Media Watch for May 7, 2007

Late commentary on game 6. After the loss, I had to get a way from basketball for a couple of days. That one hurt. Similar to our loss to Phili in game 7, the loss wasn’t as a result of our last play, that was a good play, but rather the second to last play. Back in the Phili game, our second to last play was a pass to AD in the low post. AD dribbled the ball out of bounds off his leg which set up the ill fated long jumper from the just graduated VC. This series was very similar. VC takes a poor shot from the 3 point line and here come the raps with a chance to go up 3 in the dying seconds of the game. Unfortunately, CB4 decides he’s a small forward again and jacks up a shot from 20 feet only to miss. Very appropriate that we lost the game on the exact play that cost us the series.

We lost this series mainly because of Bosh and he has to learn and grow from the experience. He may want to review Boozer tapes. He’s putting up a clinic on how to go inside (on Yao no less!) consistently and take good jumpers from 3 feet out, not 20.

With that said, I’m ready to move on.

Great site, great commentary, just one request. Please, please, please, don’t keep the NJ – Raps score on your main page all summer. It will make it really painful to check for updates in the following months.

Looking forward, the team really needs a Maggette type player. Someone who is intent on taking it inside. He’s also amazing rebounder for his position and gets to the free throw line at a great pace.

We lost this series mainly because of Bosh and he has to learn and grow from the experience. He may want to review Boozer tapes. He’s putting up a clinic on how to go inside (on Yao no less!) consistently and take good jumpers from 3 feet out, not 20.

Wow somebody said it! I was feeling it but could not bring myself to put it in print.

I'll probably keep reading and posting during the offseason, but I thought this is the right time to say a big THANK YOU to you Franchise and Howland, because it's been a joy to follow your site all season long and always find it updated with the latest recap , preview or analysis, just like clockwork, no matter if it was friday, sunday, after back-to-back games... Superb coverage!

Hats off to you guys for such a great work, and thanks also to our fellow posters who have often provided insightful commentary.

As others have already said, a *BIG THANK YOU* for the excellent coverage of this season, from an italian Raptors fan. :))

Erezona - I can see bosh really hitting the weights this summer to add the strength, weight and durability he needs to really be a superstar. His opponents are treating him like one and he need to prepare like one. I've always had my doubts about him and he's always surprised the hell out of me by rising to challenges.

As far as that bosh 20 ft. shot. I agree overuse of that cost us the series but I think he truly believes it's going in when he shoots it. Would I rather have seen the linebacker drive to the hoop? Yes, but in the end I'm glad he was decisive and confident rather than unsure and defering the responsibility when it was given to him.

I'm more cheesed at Mitchell who put it all on bosh 3 plays in a row instead of being creative. It was just so obvious what was going happen. Maybe Frank's play for jefferson instead of carter should have been a clue to use bosh as a decoy and get an easy shot for calderon or bargnani? Who knows but I'd rather have seen it clank of the rim thank get so easily intercepted.

Great blog guys. I've been reading most of the season and been grateful for the quality content. Have a great off season. Look forward to your updates.

I'd just like to echo others and thank you guys for an EXCELLENT site, frequent updates, and thought-provoking articles without being overly homer-ish.

You've set the standard, as far as I'm concerned! I wish the forums were more active (the ones on RealGM have way too much traffic to keep up), as it would be great to have a venue to keep up the discussion with some of the other posters here in between articles or on Raptor topics not related to the current article, but the site and your updates are great!

Erezona and Davl, Boozer is 28 pounds of rock hard muscle more than Bosh. It's not a fair comparison; Bosh is KG-lite (and, with 9 assists in Game 6 and all those blocks, KG may soon become Bosh-lite).

I do agree that Bosh's last jumper was weak, but he was open and usually makes those, so it's not like Wince jacking up a 3 early on the shot clock. I guess he should've drove but then he may have gotten an offensive foul called. We'll never know.

F&H, maybe in future game threads you can add a summary column, i.e. "What the Raps did well", "What the Raps can improve on"; kind of a more literate GOOD, BAD and UGLY that Doug Smith sometimes does. Or you can keep a running tally of "Raps of the Day" as they do in bluebirdbanter.com.

Other than that, you guys are great, a nonpareil Raptor blog; hopefully this will be good practice for Franchise in a future (sports) journlism career.

I am please with the Raptors achievment, but Bosh has to stop shooting from the outside, he has to go INSIDE where can we write to him he must be reminded of that, TJ is so small and he is not afraid to go inside. anyways I have nothing to do now that the season is over I hope that MOPete is still with the Raps next season.

Have a nice off season Fans

jj, that shot has killed us all series. In fact, if you go back to my earlier posts during the season, that shot killed us all season. When Bosh would hit a few of his outside jumpers in a game, it usually meant a loss as he would not go inside the rest of the game. When the outside shot wasn’t falling, he’d be forced inside and we’d usually win the game.

NJ realized the pattern and did an excellent job of getting him to go to his false strength, the outside shot.

I think our Bosh problem began when Sam decided to tinker with him in the SF role a couple of summer camps ago. Unfortunately, Bosh decided to work on his outside shooting which today clouds his go inside decision.

It’s great that his outside shot is decent, but that’s not what this club needs from a PF. He needs to work on his inside game this off season.

Bosh taking an outside jumper in the dying seconds of a playoff game means something went terribly wrong. If the outside shot is what we are after, there are 4 better options on the floor and 3 more on the bench.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Bosh, but as the leader, he needs to take the criticism and learn from it so that next season, we don’t fall into Frank’s simple game plan of letting Bosh take the outside jumper. That is just not where this teams strength is.

Zona - Too funny, yeah, I've been staring at that damn score too. No worries, we'll switch it up asap.

Thanks for the ideas folks, great stuff, Howland and I are gonna sit down and start hasing out some of these plans for next season...WHICH CAN'T COME SOON ENOUGH I MIGHT ADD! (Especially seeing the Bulls get worked by the Pistons and the Nets and Cavs struggling to score 85 points...)

I'd like to see more focus on free agency than the draft this year, as this seems the most likely route of improvement for the team. Of course, Colangelo will probably swing a deal for a first round pick and make me look stupid. Offhand, have you guys seen a list of potential free agents for this off season? I haven't been able to find one.

Thanks to Howland and Franchise for putting together this excellent site. Call it the thinking Raptors' fans blog.

Skywalker--as far as free agents, check out: http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/contracts

It's not a list of free agents, but rather a REALLY GOOD list of all the contracts in the NBA. You can make your own list! It's fun, and I do it every year from this site because the major publications often have omissions.

Hope that helps.

Here you guys go:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2654216

I'm no so sure on Rashard Lewis... he seems like an Allen Houston type to me (shoots well, but doesn't add much else). That is great if your offense is based on running that guy off of 3-4 screens every play and have some big bodies to grab offensive rebounds (so, not a great fit for the Raps).

Of the players that might be available (either as FA or via trade), I would say the top 10 are:

1) Gerald Wallace -- might be hard since he'll be targeting $8-9M/year
2) Andrei Kirilenko -- you've got to figure that he's still somewhat on the trading block
3) Craig Smith (TWolves) -- maybe too young, but plays the right role
4) Andres Nocioni -- probably too expensive, and maybe too similar to Garbo
5) Ruben Patterson
6) Anderson Varejao -- likely too expensive
7) Mickael Pietrus
8) Desmond Mason
9) Grant Hill
10) Nene -- crazy contract, but exactly the type of banger/defender the Raps could use

On a side note: anyone have any insight as to where Jamal Magloire might be headed? How about Matt Bonner?

I would ask about Arujo, but I think we all know the answer on him.

Aaron and AssistantGM, thanks for the free agency links. A couple of names that struck me as interesting:

1) Luke Walton, LA Lakers: Not your prototypical slasher, but you have to think his passing ability and basketball IQ would help this team. He's also not a bad defender. However, I can't see the Lakers letting him walk, as he fits in perfectly with the triangle offence.

Quinton Ross, Clippers: I loved this guy last season when the Clippers were actually good. He isn't that gifted offensively, but he knows it. Where he earns his money is on defence. You might call him the poor man's Bruce Bowen. Just watch the Nets play the Clippers, and more than likely you'll see Carter play for a while, get frustrated and then fake an injury because he doesn't want to deal with Quinton any more.

The biggest hole we are looking to fill is at the SF. I don't think there is any doubt that the best SF available, that would also EXACTLY meet the needs of the raps (viscious slasher, awesome D, excellent rebounder) is Gerald Wallace. For all the talent he has, I think he is still underrated - and would be a steal at 9mil! I agree, that is a fair guess at what he will recieve. That would put the raps over the cap, but not much. If Wallace IS exactly what the raps need, he might be worth a little luxery tax. Sure, there are other interesting guys, but BC likes finding the right guy.

I also think Magloire might be willing to come home for less than market value and would fit in very nicely. Between him and Bargs, there wouldn't be much time for Rasho - maybe in a perfect world we could include him in the sign and trade for Wallace! In a perfect world...

I know there are a lot of interesting ways to fill that spot,