Eddie Jordan – he’s alright. Remember, Lebron and a bunch of nobodies currently have the best record in the NBA. Lebron is THAT good. So I think Eddie Jordan did a decent job, he got them to what, a #5 seed a couple of times? That’s pretty good for that roster. Their frontcourt was terrible, nothing he could do about that. I think he’s a pretty good coach, and he deserves a look from the Raptors.

Flip – One of the best coaches in (or out of?) the NBA. He’s a brilliant offensive coach, and does a good job of developing young players. Look at the way the Pistons fell apart right after they fired him. Flip should be the #1 coach that any team looks at.

Avery – Got way too much hype after one good year. I don’t think he’s really a very good coach.

This is absolutely right. Keep just one of them, and play them as your starting PF. Obviously neither of these players can play center, and it doesn’t make sense to move either of them to the bench. So, the Raps need to choose which one to keep (probably Bargnani).

Overall, I’m not sure I agree when you say “they just don’t care”. I think the Raps just lack toughness and size. Smallball simply doesn’t work. They need to go out and get a legit center who can play defense and deliver some hard fouls. Even a guy like Kendric Perkins would do wonders for this team.

And, they should obviously keep Calderon. I really like his game. He’s a true PG (not a gunner like most NBA guards) he creates shots for everyone, and his stats are ridiculously efficient in terms of FG% and everything else. So there are basically 2 players to keep: Calderon, and either Bosh or Bargnani. Other than that, they basically need to build an entirely new team. Too many crappy players, cut them all.

There is a difference between not having heart, and not caring. All of these guys care about their team and want to win, but are not willing to put forth the necessary effort it takes from each and every player to pull through the tough times and accomplish at least what i thought was an easy task, and make the playoffs in the east.

Just compare the games of this season, to those of last season and the year before that. When we were winning games early on and had confidence as a team, those games were not boring to watch. Every morning i would check the schedule to see if the raptors were playing that day, because they really did play their hearts out and those games were something to look forward to. These days, I just don’t care anymore. If i happen to catch a game on TV i would watch 5 minutes of it and get pissed off with the effort that I see. BC needs to add guys to this team that are mentally tough, possibly bring back delfino because i think he proved he was one of the toughest players on the raptors during his tenure here. How bad must a team be to pick up a player from the D-league(Pops), and for him to step into the rotation early and score 20 points with a number of dunks and scintillating plays and get a standing ovation from the crowd, because we won a regular season game against an average team.

yes- I did bash main stream media for using injuries as an excuse and and yes I also in my post 10 months ago spoke about injuries as a reason why this team might fail–

BUT (heres the part you missed) I was arguing that injuries are NO LONGER a valid excuse- and if you look at this team since the allstar brea, injuries dont explain anything.

so yes, I was wrong too- but the point was that in the first half of the season, guys like me and others could claim that but now that April is around the corner its lame to still talk about injuries as the reason why Triano cant coach a victory out of these guys.

Too bad you’ll never know this.

first and only time i’ll ever read this blog.

peace.

You might consider adding the name of Cedric Jackson to your PG list. There are others out there, as well, who are even less well known to casual hoops fans that might prove to be better PGs in the NBA, in comparison with a cat like Johnny Flynn.

I also agree that BC needed to replace Garbo and TJ, but I just don’t think it is as easy as that sounds. All in all… I’m not saying BC will or can cure all the problems, and I’m not gonna let him completely off the hook for where we are at. SOme of his decisions definetely had a role to play. I’m just saying that there were some mitigating factors that forced him to make moves he likely didn’t want to make.

As for the FAs… yes they follow the money, but the money they earn is not only from contracts. These players can sell themselves better in larger markets and markets that regularily get nationally televised games (ie. winning teams)… this means more endorsement deals… that means more money! (and don’t think their agents aren’t whispering in their ear about that)

Also, BC took some gambles that didnt pay off- but he also failed to replace Garbo and in many ways is responsible for the Forderon scenario and for not replacing TJ after he dealt him.

As you can tell from my thoughts in the article- Im not suggesting that they trade Calderon but if they want to run and gun he is not the guy. however, if they want to operate a half court offense – he is the epitome of reliability as you suggest and would be an excellent piece to build around.

As for FAs, players who are signing contracts in the offseason will go where there is money. Period. In february, when guys are getting bought out and signed for the vets minimum- they’ll choose their best shot at a title, but not when they are looking for multi year deals.

If it were me I’d draft any of the above guards before Flynn. All of them, except Lawson are 6′2 or taller and have more to offer a team than just speed (many of them are also extremely quick).

But I can see why scouts are loving Flynn right now. Coming into the season he was talked about as a first rounder but his season has not been strong – and of all the highly touted point guards in the draft, Flynn has had one of the worst seasons.

Yes, he is crazy fast and has had a great March before the NCAA tourney, but he was horrible and I mean horrible in January and February. He is undersized at 6 feet even (which often actually means 510-511) and has a history of poor shot selection. Like most other small guards- he also has a history of trying to do too much at times- and when it works like when he dropped 30+ on UConn in the division tourney it’s great, but when it doesn’t it’s like Mike James all over again. For my money, if I was going to draft a small point guard, I’d take Ty Lawson. He has shown a penchant for dominating games, whereas Flynn has been ok but has not looked dominant in either of his first two games of this tourney and is currently living off the good press of the Syracuse’s multi-OT win a couple weeks back.

Anyways, I just wanted to make a few points (although they may have been covered already and I’m sorry if thats the case)

1) No ‘big time’ free agents are coming here. Maybe I’m wrong on this but history has shown that they don’t. Atleast not at a reasonable price anyways.

2) This is not all BC’s fault – the injuries to Garbo and TJ (which led to the Jose vs TJ scenario) created this situation in part. Not saying there was a lack in his decisions (ie. Kapono, Solomon) and gambles that didn’t work out (ie. O’neal) but all the blame can’t be put on him. He was forced into more than a few situations because of those two injuries.

3) The one thing killing the raps is jump shooting vs points in the paint. Our bigs like to shoot, our guards like to shoot, our bench (except Roko and now Pops) likes to shoot. Nobody drives with any regularity. Fix this, and you will see a damn different team.

4) People thought that Calderon could single handedly play as Forderon. Calderon has been the EXACT same player as he was for the past 2 years (when not injured). He is the epitome of reliablility and consitency in the NBA. What he does not have is a back up….. although Roko does show signs. Any talk of moving Calderon is the worst thing this team could do. If this team is going to make any moves going forward this is the ONE player they do not want to move

5) I also thought the raps would win 50+ games this year…. so you may want to ignore all my thoughts :)

Those who cannot deal with that in a positive and productive way are, unfortunately, plum out of luck.

As I’ve said before on this site, kudos galore to a growing list of individuals like Flux, Raps Fan, AltRaps, Arsenalist, Dave, Scott G., Seeten, Mauro, verbatim, etc., with the demonstrated ability to succeed in this way.

Whether we happen to agree or disagree with one another about a specific topic, it’s a treat discussing hoops with individuals such as yourselves, either here or elsewhere on-line. : )

Just like the proof is in the pudding mon frere.

I think you would be better off as a Lakers fan, you would be the Ying to the Zenmaster’s Yang.

Bird rights — “This exception allows teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own free agents, up to the player’s maximum salary. The player must have played for three seasons without being waived or changing teams as a free agent” ….. Also effects yearly increase rate (10.5% versus 8.0%)

There’s full bird rights (three seasons), early bird rights (two seasons), and non-bird rights (one season).

The Raptors can rescind their rights to Marion and Parker and remove that cap hold. Ditto for Joey Graham and Carlos Delfino. The Raptors will have to rescind their rights to all four players in order to create any substantial cap space.

————————————–

By my calculations, for a $57mil cap (figure in league Memo at trade deadline), the Raptors have somewhere around $7mil in cap space if they rescind their rights to all four players.

That’s $7mil in cap space to spend on one, or maybe two, free agents

In other words, that’s seven million versus — (a) Shawn Marion, and/or (b) Anthony Parker, and/or (c) Carlos Delfino (d) Joey Graham, and/or (e) MLE, and/or (f) LLE.

If Colangelo wants to win more games in the immediate future, next season, he’ll likely take the second option (Marion and Co.). If he wants to win more in the long term, he’ll take the first option. I think it looks like he’s going to take the second option.