5. Jamario Moon
Seems like his success from last season made him ‘fat’. It doesn’t appear he worked very much on his game during the summer, case in point: his jumper. For a guy who likes to shoot so much, and apparently has free reign to do so, it doesn’t fall nearly enough to justify the attempts. With O’Neal living in the low blocks, Moon will have more space to jack them at will. On a positive note, construction costs for the house he is building will be low (get it, all the bricks???). Sadly, the fans will be absorbing the cost…
4. Jose Calderon
We saw what 37+ minutes a game did to him last season when TJ went down for a couple months. Take that, and make it a full season..scares the hell out of me. Solomon has impressed me this summer. Don’t read too far into that, I thought he was going to be a 0, and he’s more a 3. Ukic isn’t ready to make a major contribution. Leaves us with Parker, but it is doubtful he will get used in that manner, even though he should. I’m interested to see what Mitchell does, and if Solomon can pull it off. Going straight for 3 years (national team/olympics during the summers) could its toll at some point…on the point.
3. Sam Mitchell
He has less talent, preaching the same things, and seemingly expecting a different result:
- There is no cure for Joey Graham, he’s going to show up, or he wont, it’s that simple.
- Bargnani needs time and a clearly defined role, no flip-flopping.
- Solomon/Adams/Ukic/Jawai are NON-FACTORS and shouldn’t be used for more then 10 minutes a game, COMBINED!
- The starting lineup should be Bosh @ 5, O’Neal @ 4, Kapono @ 3, Moon @ 2 and Calderon at the point. With Bargnani (4/5)/Parker (1/2)/Humphries (4/5) and sometimes Solomon (0/1) coming off the bench.
All that, and I liked him better with glasses. Now he just looks like a ‘G’.
2. Bryan Colangelo
Last summer, he did nothing, and nothing came of it. This year, he had a manic off-season…and nothing will come of it. He replaced Ford, Delfino, Garbajosa, Nesterovic, Brezec, and Baston with O’Neal, Solomon, Ukic***, Adams, Jawai, and someone named Jamal Sampson (who got released as quickly as he was added). Sure, the team is tougher in the front court, but it is weaker everywhere else. I wonder how many houses he will buy on Bedford next summer when his bonus kicks in?
1. MLSE
The point of professional sports, IMHO, is to compete and win, not make profits. If you can do both, kudos. However, when you sacrifice the product, disguise it, and make it look like a winner, then you are not in the business of sports, you are in the business of making money, and MLSE are the kings of that. Having owners like the teachers pension fund, and real estate moguls will inevitably steer the boat astray. Sadly, I have no fix for this. There was some hope when that russian dude wanted to buy up MLSE, but $1.8 billion doesn’t go as far as I thought it would. Our only hope is that during the course of making mega profit, the Raptors somehow field a championship calibre team.
*** I have a suspicion that Ukic would have been on this team this season regardless of Ford being traded or not.
