Raptors Hire Tolzman, Webster, Announce Summer League Schedule

First Coach Casey's return is made official, and now we hear about the hiring of Dan Tolzman and Bobby Webster!

Huge!

Wait...who?

Yes, Dwane Casey's return wasn't the only announcement made today by the Toronto Raptors, the team also announced that they have named Bobby Webster as the club's Vice President, Basketball Management & Strategy. He'll essentially be their resident "capologist" and he joins the Dinos after working for the NBA league office the past few seasons. (His title there was Associate Director, Salary Cap Management so...yeah...)

While I have no working knowledge of Webster, adding someone who specializes in the intricacies of the NBA's complex collective bargaining agreement is certainly not a bad thing. One of new GM Masai Ujiri's strengths in Denver was his ability to field a very successful team each season that wasn't over-committed financially, and Webster should only add to this. While with the NBA's league office he advised all 30 teams on collective bargaining matters as related to the salary cap etc, and "played a lead role in the league office's player contract analytics efforts."

(So this certainly means Andrea Bargnani is being shown the door right??)

In addition, Denver Nuggets scouting coordinator Dan Tolzman is apparently taking a Director-level scouting position with the Raptors, as Ujiri continues to build his front office and surrounding personnel. Like the Webster hiring, this one is intriguing as well as it ties into another of the strengths during Ujiri's Nuggets' regime; talent evaluation. The Nuggets' acquisitions of players like Kenneth Faried and Ty Lawson via the draft were huge parts of the club's success and Tolzman likely was a major factor in their draft selections.

And wait, Summer League is coming!

In the absence of Raptors' draft picks, this might be the next big event for Raptors' fans to look forward to and the team kicks off play July 13 against the Eastern Conference Champion Miami Heat.

Well...their B team so to speak.

This year's Summer League has a new round robin tournament-style format which will see the Raptors compete in three preliminary round games, plus at least two tournament games July 12-22.

Here's the full prelim schedule via NBA.com:

2013 RAPTORS NBA SUMMER LEAGUE SCHEDULE

PRELIMINARY ROUND