Check out today’s Opening Tip for tips on dating Stephen Graham. There’s also a new poll about tonight’s game.
*******
We’ve all been looking forward to this one.
It started so well, two players working in symbiotic harmony. Touted as the best 1-2 punch in the game at their position, it looked to be the beginning of something special. But injuries, differences of opinion, and meddling management started to change history’s course, until it finally ended early last off-season, with one of them discharged quicker than Sgt. Lance Rainbowfabulous in Vietnam, traded for a injury prone big man 6 seasons past his prime.
Just like that, the JoJay Forderon era was over.
Love him or hate him, former Raptors starting PG TJ Ford steps onto the ACC hardwood tonight to battle resident Raptor PG – and the player TJ refused to share top billing with – Jose Calderon. Most die-hard Raptors fans will forget the team’s recent troubles for one night, as all eyes will be on the homecoming of Toronto’s most notorious shot-chucker (sorry Mike James).
Expect an emotional back-and-forth between two proud ballers. Both have distinctly different styles and attitudes. Both have had their struggles of late. Both will look to come out on top in tonight’s:
FEATURED HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT!!! |
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 TJ FORD |
 JOSE “OCHO” CALDERON |
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Rasho v. O’Neal Parker v. Granger |
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| Category | #5 Terrance Jerod Ford | #8 Jose Manuel Calderon |
|---|---|---|
| Hometown | Houston, Texas, USA | Villanueva de la Serena, Badajoz, Spain |
| D.O.B. | March 24, 1983 | Sept 28, 1981 |
| Height | 6 feet, 0 inches | 6 feet, 3 inches |
| Weight | 165 lbs. | 210 lbs. |
| W/L (career) | 135-138 (.494) | 111-129 (.462) |
| W/L (season) | 7-11 (.388) | 8-11 (.421) |
| Stats (career) | 30mpg, 11.8ppg, 6.7apg, 3.3rpg, 42%FG, 81%FT | 26mpg, 9.0ppg, 6.3apg, 3.3rpg, 37%FG, 87%FT |
| Stats (season) | 32mpg, 14.3ppg, 5.3apg, 4.5rpg, 42%FG, 92%FT | 36mpg, 12.8ppg, 9.6apg, 3.1rpg, 42%FG, 100%FT |
| Drafted | #8 overall in 2003, same draft class as Lebron, Wade, and Bosh | Undrafted, signed as FA before 2005-2006 season |
| Trademark Gesture | The TJ Scowl | Three Fingers High… after every…freakin’…three. |
| Strengths | Speed, ballhandling, headbands | Ball control, jumpshot |
| Weaknesses | Spine, shotaholic | Man-to-man defence, team defence, help defence, sideburns |
| Accolades | Voted Fastest Player in the NBA, “Sports Illustrated 2007″, almost filled up his Booster Juice “Frequent Juicer” card | 2007-08 NBA Assist-to-Turnover leader, 2006 World Champion, 2008 Olympic Silver Medalist, 2007 & 2003 European Championship Silver Medalist |
| Nicknames | TJ, Me J, Hoggie the Hoggiest Ballhog | Ocho, The Spanish Fly, The Hamstring Hombre |
| Entourage | John Lucas, Spinal Surgeon, guy who carries his ego on charter flights | Jorge Garbajosa, Rudy Fernandez, Paul Gasol, Antonio Banderas, Paella the Panda |
KEYS TO VICTORY: TJ FORD
On offence: TJ must play the entire game aggressively instead of defaulting to his jumper, driving the ball at Jose and looking to draw fouls that send Calderon to the bench.
On defence: TJ should pressure Jose whenever he’s got the ball in his hand, using his quickness to bother the slower guard.
KEYS TO VICTORY: JOSE CALDERON
On offence: Jose has to make TJ fight around screens all night long, tiring him out for the 4th quarter, where he likes to make his runs.
On defence: Jose must lay off TJ and allow him to fall into ‘auto shoot’ mode, relying on his height advantage to close out on the jumper.
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39 Raps
Dinosty,
The headlines around here … are absolutely CLASSIC stuff.
Kudos to you … and company!!!
An important difference is …
The Pacers have 3 highly serviceable Point Guards on their current roster, i.e. Jarrett Jack, TJ Ford and Travis Diener [injured?].
[4, if you count Jamaal Tinsley]
================================
Spidey Senses beginning to tingle … saying that the home team might get JT his first W of the 2008-2009 season this evening.
Afterall, this is the NBA … Where Amazing Happens! … on a nightly basis.
i’d like to think so too, khan…but indy’s SoS has been even harder than the raps, their record is about the same, they haven’t had their 2nd best scoring option all season, yet they’ve still actually beaten two of the best teams in the league, and have a mnotivated TJ. in other words, it’s a team the raps ‘should’ be able to beat, and it’ll likely be a close game, but it’s probably 50-50 they actually pull it out.
if they don’t, looks like things could get nice & ugly…by the time the 15th rolls around, they could be looking at a 7-game losing streak (NJ fri, NO sun, NJ again monday). in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Uuumm… the Raps are 8-12 and the Pacers 7-13.
Also, it should be noted Jose refused to share as well.
This is… pure… gold.
Other things to keep in mind:
Last game Pacers won – Lakers. Then they lost 3 straight: Boston, Cleveland, Boston. 2 days off. Now they play us and we just “played” last night.
This is a who ends the losing streak game.
I’m going to this game tonite. Its gonna be an exciting game. Both TJ and Jose will bring it, that’s just their competitive nature.
I sure hope Toronto can pull this one off though.
This website is awesome by the way!
Thanks man, appreciate it.
I too will be there tonight. I think it’s going to get hectic in there – we want to beat TJ almost as bad as he wants to beat us. I bet he’s having dreams of being booed as he walks off the court at the buzzer with a triple double hanging ’round his neck.
We’re going to see Joey start at SF tonight…right? RIGHT?
Joey has gotta start, I mean we have only 3 bigs. It doesn’t make sense to make them all play at the beginning of the game!
Tj + Rasho + Hibbert vs. JO
Granger vs. Graham
RAPTOR MISTAKES ON FULL DISPLAY!!! UP NEXT!
Hypothetically: how good would this team be if we got a wallace for tj with no 1st round pick and drafted chalmers
calderon chalmers
crappy wings + Wallace
bosh kris
rasho bargs
Much Better team I think. GO RASHO LET’S NBA!
sigh…
yertu: i’m feeling you man, 50/50.
dinosty: if tj has a triple double, i’m going to hunt down jc, tie him to a chair, and make him watch this video for 6 hours straight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2A9iGhatcc
Are the fans going to boo TJ tonight? I hope not, but don’t know how people are going to react. I plan to give him a standing o, the situation that played out wasn’t his fault.
Sho.. not sure if you’ve heard, Wallace said he wasn’t coming here if Raps were to trade for him.
I think the Raps can actually win this one! ;)
i agree dg, i hope he doesn’t get booed, but the classy lot at the acc could do anything.
I had beef with TJ Ford before, but deep inside, I realized he was actually the guy who got us over the hump between a losing season and a playoff appearance
Given the game, this titbit of info regarding the TJ+/JO trade from ‘Wages of Wins’ is appropriate and very accurate:
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/the-other-side-of-the-indiana-toronto-trade/
“Hoggie the Hoggiest Ballhog”
Sweet Jesus…
Alt: Yup, he’s Denver the Last Dinosaur’s cousin. Surprised you didn’t know that.
DG,
——————-
re: the situation that played out wasn’t his fault.
——————-
I’ve respected your voice since the days of Arsenalist’s old blog, whether we’ve agreed about a specific subject or not.
That said, know, as well, that I respect it in this instance, also. However, IMO, the situation that played out last season was precisely TJ Ford’s fault; his and the President/GM of this team, Bryan Colangelo.
—————————
Flux,
Ford refused to consider playing as a back-up for the Toronto Raptors.
What Calderon did was make it clear to Bryan Colangelo [and everyone else] that what he wasn’t going to do was sign a long term contract with an organization that retained the services of a player who was not prepared to put the welfare of the team above individual goals.
There’s a big difference there.
—————————
Until he matures further and changes his attitude about the game and his place in it, IMO, Mr. Ford will remain a talented but erratic PG with a limited ceiling as a Starter, in the NBA, for a high calibre team.
Khandor, no offense, do you think that is suffer from memory loss? : ) Or is there another reason why you keep reminding me, specifically, on you personal opinions of how things played out. Have we not crossed this bridge more then a few times?
I’m sorry, I don’t share your view of Jose’s motivation.
[clap] [clap] [clap]
You go on with your bad self, Khandie!
Nicely done… great stuff.
Spudz
http://www.altraps.com
Thoughts on tonights loss err game…
Considering JoseJoseJose cannot guard his own shadow, how in the hell is he going to keep a motivated T.J. in front of him. Expect lots of open 3 pointers for Indiana tonight. Hopefully T.J. tries to do too much (like he did as a Raptor) and sabotages the Pacers. But I doubt it. He has been playing well for them.
Get a close look at Danny Granger when he is knocking down shots all night against our uselss 2 and 3 spots. Then remember we were supposed to draft him, but went with Joey Graham instead. The Pacers immediately scooped him after us. Danny Granger would look sweet in a Raptor uniform right now.
It will be interesting to see if Bosh/JO can handle Rasho. Rasho is very underrated and can be unstoppable at times. I predict Rasho dominates the front court circa 2000 Shaquille O’Neal.
Will CB4 stop sulking tonight? Ever since Mr I am gonna be MVP, he has been anything but. I think he is looking forward to joining GLOBAL ICON in 2010.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Flux,
It’s sorta like this …
If/when you keep displaying “your” feelings on the subject, with which you know someone else respectfully disagrees, there’s a part that says,
“Well, perhaps, the other side of the equation needs to be expressed again, also … in order to, at least, balance things out a bit.”
Personally, I would never tell you to stop expressing your thoughts on a subject, only that … if you decide to keep on mentioning it, then, perhaps you might not be in the best position to request from someone else that s/he stop a similar practice, re: their perspective on that matter.
Detente can work in funny ways, sometimes.
The point was – you keep expressing it again TO ME, specifically. I am not sure with what intent, since I was not addressing my feelings on the subject to you, specifically. And nowhere did I request for you to stop expressing it, I simply asked and I ask again why do you keep expressing yours TO ME, when you fully well know I know where you stand. I have no choice but to think you think I must be forgetting it.
LET’S NBA
Flux,
I will make that change … beginning now.
Thanks for pointing it out to me. : )
That’s what happens when you have Jim Kelly as head scout. Why this clown is on the payroll I have no clue. You would think that Bryan would look at the overall picture and realize he’s the main reason why we are not contenders today. Has we acquired a Top notch scout years ago they could have has enough influence and persuaded Babcock and Bryan/Maurizio into making the safe pick.
Any 2 of Brandon Roy, Rudy Gay, Lamarcus Aldridge, Chris Paul ( they offered there #4 pick we declined) Rajon Rondo, Andre Iguadala, Danny Granger, Rudy Fernandez, Andrew Bynum, and we are in the conference finals this year.
Is anyone here going to the game tonight?
If so, where are your seats?
(Mine: 1st Half – 321 / 2nd Half – “??”)
Funny how Sam mitchell, Lenny Wilkens, Kevin Oneil and Rob Babcock can get fired yet this incompetent remains in the company going forward. If I’m running the Raptors I immediately terminate both Jim and Maurizio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IKChbUhQok 7:14 Mark
I loved this article was great.
I MISS TJ FORD.
We made the wrong choice, as I have been saying for as long as anyone who would listen knows. TJ screwed himself though with his childish crap coming off the bench last year though, I really wish he had not done that. The Orlando game was particularily disgusting.
Very excited for this game, kinda hoping TJ goes off for like 38 & 20 to shut up all the Jose lovers.
Nice find #31. Chemistry is an issue no matter how much they to say its not.
i just hope i don’t see coach pushing Jose to outrun TJ.
Spidey Senses rarely let me down. : )
————–
Raptors close it out tonight with …
1/Calderon
2/Moon [awright!]
3/Graham [awright!]
4/Bosh
5/O’Neal
Only two re-alignments left to make and, who knows … the 2008-2009 season could still be salvaged, as I said this morning in one of the other threads. : )
Calling it right now,
Raptors will be 70-12 this season.
@28,
Hey Joey, do you know who they wanted from us for CP3? Thanks.
Winnar-They asked for both our 1st round picks. 7 and 16.
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[...] Maceo and Rasho and TJ, oh my!. screens all night long, tiring him out for the 4th quarter, where he likes to make his runs. On defence: Jose must lay off TJ and allow him to fall into ‘auto shoot’ mode, relying on his height advantage to close out on the jumper. . [...]