Toronto Raptors Ramblings

Unlimited Upside

What are the levels of upside? Listening to Raptors TV, you'd have to ask 'what the hell is upside'? Sure, it's pretty straight fwd what the word means, but every single player being discussed has tremendous upside. Great upside. Huge upside. Unlimited Upside. Upside of a Marion. Well at least the last one says something. Basically you are saying his upside is a 22 - 10 guy who gets the hustle stats. Okay, well at least that's something. Give me something people...something!

Here's a brief summary for those of you who didn't PVR (Tivo) the fantastic analysis on Raptors TV....

Adam Morrison - Did we mention the next Larry Bird? Did you know that Larry Bird's upside was questioned when he came out of college due to his defense? Apparently the upside of his defensive game was low, which meant he would suffer. Let's put it this way...what if you passed on Larry Bird (think MJ) and you had to look back and say "Well Bargnani was okay for a couple of years"

Tyrus Thomas - Huge Ups. Offensive Boarding Machine. Good shot blocker. Little Baby Hook. Plays the 3 or 4. Uh oh! Plays the 3 or 4!! That's not good. How can you compare a guy to Amare Stoudemire (as they just did) or Stromile Swift (how is this a good thing?) and then talk about him playing the 3. Basically what they are saying is he is short. That's limited upside.

Rudy Gay - 'this guy has a world of potential', 'this guy has all the tools', 'can he live up to his upside'. Now that one is a beauty. The guy is lazy, i'm guessing he plays lots of vids and is waiting for his cash. Just a hunch. Anytime these announcers talk about upside and it being limited to 'effort' then you are in trouble. On the other hand he can break you down and play lots of positions and any of these announcers would take him in their top 10. Great endorsement.

Little Man - what's the upside on this movie? I'd say it has the potential to be a poor man's White Chicks. And I haven't seen White Chicks. But if you have can you tell me why you saw it? What possesses you to go see a flick like this? Well Little Man's upside is that it looks so bad and is advertised as "from the Producers of White Chicks" that we'll give it a miss.

Shelden Williams - "4 years at Duke and coaches like that". "Is he Carlos Boozer?". No. He's way better....at this stage of his career. 3 blocks per game...that is fancy. But can he take it to the next level? "He's a true tough guy who can mix it up like a Hasleem".
They've downgraded to 'he can improve at the next level and he has good instincts'. They've also used the nickname 'landlord' about 4 times. Oh...and now they are wondering what position he'll play. Okay....this guy is sunk. 6'8, 250lbs. Wrong size.

JJ Redick - Herniated Disc in his back. Let me tell you, i've had one of these doozies and they stink. And they nag and nag and nag at you, for a long time. And while i was once considered 'active' I'd probably collapse 15 games into an 82 game season. NICE! Announcers just thought he'd be a good fit with the Knicks! Can you imagine. JJ just sitting out 3 feet behind the 3 point waiting for Marbury to pass him the ball. And then he starts to realize that Starbury is the point guard. The guy who swore that he'd play ball his own way. And i'm guessing this doesn't involve getting the ball to JJ.
"He could be more than a Steve Kerr or a Jon Paxson". Beautiful.

Brandon Roy - A jack of all trades, a master of none. Like a Luel Deng type guy who can do so many things. Impact - greatest immediate impact of anyone in the draft.
"When a team can't decide what position they need, he could be a great pick." This analysis is phenomenal. What does that even mean? What team is hoping to hear that?

posted by WG @ 6:57 PM