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.

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!

I am anxious

And this is understatement. I'm positively going bananas, thinking what our GM has in store for us:

Draft picks swap?



Draft day blockbuster trade?



A winner?



A loser?




2 days left, no games to kill the time, and that's all I can think about.

Gimme back my Raptors

Yeah I want them back. The Raptors who gave us all these memorable moments:

1. November 21. Carter's alley-oop to win the the game for New Jersey in overtime. Another early lead blown. Vince first sends it to overtime, than kills us with his alley-oop. There's even a nice poster from Slam with this dunk, and Raptors standing around, staring with awe.

2. November 12. Calderon's hammy. When he went down, you never expected he'd struggle all season long, playing on one leg or not playing at all. How did it feel not having a legit backup point-guard.

3. December 2. Denver blows us up by 39 points. Embarrassing to watch.

4. December 3. Change of a head coach. If you thought Sam wasn't the man, why the hell didn't you fire him in the off-season? And why replace him with an inexperienced Canadian coach? Just to make a feel-good Canadian love story? FAIL.

5. December 19. Loss to Oklahoma City Thunder. You were so happy they were playing the worst team in the league, so you can watch them finally winning. Well, they didn't win.

6. January 11-21. 7 game losing streak. Very depressive period. You just wanted to start drinking really hard just to forget.

7. July 9. We traded for Jermaine O'Neal. Getting JO was supposed to take us to the second round of playoffs. February 14. We traded Jermaine O'Neal for Shawn Marion. Getting rid of JO was a desperation move just to make the playoffs at all.

8. April 5th. Knicks kick us out of playoffs. Like we didn't know that before.

9. Staring at the 33-49 record in disbelief.

10. Bosh's struggles with a joy of becoming a daddy throughout the whole season. Chants in ACC changing from 'MVP!' to 'Booo! trade Bosh!'

11. TSN2 fiasco. The everlasting history of cash-grabbing. MLSE, TSN and Rogers fighting for dollars in complete disregard of customers. Depriving us from 20+ Raptors games, Rookie-Sophomore game, some playoff games, because TSN had to show exciting sports like curling, Poker or darts, so the less important basketball had to be pushed on TSN2.

12. FedEx and 'Crosby doesn't stop' commercials.


There is hardly a possibility the next year will be worst. Expectation are not that high, as they were, which leaves less space for disappointment. Let's hope that:

- BC will fill in the holes in 2 & 3 positions. By trade, draft, whatever. Just put someone there. No more Parker/Moon/Graham/Kapono in these positions. None of them is an NBA starter.

- We'll get a backup point-guard or Roko magically improves in the off-season. El Calderon promised already that he wouldn't play for Spain, so his hammy has time enough to heal, but better to be on a safe side. Also we need a PG who can play ANY defense at all.

- Bosh won't have any babies. Without high-forehead moms to distract him, he should play his butt off. Especially that he wants to raise his value for the 2010 free agency, not to be a laughing stock behind Wade, LeBron, etc.

- BC won't get a player from Lichtenstein/Monaco/Azerbaijan (put your own obscure country here).

- No more nights when Joey Graham is your best player on the floor. It sounds beyond pathetic.

- No more hockey franchises in Ontario. We don't want Raptors to be pushed to TSN3 and us to be a witness to another game of thrones between rich people.

We hope. We read the news, chase for the trade rumors, analyze mock drafts. And we wait. Don't screw it up, BC.