A Golden Finish

Hey...I thought I could recognize all the old school players, but who is the guy behind Daly and Jordan???

Aha! Christian Laettner...how the hell did he sneak on the team, anyways???

Aha! Christian Laettner...how the hell did he sneak on the team, anyways???

All in all, huge Games for our guys. Jose broke through after winning the world championships: could be the same for CB4 at a superior level? Jose proved to be a true Raptor, shutting it down after an often reoccuring minor injury, and won the silver medal. Roko got a ton of experience putting on display his strengths and weaknesses.
I always said Delfino should have been AP's replacement as a starter next year - too bad the numbers didn't work out this year.
This season is the most promising ever as a Raptor fan: our 3 stars are hungry for victory or redemption and have built enough experience among themselves to think and act like a Champion. If we stay healthy, I like our chances against anybody in a series. Last year, when everything went wrong, we still beat in individual games the Celtics, The Spurs, The Hornets, the Mavs and the Trailblazers.
Bring on the season!

Did anyone watch the end of the Women's gold medal match? For some reason, Candace Parker went for a kind of screw you basket with like 2 seconds left in the game and USA up by like 30 points. She missed it (maybe realising how silly it was to try and make it) but it struck me about how unsportsman like it was to even try. Yes the game against Australia was chippy but the US can't complain considering how physical they were on defense. It is also interesting to see a kind of modern day equivalent to the original Dream team circumstances. Women's baksetball is probably a little further along internationally then men's was at the time of the dream team but not by much. Most of the internation teams couldn't even compete against each other let alone the USA. I heard that a couple of the Aussies were WNBAers and there was player on Russia who was actually an American (imagine how that has divided the hypocritical American press) but most of the other players on these teams were not even close to the US's team (for a reference, think Canada's women's hockey team, that is how much of a divide we are talking about). I can't help but think that 16 years from now, the Women's team might be doing a redeem team of their own as you have to believe there women all over the world (ok maybe girls) who are thinking of picking up basketball. I hope there is because otherwise women's basketball might be doomed (it might be anyway).
The raptors have a serious problem on their hands. Calderon's injury isn't considered serious yet Spain decided to sit him in the Gold medal game, a game that was very close at times. Now maybe politics played a part as Spain already screwed the raptors out of an important player with poor medical decisions but I am still concerned as there really isn't much help for him. There are some FA who could help but the Raps have shown they are unwilling to go over the luxury tax threshhold. The only alternative is to trade for a seasoned backup or dump some salary off the raps (humpster or graham would be ideal candidates but I doubt anyone would take them). Suddenly the Oneal trade doesn't look as good as if Calderon struggles all year with the groinpull the Raps will be lottery bound.

CL was the token white guy on the team.

Re: the Raps, Ukic seems like he will mirror Calderon's rookie year in the NBA - low turnovers, but horrible shooting and teams will sag off him. Even with JC at full health, don't know how far we will get with Ukic getting 15 mins a game. I am not a doctor, but a partial groin tear does not sound good at all. On the other hand, watching JC at the finals on the Spanish bench, he looked allright when he jumped up to curse the refs every 2 minutes.

It's interesting that the spanish media had some quotes this morning which sort of indicated that spain thought they were hard-done by in terms of the reffing. I didnt see the game so were there a lot of bad calls? To me it simply semed like the best team won.

Token white guy?? What about Stockton, Bird, Mullin and Malone? :)

Laettner was more of a "token College kid" than anything else, and he didn't play much.

Malone is black!

fromlongrange: no matter what the spanish media says, Spain did not lose because of the refs (and I am spanish). Still, let me try to explain what the fuss is all about:

In FIBA basketball, the rule for traveling is different than in the NBA. It's quite hard to explain in words, but basically the gist of it is that in FIBA ball, when you begin to dribble, you can take the first step but then you need to release the ball from your hands *before* initiating the second step, while in the NBA it is commonplace (and not a violation) to just begin the dribble *after* initiating (and sometimes completing) the second step. This is something that the american players do a lot, specially in fast-break situations.

What people are complaining is that the FIBA refs did not call these traveling violations to the US players throughout the tournament (which is played under FIBA rules), and particularly in the final there are reports counting up to 13 such traveling non-calls. What irks people here (me too) the most is not the effect that calling these would have had in the game (because if the refs called them regularly, the US players likely would adapt after a few calls and that would be it) but the fact that the international refs knowingly refuse to call a violation that they routinely call in Euroleague games. We're used to watching refs like Brazauskas in Euroleague games with their usual cocky and call-it-all attitude, and all of a sudden they "forget" such a basic violation. As an analogy, think what would happen if NBA refs suddenly decided not to call the moving screens set up by international players playing in the NBA "because in FIBA they're not used to that rule", and that this rule exception for certain players was not written anywhere.

But that should not be an excuse. Like I said before, I feel that the US deserved the win anyway, and by the way this was an awesome game, I strongly encourage those of you who missed it to watch it, it was a thing of beauty. Spain played a great game and fought really hard for the gold, they did not feel it was enough for them to be in the final, they put up a big challenge and forced the US to play their best which they did, so a lot of credit to the american team which is a deserving winner.

It was a beautiful game that any hoops fan can appreciate, many in the media are calling it the greatest match ever in international ball. As a spaniard, I am sad that we lost (we really had a chance for the glory there) but I'm happy with the performance of my national team and very very happy as a basketball fan in general.

I just wanted to point out how totally awesome Bosh was throughout. Check out the raw data;

http://sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/viewtopic.php?t=1871&sid=c98721f28fad285c89f3a6cdc41bfbef

"Assistant GM: Malone is black!"

...still laughing...

Hmm.. wasn't he Mexican?

Sergi, thanks for clarifying that, it is good to see things from a different perspective and you regularly help us regulars here with that.

Another question I have for you is whether or not Spain thought that missing Jose had any effect on the final outcome of this match. I know Calderon was a little hot and cold for the Olympics, but he seemed to be stepping up for the big games.

Malone is black! Lol, I thought he played for Utah!

Sergi P, the rule for traveling is exactly the same in the NBA as in Fiba, just, in the states, it is seldom applied literally. Irrespective of the influence it had had on the final outcome it has been a shame to see that rule applied differently in different games throughout the same tournament, in accordance to whether the American team was playing yes or no. For sure in , let's say Argentina Lithuania the rule was applied differently.

Robert: it is hard to say, on one side it is natural to think that with Calderon playing Spain would have had a better chance, specially since the starting PG was only 17 years old and had a minor finger injury in the first quarter, while the backup Raul Lopez got 3 fouls quickly and had to be pulled early.

On the other hand, I think Jose's absence left a lot more minutes and touches for Juan Carlos Navarro, who can easily can get hot (like he did) if he plays with confidence. So yeah, Jose playing surely would have helped, but maybe also at the expense of Navarro or Rudy's shots. Also, with Navarro and Ricky Spain had a pretty correct play at the PG, so I don't think Jose would have altered the outcome unless he was particularly inspired.

Anyway after the Olympics I'm even more excited about the Raps next season, I think Bosh can thrive in this role where he doesn't need to be always the primary scoring option and can help a lot in many more aspects of the game. If JO does his thing and Bargnani steps up his game, it is a real possibility than Bosh could score less and still be even more of a factor in this team.

Don't we retain the rights to Delfino since no NBA team picked him up and he went to Europe? Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.