Toronto Raptors Ramblings

Merry Christmas Raptors Fans

2-2 on the west coast trip, 5-6 without Bosh, 4th place in the East


And Bosh should be back in a week.

Merry Christmas Indeed.....

posted by WG @ 12:44 PM 0 comments

March 23rd. Book it.

First thing you do when Iverson gets traded....get on line to your local ticket broker and hook yourself up with some Nuggets vs. Home team tickets. When your Home Team is the nuggets you get season tickets. In the case of Raptors fans we are looking at March 23rd, a nice little Friday nighter down at the ACC.

How can anyone not want to see Iverson play, let alone play alongside a team of actual players. Let alone play alongside the NBA's newest pure scorer. That's right...two scoring machines side by side. As a fan of the NBA watching the Iverson and Garnett's of the league struggle alongside a bunch of duds is just not fun. Of course it's always fun to watch Iverson it's just you'd think these superstars would one day run with some dudes. Well that time is now. And as a bonus...Iverson has left the East. Go dominate out West my man.

Why Philly made this trade? Simple. Greg Oden + 2 First Round Picks.
In what is predicted to be the deepest draft in years, Philly will get 3 picks. Likely they will finish 10 games worse than anybody in the NBA and should have a great shot at the #1 pick. Greg Oden. Then comes the two first rounders from Denver. That's a whole lotta rebuilding all at once.

Throw in massive cap space clearing up with Joe Smith and you could actually bring in some top talent in the off season if any of the big Free Agents decide to switch teams. For all the talk that Billy King waited too long and that he's a total idiot....this actually seems to be a genius piece of work. And hey, I haven't followed Billy King, so maybe that's like calling Rob Babcock a genius. Maybe genius...maybe pure luck. But at this point, why not play the Greg Oden sweepstakes? Why not have Iverson out for a couple of weeks waiting for this trade as your team piles up loses absolutely ensuring a total disaster season? The Sports Guy will tell you about the Ewing theory...but it will not apply here.

Billy King.....executive of the year? luckiest man of the year? Of course, if the ping pong balls don't fall his way....

GAME NOTES....yes, i realize the Raps played last night. But with Phoenix riding a 14 game win streak and the Raps in Phoenix...do we really need to report on the game? It was over by the fourth and we got crushed. As we should have. Amare dominated us, as he should have. Garbajio got hurt, which sucks, and TJ also left the game. These injuries are starting to pile up and as Steve said to me at the Golden State game on Sunday "have you seen the size of Derrick Martin?". He's got a point.

p.s. no i don't think Melo and Iverson are going to co-exist well....yes, i do think George Karl is going to have a nightmare on his hands.....yes i do think Marcus Camby will get even more blocks with Iverson's ole defense....yes i do think you're in trouble if you have either Melo or Iverson on your fantasy squad....and of course i'd love to see Karl try to have the #1 and #2 scorers in the league all season, but that will take about 120 a night. Should be fun.

posted by WG @ 9:42 AM 0 comments

Boooooooo.....Boooooooooo

Nothing like the annual Vince boo-festival combined with a W to get into the holiday spirit. Vince stinking up the joint to a chorus of boos brings a tear of joy not unlike the return of Chris Bosh will.

Vince claims that the crowd doesn't get to him. Vince also claimed that he didn't give up on us. Vince also rolls on the ground like a baby anytime he sees fit. That's what you gotta love about Vince.

TJ says the Raps know how to play together without Bosh. Well they played some defense and New Jersey couldn't hit the water as they were falling over board. Some all around great team play no doubt, but sans Bosh we're just trying to stay afloat. With the New Jersey beat down the Raps have moved themselves to within 1/2 a game of the playoffs! At 9-14 that is a bit of a sad statement for the NBA, but great news for us Raps fans.

With no Bosh in sight, this could be a tough stretch run to the New Year. Here's hoping TJ knows how to play without Bosh and that our opposition continues to stink. Here's hoping Joey can have a few more of these type of games. Here's hoping Nani can get consistent before he's going to get consistent. We should also be hoping that Mo Pete starts dropping bombs again and that the Garbage Glue man keeps us stuck together. And Rasho...if he can keep his energy up maybe he can play some serviceable minutes.

Sunday I'll be in attendance and the posts should start coming fast and frequently. I've been under the man's thumb a little too tightly lately but i'm trying to come up for some air. By the time i come up who knows...maybe the Raps will be in first place in the East.

posted by WG @ 2:02 PM 0 comments

IVERSON TO THE RAPTORS

Given that everybody who is 'interested' in Acquiring Iverson actually seems to be disinterested do you think Colangelo has picked up the phone? Do you think he's gone to the Trade Machine to see what he could roll?

Thanks to ESPN (and Josh who sent me the link http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/trademachine ) i've rolled through a few scenarios. None of them make sense and none of them are fair for Phili, but do you remember what we got for Vince? Does anyone remember? Exactly. And remember how many teams after said "well, we would have offered something better than THAT". But none of them did. They just didn't realize how desparate we were.

What i'm saying is that in the Superstar sweepstakes you HAVE TO TAKE A CHANCE. As a good GM you owe it to everyone. Especially when you play in the worst division of all time in the worst conference of all time and could actually acquire 1 guy who could run you through the playoffs. And if things don't work out...it's only 2 years.

They've cleared out AI's locker room and taken him off the video highlight real. Nuff said. Let's try to get A.I. for 5 cents on the dollar.

Lastly...before we roll some scenarios i'm well aware that AI might not 'fit'. But consider the fact that Bosh is NOT a selfish guy and we don't have any ball hogs or reliable scorers outside of Bosh....we could be one of the better fits around. Of course, AI would have to play the 2, giving us 2, 5 '10 dudes in the starting lineup.

Iverson
for
Nani
Nesterovic
Peterson

Approved!
analysis: that's giving up way too much! get your head straight. Nani? No way. Do you remember what we got for Vince? Rejected.

Iverson
for
Ford
Rasho
Parker

analysis: move Jose into the starting point guard role (strange role with Iverson on your team). Dump Rasho (his salary has to be involved to make any trade work). Donate Parker, who is middle of the road. Getting AIs speed and giving up Fords. It'd be nice to have all the speed to ourselves. Rejected.

Iverson
for
Rasho
Jose
Parker .....counter offer....replace with MoPete

analysis: with Iverson shooting 20 shots a game and Bosh dropping 15, that really limits what MoPete is going to hoist up. But we don't offer him first. We offer up Parker. Even Phili laughs at that one and we go to plan B, throw in Mo. Although it's tough to give away our only 3 point shooter, Mo's contract is coming up and someone will overpay him next year. Cut him loose, gotta throw in Rasho, and Jose has showed a spark that could make him a starter. Of course you'd be busting up Garbo's main man. Overall though this deal has pretty much zero upside for Phili and is not bad for us, which means it's the winner we've been looking for! Make the offer!

If you have to we throw in a second rounder. Love second rounders.

Our new starting lineup

Bosh, Nani, Iverson, Garbo, Jones

Adding Iverson, not removing Nani, Bosh or the Glue Man Garbo....I say we roll the dice. It's two years of Iverson and we could actually take a shot at the East!? And the title....okay...but how sweet would it be to even get to the finals.....pretty freaking sweet.

analysis: TAKE A SHOT!

posted by WG @ 10:16 PM 1 comments

Hey Sports Guy....Bon Appetit

That's not Ape Tit. That's french for eat it.

After the Sports Guy (pretty much my favourite internet writer) wrote that the Eastern Conference is the worst division in the history of sports and proceded to rank the Raptors as the worst team in the worst division ever, I couldn't help but feel a screw you coming on. (p.s. asides from that it's a sweet article).

Simmons makes a great point about the Rapshow, which is you can't play 'outscore' the other team, if you can't shoot the outside shot. No doubt we can't. Our 628 games straight with a three pointer streak almost ended for God's sake (p.s. because it didn't Derrick Martin is a hero in at least mine and Chuck's books). But since it's so obvious we can't shoot Mitchell has hired a shooting coach and made adjustments to our game so we don't jack a gagillion treys a game. I think the Sports Guy is actually jealous of Sam Mitchell, which shows the Celts are in a really bad coaching situation. Sam certainly outcoached Doc.

SPORTS GUY MATH
His win Prediction for the Raps is: 22!
Yup, 22. That means he thinks they'll go 16-50 the rest of the way.
Celtics Win Prediction: 28 - 47!
Ha ha. Meaning to hit 47, the celts will go 42 -25.

Read that again:
Raptors: 16-50
Celtics: 42-25

Wins so far: Raps 6. Celts 5.
Wester Conference Games: Raps 8. Celtics 3.
Easter Conference Games: Raps 8. Celtics 12.
Road Games: Raps 9, Celtics 6.

Raps have 9 new players. Nobody (who knows the Raps or Hoops) expects them to find the right chemistry until let's say aggressively 25 games. More like 40. Until then they have to find a way to stay alive.

The Celts don't have nearly as many new faces asides from some ghetto punks (nice Neck tattoo incidentally on West). Michael Rappaport was the closest thing they had to an answer for Bosh. How do these guys defend anybody with any size when there best interior defender could easily be the Guy from the Boston Publics instead of the Boston Celtics. It's a sad state in Boston.


(seriously. can you tell which two are which? There's no way you can. This has got to be the same guy, what a talent)

Sports Guy is self admitted idiot, but I think this is more of the case of 'blind faith' here than his idiocy. I can't knock anybody for that, I've got a 41 win counter on this blog. The chances of this celtics team winning 45+ games is zero unless a major trade goes down. Rant over, back to the game.

THE GAME
We were sitting up in the "Adrenaline" seats last night (i.e. the seats in front of the bar, and the Aussie sitting beside us got an amazing shot of the NANI dunk. It was a semi-plodding 1,2, zlam, from the free throw line. The crowd goes wild. It's in the hole. It apparently got NANI fired up as well as he tried another one minutes later. Not as lucky with a nice Rim/Celts stuff.

The second half was much more enjoyable from our new seats, baseline golds. Row 22 has something that row 87 lacks. The amount of unofficial 'moves of the game' at the ACC means plenty of vocal fans are in prime seats by the 3rd Q. Once they get comfortable that they won't get kicked out (early 4th) they bring some needed spirit down to the rich zone.
note: Aussie guy is supposed to send me the picture. Hopefully he managed to sneak down okay and that picture is coming. Come on Aussie, where are you?

RAPTORS
The game was actually pretty ugly, with no defense in site. We scored 106, but it wasn't even that pretty. Garbajosa was great once again. This guy is probably the smartest rookie in the league. Given he's 28, and known for his craftiness, that kind of makes sense.

NANI was once again showing why the Rookie of the Year award sure isn't locked up yet. He needs something to compete with Morrison's mustache, flowing locks and awkward shooting form. We just have to find out what that is. Raptors PR braintrust...get on this, stat!

Meanwhile, Meat (JG) couldn't quite handle the starting lineup duty. With two beauty early fouls he was riding early pine and the Former Slam Dunk Champion was back in the lineup. Jones actually got packed so brutally in the 2nd Q that I might have to stop calling him the Former Slam Dunk Champion. Okay, I can't, but i might try

Meat meanwhile not only had 2 early fouls but 3 stupid fouls over the course of this game. On the upside he also played hard and with a lot of aggression. Kind of like the 'move of the game' fans come the 4th quarter, a lot more confidence. But when you kick your leg out and trip up Pierce don't look over to Sam wondering how it happened. It's a no call, maybe, but not against Pierce.

Down the stretch Bosh took control (thank god) getting fouled and draining his free throws. Up 3 with 15 to go he missed his first, then calmly drained number 2. Game. Set. Match. Are the Raptors better than the Celtics. Yes. But not by much.

Random Questions: Who's better?
Celtics without Pierce.
Raptors without Bosh.
Both of those scenarios are ugly, don't you think?


Other notes.....Anthony Parker was pretty sweat, but i found out he wears #18 to suck up to Jewish fans in his old league? Apparently it works.....Bosh still not quite handling double / triple teams quite right yet. Remember when it happened to Vince? Remember when it happened to T-Mac. Ya...he'll get through it once he learns to react quicker, fake guys away from bringing the double and not getting caught under the hoop in a triple team and hucking up crap. He'll get it....Garbajosa, would win smartest rookie of the year award if they had one....The Celtics shot over 80% in the 1st quarter, nobody missed and yet i think they were up two...It was like an all-star game but with only 2 all-stars.

posted by WG @ 10:45 AM 0 comments