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

Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes, yes, yes...

Any quote or confirmation from that raps about the "who initiated the switch" things. Grange doesn't say much and I think it's neither here nor there but it's funny if Sam was trying to spin it and got busted.

Franchise, where exactly does Grange say that Calderon didn't the change in the starting lineup. I saw someone wrote a comment suggesting the Spanish text of an interview with Calderon suggested that but many other people have said that the translation was incorrect, and I don't see anything from Grange specifically on this point.

Also, have people seen Grange's article today. He says that the Raptors have to trade Ford because Ford has acknowledged that he can't won't be happy other than as a starter and wouldn't be happy splitting minutes.

Alas work will take me to Phoenix for the better part of April. So I'll probably won't get to see the Raps until I return. My wife did get me a seat at next Sunday's Mav/Sun game though. I was being harsh to refer TJ as a "cancer", a distraction would be the correct word. Let's hope the fans won't boo him at the ACC and he plays out of his mind in the remaining games.

I'm sick of the drama...I just want some good basketball.

Well things seem to have gotten a bit clearer in the last few days. Delfino is not going to be back and Sam + BC have at least acknowledged Moon is not a long-term answer. That is certainly a start, and a sign that this off-season could bring the shake-up I was hoping for. I am really starting to believe all of the sentiment that we are showing Ford off for a move in the summer. I really hope this is the case. With these admittances, the only current issue left (in my eyes), and touched on by numerous others, is when do we give up on Bargs. Grange put it beautifully the other day, stating something to the effect of, at the most basic level a guy sold as a scorer must make open shots, especially if he's not going to rebound and pick up dumb fouls. It doesn't matter if he was hurt for a bit, moved around in the rotation etc., he must hit open shots. I know we can't expect a drop-dead date on the Bargs project, as its about as likely as a date for US withdrawl from Iraq, but I think some sort of indirect public statement needs to be made to this issue. Whether it is bringing in a big-man coach for him, moving Brezec ahead of him in the rotation or whatever else, the team needs to acknowledge Bargs is looking like a bust.

Ok this gets weirdest by the minute: I was surprised that the canadian media had not picked this up, and now I just reread the spanish article I linked to yesterday and surprise it has been altered oh so slightly, so that the key sentence "They called me and asked me to give up the starting job in favour of TJ" is no longer there (I swear it was there when I first translated it). Also the next questions are still confirming he did say that sentence, because they still ask him "but you could have said no" and "do you think if TJ had been asked that, would he have accepted?"...

Considering than Calderon is a pretty good friend of the journalists in this newspaper, I wonder if he asked them to take that sentence off? Maybe because he said it but did not mean it? Or maybe this was really initiated by the Raps but they agreed to say Jose requested it in order to avoid further controversy in the PG debate? Go figure...

Anyway, let's move on and discuss the Knicks and these final games

Everything seems to make sense.

1. Why bring in Linton? Because there's a decent chance that we're going up against Cleveland in the first round, and obviously need some defensive help at the sf. Although someone the same height and weight as Moon was an odd choice.

2. Why bring him in now? Raps couldn't have done it earlier because the salary might take them into luxury tax this year (this is a guess).

3. Why start Rasho now, as opposed to earlier in the season? Of course, we weren't going to win the championship this year, so developing Bargs was the priority. But if the Raps can improve their playoff position, they'll have a greater chance of two extra home playoff dates in the second round. Meeting Detroit (with Rip) in the first round = zero chance at the second round. That's a lot of money at stake - development year be damned!

"Like Jose and I talked about, in life, sometimes, it takes the sacrifices of one or two for the better good the many. You have to have people like that on your team who are willing to do that.

"It's different make-ups," was Mitchell's answer. "You can't compare individuals. Some people can [come off the bench], some people can't. Some people can do it more easily than others. It just depends on your makeup.

We're just fortunate that we've got guys on our team that puts everybody ahead of their own personal goals. It doesn't tell me that Jose doesn't want to play and doesn't want to start; it tells me he understands that with 12 games to go, we have to do something different."

I think its a bit of supposition that anyone can make a definitive conclusion based on those comments from Smitch. I read that as giving acknowledgement to JC for his ability to play off the bench, and not an inuendo that TJ can't.

It's a bit of a stretch analysis by Granger.

And to me it does read that Jose volunteered to come off the bench.

"...It doesn't tell me that Jose doesn't want to play and doesn't want to start.."-- I'm assuming he's saying Smitch doesn't feel badly that JC asked to come off. Why would he say that if JC didn't volunteer?

Sergi - thanks for the clarification. With my limited Spanish I thought maybe my interpretation was wrong so didn't post the link, but yes, seems it has been altered a bit. This is starting to feel like an X Files episode or something. Here is the link Sergi emailed us:

http://www.marca.com/edicion/marca/baloncesto/nba/es/desarrollo/1105022.html

It's in Spanish so not a lot of help to everyone, but I might fire Grange a quick email here to get his take on who said what.

Like oneanddone said though, in reality I just want to see this team win some games now and head into the post-season on a high note. We've identified some of the things BC is going to have to deal with this summer including Andrea as a center (like the Iraq withdrawal analogy Branden), TJ etc but for now hopefully the team can focus on winning some games.

Tfan - off to Phoenix eh? You'll have to give us reports on Shaq's integration...I still think this is going to be a bad trade in the end.

On a related note, how ironic would it be if Dallas or Denver miss the playoffs and Jersey and Philly make it?

This season has been very underwhelming and with only a handful of games left all the crap regarding Bargnani/Rasho and Calderon/TJ does not matter any more.
I want to see some good wins and what to see them now.
I want to see evidence that we are prepared to compete with confidence in the playoff and possible reach the second round. The media scrums are useless as far as I’m concerned. Most of the issues identified and discussed by posters all season long was real and only now have partially been addressed.

I so tired of the doublespeak by players/coachs to obscure what actual happens in the club house. Basically, I’m tired of all of it and want to see the end of regular season.

I need the buzz that only the playoffs can deliver.

Martin will forever be known as the guy who let the "most consecutive games with a 3 pointer streak" continue ...

Do you guys know anything more about this new guy? I've never heard of him.

I don't care who initiated the switch, and I don't really care too much about the replacement of our 15th man with a 10 day contract.

All I want is for the Raps to get some momentum heading into the playoffs and to continue to kick all your asses in the March Madness pool :)

Best post in months. As I’ve been saying for quite some time now, BC really needs to re-evaluate his short and long term plans for this organization and he does deserve some criticism. Colangelo did a fantastic job in his first summer by skilfully turning a lottery team into a playoff team. However, I don’t think this team is as close to the next level as we all hoped at seasons end last year and I blame some curious strategy by Colangelo.

Firstly, the acquisition of Kapono was absolutely the wrong move and everyone knew it at the time. Not only did we bring in a player with a redundant skill set (we were already a great 3 point shooting team) but he can’t stay on the court due to lack of any other skill sets (especially defence). The fact that the money used on Kapono could have been better utilized to address the team’s real deficiencies (rebounding and defence) makes this decision exponentially worse.

Secondly, Bargnani. While the jury may still be out on whether or not he should have been drafted first overall in the first place, it can not be logically argued that he should have been starting this year when it is so freaking obvious that this team is sooo much better with Rasho starting the 5. So let’s look at the results of this miscue: Bargnani’s confidence is in the crapper, I would argue we are anywhere between 5 to 10 wins shy of where we should be directly because of Bargs starting, and lastly the rest of the team has got to be pissed. I would not be surprised if Bargs starting has really had a negative impact on team chemistry. Wouldn’t you be pissed if you were Bosh and you knew you would win more games with Rasho in the starting line-up and it didn’t happen until 10 games left in the season! And don’t even try and blame that on Smitch, there is no way Smitch wants Bargs starting over Rasho!

Thirdly, something should have been done at the deadline. I’m not talking a major move here, but something, anything to address the rebounding and defence issues.

I agree with Franchise, the long term plan has been moved up one year, this has to be a busy summer. There are a whack of expiring contracts, a first round pick and a starting point guard (TJ) that should be on the table. Something must be done soon… remember, Bosh only signed a 3 year deal.

Apologies for the long post.

Oh and Frachise you're absolutely right. The idea that the "era of the centre is dead" and that you can win by jacking threes and not playing defence is crap. Pheonix was fun to watch, but they didn't win a championship.

Great post Franchise, regardless of who said what, I think youre bang on about BC needing to rethink things this summer.

On an unrelated note, classic Jalen Rose:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-080328

It's since been corrected but this morning the second paragraph read:

I'm rooting for Dallas. Part of the reason is I just don't like to see a team drop out in large part because it lost a player of Dirk Nowitzki's caliber. And I like seeing my good friend JuwOn Howard getting some minutes (six points in 12 minutes).

Yep, your good friend Jalen, whose name you don't know how to spell correctly!\\!

Actually, the Spurs have had no high-caliber Centre the last 2 rings and they shot a lot of 3's. They do compensate with Tim in the post though which Bosh cannot do.
I do believe Bargnani will be an amazing player. Actually, i have no doubts about it the same way as I had no doubts from the beginning that Calderon will be our future PG.I also believe Mitchell will coach next season and we'll have at least 50 wins. Nothing that has happened this season surprised me and we'll be much better for it.
I criticized Colangelo a lot around here however he does have leadership abilities and he'll cut to the chase this off-season.

Daniel,

Tim Duncan is pretty much a centre, an excellent rebounder and has been on the NBA All-defensive team his entire career. Furthermore, he has been paired with Francisco Elson, Fabricio Oberto and (the one and only) Rasho Nesterovic for their championship runs all of whom are more than capable defensive/rebounding players. Further still, they traded for Kurt Thomas this season to further solidify their defence/rebounding.

daniel - It's not that 3s and centre aren't important, it's that a team needs to be able to play multiple speeds and styles while having the defensive chops to disrupt multiple speeds and styles.

Honestly, I thought that where the raps were going until they sat rasho for bargs in the playoffs last year and then signed kapono over mopete.

I'm glad bargnani got some leeway to develop and I think those minutes were the only hope of getting him to the next level, but I agree with everyone, development time is over and maybe should have been earlier, like after we lost Charlote, or Indiana, or New York.

Here's the relevant text of the spanish article:

MARCA: ¿Qué sucede allí? (What's happening there?)
JC: Hay que aclarar algunas cosas. (One has to clear some things up.)
Ellos me llaman (They called me)
y se lo agradezco (and I appreciate that)
para hablar sobre la mala marcha del equipo (to speak about how badly the team is doing/to speak about the bad stretch the team is on)
Hablamos y acordamos que yo fuera suplente ya que era lo mejor para el equipo. Creo que es una buena opción y por eso acepto
(We spoke and agreed that I would be the backup because it's best for the team. I thought it was a good option and for that I accepted)

Here's the interesting part for me, read to the end...

MARCA: Y cuando sales de la reunión, ¿qué? (And when you exited from the meeting, then what did you do?)
JC: Lo consulto con Chris Bosh y Anthony Parker. Ellos me dicen que si yo creo que es lo mejor, que adelante, que están conmigo. (I consulted with Anthony Parker and Chris Bosh. They told me that if I believe that it's best, then to go ahead and that they're with me.)

MARCA: ¿Por qué a ellos? (Why them?)
Uno es el jugador franquicia y el otro el co-capitán. Con los dos mantengo una relación increíble y quería saber si me apoyaban. (One is the franchise player and the other the co-Captain and I wanted to know if they supported me.)

Si ellos me llegan a decir algo, no lo hubiera aceptado. (If they had told me something different, I wouldn't have accepted it.)

Again, I assume JC went to Smitch on the west coast trip about the idea, but no switch was made. Smitch and BC consulted after the home losses about what JC had said, and then called him in to see if he was still amenable, but they gave him the credit for his earlier action.
I don't really care that much about that part of it. I find JC's last comment interesting though, that if Chris and Anthony thought it was a bad idea, he would've refused. I guess maybe I read too much into it, and I supposed Smitch and BC are simply being professional with a top pro, but if they wanted to make the change, strange that they would leave it for JC to make the final decision.
Again, it's probably all too much tea leaves reading.
Anyways, I hope they throttle the Knicks early and Linton gets a chance to play (will Martin have cleared the physical and Johnson passed the physical and signed by tonight)?

So that's what the castle looks like completed.

Coming off a decent win let's see if some confidence will show going forward.

Why is it assumed Delfino is gone? I think he's showed promise, albeit inconsistently same goes for Moon and Kapono.

Rasho has been the man, nice to see someone else notice.

Last year, we were division champs and lost a couple of meaningless games, and went into the playoffs with no momentum and lost 4 out of 6 in the playoffs. This year we're fighting tooth and nail with the wiz/sixers and if we can go into the playoffs on a high note (8-2,9-1) I think all this pg/bargs/bc/smitch controversy will be worth it.

Bargs Has the beginning of Next Season to get his cofidence up, or else he's a bust, with the likes of kwame, darko etc.

Even if he never fulfills his potential, to me the current Bargnani is still miles above Darko and Kwame... Those two are definitely in a separate league with Olowokandi, Hoffa & co.

LOL. I love it. Most of you are coming to the realization that Bargnani is a bust!

Remember, I told you all this way back in December! It's now March. Please none of you call yourself an expert because you don't know basketball.

You probably won't admit it yet, but by the tone that you write in, you're more in favor that Il Mago is a player that will disappear than do magic tricks with a basketball.

I agree, as I have been saying all along Colangelo made a mistake, but remember he brought in the VP Gheradini for Bargnani. Now, only if we could trade Bargnani in the off- season.

I say we try and pick up Andris Biedrins from Golden State Warriors in exchance for Bargnani. I think that Don Nelso would support this move because he doesn't play Andris enough and he got along well with Drik, so I could see him getting along well with Bargnani. Also Bargnani fits in well with the GSW system.

If we had Biedrins, Bosh, and Moon as our frontcourt, we would have an athletic frontcourt, probably one of the best in the East. This would be an amazing frontline.

Just a thought.

Wow that's an insightful idea... Not sure Biedrins is a better player, but it does seem he would fit better in the current Raps playing alongside Bosh. Still the salaries don't match, and i'm not sure the Warrios would want to lose their lone interior presence. The idea has merit, though...

BargsBust, would you please stop anointing yourself the guru of everything basketball related. Nobody in here, from what I have see, was ever calling Bargs an MVP or even saying that he played consistently well. Everyone with eyes (advanced apologies to anyone in this forum who was born without or lost their eyes through some accident, although this scenario would make reading this forum a tad difficult) could see that Bargs has struggled for quite some time, and would have applauded Rasho's move into the starting rotation prior to now. It is simply a matter of patience with a developing (hopefully) player. I have been calling for Sam to be fired for quite some time, and I debate this with other regular contributors of the forum regularly. What I do not do is suggest I know infinitely more than them about basketball because I feel that way. I hope you see the difference.

Franchise, great post and Legomaster Castle.

Rasho defending the draw bridge and Jose at the highest tower calling the players. Just need to replace those swordsman with a few archers.

Sergi P, great job supplying that Spanish translation and follow up. I think foreign players are much more candid when conversing with their native news outlets, so there's translation value there as long as its done well.

That link to hollinger's top 30 international rankings was neat, with Rasho and delfino manning the last two spots.

As far as Delfino, its not a question of whether he's a useful player, clearly he is. It's a question of whether he's the best use of mid-level money given the team's strengths and weaknesses.

Bargsbust, thank you for at least going somewhere with your usual rant about Bargs. Looks like you are really expanding your repetoire! However...

Why would Donnie Nelson trade his starting center for a bust? Unless either a) Bargs is not a bust or b) Bargsbust is the only one that knows how bad Bargnani is and everyone else is baboozeled by Andrea's impressive stats!

It is highly likely that most of the season has been an evaluation time/experience gaining time for Bargnani. Now, with a relatively light sched to close out, it is win time so no more messing around.

I still maintain that the whole PG situation comes down to Toronto being better with TJ starting. It doesn't feel right, and probably isn't; but again it is win time.

I really don't understand the whole Linton thing. Isn't it too late to have him on the playoff roster? I remember a few years back Linton was on similar sleeper lists that Moon was coming into this year, except Linton never panned out. I don't know what he can really do in 11 games other than further crown the mediocre SF picture. Curious how/if he even gets used.

MAS - If we have to apologise for long comments, I am in big trouble!

Well, I only caught the last 5 minutes and it was against a very lazy Knicks zone defence, but the guys on the floor at the end (TJ, Jose, Bosh, Rasho, Delfino) were moving the ball better than I have seen in, well, I don't know how long. They were running plays, the big guys were getting it in the post, Delf was doing some cutting, Bosh was drawing fouls, TJ was dangling at the right times, Jose was making crisp passes and Rasho was cleaning up the boards. They just all really looked comfortable out there. Again, I understand this was only 5 minutes that I saw, and it was against the Knicks, but it just made me feel good about the Raps for the first time in a while. I thought some positivity might be a nice change, although I admit to contributing to all of the negativity regarding the team in the forum lately. Anyways, hope to see more of this line up in late game situations where there is not an enormous defensive mismatch generated by having TJ and Jose in at the same time.

Tim - Great break down, much better than my University Spanish could have done. Some really interesting stuff in there, especially like you said, about Jose consulting Bosh and Parker.

Howland is recapping this one tonight...which is probably a good thing as I was absolutely glued to Stephen Curry's performance yet again. Even Lebron was there in awe. Wow. What a story for Davidson and the two Canadian kids on the team too.

Anyways, Raptors did look like the team we recognized from last year tonight for most of the game. Still far too many jump shots, but Rasho in there just changes so much from both an offensive and defensive stand point.

And TJ? Well...sick crossover on Jeffries but was there any need for the streetball antics and airballed 3 at the end of the game? That's the Rafer in him coming out...

I didn't like Jose's body language during the game: it wasn't far off from sulking. This is the first time I've seen him like this. I don't think the drama has ended for the Raptors. Mitchell is trying desperately to keep both PG's happy by playing them in the same time in obvious mismatches that would kill us in play-offs.

I didn't like Jose's body language during the game: it wasn't far off from sulking.

I didn't see that but thought the game sucked and lacked intensity from Raptor side (boring) but a win is a win look out Sunday they will need a much better effort.

Rasho great took too long to get Him back in the 4th quarter. Bosh somehow looks different to Me right now!

Anybody else see it?