After a tenuous struggle for power at the RR home office in Athabasca, Alberta which caused them to not submit a Top Ten list all season long, they have finally elected new officials so business can finally get underway. After much deliberation and debate, the crew has worked hard to select the Top Ten Bryan Colangelo Mistakes.
- Re-signed Sam Mitchell after he won the Coach of the Year award. Mitchell was the wrong the coach for the Euroraptors and once the scouting reports on Bargnani, Calderon and Ford got out, it showed the following year.
- Did not move up in the 2008 draft and missed picking Chris Douglas-Roberts by one pick and did not select Bill Walker when athleticism at the wings was a dire need. Instead selected Nathan Jawai who produced nothing.
- Failed to make moves at the trade deadline in 2007-08 and 2009-10 which would’ve bolstered the Raptors down the stretch. Rebounding and wing-defense was a concern in 2007-08 and it went unaddressed as the Raptors got trounced by the Magic. In 2009-10, the Raptors missed the playoffs by one game.
- Trading away the 17th pick in the 2008 draft as part of the Jermaine O’Neal deal when young athleticism at the wing was a desperate need.
- Picking up the $2.38M option on an unproven Marco Belinelli amidst indications that the salary cap would decrease significantly.
- Signed Will Solomon and Roko Ukic to handle backup duties to Jose Calderon in the summer of 2008. Not having insurance at PG cost the Raptors dearly once Calderon got hurt and found out defensively as a starter.
- Signing Jason Kapono to the full mid-level exception in the summer of 2007 when the Nets playoff loss had indicated perimeter defense to be our biggest weakness.
- Instead of having a long-term plan, traded Jermaine O’Neal to the Miami Heat. O’Neal’s contract would have come off the cap this year; Hedo Turkoglu would never have been signed and we wouldn’t have Marcus Banks. Combine this with not extending Bargnani and Belinelli, and the Raptors would have been close to $35M under the cap and able to extend two max-offers, much like Miami this summer.
- Extending Andrea Bargnani for $50M/5yrs when there was no indication that anybody else would offer a contract remotely as lucrative. This, in a summer where that money could’ve been used to woo other high profile free-agents like Joe Johnson.
…and the #1 mistake Bryan Colangelo has made…drum roll….
- Signed Hedo Turkoglu to a $53M/$5yr contract. Turkoglu never got a proper chance to handle the offense as the redundancy factor with Calderon was too great. The Turk was out-of-shape and having poor defenders at 4 out of 5 starting positions made the Raptors the worst defensive team in the league.
