3 In the Key – Toronto Raptors Game-Day Preview vs. Jazz

We will win by 34 points and Traino will be given an early coach of the year award after the game live on espn.

Anyone here about the rumors circulating that Jay Triano will be the coach of the eastern squad at the All-Star game? As we all know, the coach with the most wins in their respective conference gets to coach that conference at the game.

Unconfirmed reports have surfaced from several well connected sources that there are back room dealings underway that will result in a coalition between the Raptors, Grizzlies and Bobcats. Together, their 19 wins are greater than Boston’s 18. In exchange for Triano leading the coalition as the coach, Charlotte will be guaranteed 2 more wins this season in their upcoming matchup with the Raptors and the Grizzlies get to unload Marc Gasol to the Raps.

Danny Ainge has apparently asked David Stern to cancel his vacation so that he could ask Mr. Stern to prorogue the all-star game until cooler heads prevail. Mr. Ainge has pointed to two specific concerns: 1) This coalition includes a team that has separated from Canada and no deals should be made with them. 2) Jay’s "interim" status means that the coach at the all-star game would potentially be selected by a small group of individuals with no input from the rest of the NBA community.

d - that photo made my morning.

zona:

Very nice

watched the spurs/nuggets game last night and realized just how bad we are defensively. triano should sit the whole team down for some clockwork orangesque viewing of an endless loop of spurs footage.

zona,

that post was as effective as a cup of coffee in the morning. you win!

Looking at the list of former
Rap coaches 2 things struck me.
Not one was even close to .500
during their tenure and all
those whose first NBA head
coaching experience came in
Toronto (a well-past his prime Wilkens being the exception.
Yet all came with high regard
as exceptional assistants.
Doesn't bode well for Triano,
does it?

While the Star pic this morning made me frown (Triano giving the "horns up") this one is hilarious.

I stated this before but I think BC choose Jay because he is a "corporate guy" and will dish out the roles and minutes of the players as instructed by the GM (where as Sam, Alex and Mike would not play the puppet role). Colangelo needs to know what he has in younger players and with Sam that was almost impossible to determine.

zona,

Good stuff!

Is it just me being a sucky Canadian for being surprised at the indifferent reaction Rap players displayed over the firing of their coach? Could it be that more than a few of them were not entirely supportive of his abilities including Bosh? I hope Bosh is not so clinical if he decides to leave Toronto after the rapturous support he has enjoyed here.

Looking forward to the era of Triano however is it usual for a head coach not to take advantage of his staff’s knowledge and abilities when designing offensive/defensive schemes? I mean if Jay Triano is as sharp as everyone says he is then Mitchell has only himself to blame for neglecting that knowledge base.

zona wins Post of the year!

Agreed on the Zona post. That was classic.

Oldschool - sure seems like it

As an aside - has anyone noticed (or cared) that kapono is back at the top of 3 PT % in the NBA (2nd right now) - but takes less than 1 shot a game? Every other player in the top 50 (including 3 other Raptors) take more shots than him.

Is this something Triano is going to address or is Kapano relegated to the bench now? I mean Walter Hermann has more attempts!

How about the fact that the Raps are one of the best 3 point shooting teams in the league - but at the bottom of the list (19th) in attempts?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/statistics?stat=nba3ptpct&season=2009&league=nba

Just curious.

Vicious D:

I like how you condensed your Raptor philosophy down to two major points:

1. That despite early season anxieties, injuries and experiments at our PG situation; it seems that our PG lineup is becomming ever more defined. We have two bright young minds, who plan communicate, strategise and think on a calm and confident level - this combined with our BIGS is a real asset to this team - its the skeleton of what we have to build on.

2. That yes, outside of an overworked Anthony Parker, and JG been given few minutes - who in their right minds would stand to let our talented BIGS do ALL the work running back and forth on D over and over and over and over.

No wonder the engine broke...

3. Was it Franchise who brought up the idea that we should be loooking to aquire Sefolosha and Tyrus Thomas from Chicago? I'm liking the sounds of that deal more and more.

4. I expect that we should be allowed to acquire Bellinelli by 'Osmosis'... I just don't see things working out with him and GSW.

What do you guys think (providing JO is good to go) will JT stick to the latest starting 5, with Andrea used as a SG or, for playing a more up tempo rhythm he will put Bargnani on the bench and start one between Graham or Kapono and having Bargs 6th man?

Love the Bellinelli talk and I also would be up for acquiring the terribly titled Thabo or Tyrus. Marco seems more likely, and I agree that he could probably be had at a discount. The thing is, we just don't have many trade options due to our roster being set-up the way it is right now. Colangelo's best option might be to use the JO trade chip sooner than later and move Andrea to center, where he has demonstrated serious improvement this year. I have no doubt in my mind that JO's contract will be used as a trade tool rather than for the cap space, it's really just a matter of when. The longer he waits the more valuable it becomes. The beauty of JO's contract and having only 12 roster spots is thta it makes massive deals entirely possible on the trade machine, which really isn't good for my productivity.

Addict, I was thinking the same thing. Am I crazy to think that JO to Miami for Marion and more (say Cook, Anthony and/or a pick) makes a certain amount of sense for both teams? Miami needs a decent big man. Marion is a good perimeter defender, is athletic and is a headcase (damn!). We get better on the perimeter they get better on the inside. We get under the cap for next year but Miami doesn't screw itself in 2010.

I agree that this move fits Bryan Colangelo’s MO, as well as his and Maurizio Gherardini’s vision for this team. He fits their profile to a tee. Whenever Colangelo speaks of what type of team he wants to have, his description bears no resemblance the disorganized uncreative junk we’ve been doing. Colangelo clearly respects Triano as a basketball mind. In recent interviews he has referenced Triano’s contributions in staff meetings, mentioning that not all assistance were allowed attend (only so many seats in the room, lol).

It is an interesting connection with Steve Nash. I had actually never noticed it until now. Colangelo love’s Nash and Triano obviously played a huge role in his development. Did Nash play for Triano at all after he signed with Phoenix?

To answer my question, he seems to be under contract with phoenix when he played for the 2004 olympic qualifing tourney in San Juan. He was MVP, but Canada lost to the hosts in the bronze medal game and couldn’t qualify. (I dunno why I had to mention that last part.)

I especially agree with the following:

"I DO believe that Jose Calderon has the potential to become Nash-esque due to his style of play. A strong dribbler, with good court vision who is always looking for his teammates, Calderon exhibits many attributes and deficiencies that Steve Nash displayed early in his career. By positioning Triano as the coach, perhaps Colangelo is hoping that Triano will be able to work his development magic twice in a life time and take Calderon into an elite level. At the very least, Triano will be able to make Calderon's transition into an effective run-and-gun point guard that much easier since he's done it once before."

I have a vested interest in this, as I purchased his jersey. I was of the suspicion that he would shoot 50/40/90% and lead the league in assist to turnover ration for the next decade - a feat that would probably lead to championships and a hall of fame nod, cementing the status of my purchase of the jersey as a good decision.

In his interview about Triano being appointed Calderon looks like he is grinning like a school girl. He seems genuinely excited. He referenced that Triano is familiar with how he played for Spain’s national team. Which I don’t really know how he played, but he was implying it was a lot more free and open.

Lol:

Jose will need to try and make Deron take a lot of outside shots and limit his drives, something that he has been unable to do for most of this season.

Great picture with the cult worshiping Triano!!

great read VD

My two cents

1 - I hope this fixes calderon, he just hasn't been the same this year, maybe mitchell and he weren't on the same page

2 - the triano - bryan colangelo - jerry colangelo - team USA connection, maybe they saw something this summer with Triano coaching the Team USA practice squad. All reports seem to be that he did an excellent job.

ok 3 cents - how about mitchell's decision to stop swearing this year? We know how he was with the media... if he wasn't on an even keel, it had to be hard for the players to deal with him.

In honour of Melo destroying the Raps B-More style, I am surprised Smitch didn't wear a "Stop Snitchin'" T-shirt as the players tattle-taled on him for getting in a round of golf before getting molested by Ron Jeremy:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AqMNFOI7CZDfhwq58fluxiu8vLYF?slug=aw-nbacoaches120508&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

At least Wojnarowski's anecdote makes more theoritcal sense than Rosen stating that Triano backstabbed Smitch to get the job. Of course, Wojo also resorts to the ridiculous (and patronising) assumption that if Chris Bosh doesn't re-up, Basketball In Canada Is Doomed(TM). Last I checked, America as a world superpower is doomed.

Zona:

priceless

Jenge – Yep, it was me that was kicking around the Bulls ideas. Teams like that and G State that are overloaded at those positions and at some point, considering their records so far, are going to need to make changes. I think BC will give Triano a month or so like D was saying before making any changes but this next stretch could be brutal and perhaps something comes up that Colangelo can’t pass on. I was joking with Howland this morning that there were only 10 days left until the ESPN.com Trade Machine could be used to its full extent as free agents could be included in trade scenarios.

Zona – Loved the post, putting that on the front as "Comment of the Week."

Utes – Glad you pointed this out. I think as Raptors fans, stats like this should make you want to scream. It was the same way in years past with free-throw shooting. Before Bosh started going 20 times a game himself, the team would struggle to get there 15 times a game and yet shoot over 80 per cent. Just maddening to have an obvious statistical advantage like that and not use it consistently to your benefit. That’s one of the issues I always had with Mitchell. I just never felt like he was quite playing to the team’s strengths enough…

…which I suppose is a great segue way into your post JJ. It drives me nuts when random columnists write things like this. "HOW DO THEY KNOW?" I’ve spent a good chunk of time around this team, even behind closed doors when most of the press had already taken off, and Mitchell and Colangelo were constantly joking around together, talking, and you never got this "odd couple" feeling. However because he was here before BC, the national sports media wanted to assume that Mitchell’s relationship with Colangelo was "doomed."

Newsflash.

ALL Coach/GM relationships are doomed except for apparently in San Antonio and Utah. At some point either the coach goes, or sometimes the GM goes, and it’s not always because of the rapport between them.

Do I think that Bryan and Sam were on different pages a lot of the time? Yes. But this was no Babcock-Mitchell scenario. I think both had a mutual respect for the way they operated and their respective visions. In fact, now that Mitchell is gone, I’m going to open the vault to provide an example.

Last summer during pre-draft workouts, I stuck around with a handful of other reporters to chat with Mitchell. Once the lights were down, Sam had an hour-long conversation with us about various topics, among them, that he and Bryan constantly evaluated their personnel and threw ideas back and forth about potential additions etc. They also discussed the team before Colangelo had arrived, and this is where it got quite funny, and what an "interesting" group of players Mitchell had to work with, specifically guys like Pape Sow and Hoffa. It was refreshing to hear Mitchell talk with such frankness about the interactions between coach and GM and spoke volumes about their rapport I thought.

I like Wojnarowski as a columnist but I just don’t think that blanket statements like these, by someone who never even steps foot on the Raptors’ practice court, serve much good.

An Italian Newspaper has given the news about Messina being the next Raptors coach, citing Maurizio Gherardini as the source. To be specific the wording leaves vague whether the source is Gerardini or whether Gerardini is the one who gave the idea of hiring Messina. They say the agreement has been reached althought it cannot be made official.

Renato, so you have a source for that Messina article. I thought they might bring Messina in as an assistant first this year to learn the NBA game and take over as Head Coach next year.

here is the link.

http://www.lastampa.it/sport/cmsSezioni/basket/200812articoli/17932girata.asp

The Newspaper is called "La Stampa". It is not a sport newspaper but it is one of the 4 or 5 italian newspaper with national coverage, although not the biggest.

Thanks guys. I captured that image off my DVD and edited it together :) Somehow, it all clicked in my head :p

For some of the reasons I've talked about above, I'm actually more excited now than I was before in the beginning of the season. Yeah, I am kinda drinking the Triano Kool-Aid right now, but I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that I'm looking forward to what Bryan Colangelo does from here. Franchise and I were discussing it a bit, and it'll be interesting to see how Bryan restructures the team if we see a team that just is unable to get up the floor while defending when they need to. I think the general consensus is that that the Raptors still need some trades to really get going, so while I hope for improvement thanks to a new philosophy and a better management of players, I think that all has to be tempered by the roster that we have.

It's probably why we're right back to speculating about trades again :D

And Utes - Great point. It's time the Raptors started playing like the team that uses the parts to their full efficiency. If Triano can at least do that, it'll have two effects... First is that the team will develop an identity, and second, it'll give Colangelo more value to work with should he have to trade a player.

How smart, from a career development perspective, does Triano’s work with the US select team look? It looks great on his resume that he has worked with and received praise from the most respected people in the NBA.

Interesting speculation about Messina, I would love for him to get involved with the organization. There was an earlier discussion on RealGM about him perhaps coming over in an assistant role. I will be curious to see what happens. I’m sure Triano would accept an assistant coaching position after that, wouldn’t he? No hard feelings right, the head coaching experience would look great on his resume, and working under one of the most esteemed coaching in the world would not hurt either. Obviously long term he wants to be a head coach. But if he’s patient he’ll get an opportunity at some point.

After reading this quote on Real GM I kind of do want this guy as head coach now. Even if this is a huge exaggeration, Messina sounds like the greatest coach ever:

"Messina is a mastermind of the game. He's one of the most respected coaches in the world. I would be happy as hell to have him as our head coach. He will without a doubt put our players in their place in the grand scheme of things. He knows how to create mismatches and use players to the best of their abilities. We have many players that are mismatches and having his mind behind the schemes to put our players in positions where they would be useful would be a joy to see. I think there will be some time to get accustomed to his coaching philosophies but in the long run I believe it would be worth it. If true, I would be on cloud nine pondering how he'll coach one of the most talented scoring big men in the league. One thing can be agreed on, he is a teacher of the game...most definitely not a student like our last coach."

And that comes curtesy of a ball boy named Nikeforged.

As a side note, I saw Franz Ferdinand last night at Lee’s Palace… Unreal.

Rahulan,

I had misunderstood you question. It is not that I have the source, the article itself says they got the news from Maurizio Gherardini.

Zona..funny!! Someone sent me a leafs, ottawa and montreal forming a coalition and taking the cup from Detroit. These two examples are so funny and stupid because that is exactly how stupid the liberals/ndp/sep. are.

GO RAPS..I hope we see us just at least push the ball up the wings tonight. I do see us running and gunning, but to not have Jose pounding the ball from backcourt will be nice.

Man, pasting Renato's article on Messina into Google Translate made my eyes bleed with the awkward translation. But since I keep bringing up columnists who rely on "unnamed sources" here's what this one says, transl(iter)ated:

"The Italian basketball coach will place the first non-American among the magicians dell'Nba: Ettore Messina, 49 years, having won everywhere in Europe next spring s'alzerà the bench Cska Moscow to sit on that the Toronto Raptors, the team of Andrea Bargnani. It can not be formalized, but the turn has already been decided, on the advice dell'italianissimo Maurizio Gherardini, executive vice president of the Canadian club. Catanese of birth, adoption of Bologna, Ettore Messina stopped play at the age of sixteen, immediately taking the job dall'allenatore who then become one of the most successful of all time."

The article later goes on to state:

"Bryan Colangelo...so incidentally, has married the Italian Barbara Bottini [jokes!]. Colangelo short time ago said: "The problem is not whether allenerà Messina in the NBA, but when." From next spring, the answer is already written, but not yet formalized yet given by all for granted."

Well, I'm sure Jose and Bargs would be in the bag for this move, but now, if this is real, BC is gonna have to sell Bosh on Messina over a bowl of fettucini at Alice Fazooli's. Gangsta.

Here is a translation from some guy on RealGM

messina will coach in the nba..the first ever foreign coach,he`ll be the raptors coach for sure !although italian basketball has reached it`s worst period ever,it`s still enough to send in the nba the first non american coach,ettore messina,the coach who won everything and everywhere,next spring he will leave cska moscow,to land the headcoaching job of TOR RAPTORS,Bargnani`s team..this cannot be official,but the decision is already done,after indications of Gheradini..then there is a part about his history..and then some stuff about sam never being liked by maurizio and bryan

guys I am Italian so you can trust my translation, in that whole article,the thing they leave (maybe on purpose) unclear is whether they got the information from Gerardini or whether Gerardini is the one who suggested it.

To be Honest I cannot believe Maurizio being the source as it would hinder Jay Triano situation and focus but that is what the article says

I found out who their source is, it is franco Montorro, he is the director af the main basketball Magazine in Italy

funny post zona... even though it still points to a lack of understanding of how a parliamentary democracy works...

this ain't pointed at you zona, but if people have a problem with a coalition forming to overturn the gov't, then bitch about our constitution and entire political system rather than the opposition parties.

anyway, enough politics here...

i'm hoping that with triano now at the helm and his stated intention to run more, this should mean more burn for joey graham, more open looks for kapono, and maybe pump some new life into jamario moon. with a more free-flowing offence, could it be possible that moon will actually take it to the rim more often? if those swingmen can help spark the offence, could AP solely focus on being the team's "lock-down" (relative to the rest of the raptors' skills on D) defender? interesting times ahead!

btw, breaking news! sam mitchell managed to convince nba commish david stern, in an unprecedented move, to overrule bryan colangelo's dismissal of mitchell. he has given mitchell 7 weeks to come up with new sets of plays and to hopefully implement a system for the team to get "more shats." during this period, however, mitchell will get a break from coaching the team while he tries to fix and come up with new plays.

ok, that was a pretty shitty analogy...

Quick notes from the opening quarter or so: I really like what I'm seeing. Aggression on defense is coming via aggression on offense. And the lack of picking and rolling is pretty interesting to see. I really enjoyed seeing Andrea isolated on the side and driving the ball to the basket. Lots of energy.

Also, I think Bosh's frustration the other day stems from the fact that he's been trying to be very positive for the team and the reporters were all being very negative. Case and point, it was mentioned that at the dinner that they had together after Sam was fired, he didn't bring up basketball at all, and decided it'd be better to just talk about life and stuff outside of basketball.

ironic that the first raps game televised in the states, and the first game sam is out as coach (which he's probably watching in the comfort of his home, on his couch) the raps are getting getting killed on defense.

the guy's laughing his ass off.

patience. patience.

I like what I'm seeing as well on offense. I love the mini screens that they are trying, which helped Bargs and others get free for baskets or at least good shots. How about the 3-pointer by Kapono out of the timeout? The defense needs a lot of work. It isn't helping that the refs are not calling anything when Bosh is obviously being fouled driving to the hoop. On the other end, JO and Bargs both get calls when barely touching the Jazz players. But as Matt stated, "it's hard to get calls in this building." Its funny to know that not just superstars, but super-arenas get the superstar treatment...

Assistant GM: the refs are the least of the raps problems.

don't want to hear that at all.

not. at. all.

I was just thinking that AGM... I can't believe how lopsided the calls have been even when the Raptors are being aggressive. It's just ridiculous.

*sigh*... did i see that correctly or did moon just bring it up the court... looked around.. and took a 3 with a good chunk of time left on the clock? what a night..

I was quite indifferent to the loss tonight until moon decides to dribble up the court, not defer to roko, and throw up a missed 3 with at least 15 left on the clock.

he walked off smiling.

it hurts seeing that after watching the big baby 'davis' literally crying after a tongue lashing from KG on the bench tonight after giving up a double digit lead.

I would have punched moon in the face after doing that sh_t.

weak.

i didn't expect an immediate turnaround but did triano do anything at all differently than sam would have? fast break points wha? same starting five, same porous D, same brutal half-court sets. oi. and BC talking about getting another big - not a 2/3 which we so desperately need.

Ettore Messina is on his way to
Toronto? Just seen leaving a CSKA gym with Maurizio Gherardini! "His team's almost flawless display probably came as close as it gets performance-wise"."We forced them not to play their game and I am pleased with the work my players did,"

The Italianization of yet another franchise has just begun. First, Mike D'Antoni, who has won nothing in the playoffs, then came Maurizio, and now little known Jay. I hope the Craptors err MLSE can realize what's happening here. This team under BC has nothing to show in the way of post season success.

It was interesting to see tonight how the play of our team was blamed on Sam. This is the most non-athletic bunch in the entire league and would get any coach fired. What an utter embarrassment! Run and gun? with what? A slow footed PG and an even slower footed O'Neal. Tonight was a clear example of the fact that BC has been a failure at building this team!

Calderon, O'Neal & Bosh are all just waiting for the new coach Sunday and Toronto. Raptors get the most talented coach not in the NBA. And knows just how to use Bargs. BC plans all along.

Calderon: Needs to stop going for steals and just needs to focus on cutting off his man. Personally, at this point, I don't care if his counterpart goes and makes 20 points as long as it's all off of shots. He has to stop dribble penetration at all cost and work at things from there. He was not this bad last year when he was starting, and right now, he's just trying to do too many things at one time.

Moon: Today, made me really, really hate his game. Pissed me off even more when I heard on NBAXL that he spends his time on YouTube looking at fan remixes of his greatest moves.

But, there's a lot of positives. This game showed for at least 2 quarters that the Raptors can get some good results on the offensive side by pushing the ball. And while Devlin was saying this loss was as bad as the Nuggets', I don't believe it was. There was at least some pep in their step up until Utah went on their run after the half. But since I'm not recapping this game, I'll leave the rest to Howland :)

not too surprising, raps haven't won in utah in a couple years I think. I like what I saw of the running game. One player I want to see more of is joey g (over kapono), he had a nice line, have to live with turnovers...

just have to get that d better

Well that was a big improvement with a New Coach, Rap's only lost by 27 pts this time.

Everybody blaming a new offfensive and defensive system, after Triano said pregame that he was only going to possibly tweak things a bit. Just a cop out to explain another poor offensive effort, as Utah went around them like practice pylon's.

With the upcoming schedule it's going to get much worse before it gets better, if it does by year end.

You people really seen good in this game? Other than the first play it was a joke! They gave up over 60 points at the half. Who worked on D ?

This is not an elite team and may not even be a playoff team.

So bad I took the dog for a walk by the 2nd q....good grief tired of Matt and Jack or Leo making excuses. Turned sound off too. It looks like a long and disappoiting season ahead. Hope I am totally wrong!

No one is trying to make excuses. This was definitely a shitty loss, and the Raps defense was brutal. Calderon really is a detriment to this team defensively at this point because he was getting blown by not only by Williams, but Knight as well. Now, How can people say that they did nothing different. They started the game with many different offensive sets and even did some running down the court. The problem was more that they were starting to miss decent shots (Kapono even missed an easy layup). Once Utah went on their run the misses started to deflate the team and CB trying to shoot fadeaways wasn't helping our cause. Did no one else see the play called after the timeout? Heck Matt even commented on it. Believe me, I am frustrated with everyone esle about the game; I just tried to view it objectively and see if I could draw on any positives, and believe me they were there (in the first half only). Utah's screens within other screens were played to perfection, and they did have a full roster for the first time (save for the absence of Boozer). This team played like the well-oiled machine that they are.