Whatever good work Tony Parker had done for the French, Alexis Ajinça ruined it. Now it’s another Frenchman who is on the radar, and it’s Nicolas Batum, the Blazers RFA who is rumoured to be the last guy Portland will lock up (considering how he’s got a $6.5 cap-hold and will likely make more than that in his next deal). You might recall Batum as being drafted #25 by the Blazers in 2008, the year the Raptors and their renowned international scouting staff decided to flip the #17 pick for something that resembled Jermaine O’Neal’s carcass.

You don’t need me to write the rest of this but I will do so in short bursts. Raptors. Small Forward. Sucks. Batum. Small Forward. Batum. RFA. Money. Colangelo. Batum. Throw. At.

There you go, that’s how easy it is to write a post these days. If you really want some analysis, maybe you should check out Tim Chisholm’s small forward list, it’s hardly realistic and mostly fantasy but a guy’s got a churn out a piece, now doesn’t he?. Actually, it sort of reminds me of myself when I watch the The Bachelor: Yeah, I’d do her..and her…prolly her too…yup…meh..why not…

Where do the Raptors, who are at $41M (cap is $58M) get that extra money to throw at Batum? Well, Jerryd Bayless of course. There’s no need to even think about picking up his $4.1M qualifying offer, when you can get Ben Uzoh to do basically the same shit for free. If Jim Kelly ever proves to be worth even 1% of the airtime he gets on raptors.com starting in about two weeks, we might even find a point guard in the draft who can play defense and doesn’t just pretend to do so. This man says to buy a pick for $3M and get Damian Lillard, and don’t talk to me about his height!

TOTALLY RANDOM STAT OF THE DAY – ANDREA BARGNANI FOULS THE LEAST ON THE RAPTORS AND JAMAAL MAGLOIRE THE MOST

Speculate on why that might be (oh, this should be fun).

As we’re always looking out for our readers, I’ve found an awesome deal on a jersey. So awesome that the guy isn’t even listing a price, just asking you to pay what you can. There’s only one small catch.

You might also want to know that Jonas V won an award(s) of some sort in Europe. Actually, this is like an Employee of the Month type award more than anything. Still, though. We might want to hang that in the rafters at the ACC.

From an X’s and O’s point of view, the thing that sticks out for me from this weekend is Philly’s decision to have a guy guard the inbounder when they knew the Celtics were going to looking to throw it in the back and run the clock out. In that situation I’m a believer that you get all your guys in either a deny position or a fouling position. Granted, Philly did have a foul to give so it was going to be tough to get the ball back for a chance to tie with three seconds left, but still, in theory you don’t guard the inbounder there. IMHO.

On the Raptors front, things are dead quiet as you can tell by glancing at the Latest Web Articles section. The next date of significance is the lottery on May 30th, which will provide the Raptors with a sense of what players they should be bringing in for workouts. A nice enough piece speculated on some options the Raptors might have if they get creative with the draft. If I know my Bryan Colangelo, he’s no good at that so there goes that. I expect him to draft a shooting guard with the pick because we got nothing there right now.

I sense it’s going to be a positional pick, which could be a mistake as this humble servant of yours believes that the Raptors definitely have to go the “best player available” route and not the “needs” route, so if it happens that Jared Sullinger is available, you grab him and figure out your options. Targeting positions in the draft is risky with higher picks, because you’re essentially acquiring fit at the expense of talent. Looking at the draft from a position point of view, there are arguably needs at the 1, 2, and 3 positions, leaving the Raptors with a range of options. If you subscribe to the theory that the 4 is up for grabs too, you’re not alone on that either and here’s why.

Remember all those years we spent building around Chris Bosh, knowing fully well that he’s not actually a centerpiece to build around? We kept plugging away, drafting around him, signing free-agents around him and it never quite worked. We hoped that he would somehow transform into the player we wanted him to be, when his ceiling had long been hit and he was what he was. We wasted five years in that process, knowing deep-down that it was a fruitless proposition to begin with. Now, here’s what I don’t want: I don’t want the Raptors to repeat the same mistake with Andrea Bargnani.

We drafted Bosh to play alongside Carter, hoping it would be the combo to take us forward. We then drafted Bargnani to play alongside Bosh, thinking that was the answer. We then drafted DeRozan to play alongside Bargnani…in each combination, there’s been a lead man and a secondary option. Batman and Robin type deal, except it’s more like Beavis and Butthead, but you get the point. In every mini-rebuild the Raptors have undertaken, they’ve carried forward a remnant of the past which has more often than not been, well, overrated.

Back to the point about the PF also being open. The main argument for that is that if the Raptors truly want to turn a new leaf they should shred the tie to the past, and if that’s not feasible (and it might not be), management need not make the mistake of portraying Bargnani to the fans and to themselves as something he’s not: a franchise guy. We’re still looking for our franchise guy, it doesn’t look like it’s DeRozan, and the hope has shifted to Jonas Valanciunas. Casey recently said that at the worst he’s a Joakim Noah, so we have a high enough starting point for him. In two years, though, he better be the clear-cut best player on this team, or this vicious cycle only bears to repeat.

Many believe Nash instead of chasing a title with a contender for a lesser salary will go back to Canada and the Raptors for a three-year deal and help bring their young players along

Smith calls this ‘informed speculation’ (listen to Joseph Casciaro’s solid interview with Sam Smith), and at first glance, there are couple things at play that could make this a reality:

• Nash recently took the reigns of Canada Basketball, so being based out of Toronto seems to be a no-brainer for someone running a program that is based out of Toronto (I assume it’s based here).
• He would be treated like a god while leading and mentoring a young Raptor’s team. This would also bleed into his Canada Basketball duties as the kids on the squad would benefit from an up-close-and-personal look at him in action.
• He has demonstrated time-and-again that loyalty is more important than winning a championship; he could have easily asked to be shipped out of Phoenix the last couple years to a championship calibre team, but he didn’t, and has towed the company line for the Suns. I’m sure he would kill for a championship, but it seems he values other ‘things’ above getting one – gotta love principals.

1. What happens to Calderon? To get a Steve Nash to come to Toronto, you’re looking at a 3yr/$30m type deal, which would commit more than a third of the Raptors payroll to two aging point guards on a rebuilding team. I’m not arguing either of their value to a rebuilding team, just the actual investment being made especially considering Bayless is more than serviceable as a backup.
2. Does Calderon or Kleiza get amnestied? Before you rip my head off, amnestying Calderon would be retarded (Colagelo’s phone would be ringing off the hook if Nash came to town). Kleiza on the other hand, could be a candidate. Yes, it would be nice to have him here to help Jonas acclimate, but at just under $5m/year, that money could be better spent on an Ersan Ilayasova or something (sign me up for that btw).
3. Would the Raptors draft a point guard this year? That would be the second domino (the 3rd being Calderon gets traded). Nash would obviously be the starter, but I don’t see him playing more than 30-32 minutes a game. Bayless has shown growth this season, but I’m not sold on him being a starter; even if he is, the Raptors need a third pg who can be groomed to start or come off the bench once succession falls into place.

My $0.02? I make this move in a second. Nash is an upgrade to Calderon in all facets of the game; even considering his age (31.6min 12.5pts 10.7ast 3.0rebs 20.29per vs 33.9min 10.5pts 8.8ast 3.0rebs 16.73per). You could get good value for Calderon, while maintaining a high calibre of play at the point by bringing him in.

I’m excited for this summer; player movement is going to be insane.

So I’ve been watching a bunch of Jonas videos over the last few days and getting a sense of his offensive game. There’s a hook in there, a developing jumper, some back to the basket stuff, but mostly, I get a sense that he’s going to be a big pick ‘n roll guy in his rookie year. The Raptors haven’t had one of those for ages (Davis?), even Chris Bosh elected to pop more than roll on those screens. Given Jonas’ strength, you figure the Raptors need a suitable point guard to run those pick ‘n rolls and honestly, I can’t think of a better available guy (other than Deron Williams) than Jose Calderon to do that. Add in his expiring deal, Casey’s man-love for him, and Jose Calderon is here next season. Follow that up with a smaller, reasonable contract and you’re on your way to the first Raptors lifer. Jersey retired? Of course not, you got to have higher standards and not let emotion get in the way.

I don’t know much about the draft, except that the guy we’re going to get isn’t going to make much of a difference next year so I don’t bother with that stuff, especially not when you’re slotted at #8. I prefer free-agents, they’re a known product and of the products I know at the small forward spot (one which BC agrees needs to be sorted out, and where he’s shown a propensity to fill with a “biggish” guy like Turkoglu and Kleiza), I see someone like Ersan Ilyasova as someone Colangelo can be interested in. Other than having a little of James Franco going for him, he’s also got this according to his outdated ESPN Insider profile:

+ Pick-and-pop big man who can play physical and rebound. Will force shots.

+ Limited leaping ability. Doesn’t block shots and a below-average finisher.

+ Can defend post but struggles to guard perimeter. Good foul shooter.

Ilyasova regressed a bit from his promising 2009-10 campaign, missing 22 games with injury and looking a step slower when he played. He didn’t shoot any worse or better, but he was a lot less active offensively, losing 2.5 points off his 40-minute average. This was the exact opposite of what Milwaukee needed, as it was desperate for anyone who could generate a halfway decent look. The one positive from his season was that he shot a scintillating 89.4 percent from the line.

Defensively, Ilyasova was pretty average. His listed weight (235 pounds) may make him seem like a liability, but he relishes physical play and has no problem banging with bigger players. Plus, he takes tons of charges. Ilyasova’s problem is his lack of athleticism and average mobility, which makes it hard for him to defend the rim and help guards in pick-and-rolls.

I can add that he had his best season last year, one where he started 41 of 60 games and surprised everyone. Contract year performer or a man turning a page?

He was pretty candid about what it’ll take to acquire his services in a recent interview, basically saying that it’s up to the highest bidder.

“When I look at it I have to remember that it’s a business,” said Ilyasova. “Some teams overseas wanted to buyout my contract but I wanted to finish this season in the NBA. This is where I want to be right now, but we will see what happens in the future. Financially, whoever pays me more will be the team that I decide to sign with.”

At least the man’s honest and doesn’t pretend to have an allegiance to a Wisconsin club, which nobody would believe anyway. Bryan Colangelo’s already said that he’s accepted the fact that he’ll have to pay above-market value for free agents, so I can see him splurging money here as well.

One thing’s for sure, this RFA isn’t staying with Bucks as they’ve already got Drew Gooden and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute locked up long-term. To think of it, it’s surprising that the Bucks didn’t ship him off at the deadline.

So, free-agents I predict so far:

- Goran Dragic
- Ersan Ilyasova

The results are in. So how do we, the RR Readership, value each draft prospect? How do we rank the potential lottery picks? How does this stack up with “expert” or consensus rankings? Well, let’s have a look.

The Results – Full Table
Below you’ll see the full table of results for any player that received a top-14 nomination. Players were awarded 14 points for a #1 position, 13 for a #2, and so on, down to a single point for the #14 position. While this has some flaws as a methodology (should the #13 pick really get twice as many points as the #14?) it does do a good job with the prospects who come up on most ballots, and I think the “points” rankings follow a logical order, and match up well with what would be a ‘consensus’ positioning from the ballots.

The Results – Lottery Mock Comparison
The chart below shows how the RR Reader Rankings for the top-14 players compared to those of some other top draft sites. Just for a reference of Readers vs. Writers, I included my own top-14 as well as Arsenalist’s. Again,the RR Reader top-14 here is based on the top-14 point getters from the table above.

The Results – R4′s Top-14

#1 – Anthony Davis
Blake’s Ranking: #1
Most Common Position: #1 (34 of 38 ballots)
Notes: He’s been considered the league’s consensus #1 for most of the year, and it was surprising that 4 different people thought he should go lower (with one even ranking him as low as #4). Still, it looks like most people are okay with The Unibrow being the face of this franchise, if the Raptors were to be so lucky in the lottery.

#2 – Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
Blake’s Ranking: #2
Most Common Position: #2 (27 of 38 ballots)
Notes: Three people who didn’t like Davis gave MKG the nod at #1, while one person didn’t like him until #4. It seems he’s the consensus consollation prize after Davis, and it makes sense since this team could use the high-motor, team-first wing play he brings to the table.

#3 – Bradley Beal
Blake’s Ranking: #4
Most Common Position: #3 (16 of 38 ballots)
Notes: After Davis and MKG, every prospect had a pretty wide range of rankings. Beal was slotted anywhere from #1 (once) to #10 (once), although most saw him as the #3 (16) or #4 (11) pick. Beal’s offensive upside is obvious, but the question among the readership seems to be whether he’d be an upgrade over DeRozan or not.

#4 – Harrison Barnes
Blake’s Ranking: #6
Most Common Position: #5 (11 of 37 ballots)
Notes: After the top-3, every single player was left off of at least one ballot. Basically, people have said beyond Beal, we’re not convinced of anyone as a lottery pick, unanimously. I think that’s a bit extreme, because Barnes’ floor is that of a bench scorer, with a significantly greater upside. I ranked him a little on the lower end of his range (he was slotted in the 3-6 range on 31 of 38 submissions).

#5 – Thomas Robinson
Blake’s Ranking: #3
Most Common Position: #4 (11 of 36 ballots)
Notes: Readers seem split on Robinson, and my guess would be that some don’t like the idea of adding another non-elite PF to the mix with Ed Davis and Amir Johnson already in-house. I understand the concern, but I really liked what I saw from him throughout the college season and think he could be a difference maker. Robinson’s range spanned from #2 (4 times) to unranked, though he was in the 2-5 range on 27 of 38 ballots.

#6 – Andre Drummond
Blake’s Ranking: #10
Most Common Position: #6 (11 of 35 ballots)
Notes: I’m not necessarily sour on Drummond in general, I just don’t love the idea of trying to develop multiple bigs at the same time. If he slipped this far, which doesn’t seem likely, the Raptors would have an interesting opportunity to develop a beastly defensive front-court. Some love Drummond (he was #2 thrice, #3 thrice, and #4 twice), but he was also unranked three times and ranked out of the top-10 another two times.

#7 – Perry Jones III
Blake’s Ranking: #5
Most Common Position: #7 (10 of 32 ballots)
Notes: Like scouts, our readership seems to love him or hate him. I think he was mis-used as a big man in college and could be a dominant wing player with the right tutelage, and at #5 I don’t feel he’s riskier than anyone else available. He didn’t go higher than #4, and was unranked half a dozen times, but 6-10 seems to be his ranger for the Raps (26 of 38 ballots).

#8 – Kendall Marshall
Blake’s Ranking: #9
Most Common Position: #9 (8 of 34 ballots)
Notes: As we hit the point-guard part of the lottery, we start to see whether people choose based on need or talent. Marshall had a wider ranger than Damian Lillard, ranking both higher and lower, with a much wider spread of picks. It seems while a handful of people believe in Marshall’s leadership and ability to make others better (he ranked #9 or better on 23 of 38 ballots), still nearly half the respondents had him #10 or later, or even outside of the lottery altogether. Marshall and Lillard, it appears, are a coin-flip apart for our collective ranks.

#9 – Jeremy Lamb
Blake’s Ranking: #7
Most Common Position: #8 (6 of 38 ballots)
Notes: Jeremy Lamb is officially your “nobody knows where to slot him” award winner – he was placed everywhere from 5th to 12th at least three times, and was also 13th, 14th, or unranked a couple of times. When the “consensus” position is chosen just 15% of the time, you know there’s no sure spot for him. It’s going to be a nervous draft night for Lamb, I guess. I wonder if people used him as a “filler pick” when they didn’t want to rank someone at a certain level, using him to move around other picks.

#10 – Damian Lillard
Blake’s Ranking: #8
Most Common Position: #8 (10 of 33 ballots)
Notes: Lillard’s most common rank was higher than Marshall’s, again illustrating that his range was more narrow and he and Marshall are a bit of a coin-flip. Lillard went unranked a few times but primarily went 7th or 8th (17 of 38 ballots).

#11 – Terrence Jones
Blake’s Ranking: #11
Most Common Position: #13 (6 of 25 ballots)
Notes: After the top-10, things started to get really messy, with prospects only appearing on 60% of ballots or so. This makes sense, as the later in the draft you get the more you’d expect variance in opinions. Jones went as high as #5 (once) but I don’t think that’s realistically his draft range. #11 is technically the Raptors “worst case” lottery scenario, but it seems at least half of us would be OK with Jones in this spot if it comes to that.

#12 – Jared Sullinger
Blake’s Ranking: Unranked
Most Common Position: #9 (6 of 25 ballots)
Notes: It appears we mirror the media and scouts on Sully, as some love him (he ranked #5 once, and 9th or higher 11 times), while 13 people didn’t even see him as a lottery pick. Sullinger will never be an above-the-rim NBA player, but I think his floor is a 3rd big with his offensive polish. With that said, given the Raptors current make-up it just makes far more sense to swing for upside or draft for need.

#13 – Austin Rivers
Blake’s Ranking: #14
Most Common Position: #11, #12 and #14 (7 each of 30 ballots)
Notes: Rivers seems to be locked into the late-lottery range, slotting from 11th to 14th 23 times. Rivers would seem to have a high floor with his NBA legacy and Duke pedigree, but a second year in school really would have helped him. He has “late bloomer” written all over him as an NBA prospect because it could take him a year or two to find and accept his role (and it’s not super-duper-star, whether he thinks so or not).

#14 – Tyler Zeller, Quincy Miller
Blake’s Ranking: Unranked, #12
Most Common Position: #11 (4 of 12 ballots), #14 (4 of 12 ballots)
Notes: Zeller and Q-Millz tied in points, neither ranked above #10 (three times each), and they were both left off of 26 ballots altogether. This late, the draft and rankings are a crap-shoot, but RR Nation seems to like Zeller’s floor as a bench big with energy, or Miller’s upside after a year or two of further developing his game.

Others Receiving Votes
Blake’s Ranking: Royce White #13
Notes: I don’t know Royce White personally, but I can’t see someone with an anxiety disorder being comfortable in a new country. With that said, in strictly basketball terms he’d be a steal outside of the lottery. John Henson appeared on a hanful of ballots, and I feel like he’d have been on more if people thought he could play the wing effectively. Terrence Ross fits the bill of “shooter” in our “needs” column. Tony Wroten Jr and Marquis Teague are questionable PGs in the lottery but potential steals later in the draft. Moe Harkless, Arnett Moultrie, Andrew Nicholson, Kris Joseph, Meyers Leonard, William Buford, and Jae Crowder all received at least one top-10 vote but not enough late-lottery love to crack the top-14. Dion Waiters, Evan Fournier, Doron Lamb, Jeff Taylor, Darius Miller, Darius Johnson-Odom, and Fab Melo also received votes, bringing the list of potential lottery picks to an astounding 34.

This was a lot of fun….we obviously won’t be able to do something similar for our 2nd round pick (it would be all over the place, and far too contingent on what happens in the first round), but hopefully this fosters some more discussion to carry us through these awful, hurtful, awesome, exciting, why-can’t-we-be-there NBA playoffs. Please try to keep the discussion clean and friendly…or at the very least try to keep race/background out of it. Attack the idea, not the person. Or something like that.

Re-using an old RR pic!

You’ve only got three days left to submit your Raptor Republic Reader Draft Rankings! Obviously, that is Focus #1 for everyone here. But we needed something to do in the meantime, for those of us who have already submitted our rankings, or those of us who have found themselves mocking up both full rounds and just can’t decide who we should take if we somehow manage to get the #60 pick – Khris Middleton, Casper Ware, Snoop Heymans, Ognjen Kuzmic or Joffrey Lauvergne? – and need a break. Only one of those names is fake, by the way.

So what to do while we await the compiling of the composite draft rankings of Raps Nation? Well, since there’s no sense in projecting who we may be able to nab in the 2nd round (the Raptors have the #37 and #56 pick) due to the volatility in mock drafts beyond the lottery, I thought it may be better to examine the plausibility of something many fans apparently want to see – the Raptors acquiring another 1st round pick.

Now, whether or not this is a good idea is debatable. The team is already young, already has Jonas coming in, their lottery pick coming in, and probably one of their two 2nd round picks coming in.That puts the roster at 11, which could expand to 12 if Jerryd Bayless is tendered a qualifying offer, and 13 if Solo Alabi’s team option is picked up (both of these are likely to varying degrees). Here’s a look at the Raptors salary cap situation under various scenarios:

Confirmed: Jose Calderon, Andrea Bargnani, Amir Johnson, Linas Kleiza, DeMar DeRozan, Ed Davis, James Johnson, Gary Forbes
Salary Committed: $41.0M
Projected Cap Space: $19.0M (I am assuming a $60M cap for a nice round number, and based on a few estimates I found online)
Notes: The team also holds it’s Amnesty Provision, so in a scenario where they decline Solo’s option, leave Jonas in Europe, and don’t bring in any of their picks, they could conceivably have as much as $30M in cap space, though this is wildly unrealistic and would be pointless.

Likely: Jerryd Bayless ($4.2M qualifying offer, assuming he accepts or negotiates a similar deal), Solo Alabi ($0.9M team option), Jonas Valanciunas ($3.3M, based on previous #5 picks), Lottery Pick X ($5.2M for a #1, $2.5M for the #8, which we’ll use here)
Salary Committed: $51.9M
Projected Cap Space: $8.1M
Notes: You could certainly argue whether or not Bayless being tendered a qualifying offer should fall into the “likely” category, but I included him here for the time being. This would change based on who is selected with that first pick, who is available on the market, and whether or not another first could be acquired.

Possible: 2nd Round Pick X (minimum salary, let’s use $0.8M), 2nd Round Pick Z (again, $0.8M)
Notes: Negligible impact to the cap, but this would put the roster at 14 players, which would leave the team a little over the mid-level amount to sign a 15th player. It seems highly unlikely the team would opt for this plan and leave themselves so little roster flexibility for the summer months.

A note on cap holds: Technically, the team would still own the rights to Bayless, Julian Wright, Aaron Gray, Sonny Weems, Jamaal Magloire, Alan Anderson, and Ben Uzoh. Each of these players comes with a “cap hold” since the Raptors still maintain their Bird rights (or something). Thus, if the Raptors wanted to utilize the various cap space amounts listed above, they would have to renounce the rights to each of these players to clear their cap hold off the book (or, alternatively, sign them back, decreasing the cap space available). This may be as much as paper shuffling, but in the case of Bayless ($9.1M cap hold), it would behoove the team to make the decision earlier than later.

So, if we look at the decision in terms of cap space and roster flexibility, it seems acquiring another 1st rounder would require the team to jettison a player or two, whether via letting Bayless walk, utilizing the Amnesty provision, or making a trade. However, if the Raptors are dead set on acquiring another first rounder, perhaps to add a point guard to the mix with a wing player from their lottery pick, could they potentially acquire one?

Dallas
Unless the salary cap drops off significantly, the Mavericks could potentially have enough cap space to trade for Dwight Howard and sign Deron Williams. The moves would require them to somehow convince Orlando that this is to their benefit (they have literally no players to offer if they clear enough cap space), as well as make two difficult roster moves – Amnestying Brendan Haywood (eating a fair amount of salary), and trading Shawn Marion.

That’s where we come in – with potentially open roster spots and cap space available to send back just a Traded Player Exception, the Raptors could help the Mavericks by taking on the last year and $8.4M of Marion’s deal (there’s also an Early Termination Option for $9.0M in 2013-14 which he’s unlikely to utilize, so it’s essentially still a two-year deal). In return, the Mavericks could offer the Raptors the #17 pick (which they traded to the Lakers for Lamar Odom, but kept it top-20 protected).

Note: Teams are unable to trade 1st round picks in back-to-back years, but I have to claim ignorance on how this is handled for “protected” picks like the one the Mavs owe the Lakers. I’m assuming they are free to trade this pick (they could do so “after” the pick is made to circumvent any rules, I’m sure).

Houston
Houston has picks #14 and #16, and picked at #14 last year. They are a team that has maintained success annually despite lacking star power, but they’ve been desperately trying to acquire a marquee player for some time. While the Raptors can’t offer such a player for one of these picks, it’s definitely possible they could lend their cap space in a multi-team trade. It’s also possible, though not very likely, that the Raptors could explore trading their #8 pick for this pair of later picks, assuming they really like two of the players in this range (I don’t advocate this, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility).

Boston
Boston owns picks #21 and #22. If they commit to a re-tooling around Pierce and Rondo rather than continuing with the Big Three Plus One formula (KG and Ray Ray are free agents), they’ll definitely hang on to these picks to add some young players for next year. That said, if Danny Ainge decides the team needs to stay in win-now mode, these are tradeable assets they may be willing to part with for even competent rotation players (I think we have some, though I can’t be sure), as they only have six players under contract, and only four of them play (Rondo, Pierce, Bradley, and Brandon Bass If He Exercises His Option). If they go this route, the Celtics desperately need some front-court players, and we’re flush.

Other Scenarios
As always, draft day trades can also come out of nowhere. Maybe the Cavaliers don’t want a second pick. Maybe the Nets get dropped in the lottery, and the Blazers don’t want to add multiple rookies to a squad ready to win soon. Maybe maybe maybe.

My Take
I don’t love the idea of grabbing another first given our options, unless it’s coupled with another trade to free up some roster space. If it were me, I’d likely hold on to the Amnesty Provision for the time being, renounce the rights to all of the players with cap holds (yes, including Bayless), roll with our 8 players under contract, plus Jonas and the lottery pick and the early 2nd rounder, exercise Solo’s option as bench filler, use the late 2nd rounder on a Euro-stash, and play with the 3 roster spots and $10-12M to fill out the squad.

What are your thoughts? The whole point of this article, I guess, was to begin to lay out the offseason and foster discussion on a few potential offseason strategies. And a reminder, get your Draft Rankings submissions in by Sunday!

Just two short months away!

Hey there, RR faithful!

Guess what? It’s time for you to be heard! Not individually, of course…that would be silly. But you can have a face-less voice in a chorus of the collective readership!

What the hell am I talking about?

Well, you may have noticed that the Raptors’ season is over and, as such, there isn’t a whole lot for us to talk about here while the “good” teams keep playing games in something called “the playoffs.” Rather than let the site die down or have Arse blow his brains out trying to formulate daily content right now, I hatched an idea to at least keep us all somewhat interested in the Raptors while we stew menacingly with plots of tearing EVERYONE’s ACL outside of Toronto so that WE could have a playoff game or four.

Again, what the hell am I talking about?

Here’s what you and I, all of us together, are going to do:

The Raptors Republic Reader Rankings / Mock Draft (aka R^4 Draft)
We are going to create a collective rankings for draft prospects from the Toronto Raptors perspective. Basically, we want to create a draft board in the event that we win the lottery and pick 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, stay in our current #8 spot, or move down as far as #11. So we’ll need to rank the top-11 players, but to make it tidy we’ll do the entire “lottery” of 14 players.

What you need to do – Send an email to draft@raptorsrepublic.com with the subject line “R4 Draft”
What to include – A numbered list from 1-14 of who you would like the Raptors to draft.
How to choose – However you want, really. Don’t worry about who may/may not be available when we pick, because we don’t know when we’ll pick yet. Rank the top-14 guys you’d like to see the Raptors take, in a perfect world.
Submissions are due – I’ll start to compile the results on Monday, so please submit no later than Sunday May 6.

At the beginning of next week, I will take all of the lists and merge them into one master list, giving 14 points for a #1 pick, 13 for a #2, etc, down to 1 point for the #14 on a list. A player’s total points will be summed up, and the rankings will be determined, giving us the Raptors Republic’ collective rankings for the draft. From here, we can discuss, explain, and berate each other, since we’ll know that we’re either a) not alone in our opinions or b) the only intelligent person to use this site.

In the meantime, feel free to respond to this thread with your initial thoughts and comments, and post your own list for all to see if you want (because again, the lists will be amalgamated, not posted individually). But please email them as well, because I won’t be pulling them from the comments for tabulation.

And hey…I happen to have it on good authority that Bryan Colangelo frequents this site (he likes Arse’s photoshops), so this list will probably end up being the actual board the team uses in June. Let’s draft!

I figured I’d write an article talking about what Dwane Casey did for the team this year, but this guy already did a decent enough job so I defer.

Colangelo was on the radio talking about picking up Casey’s option and how he’s exceeded expectations. Apparently he made the decision to pick up the option a while ago and figured to hold off on letting Casey know, because the latter was so focused in those crucial games down the stretch. He even tried telling Casey but it didn’t go well:

BC: Dwane, your option has been picked up, congratulations!

Casey: Hang on Bryan, just designing a 1-3-1 zone-defense to stop Jason Maxiell here.

BC: I said I picked up your option!!

Casey: Can’t talk. Hey, what do you think about doubling Jonas Jerebko early in the shot-clock?

BC: Dude, Your option! I picked it up!

Casey: Hmm…maybe I’ll switch Alabi to Vernon Macklin when Walker Russell runs the pick ‘n roll. Thoughts?

BC: F**k it, I’ll talk to you later.

Colangelo goes on to say how there wasn’t a trade out there that was attractive, even though there were several options including a couple calls for Linas Kleiza. As a side, to me, any trade where Kleiza is heading out is attractive. The three position is an open question, both to him and the fans, as nobody emerged to be seriously considered as a contender. He’s not going to outright say it, but him hinting that he’s always thinking about the point guard spot tell you that he’s convinced that it’s a position that requires some serious contemplation. Looking into my crystal ball and considering Colangelo’s free-agent tendencies and the point guard free-agents, I see Goran Dragic in a Raptors uni.

After the white Stevie Wonder forgot what trades the Raptors had made, or whether Leandro Barbosa was a free-agent or not, I’m surprised Colangelo even stuck around for this interview. He did though, and towards the end he was posed the question of how you get NBA players to play in Canada. After all, there’s no running water here and everyone lives in igloos so it’s got to be a tough sell-job. Colangelo says – and he’s bang-on here – that there’s ways around the taxes and it’s not even close to the situation it used to be in the days of Kenny Anderson. What’s interesting is that this was the first time he conceded that you have to overpay to get players to Toronto. Again, nothing we didn’t already know and it makes total sense – it just felt refreshing to have articulated in words what we’ve seen with Kapono, Hedo, etc. When he says that “money supercedes most concerns” and what he calls “above market deal” is what we refer to as overpaying, and it’s part of the game when you’re a GM in Toronto.

The talk of bringing Leandro Barbosa back has to be a joke, so no comment there. Honestly though, given the massive amount of cap space we have, the TPE at our disposal, Colangelo has all the flexibility he needs to make a deal – he doesn’t need a Steve Fruitman-concocted plan to sign dross like Hedo, he’s got the power to execute. The one question that hasn’t been explicitly put to him is whether he intends next year to be similar to this one in terms of suckage/rebuilding, or whether he plans to make a splash in the market that speeds up the job. My thinking is it’s the former.

Blake’s got a draft thingy where you get to participate and stuff.

OK, so I watched the Bryan Colangelo presser (at least as much as I could stomach) and gathered that the Raptors are looking at an off-season where they’ll “dramatically improve” the basketball team. Well then, I’m certainly looking forward to this. These are some bold words by Colangelo, unless he’s just referring to adding two rookies to the roster, which he very well might be. From what I could gather of his speech, Colangelo’s counting on the existing mediocre talent to bloom into above-average talent. He’s specifically referencing Ed Davis, James Johnson, and Amir Johnson as part of the core going forward, and looks intent to holding on to Jose Calderon for lockeroom reasons.

With those guys seemingly mainstays for next season and two rookies coming in, it’s hard to see what he can add in the off-season to “dramatically improve” the basketball team as he emphasized he’d do. The mid-level exception was mentioned a couple times as an option for player acquisition, there’s always talk of trade flexibility and the often hyped but never used TPE, and he even touched on free-agency offering hope. The talk usually never translates to anything meaningful so I’ll just wait till he does something before before speculating on what he can do, and more importantly, cannot do because of his hands being tied by those plastic thingys that you have to get a sword made out of Valyrian steel to cut.

Colangelo explained how he decided that this season was no time to make silly moves and bring in long-term deals, he’d much prefer to do that business in the summer. He didn’t elaborate why, but maybe he just wanted to take stock of what the roster is all about before adding, subtracting or long dividing it. Sure, why not? Being crappy for a few more month isn’t going to hurt, maybe we’ll even get a high pick and…oh wait.

No surprise that wins and losses weren’t the key performance indicators for measuring success this season (gotta love that, eh?), and that “changing the culture” was the top priority after Jay Triano had basically impregnated every single Raptor with a strong seed of “not giving a f**k”. Casey was commended for the job he’s done, specifically for aborting Jay Triano’s creation and planting his own sauce called “let’s give a f**k for a change”. This has made Colangelo and every Raptors fan very excited as he, like us, only counted a handful of games where the team “didn’t show up”. And even that was because of the schedule.

Colangelo did spend some time talking about being below the cap, possibly going above the cap with trades and free-agency, and even mentioned how he might just not do anything and sing the same song again next season. All three ways work fine with me, I’m conditioned to losing, waiting, hoping, that the Raptors do something. Really, this is how I watch Raptor games:

It’s like my feelings for winning have been castrated.

He went on to talk about Bargnani, DeRozan, Valanciunas and so on…lot was said, some was meant, and most of it was lip-service. Really though, in the end he feels like “it all fell in line with the plan”, and the plan for this summer is to get that dramatic improvement going. So, on with it.