So Long Swirsky

Oh man, perfect timing. Can Jack Armstrong be the new permanent play by play guy.

Wow - so much for Chuck the Canuck.

Wow. I'm shocked. Chuck is a class act who loved it here. That could not have been an easy decision. I wonder why he's leaving.

Does this mean more Sherman, Paul Jones, Paul Johnson and Leo? I HOPE NOT.

Jack Armstrong better start getting some serious air time.

This Chsucks.

I hope this doesn't mean the current duo that fills in for him on the radio on his b-ball traveldays will become the permanent fill-in. Seperate one of them is quite good, the other reasonably okay (although surprising they can continue to act as mouthpieces for various Conservative Parties) Together however, not so much...

Hope he brings his salami and cheese with him

As much as I love Jack Armstrong, he is not a play by play guy, but colour all the way. We need a lot of Jack. Eric Smith is not the answer either. I do not see the talent coming from within, so maybe Gord Kirke can do another search, Maple Leaf GM and Raptor play by play guy.

I'm kinda happy, because Chuck irritated me to no end. It wasn't just his over-the-top style, which I had learned to tolerate, but I absolutely hated that terrible radio show he had on the FAN. I think we have some great talent at the analyst spot in Jack Armstrong and Eric Smith (Leo's pretty smart, but he just babbles on forever). But it definitely looks like we'll be looking outside for the play-by-play.

Please, for the love of God, don't promote Paul Jones!

John Saunders? with Jack. Now that would be a great team. That being said I have no concept of what John is up to these days and whether he would find the position of interest.

I am happy that Chuck is gone. His constant cliche and forced vocalism's were killing me. That being said I wish him the best and appreciated his hard work by connecting with fans.

I do not know what I was thinking. I meant Paul Jones and not Eric Smith. Bottom line is that I would love to see a play by play guy that will mesh well with Jack. Why don't we have Jack choose who he wants to work with. He is the best thing the Raptors have going besides CB4 and Jose. Leo adds nothing for me either, so maybe the Swirsk can take him to Chicago too.

I know there were some posters on here that had had enough of Chuck. He was a homer, but he had a homer's job. It was listening to Chuck that I became a Raps fan and indeed a basketball fan so I wish him well. I imagine the Chicago gig is WAY up the ladder of the basketball food chain. Congrats Chuck, best of luck.

Would Jamario go back to the D league? Would U2 leave the ACC to play the Kool Haus? Would Alannis go back to "You Can't Do That On Television"? Would Keon Clark ditch the hard stuff and go back to just the ganja?

My point is this:

Dan Shulman and John Saunder are not coming back to T.O.

The Raps should hire Paul Jones to do the job...sometimes I actually turn Chuck off and listen to the Radio while watching the game on tv...The Raps should move Paul and Eric to TV and let Leo do Radio.....Raps$Life

I always thought Chuck was a bit of a homer, but I've been watching the local Cavs broadcasts this spring (we get Cleveland local TV), and I have to say, I have a whole new appreciation of what a "homer" is. Austin Carr and whoever their play by play guy is criticize every single call that goes against the Cavs. WHenever there's a no-call they whine and moan about how a Cavs player was fouled, and when Cavs players are called for fouls they complain about how it should have been a no-call. I'm not kidding, EVERY SINGLE CALL they do this. It's surreal. Chuck looks professional and neutral by comparison.

I personally really liked Chuck and will miss him. He was pretty unique as far as play by play guys go. Basically every other play by play guy in the league is an older, duller guy. Watching some American teams I usually go so far as to listen to music instead of the announcers because I'm afraid they'll put me to sleep. Chuck's cliches could wear thin sometimes, but he was infinitely less boring to listen to than the old men most other teams have. It's going to take some time to get used to another voice of the Raps...

Get the Guys from boston, TOMMY POINTS FOR EVERYONE!

Was(am?) a huge fan of the Swirsk. Lets all a raise a glass.Blatant homer - yes but truly a professional dedicated to his craft. His blog was popular before everyones' elses.
Without a crystal ball will not wager it is the most shocking move of the offseason, but this came from left field. I know he has some roots in Chi-town but the man bleeds purple..err..red! Bring on them freaken Bulls.

Can we throw in Rautins?

I have league pass so I listen to everyone, and the bulls had BY FAR the worst local announcing team in the league. They had this old senile guy, Kerr I think was his name, that would go for entire quarters without saying anything, before jarringly chiming in with something totally random. Glad they are shaking up that team.

You can add Rajon Rondo to a player that I would have drafted over Bargnani. So 2006 weak draft? I think not.
Gay, Roy, Aldridge Rondo, (are better)
on par are Rondo, Ronnie Brewer. and Josh Boone

Honestly, I couldn't care less who calls the game. Let's not forget to keep our eyes on the prize and hope we have a better team come Nov 1.

BBust you are becoming a bore!
I disagree on Bargnani - do believe he can play the game. The list you provided does not impress, for now appears to be a weak draft. Lets discuss in two seasons.

It was considered a weak draft by the entire league leading up to the draft. There was no consensus #1 pick. Heck, there was no consensus #2 thru #10 pick. You can't reflect on a draft two years later and call it a strong draft. Brandon Roy was traded on draft day for crying out loud and was picked somewhere around sixth. Hindsight is 20/20. But, if your criteria includes crystal balls and fortune tellers than your argument is even weaker than I originally thought.

Wouldn't it be nice to have John Saunders back? He was given a raw deal by the Raptors, if you want my opinion. Well, he ain't coming back.

Not sure what happened with Chuck, but I understand there were some personal reasons involved. Maybe his family wanted to go back to the Windy City.

I'm glad there's been suggestions of Saunders here already. To this day I don't understand why he was fired.

Him and Leo actually had great chemistry and I'm sure with Jack, Saunders could play the straight man. That was my only issue with Jack and Chuck where both of them wanted to be the fall down guy..

Anyways.. I was still a big Chuck fan.. sure beats Mike Inglis!! (Though he's a better Football guy and does a great job for the Indy Colts -- I just didn't like his bball)

BargsBust: You mean right now you would take those guys over Andrea Bargnani because of what transpired this year.

I'd be interested to hear what you were saying last year when Andrea was second in ROY voting....were you still putting all of those guys ahead of Bargs?

Discussing what is happening now or what happened in the past is very easy. Anybody can do it....trying to figure out and predicting the future is a lot more difficult.

He had a terrible year. Absolutely terrible. I'm not even convinced he will be with the raptors long term. However you cannot call someone with so much potential a bust this early.

Remember how good Sharieff Abduh Rahiem was his first few seasons in the league....remember how good Antoine Walker was for a while....joe smith...derrick coleman....i could go on forever....what happened to those guys....its not how you start the race its how you finish. Look no further than guys like Hedo, steve nash, manu ginobli (spent a lot of time refining his game overseas). Or even guys who get picked in the second round because they are late developers (Micheal Redd, Gilbert Arenas) and then blossom later on.

It takes a while to develop and Andrea has shown a lot of flashes which would make management think twice about dealing him....especially considering you'd only get 20 cents on the dollar right now.

Will Bargs be a complete bust? Its definately a possiblity

Will Bargs be a hall of famer? Its possible but highly unlikely

Will Bargs be a good player? Probably

Its just way to early too tell although once again he has been the second biggest diappointment in Raptors history...

Whether or not he is a good fit for the raptors is a totally different question....and if I had to answer that one i'd say no.

First, off excellent points people,

wtf,
those players that you mentioned actually had pretty good careers. Antoine Walker went on to win a championship.
I would take those guys careers over Bargnani any day of the week.

And you're wrong it is about how you start the race in the NBA, we are supposed to build around Bargnani. If we don't, our team is going to be really really bad for the next 4-5 years. Even sports analysts agree with me on this point, this point was brought out in SUN and STAR newspaper

wtf, last year, I put ROY, Aldridge ahead of Bargnani. I didn't care about what Swirsky had to say, he's a homer when it comes to the Raps team, do you remember how he was leading the parads for Jose to get to the All Star game, what did the rest of the league had to say about that? I'm sure Swirsky would have voted Moon the best rookie of the year this year as well. And next year he'll be voting in Chicago players as well.

Now of course its easier to look back in retrospect than to predict the future, but we need to look back in the past to see where our mistakes are made. We study history to understand how the game is played. We made a mistake in drafting Bargnani. He is not the right fit for the team.

I think Bargnani lacks lots of skill. Sure he has the potential, but that potential doesn't transpire on the court. Our brazillian bust had potential too, which didn't transpire on the court either.

Tinmen - you think that Bargnani can play in the NBA? HAHA. Did you see how many rebounds he got during the playoff series? Man I hope your joking cause you're funny.

A few things:

BargsBust: Um...Antoine Walker did not win a championship. Wade and Shaq won the championship and Walker just happened to be on the same team.

BargsBust: The Raps are building around Bosh...not Bargs.

BargsBust: "If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future." Enough said.

BargsBust: What really got me was your reaction to Tinman, you were borderline insulting. If you're going to criticise, criticise constructively. For anything else go to RealGM, I hear its free for all there.

This decision was obviously made my Mrs. Swirsky for whatever reason, let's hope it's a substantial yet not tragic situation....not just a typical woman mid-life crisis.

Did I mention I don't like women?

- "Get the guys from Boston" LOL

Chuck was a great play-by-play dude, and I'm shocked.

There's absolutely zero chance he wanted to leave, I think this was his dream situation here.

For all those thinking of getting married, look at this situation and tell me you haven't seen this over and over....still wanna walk down that aisle?

Happy mother's day mom!

Any criticism of Chuck is kind of classless, he had a few quirky faults but overall was great at his job.

Can the Bulls take Paul Johnson too?

So long Chuck! Must be a tough decision right after becoming a citizen! Life is too short to have an unhappy family.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooo

There was always a snippy tone of desperation with Swirsky. All of the cliches (most of them unoriginal--"mojo," "somethin'-somethin'" "are you kidding me?") stood in for lack of real analysis. He positioned himself as "off the wall," but he was an MLSE mouthpiece through and through. Guess you have to be in that job, but don't try to tell the audience you are something you are not. I'd had it with him years ago. They've got a great base to build on with Armstrong and Rautins--now they just need a solid announcer to step in without a silly bag of tired old tricks.

Is there anyway that Chicago will take Smith and Jones as well? I'll even chip in for their airfare. Particuarly Jones--he is absolutely awful, and that's just with his savaging of the English language...

Drafting players is an inexact science.

To quote Tinman from a few posts ago. Last year when the NBA held their annual GM's poll, Roy was picked for Rookie of the Year. Bargs was also picked by the GM's as the best player either 3 or 5 years down the road from that same crop of players. It's not that BC was delusional. The entire NBA held Bargnani in the same esteem. I am patient......for now!

I was disappointed in hearing the news. At first I wasn’t a big fan of the Swirsk but than I had the pleasure of listening to the Boston guys and all of a sudden appreciated what we had.

Still hate his Salami and Cheese.

Why not bring in Cabbie? That way, regardless of the product on the floor, we are sure to be entertained.

BargsBust, are you Bargnani’s ex girlfriend? Why would you just keep kicking a man when he’s down. Everyone agrees he had a horrible year, what are you trying to prove?

Someone asked why Saunders was fired; I don't think he was fired, he just didn't have his contract renewed. I think it had to do with the Raptors taking control over their TV productions, although I don't remember the details. Plus, Saunders obviously couldn't commit full time. Regardless, he was a big loss. When the Raptors were the doormats of the league, other NBA players couldn't believe that Saunders was our play-by-play guy. They were genuinely impressed. I'd love to see him back, even on a part-time basis. He was enthusiastic without getting hysterical.