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

Thank you Franchise, as that's my biggest beef with the commercial media coverage of everything.

The Mats Sundin non-story has been the latest greatest illustration of the horrible lack of journalism in the local GTA. 2 months ago - Q. Will Mats get traded? A. Mats says no because of clause. Repeat that head line everyday for the next 8 weeks. And shocker - trade deadline, Mats says he's not getting traded.

The problem with the sports coverage we get, is because it's predominately from a bunch of failed jock wannabes who have a grade 12 education trying to provide us with sports analysis. Not that I hate all of them, but the inkstained wretches all seem to be guys who never even made their highschool sports team, then try and tell the rest of us what's wrong with our professional teams. To top it all off, they intimate their superior intelligence & expertise without any substantial academic backing or otherwise.

In other words, we're getting our analysis from just another fan. And from a media source that'd much rather have controversial/sensational news, than real news.

Like it or not, teams with good chemistry translate into boring news. It's the Artests and the Sprewells of the world that make for better sales for the media. Just look at the Spurs, no controversy, boring team but what did they do recently....oh yeah, they won a championship!
As far as the Raptors are concerned, the point guard is the closest thing they could come up with that could possibly lead to a controversy.

Gangster Beaker !!!!!....I cant wait to see him hit the floor...he just brings another dimension...

All I ask for from the Raptors is not to play down to the level of the T'Wolves, especially at home when they're coming off a tough win last night.

This sensationalism and constant repitition comes from a general lack of basketball knowledge among this city's media. Its already been well-documented how terrible the RapsTV staff is and how ignorant they are of almost anything that goes on during a game. With the exception of a few journalists out there (Grange is by far my favourite), the Toronto media doesn't put out insightful analysis because they really don't understand the game on a deep enough level. As a result, we're subjected to very superficial stories written by journalists that don't specialize in basketball. And that's probably one of the reasons why the majority of our fanbase has gone to the internet (forums, blogs, etc.) for a deeper discussion about the team.

Well put criticism about the media. That's part of the reason you started the site? Well, that's the reason I read your site as well.

Grange and Smith are all right, but feschuk, york and many others seem to go out of their way to invent a negative spin on things.

The worst part is, is that the teams have to respond to this crap if it gains enough momentum and that can affect product on the floor, cause people to leave the team and set back hard earned progress.

That said, I'm all for fair criticism, and I think that can actually help the team.

With regards to the Ford/TJ story. Well it was a question that needed to be asked to TJ. We all read how Jose is comfortable with coming off the bench, this morning in the Sun was the first time I've read that TJ thinks Jose should start for rest of the year(something I called about a month ago). I was both pleased and surprised by TJ willingness.
No that I've read that TJ accepts this role I consider the story closed.
Cannot let games like tonight slip away.

Ouch…you’ve touched a sore spot with your critique of local media.
Don’t go there Franchise. You nearly suckered me into an emotional rant that would have spilled out into something very ugly. I’ll just say thank God for you and Howland for the insightful knowledge and intelligence you bring to your blog site.

Heart rate slowing…slowing…slowing…

Sportstwo - I agree with your point on the internet as the primary source of news/ discussion for Raps fans. I, for one, gave up on reading Canadian print media for sports coverage a long time ago.

However, I disagree with your point about basketball knowledge in the Canadian media. I really don't think that one journalist in city 'x' has more 'basketball knowledge' than a journalist in city 'y'. I mean, they're not taking basketball classes in school, right? They're taking journalism (maybe - I have my doubts).

I think the problem is that the Canadian papers/ tv sports outlets don't have the budget or the interest in the sport to actually cover basketball the way other cities would. As a result, the writers aren't compelled to deliver anything of any real substance - just slap some quotes together and/ or drum up some controversy and move on. There's usually only one article on the Raps in any given paper, so there's no need to spend a lot of time or money on making that article compelling.

Hmmm…3 all sports TV stations, 2 all sports radio stations…3 major newspaper companies and a city falling over themselves to bring in a NFL team but some how there no budget to cover professional basketball.
Give me a break! Not meant to be confrontational.

The issue here isn't budgets or media talent or any of these other suggestions...

The problem with Toronto media is that the tv producers and newspaper editors have their collective heads so far up each others *sses that they only hear "hockey" (and, more specifically, "Leafs").

It's like that scene in Being John Malkovich where every character can only say "Malkovich" (or, similarly the Flaming Mo episode of the Simpsons).

You know that every sportscast producer only knows 1 formula, which is to show ALL hockey crap for 10-15 minutes (including multiple "expert" discussions on all of the non-news), then skip through NBA highlights for 2 minutes and rush into the in-depth stories on Figure Skating and Fishing.

Until someone takes a chance on giving the Raptors coverage AT LEAST the same priority as a Columbus-Nashville 0-0 hockey game, nothing will change.

And for the rest of the NBA coverage (outside of the Raptors and Steve Nash), the frickin OHL gets higher positioning than a LA Lakers / Boston Celtics game.

It's obvious from the near-sellouts at the ACC that the Raptors have a true market in the GTA, but no Producer/Editor wants to risk getting fired so they completely ignore this fact.

I also find it funny that the other Canadian NHL cities complain about the Leafs over-coverage on TV... all of those teams are still covered in the first 5 minutes of every sports show and are the 2nd-5th headline in every paper.

Actually, I think Grange is quite good, he played college ball (in Canada) and he seems to understand the game. Smith has been around forever and I don't think it's him asking the Tj-Jose question, for sure. Sun I don't read, and Bruce Arthur at the National Post I don't know much about. Eric Smith on the Fan is obviously a huge B-Ball fan, and you got to credit him with doing his best to make the Raps an important part of that all-hockey station (Chuck I'm not including because I don't need to be told every second of every day of what a 'good guy' off the court each of the Raps is). I'm not sure how someone even brought up Marty York as a journalist. The guy's like Peter Vescey but without credible sources.
Toronto is what it is, a major, major media market with four competing papers, multiple all-sports networks, and regular networks with their own jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none sports hosts.
Each of whom has to do at least one Raps piece per day, many of whom don't know enough about the sport to glean something meaningful. Take that situation and multiply it by at least three and you have the absurd Leafs coverage.
But we can't have it both ways of liking the Raps hometown crowds and ratings (which have gone up a lot this year) and then bemoaning the lack of adequate insight given to us by the bandwagon media. There's choices at least, starting with this site.

dsl, great point. I remember writing to Grange at one point to express my regret over the general lack of interest in basketball that his paper has shown. His response was that he agreed and was doing his best to fight the internal battle. However, the reality is that they cater to an audience that knows nothing about basketball. That’s why in every basketball story they have to explain that the NBA stands for the National Basketball Association.

No one is interested in covering the Raptors in depth because outside of Toronto, no one cares (that’s why Bob won’t talk bball on the prime time show) and even in Toronto, it pales in comparison to interest in hockey, so the budget does not go to bball. Things will change. I think as more and more immigrants come to our city, there will be less and less interest in hockey. But it will take a while…

BC, these executive also grew up with hockey and no basketball. Unfortunately, it will take a new generation of executives who grew up loving the Raptors.

Do you really want change? If so, ask yourself this question, have you complained today? Nothing will change unless you call the Fan and ask them to try to squeeze in a few basketball scores after we finish listening to live call of the final 5 minutes of the Columbus-Nashville 0-0 hockey game, e-mail 680News and ask them to give us scores instead of just running down the winners, write to TSN asking that the figure skating crew not be used on basketball games. Until you do, the executives will just keep laughing away at the two of us who complain.

To follow up a point from an earlier article. Axl - I'm not sure if its common practice to bench a new player on their second game. My basketball IQ isn't that high. But if someone goes 5/5 and plays their role with high intensity, I try playing them again the next game.

I think its really a chicken and egg situation here. I mean, as the internet becomes more prevalent and the people who crave in depth knowledge about basketball turn to blogs, etc. (and away from news print) there is less and less of a need to keep good basketball writers on staff. So really, newspapers have two choices, either waste resources to overstaff a department that no one is reading or understaff a department, thereby turning more people off reading it. Its lose-lose. And really, there are as many talented basketball writers on this site in Howland and Franchise than there are in the Canadian Print Media in Grange and Smith.

Anyway, I'm looking for lots of Brezec tonight. Home crowd + gangsta = profit!

Figured this post would open up some sore spots...and yes, it was the folks at the Sun asking the TJ-Jose questions.

I really like Grange too, I find his pieces insightful and willing to get down to the analytics and envelope pushing. As for the major sports networks, really the Score is the only one I can count on for good "non-hockey coverage." I mean forget about trying to get some NCAA highlights on TSN or Sportsnet.

Things I think have begun to change but it's going to be a slow process. For instance, a recent Stats Canada survey of sports participation in Canada showed that Canadians are actually playing LESS organized sports than they were five years ago however they were playing more soccer and basketball than hockey. I think we'll continue to see this trend emerge over the next while and therefore it should push back on the producers and heads of our sports networks. If the people want it, they will get it. UFC is a perfect example of this. It's gone from a cult thing that friends of mine followed in University to a major part of certain sports networks due to its popularity.

Hmm...maybe we should start a UFCHQ portion of the site...

Onto more media-related matters, I'm sure most of you by now have seen Gilbert Arenas' semi-recant of his "Jose is not an all-star" blog from a few weeks ago. If not, you can check it here:

http://my.nba.com/forum.jspa?forumID=400032200

I think Arenas took offence to being put on blast from Raptornation...why else would he enquire about Canada's "sense of humour" when what he originally wrote sounded much more like his own serious insight into the All-Star situation.

Of course now he's being put on blast again...

observer - yeah, i'm not really sure if it's common practice either, but seems like a mitchell thing to do, especially with a bench player. I would think hump/baston/graham would be pretty pissed if brezec could just walk in and take their minutes. Hopefully it's not because of some other major issue with brezec.

Point taken though, he had a nice night so why not try to keep the ball rolling? I'll really be wondering what's up if we don't see more of him in the next couple games.

There is no PG question in Raptorland. Mitchell ha re-stated yesterday that he likes Jose as the starter, and TJ with the 2nd unit, to best utilize their abilities.
They are both fine with his decisions. The name of the game is to WIN.

Grange has a good write-up in todays Globe on the subject. End of questions and story.

Primoz Brezec is option 4 a C after AB, Rasho, & Humph, no question. He played vs the NYK because of CB's foul problems. He did not play vs Pacers because they were primarily playing smallball and Mitchell matched. He may get some mins due to some matchups or due to Humphs screw ups.

Anyone getting the result "links not permitted in comments system."?

john19 - brezec actually had a DNP-CD, so it was decided before the game he wasn't playing but I think you're right, matchups probably had something to do with it.

But the point is, I think some of us would like to see the raps go big and force teams to match them instead of vice-versa just to see what happens.

I'm a baseball fan too, and given the slower cadences of the game, it may be easier to call a broadcast, but almost all the broadcasters I've heard, TV and radio, for 162 games, are excellent. They hone their craft and don't sound like noobs, except that mercifully fired Sportsnet guy with the Jays a couple years ago.

So what really bothers me about Raptors coverage is that I find all 4 of the broadcast team to be way below-par. All the things you mention, Erezona, that we should start complaining about, I don't really care to (do I really need to get scores on 680 when I can get far more detailed results on the web)? But how do I complain to get rid of these four MLSE stooges?

Maybe this isn't the best place to ask this, but does anyone know how Canadian Content rules affect sports coverage?

I often make the argument that CanCon is the reason why hockey is perceived as being so 'popular' as a spectator sport in Canada. If you think about it, every team has Canadian players, so writing articles and showing highlights of hockey would seem to be the easiest way to meet CanCon quotas. Assuming, of course, that those quotas exist in the sports media world.

Great question DSL, something I'm not sure about. I used to do a radio show in Quebec and a lot of my content was dictated by CRTC regulations and therefore the need for lots of Can Con (hence on a hip-hop show, lots of Maestro, Kardi, Choclair and the Rascalz). I'm not sure if the impact is at all the same with TV but something I'm going to check into...

Here's a great audio podcast on the CBC and one of my favourite shows that kinda touches on the media issue we've been all talking about: http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/2008/01/post.html

I don't think the CanCon question applies to sports highlight shows in this case simply because the highlights are not the content, the show itself is.

For instance, if TSN Sportscenter or Sportsnet Connected reports on and shows a clip from an NBA game featuring no Canadian teams or players, the content being broadcast by the network remains local, simply because the show itself (Sportsdesk or Connected) is Canadian.

This is just how I perceive it, mind you. I'm the furthest thing from an expert on this topic.

Great rants, but I'm afraid that as long as there are plenty of idiots out there who get off on sensationalist crap, the mainstream media outlets will keep ramming it down out throats.

Axl and Johnn19: I don't expect Brezec to do much. What I'm commenting on is that Sam doesn't always seem to reward good play. Most people would agree that Brezec had a surprisingly good game in the few minutes he played, and not just in terms of his good numbers. So why not play him the next game? Its not a huge deal, and he's a minor roleplayer. I've just noticed this annoying tendency with Sam. Sure, he'll come around eventually, especially if someone (aka Colangelo) makes a strong suggestion (ala Bargnani starting last year).

You've probably guessed that I'm not a huge Sam fan. But I'm not a hater. I find his crabby disposition annoying, and he seems to do these really counterintuitive things all the time. But I'm a simple mind.

Along the same lines, he seems to sub players out of the game after a really good play. I've noticed this with Joey, AP, etc. I'm sure that he has a really good reason for this (building confidence, whatever) but to me it just seems dumb. Wouldn't you want to stay in if you're on a roll? Seems to fit in a bit with his ascerbic personality. Look for this too.

Nice win by the Raps. Not much to say, but I'll throw in a minor observation...

It's a great sign to see Delfino getting a rhythm from the free throw line in the last half-dozen games. Considering he's one of our few players that attacks the basket and gets to the line, this is helpful.

Observer - In basketball terms, I think we're all simple minds compared to sam. I've noticed those things you mentioned and wondered what the rationale is, but lately I haven't doubted that it's there.

Mitchell rubbed me the wrong way on day one, but has won me over. When I look at the end results, I start to think he might be some phil jackson-like motivational genius.

My guess is that brezec is going to be nicely productive in short bursts, like 10-15 per game. When sam goes big, that is.

Raptors with a comfortable 107-85 win over the Wolves after a slow start. Primoz Brezec with 9 mins 3 boards and 4 points. Maybe Sam reads the HQ.

The Return of TJ Ford:
Bench scores last 3 games 43,55,44 = 3 wins avg 108 pts. Time for a winning streak.