Ugly Boys Raptors?

Yesterday night, on Twitter, Sarah [ticktock6] from Hornets Hype raised a valid point - trading Arron Afflalo from Detroit to Denver seriously shakes the hotness spread over the NBA. Pistons are definitely falling out from the top 10, first losing Allen Iverson to free agency, then trading cute Arron.

This made me think - where are the Raptors in the rankings? And it is not very optimistic. We've been known for losing lots of hot players in last years: Mo Pete, Vince Carter, TJ Ford, even coach Sam Mitchell's classy suits. The last loss of Anthony Parker only adds to our misery.


The core of Bosh, Bargnani and Calderon remains the same. Not stunningly hot, are they? Well, Jose can look rather cuddly on some photos, but he ain't no All Star in Hottie Contest.


With the new additions to our roster, you can make a case for Jarrett Jack's sweet smile [please, Pacers, don't match the offer!!!] and DeMar DeRozan's physique, but it really gets thin after that.


Our hope lays in signing Carlos Delfino which is still remotely possible.


So, is the era of Ugly Boys Raptors coming? I guess so. Hope they will be known for their good play, not for the looks.

About the Summer League and Toronto Point Guards

Yet again, I decided to put my family life on the edge for basketball, like it was before with the March Madness and playoffs. I got myself enough beers, take-out phone numbers handy, paid the $15 ransom to the NBA and started getting excited.

Although strangely familiar to the game I love to love, it's difficult to call them basketball games. It's a rookie watch. I don't really care who wins and by how many points, I'm more interested in personal performances, to see what we're getting for the next season.

First game for the Raptors was against Lakers, second against Pistons.

In the first game Smush Parker looked better as our point guard then Ukic or Douby, although he screwed it up in the second game. Ukic is not an NBA point guard. Neither is Douby. Roko simply sucks and Douby hogs the ball as a wannabe Allen Iverson. He scored 21 points in the second game, but didn't bother very much with dishing the assists.

Brent Petway was channeling Pops Mensah-Bonsu in game 1, trying to prove us that D-League plays better ball than Raptors second unit. Like we didn't know it before. He didn't have very much impact in the second game, which had most of the offense going through the guards.

DeMar DeRozan looked rather good in game 1, his jumper not bad, some high-flying. Had some problems with ball in the traffic, but nothing to raise serious doubts. He really warmed up in the game 2, though, 20 points, 4 rebounds. I didn't see him as a game starter after first game, but in the second game, he got his rhythm going and might be as good as advertised. I have to see more games, to know him better.

Patrick O'Bryant is a misunderstanding. Luckily, he comes cheap. He is soft as a kitten, soft enough to make other Raptors players look like hockey thugs.

Other notable rookies:

- Detroit seems to hit a jackpot with their rookies: both Austin Daye and DeJuan Summers are simply killing it.

- Stephon Curry is a definition of a volume shooter. As Golden State Warriors seem to have more shoots available than your standard NBA team, he seems to be a good fit there.

- Tyreke Evans lives at the free throw line. He drives, drives and drives. And his impressive wingspan seems to extend from one end of the court to another.

- Brandon Jennings sucks.

- After watching (or half-watching) 8 summer league games, my huge book about C++ starts looking tempting. Basically the games are not really exciting.

After 2 games it was easy to notice, that our backup point guard position screams for an NBA worthy player. If Marcus Banks was watching these games in TV, he must have been thinking that his year was coming and he'd get some playing time. How wrong he was. Raptors offered 4 year 20 mln sheet to Jarrett Jack. Jack is a solid backup combo guard. Maybe the money is too big, but on the other hand it can put us on the safe side, if Pacers want to match the offer. They may not be able to offer him this kind of money.

Jarrett Jack as a Raptor puts Marcus Banks on the top of the LVP (Least Valuable Player) run this season. Oh, wait, wasn't he already there? Jack is also Bosh's buddy from Georgia Tech. Another move to seduce Chris in staying in Toronto?

The Cavaliers might be interested in getting Joey Graham. Seriously, is this a move to keep LeBron in Ohio? Or maybe they want to replace Bron with Joey, when he heads to New York?

Paul Millsap signed an offer sheet with Portland. If Utah Jazz doesn't match, we will have helluva of a Trail Blazers team next season.

The new CBA by Tigercub

So, DeMar DeRozan signed his name under his first NBA contract and we have our Pizza-man in T-Dot, also. We knew that already, but how we got Hedo is another thing. Bryan Colangelo with help of other executives created rather complicated deal. Like 'I didn't sleep 5 nights in a row, to figure it out' complicated deal. It includes 4 teams and basically looks like that:

Raptors get Hedo Turkoglu, Antoine Wright, Devean George and bunch of salary cap exceptions.

Mavericks get Kris Humphries, Shawn Marion and Nathan Jawai.

Grizzlies get our second round pick, dollars and Jerry Stackhouse.

Magic get dollars and trade exception.

Why make it so complicated, when BC could have offered Hedo a contract, saving himself some sleepless nights? I'll give you the clue: it's not because we wanted Wright and George so hard. The answer lies in the magical word 'exception'. Yeah, this is what we were losing by just signing Hedo Turkoglu. But the CBA is obviously written by somebody who loves the word 'loopholes'. Before you understand it, the new CBA comes and it starts allover again. We're waiting for another ankle breaking set of rules in 2011. Why not make it simple and honor the players of 2000's in the same time, by this understandable and straight-forward set of exceptions:

The Anderson Varejao exception. Salary: the yearly income of an average wig producer.

The Eddy Curry exception. Salary: the yearly income of your local McDonalds restaurant.

The Allen Iverson exception. Salary: yearly number of sold benches.

The Ron Artest exception. Salary: the number of sold out rap albums by a player in discussion.

The Kevin Garnet exception. Salary: yearly income of an ear-plug store.

The Glen Davis exception. Salary: number of yearly sold Pampers packs.

The Baron Davis exception. Salary: money made by the movie '300' in the first month.

The LeBron James exception. Salary: yearly income of a local video store.

The Nuggets exception. Salary: the average price of tattooing a whole basketball team (coaches, trainers, execs included).

The list can go on and on. It doesn't use the complicated language of lawyers. But it still lets you spend more than you're allowed. Like when you're a girl using your husbands Master Card.

Post draft thoughts

Moving to a new place is always a pain in the ass. If you add the fact, that our movers didn't come when they were supposed to come and we had to do it on our own. New building didn't let us transfer our Rogers account, and Look TV (which they recommended) didn't take new customers. We finally ordered internet from Bell (no TV, because we have no balcony) and the appointment was yesterday morning, so I felt myself lucky enough to not miss the draft and draft discussion on Twitter. The technician came early in the morning, but then we found out that our building management has some bitch-slap war with Bell also, so the technician left us without internet. What was our surprise another technician came in the evening and made it work. Thirty minutes before draft I finally connected!

Draft night wasn't half as eventful. Not much trades, some pick swaps. And not much to talk about Raptors selection. We got (Vince Carter) Demar DeRozan, as we expected. We didn't buy a pick. We didn't do a blockbuster trade. My favorites were Tyreke Evans, Jonny Flynn, Demar DeRozan, as I stated before. Both Evans and Flynn went earlier (BC didn't even bother his head with Evans, but I hoped we could somehow trade for Flynn). DeRozan was an obvious choice. And his reaction was cute.

Other thoughts:

- Number 1 pick wasn't a surprise. Blake Griffin was supposed to go to the Clippers and here he goes.

- Lots of people expect Hasheem Thabeet to be a bust (#2 to Memphis).

- Ricky Rubio, who was projected to go at number 2, but slipped to number 5. We're all kinda not that trusting the European players. And after being drafted his agent said he'd play in Europe for next 2 years. I know, Minnesota sucks, but where is this "I'll play for free, just to be in NBA" attitude?

- Tyreke went to Sacramento with #4, Jonny to Minnesota with #6.

- Minnesota Timberwolves drafted a bunch of guards - Ricky Rubio with #5, Jonny Flynn with #6, Ty Lawson with #18 (traded to Denver), Wayne Ellington at #28. 4 first round picks = 4 guards.

- Golden State Warriors pissed off NY Knicks fans grabbing Stephen Curry at #7.

- New Jersey Nets drafted Terrence Williams at #11. Wait, it only gets cuter. They traded Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson to Magic for Courtney Lee, Rafer Alston and Tony Battie. Backcourt with Devin Harris and Courtney Lee? It rarely gets more entertaining (and HOT!!!). I already feel bad having a crash on division rivals.



- Brandon Jennings drafted at #10 by Milwaukee Bucks looks like Jamario Moon.

- Indiana Pacers went Caucasian, drafting Tyler Hansbrough at #13. Jared (Both Teams Played Hard) wasn't happy at all.

- DeJuan Blair slipped to second round. Suspicions were getting really thick (he raped somebody before draft, knocked out all the GM's daughters, brought a bag of cocaine and a hooker to the practice). There is no way, his knees are that bad! Finally Spurs took him at #37, making Spurs fans happy (me too), and giving another reason for conspiracy theories about SAS. I, myself, feel, that he'll become a huge piece of another championship team.

- Suns got Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, second-rounder and dollars from Cleveland for Shaq, who will have the opportunity to play with yet another great player in LeBron. That's a life story (he played with Penny, Kobe & Wade already).

- Warriors got Acie Law and Speedy Claxton from Hotlanta for Jamal Crawford.

- A part of Portland's Spanish Armada, Sergio Rodriguez is moving to Sacramento.

- Bucks get Bruce Bowen, Kurt Thomas and Amir Johnson, Pistons get Fabricio Oberto, Spurs got Richard Jefferson. I rambled a little about that trade here, but check Project Spurs here.


Raptors Republic got it together pretty nice, telling us about winners and losers in the draft.


Update: I don't believe I forgot about the biggest trade! Darko got traded! For Q-Rich!

Day of Love

Toronto Raptors have extended a qualifying offer to restricted free agent Carlos Delfino, adding so much needed good-looks and sweetness to the roster.



The Star tells us that Reggie Evans likes it tough. Chris Kaman would certainly agree.


Demar DeRozan finally agreed for the workouts in Toronto, which will certainly heal so many broken hearts.

Kevin Love is sad to see coach McHale go.

And I'm gonna watch 'Love & Basketball' tonight, as a cure for the NBA Withdrawal.

About draft and the Finals

I don't know how much truth is in the fact that Demar Derozan didn't want to come to train with the Raptors, but it doesn't make him a desirable player. How can a young boy who didn't smell NBA yet already grade teams he wants to play or not? Kid, Tim Duncan you're not. You might end up being Hoffa / having a 15 win team.

Scottie Raynolds decided to stay one more year in college which I find a very good decision. I like 'Nova basketball and I like Scottie, and I hope he'll improve much for the next year draft. He can end up being closer to top picks and we may end up getting him if we suck another year.

Magic - Lakers tonight and I am starting to seriously doubt if the Magic can make it. First game was a blow-out by Lakers and a brick festival by Magic. Game 2 was a close one, and when it was tied with 0.6 seconds left, I kept my breath waiting for Hedo Turkoglu to inbound a lob to Dwight Howard. The ball went to Courtney Lee, who missed a layup, sending the game to the overtime, when Lakers collected the W. Third game was won by Orlando, but they needed a record-breaking shooting (62.5% with 75% in the first half!) to win JUST by 4 points! No way LA defense won't adjust for the next game. Well, we'll see.

Favorite players in the draft

Hope Brian Colangelo thinks along the same lines:

1. Tyreke Evans, Memphis


2. Jonny Flynn, Syracuse


3. Demar DeRozan, USC