Wright has plans to school the Raptors rookies | Basketball | Sports | Toronto Sun
Shooting guard is the only position where the starter at this point is undetermined. There's been talk that rookie DeMar DeRozan will get the assignment because he's a lottery pick and that no one else has really grabbed the bull by the horns. But Wright, a four-year NBA veteran, has been hurt for most of the pre-season (sore right knee) and now a battle royale for the starter's job is expected leading up to the Raptors' regular season opener on Oct. 28 — with the amiable Wright leading the charge and kicking the rookie's derriere in practice.
Raptors’ Wright anxious to unseat DeRozan – thestar.com
Even if he remains as a backup, it's not as if Wright won't have a major impact on whomever starts. He'll have days of practice to make sure DeRozan and Sonny Weems, another young guy looking for minutes, know they're in a legitimate competition because lessons learned at practice should carry over to the game.
Nash won’t disappoint B.C. NBA fans
Canwest: How hard did Toronto Raptors head coach Jay Triano try to recruit you when he was coaching at Simon Fraser University?
Nash: He recruited me hard, but he was great. He said, ‘look, I think you should go to the States and play Division 1 basketball, but if you don?t then I think Simon is the best place for you.?? That honesty from him was really amazing. He had his own self interest involved but he put my interests ahead of his, and that tells you what kind of person he is.
Vloggin’ On The Preseason > Raptors.com
Check out the latest vlog from Raptors play-by-play man Matt Devlin!
Match Ups – Toronto Raptors v/s New Orleans Hornets « Heels on Hardwood
What do I know about the Raptors vs. the Hornets? I know that the Raps are one of my fave teams out East. I know they will be improved this year. And I know our game there will be at an absurdly early hour of the day. (Let it be said that I wrote that without checking. And sure enough, I just looked, and it is at 11:30 AM CST. The reason I knew is that for some reason the Hornets at Raptors game is always at an absurd hour of the day.)
NBA Predictions: 2009-10 Toronto Raptors | NBA Picks & Odds
The pressure is on the Toronto Raptors to get off to a fast start this season. Chris Bosh is expected to opt out of his contract at the end of the season, and he’ll be one of the sought after guys in a class that could include LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. I think this team has plenty of weapons to contend in the East, but if things don?t start out well the team might be forced to trade Bosh instead of losing him to free agency and being left with nothing in return. The NBA odds makers aren’t putting a lot of stock in this game, listing the Raptors at 80-to-1 to win the NBA Finals and 40-to-1 to win the East.
Toronto Raptors 2009 NBA Basketball Future Lines – Season Predictions
The Raptors don’t have much chance of cracking the Big Three of Orlando, Cleveland and Boston, but there’s not much stopping Toronto from making a run at the 4 seed along with the likes of Philly, Miami, Atlanta and maybe Chicago.
Before last season, Rasho was the "anti-Jamal Crawford" – he played in the post-season in each of his first 10 seasons. Last season with the Pacers was his first time missing the playoffs. It was also his fewest minutes played in a season since his rookie year. Coincidence?
RealGM: Basketball Wiretap Archives: Bosh Doesn’t Want Team’s Schedule Altered
Chris Bosh doesn't want to see the Raptors change their game-day routine as some teams have this season.
No soup for (the rest of) the draft class of ‘06 – TrueHoop By Henry Abbott – ESPN
Andrea Bargnani got a $50 million extension from the Raptors in July. Brandon Roy followed with a max $80 million extension in August. And his teammate, LaMarcus Aldridge, just agreed to a $65 million extension on Wednesday evening. But so far the rest of the first-round draft Class of 2006 has been totally out of luck.
Toronto Raptors: Is 2010 Jose Calderon’s All-Star Year? – Brothersteve’s Green & Red Raptor Blog
This year, Jose Calderon has slipped below the radar of many NBA analysts and, sadly, many Toronto Raptors fans. Sometimes we need to be reminded that each season Toronto fans have witnessed the development of one of the better point guards in the NBA.
In which I worry bout Hedo and a slow start – Season warmup, part 1 – Raptors Report
Hedo Turkoglu missed a bunch of games because he was hurt, as did Chris Bosh. Crazy bench rats like Hassan Adams and the immortal Marcus Banks got some serious minutes. And there were those awful replacement refs with hair-trigger whistles and a tenuous grasp of the rulebook.
This is the point where if I were Malcolm Gladwell or Liston I’d pull out some number that shows things aren’t that bad. But I?m neither one and I have no number.
Instead I have a nagging worry about Turkoglu. He’s a big guy (6-10) and he just came off a long season. 77 regular season games, 24 playoff games and however many he played in the summer. That’s a lot of mileage.
16 Raps
The heelsonhardwood link isn’t put up here, where it discusses Raps vs New Orleans as a matchup. Here’s an interesting quote,
“As far as the matchup with the Raps goes, last year the Hornets won both games. David West and Chris Bosh usually both play well and cancel each other out. Also the Hornets usually shoot the three very well against Toronto for whatever reason.”
For whatever reason indeed. It’s sad when other teams’ fans start recognizing that they’ll be hitting a lot of outside shots when they face the Raptors. Let’s hope this season it won’t be so damn easy.
Had that article bookmarked, but missed putting it up. Thanks for reminding me about it. It’s here now.
still cant log on to forums to post anything and cannot reset my password…please assist
and why is there no link to the forums from the main rr page??? or am i just blind and dumb???
And what’s with the Raptors Report article? Please stop linking blogs that can’t even look at a current boxscore of the Raptors before they make statements like, “Crazy bench rats like Hassan Adams… got some serious minutes”. It’s disheartening to say the least.
yep that one gave me a good laugh to.
I actually linked to it as a joke. 6am humour and all, my bad.
It was supposed to be a dumb throwaway joke, but I’ll admit I did a terrible job with it.
yeah considering he isnt on the roster and hasnt been in a while
It seems around half of people complain that Bargnani’s extension was excessive at 5yrs/$50million. But is LaMarcus Aldridge really worth $15 million more? Put Bargnani on that Portland team for the last three years (surrounded by some real talent and depth – highlighted by Brandon Roy), and do you think his contribution would be any worse than LA? I have my doubts. Heck, Bargs would probably even be playing PF which I feel is a much more “natural” position for him. Bargnani’s deal is fine, IMO..
Aldridge plays much better defense and rebounds better then Bargnani, there is no doubt about that.
Aldridges deal is a result of the Bargnani deal. BC set the market which was part of the objective with Millsap and Lee in RFA and Aldridge looking for an extension. POrtland has had a rough go in FA the last 2 years with the Darius Miles ordeal costing them huge cap space and then the eventual player they got (Andre Miller) not looking good. Now they have no cap space so the team is the team. People love to talk about how good Pritchard is but he got out played this off season. It will be interesting to see if Sam Presti in Oklahoma learns from this mistake and pulls the trigger faster. He might regret not signing Lee this offseason. That’s why the Hedo signing was a good one. He was the best FA available and if we didn’t spend this summer we won’t be able to next summer do to the Bargnani extension kicking in taking us over the cap.
That being said LA is what we are hoping for Bargnani to develope into. He is not there yet. He has the potential to be better but the odds on that happening are a lot less than 50/50.
Long story short LA earned his contract Bargnani didn’t. If he doesn’t live up to the deal after not living up to the 1st pick status. BC will look bad and Bargnani’s confidence will hit an all time low.
LaMarcus started for the last 2 seasons in Portland and averaged 37 minutes last year. Bargs was jerked around by Mitchell so much he didn’t even have a position.
Besides that 7.5 boards per game is hardly overwhelming for a guy who has no long range game at all.
LA like Bargs got paid reasonably for what they’ve done and is expected from them. No max contract for either of these high draft picks.
Agreed that they both aren’t max players. And yes, Aldridge isn’t the greatest rebounder either, but remember, Oden took some of his rebounds, and Portland has much better rebounding wings then the Raptors do. Not an excuse, but something to consider.
On top of that, Aldridge is in the West with much bigger boys to fight on a daily basis.
Don’t you guys hate it when people make excuses for Bargs (regarding his rebounding). He plays away from the basket, Marion “took some of his rebounds”, etc. So why the excuses for Aldridge?
Aldridge is a poor man’s Bosh, nonetheless, he deserves the money they gave him. I won’t begrudged him that.
It looks like Aldridge is making Bosh money in his final season (a little over 15 million), and many Portland fans believe he’s as good as Bosh right now.
Either way, I agree that Pritchard got screwed by FAs, but I doubt Sam Presti will make similar mistakes. Not going after Lee was a smart move. Yes, he’s a double-double machine, but he doesn’t fill a need for their team right now. No reason to throw money just for the sake of it. Better to wait and pick up a solid low post-presence.