All I Want For Christmas Is...

At the risk of getting killed by my wife for reading your blog on xmas eve, I have one more wish:

For some of our more rabid fans and media to lower their expectations just a smidgeon. They're already booing the cavs in cleveland. Rightfull or not not, I just don't think it helps.

In the Steve Martin mode all that and wish Smitch would confine his coaching to pre game and during TOs. Instruction during play does nothing but hinder instictive performance which good basketball is all about.

ZoneD, you bring up an excellent point about Smitch. Does Phil Jackson not only trust his players enough to run their sets within the triangle offense? He even goes as far as not calling timeouts letting his players work things out through a bad run.

Every coach has his own style, and Smitch has to be true to himself, but the micro-managing he does during the game is a bit much, and if I am a player, I think I will eventually tune him out. Hopefully it will be only after his contact expires lol.

I agree with Zone, mitch should really concentrate on the TO coaching. I mean, is it just me or do we never come out of a TO with a nice play? I never really liked sam, and I think theres a ton of coaches out there who could do a much better job with our raptors. Heck, I have so much faith in BC, Id have him take the reigns. (a little christmas pun)

Hey Nick, unfortuntely Sam's locked in for the next three years, COY and all. So there's no point crying over spilt milk. Lets hope we can beef up our assistant coaches to help Mitchell with the x and os. Portland has won 11 straight, go figure! I think we're due for some luck and maybe a winning streak. Lets start with the Spurs. Happy New year!

Nick, What do you mean that they never come out of a TO with a good play? Watch closely. To make it easier on you to see, Mitchell will continue to call the same play everytime until we all realize that it is a good play. They try to pass it in to Bosh, or if he is covered, as he always is, it goes to the point guard who looks for a covered Bosh and jacks up a hopeless off-balance 3. I love Sam, but his plays are not there yet.

I think it may be time to start looking for a new identity for this team based around our one healthy point guard. Ford being done is bad news, but not as important as him being able to live a comfortable life.

EaseMyPain

is Ford done? I have not found anything which says so one way or the other. Thanks

EaseMyPain where did you hear that from, I am a big fan of BB and I did not hear Ford is done and he is retiring, do you work for the NBA or you have the inside connection??? or are you spreading rumers???

i hope tj can make a full recover for a few reasons

the most important is for his overall health and that his career doesnt end early for such a young talent

but also for the sake of the raptors...if he decides to retire the raps take a big hit, so we need him to come back and play some good ball, so that he is tradeable by the deadline, colangelo has to consider that when it comes to deciding which point guard to keep cause ford is hugely injury prone.

I agree that it is probably time to start planning around having Jose as our PG of the future, based mainly on TJ's injury situation. He has a degenerative condition. All GM's in the league will know it and we probably won't ever get much value out of trading him. I think Jose will be kept out of necessity and TJ will be kept because he will be worth more to us as a back up than what other teams would offer for him. Remember when we traded for him, the biased US media said he was injury prone. We were assured that his injury was healed and a thing of th past. Turns out he may well be injury prone and EVERYONE will now know it. A run of good games to the end of the season won't change that. If this really negative projection turns out to be correct,hopefully TJ can come out and give us a good 20 mins per game and be one of the best back ups in the league. Losing Jose now is not an option though, as we would be going from 2 amazing PG's, to possibly none!

"How is it we still miss live action for replays and shots of the crowd? This is professional broadcasting."

Truer words have never been spoken. I always laugh when teams like the Suns come to town because the production team is unable to keep up with the action AND show all their usual crap. On most plays, the PG is already at or past half court while we're still looking at replays/ crowd shots/ close ups. Can we also add two things?

1. What is with the obsessive need to zoom in on the face of the player that just made a bucket? This is always done at the expense of showing actual game action.

2. When Chuck and Leo go off on a tangent about some assistant coach on the opposing team, why does the production team insist on showing the person they are talking about? This also comes at the expense of showing game action. Doesn't this just compound the problem? Shouldn't the production team be in Chuck's ear reminding him that they are doing play by play, instead of scrambling to get a close up of a guy that dunked on Leo over at Syracuse? Which is more relevant?

Marcia either can't read or, doesn't have an understanding of what she reads. =P

Marcia let me break down for you what Davl said. (wasn't even easemypain) lol

1.He was asking for updates regarding TJ.
2.He didn't find anything regarding the matter that says he is injured nor the opposite.

hmmm..you be the judge if he is spreading rumors. Jeeze why do you get so defensive about TJ all the time. lol no one's even saying anything bad about him..oh I forgot, you're a HUGE BB FAN. Nuff said.

For one, a three year contract does not guarantee him (Mitchell) a job for any extended period of time. For two, I mentioned the need for Mitchell to have a decent assistant coach a couple of weeks ago and it didn't go over to well - be careful. For the record, I don't think very highly of Mitchell's coaching ability but figure that he has his uses as a motivator if nothing else. You'll notice though, he tends to do a lot of coaching when the team is ahead but disappears alot when their losing. I would think that if he's going to bark instructions from the sidelines it should be the reverse ---- no? But I do agree with you guys, I would rather him limit his coaching to timeouts and such..

If the rumuors are true and TJ is done career wise,then the Raps have a huge problem. For all Calderon does offensively for the team he is a huge defensive liability and the Raps have a huge hole behind him as Derrick Martin and Juan Dixon are hardly the answer as back ups. Which brings up a huge question as to what the Raps can do to get help.
There are probably PGs available that the Raps could get with the right offer but I am not sure they are the answer.
1. Jason Williams. There can be no doubt that if the Raps make a modest offer to Miami they could probably get White Chocolate as they are obviously going nowhere with him and his career is in decline. He may not be the best PG in the league but he would be a huge upgrade to Dixon and Martin and if Calderon goes down he could probably handle the Point for a short time.
2. Jason Kidd. This is more of a dream scenario as he would be difficult to get in a trade from NJ. What would Toronto have to give up? Would he accept a trade to a team who is not a sure thing to make the Finals? Those two questions alone make me wonder if he is even an option but there is no doubt that under the right circumstances Toronto could probably squeeze him out of NJ who are looking more and more like a lottery team.
3. Damon Stoudemire. Memphis is definitely a lottery team. Stoudemires best years are behind him but he could be gotten cheaply and fill the role of the backup much better than dixon or martin can. It also brings to mind the trade scenario put forward by Simmons (Rasho and Bargnani for Navarro and Gasol). Navarro is probably more of a combo guard (I havent seen him play enough to know if he can fill the backup spot or not but he couldnt be any worse than what we currently have). This trade is making more and more sense everyday.
4.Pickum from Atlanta. Atlanta has a host of backup quality pgs and for the right offer they might give one up just to free up playing time for the rest.
5.Hinrich. Again not an ideal situation as Chicago will deal tough and he may not be ideally suited to the backup role. He should be available though as the Bulls look like they have taken several steps back and at least dealing Hinrich will free up some cap space and if Rasho is sent back they will be getting an upgrade offensively to Wallace (though that isn't hard) even though Rasho is hardly a great option there.
If anyone can think of another scenario, go ahead and post it.

Just because we haven't heard a TJ update doesn't mean bad news.

I think nobody wants to jinx the situation by saying "oh, he'll be fine".

There could be legal/contractual/insurance issues to think about when addressing the media.

Horford better hope his next contract is huge to settle with TJ if things do turn out bad and Ford's career and potential future millions are gone. Bertuzzi(hockey) style lawsuit. But a lot of you of think it was an accident (still could be negligence).

Let's hope he recovers, and the issue can end.

As for the future (with TJ), there will be a risk factor with any hard nosed player that fits TJ's "size/game demographic".
For example Iverson: For years fans worried when he was going to have his career ended by one of his reckless drives to the hoop.

I do agree though that injury proneness should be considered when constructing a future championship contender.

Luckily our depth strategy that Colangelo has started should be the blueprint for the future...I mean any freak injury could happen to anybody. So I still say the RAPS identity is...depth.