Things That Make You Go Hmmmm....

Interesting to see that Horford isn't an American Citizen. This is one of those situations where having a name Coach for Canada's basketball program could go a long way to the recruitment of players from fringe countries. The Dominican Republic will probably never field an international squad and it is almost unfair that the US might contemplate bringing him into the fold. I noticed there was a lot of mercenary athletes competing for countries that weren't where they were born and maybe we should be finding a way to recruit some of these players to Canada (much like Dalembert). Can you imagine what bringing in even some US second or even third level talent might do for Canada's basketball aspirations( players like Kapono, Andrew Bynam, or even a Shawn Marion). Unfortunately, the governing bodies of Basketball are probably unwilling to do what is neccessary to bring such talent to Canada and I have a bad feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better.

I believe the FIBA rule is one import per team. Thats why you never have more than one JR Holden, Kaman, Dalembert, etc on one team. And they still need citizenship.

I say go Romo and Westbrook.

I think for these howland you should have constant links to c and c music factory...

How about Miami putting up a banner for DWade this Thursday because of his gold winning performance at the Olympics? Talk about tacky and over the top. I hope their butt kissing move backfires and he dosen't resign in 2010. Wasn't it a team effort that got the U.S. the gold? What a joke.

you know whats upsetting to me and i just noticed it today...is that there is better and more coverage of the nfl (which hasnt even started yet) in the canadian cable then there is of basketball...to me that is just sad considering there isnt any canadian teams in the nfl..and we happen to have a pretty decent canadian team in the NBA and yet come preseason and training camp i bet there will be minimal coverage of the raps and just the upcoming season in general

BigD - Yep, chalk up another mark in favour of the terrible non-basketball skew of the Canadian media. Granted the prices were ridiculous and it was an exhibition game, the NFL could barely GIVE AWAY tickets to the Bills game here! Meanwhile the Raptors have had great attendance even when the team was barely winning 30 games a year...

On another note, interesting question on Slam online today. Who's going to have the better year, Baron Davis or Monta Ellis? Well, now that Monta is hurt for 3 months and might start slow, how about a better question;

Who will have the better year, Ford or Calderon? It's an interesting question because in O'Brien's system and if he stays healthy, TJ could easily have a better year statistically. However Jose could be the one helping his team out of the first round of the playoffs...

Best season in'08-09 between last year's pgs???

One José Manuel Calderon my friend.

I find that people 35 and under make up the largest part of the Raps fanbase. As we age and move into positions of power I see a shift in the amount of coverage pertaining to bball across the board. At least that's what me and my buddies hope for! Puckheads like Bobcat disgust me. Not everyone's gonna like the sport be it basketball or whatever, but it's obvious the dude couldn't care less about the Raptors. Which in my opinion is totally childish and irresponsable for any sports radio personality working in a city that has an NBA team.

Good question about TJ or Ford, but we've seen for ourselves that even if TJ does put up better numbers, Jose is the better PG - especially for this team.

I've been ranting on some other sites about how Raps fans have lowered their expectations after last year's disappointment. The more I rant about it, the more I think that the Raps will be pretty good next year. Here is an excerpt:

Finally, I agree that Raps fans are excited about the JO trade, but we are still guarding our expectations. Few people are predicting top 3 in the East, seems like top 7 is the more common sentiment. Regardless of where we actually do finish, I’d suggest that predicting a 7th seed is pretty pessimistic. We have significantly improved our weaknesses, and really only hurt our depth. But our depth ran 12 deep last year and didn’t really help us anyways. You really only need 3 off the bench and we have Bargs (last year’s starter), Moon/Kapono (Both solid wing back ups) and Ukic/Salomon. Back up PG is the only real question mark there and likely a step back from last year. That said, TJ was a terrible back up last year and this year Jose will get plenty more minutes, which should help out if he can play the way he did as a starter last year.

Sorry if I am still too much on the kool-aid, but I am trying to back up being a homer/fans with legit arguments! Although the East has improved, we might be giving too much credit. Boston has taken a serious hit on the bench and they were lucky on the injury front last year. Detroit is a year older and Dumars hasn’t really made the changes he promised. Cleveland still has Bron, and Mo is nice, but I doubt Z will have the year he had last year and who else do they have? Philly is putting a lot of faith in an undersized PF’s surgically repaired Achilles. The Magic still need a PG and can’t really expect any improvement from Howard or Hedu. Atlanta’s head office continues to prevent them from going anywhere. I actually like a lot of the young talent on NJ, Indy and the Bobcats, but they still have to show that they can win games. The Knicks? It’ll take more than one off season to undo what Isiah has done to that team. I might be standing alone, but i feel quietly confident with the Raps going into the new season.

I agree that teams only really need to go 9 deep. Having too many ok players doesn't work in most cases and you can never get a consistent rotation. With the new Raptors we know who will be starting at every position except the small forward spot.

It'll be interesting to see who starts between Kopono and Moon. My guess is that Kopono will be the more productive player because with JO and Bosh down low we won't be as garbage on the defensive end and we will be able to utilize his offence. Even if he is the more productive player perhaps Sam will want to bring Kopono in off the bench for some scoring punch. Or perhaps because Andrea will be the first big off the bench Sam won’t want to have him and Kopono on the floor together.

Other questions that remain are the durability of Bosh, the health of JO’s knee, Roko’s readiness for the NBA and not Calderon’s injury.

On a side not Bosh playing for the Olympic team seems to really have increased the media attention he receives, I’ve now seen him being mentioned by so many NBA article writers, his pictures are all over the place and so on………….its about time.

Rule is a country is allowed a max of one player who became a naturalized citizen after the age of 16 in an official FIBA event (Tournament of Americas/Worlds/Olympics.)

Further on Horford. Yes, Dominican Republic has long had national teams. (There are over 200 in the world.) His dad is an all-time Dominican Republic great. Maybe THE all-time Dominican Republic great. I'm kind of surprised the younger version hasn't played for DR in a FIBA event already. If so he would be disqualified for playing for any other country in an official FIBA event ever.

I have no idea how FIBA works, so thanks for the updates. Its a damn shame about the imports being limited because it could really help a lot of teams be more competive, not just Canada.

As for the comment by Robert Archibald about Orlando not having a point guard, did you watch any of the playoffs last year? Nelson handed Jose/TJ their asses. I am not saying he is a Chris Paul but he is more than adequate for what they need. In fact, all he has to do is feed the ball to Superman and he will be very good. As for the other things you mentioned (Boston and Detroit being old etc) you also have to be realistic in that if this team loses Bosh or Oneal for any length of time over a couple of games, they are screwed. Parker was already a step slower last year defensively and his offensive numbers are bound to come down (it happens to every SG when they hit the 31-34 years). We need a bit of luck just to compete. As for the reference that we are the 7th best team, I think that stemmed form a report by someone on SI and they were basing it on the offseason moves not neccessarily how they think they will finish.
If I was going to pick a dark horse to make this years playoffs in the East and maybe make some noise, I would pick the Bobcats or Pacers. As long as Brown doesnt feud with his players all season, they can make a step forward. The pacers improvement at Guard and getting the monkey off their backs in Oneal, could help them as Granger will be given more responsibility and a greater leadership role.

My pick for a dark horse team would be the Hawks.

Bibby and Joe Johnson are as good a backcourt as any in the league.

Josh Smith and Marvin Williams are two guys with all the potential in the world and both should be fighting for an allstar spot next year. They are still extremely young so their upside is high and they have continued to get better year in and year out.

Al Horford is a beast....he won't be hitting a sophmore slump, he should be much better next year.

And don't forget the champion Celtics had a more difficult time beating the Hawks than they did beating the Pistons and Lakers....

So they should make things interesting

McGateway, I admit that I have really just breezed over much of the competition. My point is that although we will need a little luck especially in terms of injury, we do have reason to be optimistic.

Although Nelson had a few good games, I would still be looking for an upgrade if I was Orlando, plus they've lost his back up. That said, Orlando is a very well coached team and the addition of Pietrus can really add to the defensive ability of this team in general. I think the Magic will quietly win a lot of games this year, mostly with their D.

I also agree that the Bobcats are a darkhorse team. Brown usually does break his players down before building them up, and the team he had in NY wasn't mentally tough enough for it. Also, Isiah didn't really support him through it so it was a doomed experiment. In Charlotte, MJ will give Larry his full support and I doubt the youth in Charlotte will rebel. They are ready to listen so they can finally make the playoffs. The only thing that made me scratch my head with this team was why they have given up so quickly on Felton. Maybe Augustine will be everything TJ isn't, but IMHO, they should have drafted Brook Lopez. He would have fit their needs perfectly with Okafor sliding over to PF.

As for Atlanta, I think Bibby is past his prime although JJ is wicked. Letting Childress go for nothing also hurts, as much in the locker room as on the floor. Ownership just isn't commited to winning and the players know it. I think JJ is one of the big FA's that will be available in 2010 when the raps have more cap space than anyone!

Like the darkhorse team discussion...my pick would be the Heat. I think they're going to be a lot better than people expect. I also (again) think the Bucks could make a push for the 8th spot if they stay healthy.

PS - Today's post won't be up till later this afternoon thanks to last night's "New York Giants" concert featuring a veritable "who's who" of New York rap legends from the early 90's; Lord Finesse, AG, Large Professor, Diamond D, OC, the Beatnuts...all that was missing was a few cats like Chubb Rock and Special Ed!

"A few weeks ago I was complaining about the lack of basketball, in particular Raptor centric news. The end result was endless searching of the internet for even the mildest hoops news of interest."

Well, thats exactly the kind of problem I am trying to help.
I've included your blog in my Toronto Raptors Aggregator.

http://snaptopic.com/sports/nba/toronto-raptors/