from the West is very tough and we have a lot of things to figure out before Sunday. Good luck Jay.
Oh look at that, it’s 4:15 AM. Probably should’ve come home straight after the game and written this post by 1AM instead of trying to forget this loss.
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72 Raps
That pink shirt Boozer is wearing is ridiculous! Very funny.
Unfortunately, this is what you get when you play against an established system with people who know exactly what they are doing while your team looks like it has been playing at the Y for the past 5 years. I said that the game would be a solid win for Utah (around 12 points up) – but I guess it’s pretty easy to modify one’s expectations at this point.
Millsap has abused everybody this year. The boy is a man.
I think everybody needs to be cut slack last night. Played a great team, they are learning a new system, etc. Give them until the end of December.
Coaching is still key. Sloan takes okay players and makes them look great. Millsap? Brewer? Harpring?
Right now the Raps can’t play man to man or team defense. Sold. Accepted. But better coaching has gotta help. Bosh isn’t a scrub. Neither is Bargs or Calderon or ONeal or Kapono. Kapono played better defense with the Heat. His game and ONeal’s game and Bosh’s game are all elevated by the players around them. Right now no-one is commited to defense and no-one has any kind of defensive scheme in place. I posit that if they put a system in place and as individuals play better defense, you’re going to see much better defense.
I played highschool ball. Center. We played zone defense. I would box out the biggest guy on the floor on every possession. When the opposition guards leaked in for an offensive board I would go nuts. The coach would scream at our guards to put a body on their men and keep them on the perimiter. But our guards wouldn’t do it. Our coach sucked. They wouldn’t listen to him. The junior team’s coach was excellent and his subpar players all boxed out and their bigs got more boards. Let’s hope Jay can get through to the wing players and make them understand that they have to stay between their man and their bucket at ALL TIMES. If they play better defense you’re going to see Bosh and ONeal and Bargs’ games elevate.
Uhmm can we get Tj Ford back ?? Jose seems like his end is comming.. Oneal come on we all know he is the biggest hustler there is.. Bosh lost his confidence.. Parker look’s like a chicken with his head cut off.. Bargniani or what ever knows international teams are looking to pick him up thats wy he is bustin ass.. Moon looks like a ballerina hoping to have some one trow him a alley oop other than that useless.. And our whole backcourt sucks ass.. Toronto really needs a make over.. Cause its looking real ugly..
Well Dave, I am glad to see Bosh not shrink against elite teams in the NBA. I’m pretty sure he cemented his MVP status for this year, Stern should just hand him over the trophy now.
Yeah, those Kakadon/DWill stats were comparable… too bad Deron scored his 1st 10 pts in what seemed like the 1st 6 minutes. That guy could have had 60 tonight. And it’s amazing how much time Jose spends talking to team mates and the coaching staff every game, motioning with his hands, while they look perplexed. I imagine every sentence starts with: “OK, so this is how we did it in Europe, right…”
You know, by the amount of times I have heard anyone on this team say “Well, we learned something here tonight” this year, you would think they are all filing their MENSA applications.
Andiamo says:
“we will be leaps and bounds ahead of a sam coached team.we will be prepared,we will run plays,we will make sensible sub patterns,we will be better.” “lmfao…u dumb fucks.this team will be a million times better with triano in charge.we will make the playoffs and all you moron sam supporters should be forced to have vasectomies for the betterment of the planet.”
Am I mistaken or did I see Jay throw up a Horns up last night?
Bosh was very poor last night and sure is having a bad stretch of games against top teams right now.
Bosh and Calderon are not the problem with this team… as, neither was Sam Mitchell. When you go looking for the answers in the wrong places what you end up finding there is irrelevant.
I didn’t think last nights game was that bad. They simply got out coached, out played, out manned and out hustled. Sure Utah’s back ups could have layed a beating on the raps starters by themselves… but the future looks bright…. cough….
Umm to be honest lasts nights game made the Denver loss look pretty. Atleast w/ Denver you could chalk up a large part of the game to Billup’s phenomenal game…. last night every single Utah player looked good, and not a single raptor even looked like a starter. I was embarassed to be Raps fan.
Good recap Arse, it reminded me of USA, Argentina game at the World Championships a couple years back. The team as a whole seemed eager to do the right thing but did not know what the right thing was.
The Jazz are a good team and didn’t get that way overnight. It will take a while for the Raps to get to that level, and the JO easy fix is not the way.
Anybody listen to the judge’s sumation in the O.J. Simpson case yesterday?
[Paraphrasing]
“To put forth the position that what you did here was not wrong because you did not know it would be considered a crime … is due to either arrogance or ignorance, or both on your part. I think it’s the first one, in your case.” – ‘Judge Judy’ Type
Well, IMO … what we have here with the Toronto Raptors, this season, so far, represents the epitome of …
either Arrogance or Ignorance or, quite possibly, Both …
by the Leader[s] of this organization, who thinks that firing Sam Mitchell, on Wed Dec 03 2008, is somehow going to solve the problems which exist with this team.
Where Amazing Happens! … on the regular in the NBA.
Without a doubt, this NEEDS to be The Rap of the Day:
————————
“I didn’t think last night’s game was that bad. They simply got out coached, out played, out manned and out hustled.” – by TrueRapsfan
————————
… and, quite possibly, eventually, he Rap of the Year.
Pure, unadulterated, GOLD. : )
For Everything Else there’s Mastercard.
8… 9…. 10….. wait for it! Miss Marpole is about to reveal the guilty party.
Can’t wait any longer looked at the last page and the butler(BC) did it again.
“I didn’t think last nights game was that bad. They simply got out coached, out played, out manned and out hustled.” This is excellent! : ) Hey, at least we showed up at the arena right?
I’d like to see what Joey Graham could do on the Utah Jazz. I think they’d be a very good fit for him.
When I saw O’Neal do something to his leg I nearly cried. I motion his name become J-OHNO.
Dave, that’s how I feel about all the players on this team. What I mean is, their individual accomplishments are greater then the sum of being on the Toronto Raptors. I really think they would all be much better off on different teams.
I said last week or this week sometime, since the addition of JO, this team doesn’t have the “All for one, one for all” attitude it seemed to have in years past. I don’t know what it is.. these guys are not mixing well.
Anyone catch Bosh tearing into Moon in a timeout right before it broke into commercial? That’s twice now, this year, I’ve seen Bosh yelling at him. And tell me you weren’t throwing stuff around while BC was talking with Jack Devlin? Used car salesman, that guy!
re: the Jazz. I’ve never really liked Jerry Sloan, but last night was like watching one team perform an opera piece to perfection and the other was covering Slipknot while on shrooms. And I like that Greek kid on the team, whoever he is.
Bosh has really annoyed me the last few games. It seemed like last night the majority of his shots were either ill-timed jumpers or turnovers. I mean, he always gets his stats, right? But even his rebounds never seemed to be tough rebounds (which might mean nothing). But yeah, I was most disappointed in his shot selection. That three he took was abysmal. I kind of like Millsap’s game and I’m a huge fan of AK47, but Bosh, if he really believes he is an MVP-calibre player, should have destroyed those guys because (including Okur) they aren’t exactly allstars, no?
It did seem like the Raps were trying to run a little more and it did work for the most part, although it didn’t happen often enough. I may be totally wrong, but Triano has given me a little hope again. Or is that BC’s plan, to give us all a hope placebo and see how the patients react (positively at first, steadily worse)?
I liked listening to the commentators laugh at the defensive “effort” of the Raps. I don’t even think we can blame the coach for defensive strategy when there is not a single Rap that knows how to fight through a screen or simply box out. Half the screens set by the Jazz didn’t even seem very tough, but the guy who was picked just gives up immediately. GROW SOME BALLS! FIGHT THROUGH OR HAMMER THE PICK! I mean, this is fundamental “try-hard” b-ball.
Great point, Dave.
He’d either play better or Sloan would die from high blood pressure.
Koufos is American. Bill Simmons made that mistake not too long ago…
Actually, he has dual citizenship. So, whatever.
Alt.. where’s the Roll Call, brah?
Utah Jazz showed us how the game of bball should be played, and they shredded the hapless Raptors on offense and defense. The Raptors have no offensive system worthy of the NBA, and their defense is incompetent as essentially stated by Jack Armstrong.
Good things take care of themselves .. it’s the bad things we must confront.
touch stretch but the raptors, i believe we will be 9-13 before we can make any progress and the scheduled doesnt get any easier
The Raps are frontrunners and at the first sign of things going in the shitter that turtle. The D is horrible even for a college team and unless they get to use that computer in the matrix where you can download skills…….it ain’t getting better any time soon.
Let me preface this by saying that Triano needs a chance to sort things out, so maybe it’s not his fault…. yet. But, last night was more of the same we’ve seen from this team since the season started. To me, the gist of why we lose comes down to two things: toughness and defensive rotations.
Lack of toughness affects our team at both ends of the court. On offense, our guys don’t set hard screens, nor are we willing to initiate contact with our man in order to set them up to use a screen to get an open shot. Moreover, when we do make cuts, our guys allow themselves to get bumped off their intended route way too easily. Lastly, and most obviously, we rarely take the ball to the hoop. On defense, we don’t fight through screens at all, nor do we box out, chase rebounds, bump cutters or play with any modicum of intensity whatsoever on a sustained basis.
None of this is X’s and O’s, so it’s not necessarily up to the coach to solve these issues – BUT, I think it’s worth noting that a coach CAN solve these issues in some circumstances. For example, while it is KG that polices the toughness of the celtics, it is sloan and popp who police the toughness of the jazz and spurs. I guess it takes a coach who commands the respect of his squad, so perhaps a few practices will show us whether Triano has it or not. I’m not holding my breath. Bosh, on the other hand, had toughness for a couple games at the start of the year – where’s all that rah-rah intensity gone to now?
As for our total absence of defensive rotations, I think it is more on the coaching than anything. While there is no doubt that toughness is related to this as well (at least at this level, where just about everyone knows where they should be on defense – the issue is more whether they are willing to get themselves there), I think our failures here are indicative of SMitch’s lack of coaching acumen. For a team that allegedly stressed defensive fundamentals during training camp, our guys still look pretty confused. We will not be able to compete on a nightly basis until Triano can convince our guys that everyone is responsible when the other team scores. Right now, our guys just look at each other angrily as if it’s not their fault personally.
Going forward, while our roster holds us back to a degree, I really believe that Bosh can lead by example and that we can get back on the right track. If, however, he continues to play the way he has the last couple games (and I don’t mean stats only – the nuggets game was terrible for him too), we very well may miss the playoffs. God this is depressing…
To a degree?
Right now, the current roster IS THE PROBLEM.
I don’t think the roster ALONE is the problem. Look – we won a bunch of games last year with TJ hurt, and that roster isn’t any better than this. And, I think that coaching does have a significant effect on how players of a given talent level perform. The post above regarding the Jazz is a perfect example – sure, they have a couple studs, but largely they are a collection of spare parts that plays very hard, and plays very well together, both thanks in large part to Sloan.
At the same time, you point is well-taken in that our roster isn’t even on the same level as the injured Jazz lineup we just saw. I just think that with a lot more intensity, this team could be okay. (not great, but okay) Right now we stink.
Guys, c’mon! Were you not paying attention during the game last night when Brian “The Scorpion” Colangelo was talking? There is no issues with this roster. Are you trying to incense him? This is a deep team with athletic players capable of contending for the LOB. All they need is a new voice.
Can anyone give me an idea as to why BC would go on TV last night? Was he trying make sure The Frogs keep taking him and MLSE across the river?
Are we left to speculate that it doesn’t matter, that the starting lineup is pre-determined? I see Hump was injured, so I guess there could still be some inventiveness being considered, but it was pretty disappointing seeing the same old same old trotted out again to start last night. Oh well, with the new assessment capability presenting itself, I guess something will happen eventually. I guess they think they have only really tried this lineup for one game now.
Scott G,
Last year’s roster was superior to this season’s.
Last Year—vs—This Year
1/PG Calderon———Calderon
2/OG Parker———–Parker
3/SF Moon————-Moon
4/PF Bargnani———Bosh
5/C Bosh————–O’Neal
==========================
Ford——————Ukic
Delfino—————Kapono
Kapono—————-Graham
Humphries————-Bargnani
Nesterovic————Jawai
==========================
Martin—————-Solomon
Graham—————-Adams
Garbajosa————-Humphries
Baston—————-Invisible Player #1
Brezec—————-Invisible Player #2
If Bryan Colangelo thinks this year’s is superior … THAT is a major part of THE problem right there.
Flux,
Unless others here have also taken the time to read elsewhere, the lesson to which you’re referring [re: the Scorpion and the Frog] will not register with them.
That said … Always appreciated, on my part. : )
Individuals like yourself, Raps Fan, Dave, Dan H, TrueRapsFan, Arsenalist, AltRaps, etc., … help to make it all worthwhile.
And if they were to ask Bargs which position he prefers playing (he is a #1 after all), what would he say?
Actually, that statement would appear to be false, as without reading elsewhere, the frog registered. I wonder what it means that you felt you had to make that statement.
And here’s the other team that comes to mind about the recent coaching change- with all the people screaming how this is a great city and there is no reason why anyone wouldn’t want to play here – do you really think players are dying to play for Jay Triano? And if rumors are to believed about one Ettore Messina coming here next year to coach, with less experience then Triano, do you really think players are finding this destination attractive? And if you are convinced CB4 is not going anywhere, you think he’s excited about being another coaches guinea pig?
—–
Khandor ; ).. that reference was just for you, my man! Appreciation is all mine.. for the “20/20″ lessons. The Raptors and many other things are sometimes optical illusion pictures that need the right focus, in order to see them for what they are (or both images,not just one). For some people, it takes a while to get to the “oooohhhh yeeeahhhh… I see it” point.
I’m just thinking BC was in selling/damage control last night.
That’s a nice comparitive chart, Genghis Khandor. Last years team was better, especially having two quality point guards and Delfino (who I thought was pretty good last year).
But I agree more with Scott G. I don’t think the problem is the roster alone (on talent, that is), it’s more the mentality of these players (which is either due to coaching or inherent in the players themselves). The Raps should have beaten several teams this year, including Boston and New Jersey, simply because we had a large enough lead at one point. That tells me that this roster can perform at a high level, but not consistently.
We’ve been complaining about the bench, but is it just the bench that’s letting the Raps down? I don’t think so. Bosh has been terrible lately, Calderon isn’t doing enough (cause I think he can be much better scoring and passing), O’Neal is mostly a non-factor offensively, and Parker/Moon have been worse than useless. I’ve only been mildly impressed with Bargnani and lately, Graham.
So yeah, let’s take the middle road here. Not the greatest roster combined with bad coaching equals huge blowouts to superior teams.
I watched the game and I was thinking if we had to style our offense after any, it has to be the jazz. It was truly the most efficient beautiful offense I have seen. They used the mid-range to perfection, an often underrated part of the offensive. They swing it back and forth, post-ups, weak-side screens, cutting everything was great. On the other side, our defense was weak but it was fairly obvious after watching the first quarter.
the game was lost on jo being a black hole and that stretch in the second qtr where bosh got victimized both on o and on d….when your supposed top dog gets anally intruded like that,the games done.bosh played like a weak soft bitch last night and jo was pathetic his fg % was good but the times he bricked were crucial moments and rushed……to use a hockey term.”the boys are squeezin their sticks”,theyre real tight and its showing…….nothing but praise for jt,no bonehead moves,sensible sub patterns nice stuff out of time outs…a telling moment for me was there was 3.8 seconds left in qtr,he called a timeout and drew something up whereas sam wudda used the gogogo for a brick play….this loss is on tightness.
Telling,
If I had neither read nor been told of the relationship between the Scorpion and the Frog, I would know little about it, myself. To others who are not in that same boat, I would simply tip my cap.
Bah this team is depressing. I can’t remember the last time I watched a FULL game. In Boston Perhaps? This team is a front runner because of sub par in game coaching. Smitch used to try something in the 1st Q, the opposin coach would adjust and Smitch would remain stubborn.
Hopefully Triano is Different. BC needs to trade for a wing asap. And JO needs to opt out next year lol
Gunners, I can’t agree more.. that was a pleasure to watch, although I don’t know if it looked so good because of the train wreck occurring on the other side.
Jord, IMO, the mentality is all on the players. And I really don’t think there is changing that. The players keep talking the talking and not walking the walk. As I said at the start of the season: It’s time to STFU and deliver! 18 games in, the talking continues. More walky, less talky please.
Jord,
IMO,
* The systems, in use at present, look deficient in comparison with Utah’s.
* The roster, in use at-present, is deficient in comparison with Utah’s.
* The positional alignment of the pieces, in use at present, is deficient in comparison with Utah’s.
All three [plus other areas, as well] will need to improve in order to address the situation effectively.
==============================
Q1. Can the Raptors still win 48 games this seasons?
A1. IMO, yes, they can … but specific changes will need to be made moving forward from here. If not, this team will finish further down in the EC Standings than it did last season.
and khandor,whats telling is your massive Napoleonic complex.keep it up you pompous prick,your clown act is entertaining…thx.
fluxland
Jul 29, 2008 12:36 pm | Permalink
Arse, you can count me against the JO deal. I seriously have visions of this guy going down … and not very long after he is with this team.
How many games was it when he went into a heap?
Wow, reading through some comments from the past, Andiamo and Muhdik have to be the same person.
Flux, was smothered with work during the Nuggets game. Wasn’t much reason to do one last night since it would have encroached on Arse’s tome this morning. Be back tomorrow.
Look Alt, are we gonna have to have a little chat about your production lately? Is you name Alt Kap? I see Arse slaving over game posts until wee hours in the morning, cranking out podcasts and interveiws, I see RapsFan crunching revenue numbers and analyzing financial statements… where are you and Dinosty? Pulling an Adams and Jawai on me? : P Don’t make me start a firealtraps.com up in this mf.
Hehee.. just messing ya man!
Bosh – Padding his stats for 2010 or sooner.
JO – He’s a cripple and can barely run the floor.
AP – Set to retire or play in Israel.
Moon – Doesn’t belong in the NBA.
Calderon – Has a long-term contract.
Ukic – No shot, no game, not NBA-ready.
Bargs – Developing slowly.
Hump – Doesn’t fit in.
Kapono – Short on athleticism.
Graham – Surprising us lately?
The rest – Forget them.
Now, how do you make this into a team or trade for something decent? I think the Raptors have become a 4 year draft pick project with a problematic outcome.
I know this has been discussed..but seriously, wtf does gheradini do? he travels europe all year on our dollar and comes home with 2 d-league flunk outs
Let’s face it …. if Rap fans expected the coaching switch to be like a light switch, it might be wise to close one’s eyes, and get back to that dream you were having. Wake up in 2 months.
So what happened? The Jazz just lost 2 games AT home. And the Raps were in Day 1 of a “supposed” transition to a more up-tempo game. Plus add 3 Bigs who went a combined 14-37 with a grand total of 35 points (including only 7 FT pts), and it doesn’t take a genius to know you’re gonna lose. They played terrible, looking confused or whatever.
I think most astute Rap fans will acknowledge we need a 2 & 3 before we ever get excited again. Hopefully BC will address that when Dec 15th happens (or thereabouts) – if he can.
This team features a quality PG (Nash mode – yeah, no defense), a top quality 4 (although I get disappointed with how CB handles real competition), a rent-a banger at the 5 (with a contract that will be worth something NEXT year), an up-and-coming Big (God help me they don`t mess AB`s progress via a permanent 3 posting) and UKIC – an unknown quality, but with potential to be a quality back-up PG. That`s IT.
As for the others …. AP is a back-up man, in the same vein as Kap, Humps, and Moon. Especially Moon. Actually, I might put him at the back-up to the back-up.
I considered this game a complete write-off. And it’s too bad ESPN has such bad timing. At least Adams and Solomon padded their +/- stats.
And what makes things worse…We cant trust our very own GM and scouts to make a quality draft pick. It’s all in the ownership folks. The same shit is happening now like it did back in 2001-2002. Poor Gm, Poor scouts, Poor athletic trainers, poor coach, poor players, games aren’t brodcast on basic cable, tickets are highest in L but they wont go into Luxury Tax.
This problem started before Colangelo even got here
Joey,
My spider sense tells me, we’re going into the luxury tax.
BC knows no one will come here in 2010 so hes going to Hire Messina next season. No one will play for him since hes a diciplinarian and very strict. In 2010, Bryan will sign a whole lotta euros with the capspace,and having marizio, bc and messina players there will flock over here.
Only because you asked …
———————-
re: Now, how do you make this into a team … ?
———————-
[for example ...]
OPTION 1 [no additions to the current roster, re: salary cap]
8-Man Regular Rotation
1. PG – Calderon
2. OG – Moon
3. SF – Graham
4. PF – Humphries
5. C – Bosh
================
6. Back-up PG & OG – Parker
7. Back-up PF – Bargnani
8. Back-up C – O’Neal
================
Situational Subs
9. PG/OG – Ukic
10. PG/OG – Solomon
11. OG/SF – Kapono
12. OG/SF – Adams
13. PF/C – Jawai
OPTION 2 [prepared to exceed the salary cap in order to be competitive]
9-Man Regular Rotation
1. PG – Calderon
2. OG – Parker
3. SF – Graham
4. PF – Humphries
5. C – Bosh
================
6. Back-up PG – Sign a player to a Vet Min contract
7. Back-up OG/SF – Moon
8. Back-up PF – Bargnani
9. Back-up C – O’Neal
================
Situational Subs
10. PG/OG – Ukic
11. PG/OG – Solomon
12. OG/SF – Kapono
13. OG/SF – Adams
14. PF/C – Jawai
15. C – Sign a player to a Vet Min contract
Ladies and gentleman, your Toronto TimberClips!
I agree that BC is a salesman at heart Fluxland. What he’s going to do now is say, look, the reason we are doing badly is because Jay triano just took over the team and needs time for the players to eliminate bad old habits, Our players are athletic and need the right coach to bring it out bla bla.
MLSE motto- wait till next year. Remember he’s a company man that takes direction from Richard Peddie. There all salesman and there all great at it. There strength is business management and marketing not building a contender. Jerry Colangelo is the brains behind Phoenix and team USA.
So 2009 season starts and we have Messina as our new coach. We added a few players, fixed some problems but why are we losing again? Bryan’s excuse: Messina is new to the NBA he needs time to get adjusted. Give the man a few seasons to get familiar with the L.
2010: Bosh is gone, as Bryan lets him walk for nothing. Oneil is gone. We are now a European team with European management. Bryan’s excuse: We just lost our franchise player and were rebuilding. We need 5 years+ to get back on the right track.
khandor you got no clue about ball.
Joey,
—————————-
re: Jerry Colangelo is the brains behind Phoenix and team USA.
—————————-
Senior Colangelo is as big a salesman as anybody else.
For years and years the Suns were an operation that made a tonne of money but perennially came up short.
When he took over USA Basketball coincides with the era of their decline in performance at the international level.
Even the victory at this past Olympics was more difficult than it needed to be, given the resources USA Basketball has access to, in comparison with everybody else.
Please do not hold Jerry up as an example of an NBA Executive with exceptional basketball acumen, in contrast, say, to someone like Jerry Krause or Jerry West or Red Auerbach, etc.
There are those whose main interest is the winning of championships … and those whose main interest is the making of solid coin.
Joey, don’t forget the man never played ball at a high level, has zero experience in the NBA and other then Bargnani and Jose it’s unlikely anyone will listen to him. I like your Euro scenario, (the one FAQ envisioned last year) but that means countless of playoff exits.
Oh yeah man..you nailed it! “Look, we need more time. These things don’t happen overnight” is Chapter 1 in the MLSE “Selling hope and turning profits while laughing all the way to the bank” front office manual. (“We learned a lot from tonight’s game” in the players one)
The key to the operation is to make moves as often as possible, or usually when thing appear to be going wrong, in order to apply chapter one successfully. Things going wrong also reinforces the “we didn’t want to do this, but it had to be done” line.
I wouldn’t be surprised Jerry was running the Raptors, in the shadows,as well. He is master salesman himself.
But let’s not get confused here, BC is not a villain, just a smart business man, supreme talent evaluator who we are lucky to have, not to mention, we should be grateful that there is even NBA action in town. And if it makes you feel better, Peddie is supposed to be on his way out to be replaced by someone who is all about winning (what, I don’t know). Unless of course, that the old hope sale again.
Well Larry Tanenbaum just bumped up his stake of MLSE to 20% from 13% but will that make a difference? He’s not calling the shots its Bryan who’s the top dog we need to realize.
And in my opinion, the Leafs under Brian Burke will not advance past the second round during his tenure. He’s another GM who i think is overrated and is a replica of Colangelo. Media savvy and a born Salesman.
Hmmm… I wonder where the Raps end up in the lottery this year?
The raptors should try to pick up stephon marbury as a backup pg because ukic isnt ready and soloman is not a pg even though i though he could be a pretty good backup sg. Anthony parker is not good enough to be starting. Andrea is not quick enough to be a sf. We need a REAL coach. Jay Triano is definitely not the answer.
OH yea where in the hell was Kris Humphries last night??
As I was watching this game I lost count of how many times I literally laughed out loud and thought, “Wow, I don’t believe the Jazz actually executed that play to total perfection. The Raps are so lost on defense that its actually really funny”.
Scott G #28: This roster will still win you the games that last year’s roster did. Look for us to to continue beating the bad teams, go .500 against teams are sort of on the same level as us (Indiana, Chicago etc) and lose to the good ones. That’s the perfect recipe for another .500 season and if those are your expectations, don’t worry, you won’t be disappointed.
Last year Jose was the backup and exceeded expectations in everything he did. This year he’s struggled with being “the man”, there’s a theory out there that he was so underrated last season that he became overrated too fast. I don’t know if I buy that but I do believe he’s under a lot of pressure to product and is not handling it well. There’s also no help for him on the bench, I think letting Carlos Delfino walk was a dumb move because he could play the point-forward with some effectiveness and could kick-start the offense. People call him a chucker but I think he only chucked when the offense was in a rut. Right now we could’ve used him.
How much to blame the talent and how much to blame the coaching is an interesting debate. There are problems in both areas, last night it was our coaching/bad habits that got exposed. Portland isn’t as efficient as Utah and against them our talent is likely to get exposed, it’s a different kind of poison every night. If I’m the Raptors, I start by fixing the effort and technical areas and see just what the potential of these players is, once you get a clear idea then you can make roster moves. Unfortunately it might mean that this season is a write-off.
Lopez, Hump was not dressed for the game. I presume he’s sporting a minor injury.
Arse, this effort issue is not something new with this team. There were issues last year and the year before, with coming out lackadaisical in the 1st q or “chocking” in the 4th. Lucas was brought in to help with this at one point, even. Here we are, same issue. Care to elaborate on effort and how it is fixed? Love to hear from everyone else on this as well.
My whole thing is, I don’t think this is something you can teach, fix or demand. You either got it or you don’t. KG is insane before the games starts, I don’t think someone is forcing him into it. Kobe looks like he going to kill someone on the other team, the way he stares at players sometimes before the start of games. LeBron doesn’t look like he’s playing around either. Duncan for all the talk about being unemotional, doesn’t look like someone you’d wanna chat with at tipoff. The list goes on. You either got or you don’t, IMO.
And you touching on Jose and the pressure… simply, gold. UNO, DOS, BRICK! OLE! Brilliant.
Flux, you’re right, its awfully hard to teach a player to be pumped up, emotional, intense, give 100% and play with their heart on their sleeve. I don’t know how you can get someone like Moon to care or Bosh to be pissed when Millsap does what he did to him. Not having such players means we have to be make up for it through talent and execution and right now we’re lacking in the three big areas of the game: effort, talent and execution.
And you know, those 3 are all interrelated. You can have talent, but if there’s no effort then you get poor execution.
I really don’t know what the problem is, but I think some of the things Jord in #18 and Scott G touch on, have to do with chemistry. If you don’t like playing with someone, you are not killing yourself for them. It doesn’t matter what the coach is saying, you really don’t give a f.
Bosh and Jose can scream and yell and act as leaders, but on D if they are not stepping up, not sure why everyone else should (in their mind). “Oh, ok, so Imma bust my ass so you can collect the MVP and All Star accolades?”
We’ll know eventually what the problem is/was, hopefully.
No way does Triano get any more out of this bunch than Sam did.
Period.
Alt, please:
Andiamo says:
“lmfao…u dumb fucks.this team will be a million times better with triano in charge.we will make the playoffs” “we will be leaps and bounds ahead of a sam coached team.we will be prepared,we will run plays,we will make sensible sub patterns,we will be better.”
Note on Kris Humphries: He is day to day with Knee tendonitis(sp?).
As President & General Manager of the Raptors, BCs income is dependent on the profitability of the franchise. As long as the tribal honking fans keep on coming in to watch an inferior, cheap product, BCs personal income will rise astronomically.
Bringing in cripple JO may have been an act of desperation to satisfy Bosh and stop him from asking to be traded, because that was not a long term investment. I fully expect Bosh and JO to be gone by 2010 or sooner.
BC will have to unveil a New & Exciting Raptor team in 2010-11 if he wants to keep on raking in the tribal honkers and big bonus’ from the MLSE.
Meanwhile he has to keep on lying between his teeth, proclaiming that this edition of the Raptors is a “deep roster” and he expects to be in the playoffs. Desperation and prevarication seem to be going hand in hand now.
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