Fan Duel Toronto Raptors

Frank Zicarelli needs to stop writing

The guy is a brutal writer who also happens to be clueless, and would do everybody a favor if he just gave it up.

In his typical one-sentence-per-paragraph style, this is what he spewed regarding bloggers yesterday:

In today’s messed-up world of reporting, where Internet garbage gets packaged as gospel, where bloggers are somehow viewed as credible, Calderon was feared to have torn a leg muscle.

Hmm…wonder where those bloggers got the idea that Calderon had a torn muscle. Oh wait, it was Doug Smith:

Point guard Jose Calderon will miss the world basketball championships that begin Saturday after suffering a torn muscle in his leg in an exhibition game against the United States.

So Frank, when your own kind is reporting tripe, what gives you the right to criticize fans who base their pieces on what the credentialed media is reporting and getting wrong? Pretty please, shut up. And for fun, I’m going to go through the article linked above and point things that are blatantly wrong with it.

Calderon has his deficiencies, for that there is no argument, but chief among them is his unwillingness to attack the basket and put pressure on defences.

That is not Calderon’s chief deficiency. Not by a stretch, he’s accused of not being able to guard quicker point guards, in fact, 27% of his shots are at the rim. In comparison, Jason Kidd is at 13%, Chris Paul is at 20%, and Brandon Jennings is at 24%.

Ford’s contract comes off the books next summer and his deal does include a buyout, which could have been exercised this season.

That’s just not true. T.J Ford has a guaranteed contract for next year and a buyout can only happen if he agrees to it. If you had bothered researching just a little bit, you’d know that T.J Ford has categorically refused to be bought out.

At the international level, Calderon is a much more productive player.

In the last Olympics, when Jose was considered to be at his prime, he averaged 7.3 points, 3 rebounds and 1.2 assists a game in 21 minutes. Last year in the NBA, which many consider to be his worst, he averaged 10.3 points, 2.1 rebounds, and 5.9 assists a game in 26.7 minutes. I’ll let you calculate the PER36 and figure out how Calderon isn’t a “much more productive player” when he’s playing for Spain.

In the absence of creators who can get their shot off in a half-court set, it becomes incumbent to play a quicker game, a style that doesn’t allow opponents to set up on defence. It’s why the Raptors thought they had a deal in place earlier this summer to move Calderon and Reggie Evans to Charlotte in a package for Tyson Chandler and Boris Diaw.

OK, so in an effort to play a “quicker game”, the Raptors tried to acquire Tyson Chandler and Boris Diaw? You know they’re frontcourt players who will have no affect on the tempo of the game whatsoever? I would give you the fact that they could rebound and provide quick outlets which could fuel the break, but I know you weren’t thinking of that when you wrote it.

If such gibberish was being spewed out by some dude with a keyboard and an internet connection, it would have been forgiven. But here he is having his crap printed on paper made of actual trees and getting paid a full-time wage, so the least he could do is put out a piece that doesn’t look like it was farted out by a guy whose basketball knowledge is based on NBA Inside Stuff.

We’ll end on a more serious note, Tim Chisholm is echoing the same sentiment I felt yesterday – Calderon could more useful to us as a full-time backup than as trade bait.