So, the question for Toronto Raptors fans is, how and when is the other sneaker going to drop?
Actually, that's what the question would have been two or three years ago -- how would the NBA's most woebegone franchise mess it up after becoming an against-the-odds winner of the draft lottery. Take a European player and have him decide to stay on the other side of the pond, like Orlando did last season? Draft Rafael Araujo's evil twin? Take someone from Duke?
But that was then. This is now. The Raptors have hired a smart basketball mind in Bryan Colangelo. So until some time in 2008-09 when the Raptors have turned the corner and the empty suits on MLSE's board erupt into an orgy of self-congratulations and revisionist history, and start taking credit for Colangelo's work -- you heard it here first -- he's the guy hired to pull the team of horses out of the ditch.
So here's some quick-hit thoughts on how it's going to shake out. The pretext is that -- gut feeling -- it's about 55/45 the Raptors trade down.
- Andrea Bargnani might be the guy, although the 20-year-old Italian whom scouts liken to Dirk Nowitzki is a definite project, not an immediate saviour. The Raptors have talked to the GM of Bargnani's Italian League team, Maurizio Gherardini, about becoming Bryan Colangelo's assistant GM, and going with international players who could have an easier adjustment to North America by going to multicultural Toronto instead of a U.S. city might be a good approach.
- Banish any thoughts about the Raptors drafting Adam Morrison No. 1. Casual fans often have a natural reaction to clamour for your team to draft a player who's become recognizable through getting on TV and the playing in the NCAA tournament. Ultimately, the Raptors don't have a position for Morrison. They don't need a 6-foot-10 guy who can hit threes till the cows come home if he's left open, but plays smaller than he is and takes January to "run" the floor. They already have one Matt Bonner. (We like Matt Bonner around here and consider him a modern-day folk hero, but the truth hurts.)
- The most obvious need to fill -- Scott Carefoot has been all over this at RaptorBlog -- is to find a shot-blocking, rebounding centre. Someone who can complement Chris Bosh and Charlie Villanueva, who are best suited to playing the four and three spots, respectively. Someone who gives them what Charles Oakley used to five or six years ago, when they actually made the playoffs. Or what Ben Wallace, the rich man's Charlies Oakley, is to the Pistons today. The Raptors were 27-55 this season largely because when push came to shove, they couldn't stop anybody.
- Going by what nbadraft.net says, both highly touted big men, LSU's Tyrus Thomas and LaMarcus Aldridge out of Texas, raise serious red flags. Thomas' profile notes, "He's so talented he can get away with not hustling or working hard." The rap on Aldridge is, "In high school he developed a reputation for being soft and not showing enough heart. Scouts still have some question marks about his toughness inside." The long and short of it is neither guy seems like a perfect fit. As for Bargnani, he has a reputation for being an emotional player (he is Italian, after all), and once he learns to harness that, it might be just what the country-club Raptors need.
- Bottom line: if Bargnani is another Dirk Nowitzki, by all means take him. Just trade down first.
- OILERS 5 DUCKS 4 (Edmonton leads 3-0): Harry Neale took advantage of the chance to drag out his hoary old line about "thinking the Ducks can come back to win this series is like leaving the porch light on for Jimmy Hoffa." Harry's got a million of them, and if you hang around you'll hear all of them twice: he used that line in the 1993 Leafs-Red Wings series, only then it was, "A couple nights ago, thinking the Leafs would come back to win this series was like leaving the porch light on for Jimmy Hoffa."
Anyhow, how much stock do you put in Anaheim's third-period rally? Not much, it says here. The Oilers, who have several guys battling the flu bug, shut it down after going up 4-0. They had a two-man power play after the fourth goal and just went though the motions.
Anaheim's loss of focus in the third, along with some bad mistakes -- the breakdowns on Mike Peca's breakaway goal and on Fernando Pisani's tally that stood up as the game-winner -- suggest the Ducks are ready to go home. Did anyone have Edmonton in 4?
Dwayne Roloson, incidentally, will be the third NHLer from Simcoe, Ont. (pop. approx. 13,000) to play in the Stanley Cup final in the past five seasons, joining Rob Blake (2001 Avalanche) and Jassen Cullimore (2004 Lightning). Both were on the winning team. So was Rick Wamsley with the 1989 Flames and Red Kelly with the 1950 Red Wings... and the '52, '54 and '55 Wings, along with the '62, '63, '64 and '67 Leafs. - Here's a goal to strive for: to become a MSM columnist so loathed that fans gather online. The Chicago Sun-Times' Jay Mariotti has reached this rarefied plane via Jay The Joke, the brainchild of some Cubs and White Sox supporters: "This site is here to bring fans of both teams together, united in their hatred for Jay Mariotti."
- Factoid that probably interests no one: Roy Halladay has a son named after Nolan Ryan, but is far as you can get from Ryan stylistically and still be a power pitcher. Unlike Ryan, Doc doesn't persist in trying to throw unhittable pitches; he's a power pitcher who will give the batters something to hit (hence the rather high home run rate but low walk totals). Halladay was like clockwork again last night in the Jays' 4-1 win over the Devil Rays: seven hits, no walks, 15 groundball outs and seven K's over 8 2/3 innings.
- Pity Ryan Madson: the Phillies reliever threw seven scoreless frames and ended up with a 'L' beside his name in the boxscore after giving up a walk-off homer to the Mets' Carlos Beltran in the 16th inning last night. Madson threw 105 pitches in relief -- only five of the 30 starters in the majors last night threw more.
Yes, I counted. And on that note, I'm going to bed.
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