Built Ford Tough

They're actually very concerned that he might have a torn ACL.

You're right about him impacting both ends of the floor. Unfortunately, more often than not, he has a negative impact on offense due to his horrible shot selection and decision making. He has an awful 47.6 TS%, turns the ball over on 15% of his possessions, has an ORTG of 94 (lowest of his career by far) and has a negative offensive win share at -0.7. Simply put, he has been a train wreck offensively this season. Sure, his raw numbers look alright (16.7 ppg, 44.5 FG%, 4 apg) but they simply don't tell the whole story or depict an accurate representation of Smith's impact on that end of the floor.

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/01/26/chris-bosh-says-hes-a-lock-to-make-the-hall-of-fame/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter I know the comment is absurd. There is obviously no way in hell that if Bosh retired 4 years ago he would've been in the HOF. Everybody (sans Bosh, I guess) knows that. However, it is an interesting question as to whether Bosh will eventually be a Hall of Famer. That may sound absurd, but if you really think about it, his resumé will make it a valid question. As of right now, he is: 8X All-Star 1X All NBA 2nd Team 1X NBA Champion 1X Olympic Gold Medalist Career averages of 20/9 and a 21 PER I think it is rather safe to assume he will end his career with at least 10 All-Star selections and will likely add at least another championship or two. Say he finishes his career as an 11 time All-Star and 3 time NBA Champion, which, in my opinion, isn't too far fetched. Does that get him voted into the Hall of Fame? EDIT: I forgot he only has one gold medal as he was injured during the last Olympics.

So it looks like the Leafs holding a 2-0 lead is the equivalent of the Raptors holding a double digit lead in a game. It is a guaranteed comeback for the opposing team. Although, to be fair, even in the first period Toronto got thoroughly outplayed by the Rangers and the 2-0 score heading into the intermission was not indictive of who the better team was. I was fully expecting the Rangers to come back.

Do you mean would the Lakers actually pursue Lowry? I imagine they would inquire, but to be perfectly honest, I don't think the Raptors have any interest in any deal that sees Lowry heading to the Lakers. Your second point is spot on, though. Neither one would really be happy coming off the bench. In fact, back before the draft Colangelo's plan was to actually trade their pick for Lowry and then sign Steve Nash in the summer. Colangelo was given permission to talk to Lowry from the Rockets and told him about this plan, but Lowry said that he didn't want to come to Toronto just to back up Nash. Maybe things have changed in the last 6 months, but Lowry wasn't willing to backup Nash then and I imagine he won't be too thrilled about it now. However, if the alternative is staying in Toronto and backing up Calderon, maybe he would have a change of mind? Who knows. I just don't think Toronto and LA are viable trade partners, so even if the interest is there on LA's part, I don't envision anything coming to fruition.

Here is a crazy stat. Kyrie Irving has played 85 NBA games and tonight's 3 pointer with 0.7 seconds left was the 5th game winner of his career. DeMar DeRozan's game winner against Orlando on Thursday was Toronto's first game winner since 2006.

I don't get it. If he wants to win he needs to leave Atlanta and joiing MIlwuakee? So go from one treadmill team to another? What does a Josh Smith/Monta Ellis/Brandon Jennings core give you that a Joe Johnson/Josh Smith/Al Horford core didn't? He helps Milwaukee get into the playoffs rather than being a consistent 9th/10th seed in the East, but that is about it.

From reading between the lines, I think you have it wrong. I think Colangelo wants to keep Lowry and deal Calderon, but Casey wants to keep Calderon and deal Lowry. This is speculation on my part, but from interviews, speculation and all that jazz that I've read/heard, that is the conclusion I've come to. Normally you think the GM will have his way, but again, I'm not so sure about that. Colangelo's future is tenuious at best, while Casey was pretty much given the vote of confidence MLSE. Back at that board meeting they had, John Shannon mentioned something along the lines of Casey was told to play whoever he wants and not worry about stepping on Colangelo's toes (something along those lines, at least). That makes me think that there is a lot of truth to the speculation that Lowry is actually on the block.

UCLA is so hard to get a grasp on. They'll look fantastic against ranked opponents like Arizona or Missouri but get completely controlled and dominated against lesser quality opponents like Arizona State. Nothing agaisnt ASU because they are a solid team, but they aren't Arizona or a national championship contender. The one thing, other than inconsistency, that will prevent this team from making any real noise this year is going to be their lack of an interior presence. Today was something like the 8th or 9th straight game where they gave up at least 10 offensive boards. Jordan Bachynski absolutely wrecked them inside all game long. He is averaging 10/7 for the season and went off for 22 points, 15 rebounds and 6 blocks today. The points and rebounds were both new career highs for him.

His numbers haven't really fallen that much. I mean, yeah, they've fallen since the beginning of the season when he got off to such a ridiculous start. Per 36 minutes he is having the most productive season of his career averaging 17.9 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 7.5 apg and 1.7 spg on a 58 TS%. His PER is 21.8, which would make him join Carter and Bosh as the only Raptors to ever post a PER above 20 in a season. The problem is that Lowry's injury happened to coincide with the Raptors schedule easing up substantially. They got off to a horrific start with Lowry starting and then when he got hurt and Calderon was starting, they feasted on a bucnh of teams worse than them. This resulted in a stigma getting attached to Lowry as a selfish chucker who was only out for himself and wasn't playing a way that was conclusive to winning. He then comes back and is limited to a 24 minute a night backup role in which he is playing with shackles on, or, in other words, basically being told to play the same way as Calderon, which isn't his game. His numbers in those minutes are still productive as he is averaging 11/3/6 with a 58 TS%, but he just doesn't get to play his game anymore. He has still been the Raptors best player by a wide margin this season. His per 36 numbers are better, or at the very least comparable, to Jrue Holiday's who was named to the All-Star team. I'm just hoping that they are showcasing Calderon but everything seems to suggest that they genuinely think that Calderon is a better point guard for this team and legitimately want to trade Lowry, which is just moronic.

I never noticed this until now, but you might want to update the description of the college basketball forum. Should be Pac-12 now. Nice work on the upgrades, though. It will take a while to get used to, but it looks great.

Louisville on a serious slide. Lost 3 straight games since being ranked #1. The Syracuse and Georgetown losses aren't that bad since both are very good teams, but the Villanova loss the other day hurts. Their confidence looks absolutely shot right now. Speaking of Villanove, they just upset Syracuse today. That makes it two wins against top 5 teams in the same week. This is the first time since 2001 that an unranked team knocked off two top 5 teams in the same week. Impressive week for Jay Wright. he may have punched his ticket to the NCAA Tournament with this week alone.

Ken Berger wrote a piece about the Lakers and in the post up section, he made a comment that according to his sources, the Raptors are more likely to try and move Lowry than Calderon. http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/21614044/postups-whether-dealing-gasol-howard-or-standing-pat-lakers-in-bind For what it is worth, Wolstat and Arthur both disputed this but I'm not sure if we can believe them. I imagine Berger's sources are guys who have been talking to opposing GM's and what not, while Wolstat and Arthur's sources are likely MLSE mouthpieces. Of course, opposing GM's may be blowing smoke since they'd rather acquire Lowry than Calderon, so they leak this Lowry is available stuff as well. I'm not sure what to believe. Either way, I really hope this isn't the case. Calderon has played very well this season and I can't criticize him too much, but at the end of the day he is 32 years old and in a contract year looking for a final payday before either heading back to spain or retiring. Lowry is a more talented player, younger and locked into a nice contract for next year. I know he has had his issues this year, but when he is on and playing right, he is arguably the most talented point guard this team has ever had and a borderline All-Star. Even with his problems this year, he has still been the Raptors best player and is their 2nd most valuable asset moving forward behind Valanciunas. Giving up on him already, in favour of Calderon no less, would be a huge mistake as far as I'm concerned.

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jeff-schultz/2013/jan/25/josh-smith-i-feel-im-max-player/ Does this make it a forgone conclusion that Smith will no longer be in Atlanta after the deadline? After all the work Ferry did this summer shedding salary and bad contracts, I can't imagine he will turn around and negate all of that positive work by giving Smith a max contract. On the flip side, does this also hurt his trade value? If Smith makes it known he is after a max contract and doesn't want to accept anything less, I imagine it will limit the potential suitors for him. How many teams out there will actually want to pay Smith $94M over the next 5 years? It should be interesting to see what happens with Smith over the next little while here.

Maryland should probably stop helping off of Rasheed Suliamon. I'd rather take my chances with making Cook a scorer than giving Suliamon all of these open looks from deep. 15 points on 4/4 from 3 (one 4 point play as well) for him in the first 10 minutes.

No, but I did just watch Alex Len had Mason Plumlee his ass with a blow by and a nasty reverse dunk.

Love Davis rag dolling DeRozan and DeMar bringing out the Compton and flashing gang signs after hitting the shot.

What a shot by DeMar. I did not see that coming. Good for him to finally hit one of those game winners. I think that might've been the best 4th quarter he has played in his career. 14 points, missed only 1 shot, hits the game winner at the buzzer and prevents yet another late Raptors melt down.

At this point in time you can tell that Monty Williams wants to nail his ass to the bench but because of his draft status and name, he is forced to play him. So he just throws him out there for like 3 minutes a night (although I see he got 18 minutes tonight, but the point remains the same) before sitting him for the rest of the game. Is a pity playing worse than a straight up benching?

Westbrook had the game from hell tonight. I don't remember the exact numbers but he was something like 3-17 and had 7 turnovers. To make it even worse, Steph Curry dropped 30+ and Jarrett Jack had a near 10/10 game (think he finished with 9/9). Oh yeah, he also had two airballs from deep down the stretch. Funnily enough, it could've been much worse if Curry shot the ball like he usually does. If Curry is shooting like he normally does, he drains at least another 4 3's considering how many open looks he had. I have no doubt in my mind that Curry would've dropped 44+ if this was any other night. His jumper was just off tonight as he missed countless wide open looks. Durant was scary good for the first 45 minutes or so, but he was pretty bad down the stretch as well. I know Westbrook will take all of the heat for this loss, and he certainly deserves his fair share, but Durant's play late was very poor. He missed 3 shots (had only 3 misses the entire game up to this point) missed a free throw that would've tied cut the defecit to 1 (Curry iced it at the line by making it a two possession lead) and then to really put the final nail in the Thunder's coffin, he turned the ball over after telegraph a pass, although in his defense part of this blame goes to Perkins as well. Not a strong showing from him late, but he was ridiculously efficient before then. At one point he had 30 points and 9 assists on something like 9-12 from the field. Filthy. Fun game to watch, though, which is something I don't usually say about the Thunder. I really, really enjoued how this game was officiated as the refs let the players decide the game. I don't think there was a single foul call where I shook my head at and usually there are 3 or 4 of those a quarter in OKC games. Glad the refs let the players decide this one. PS: Kevin Martin is an embarssment. All the guy does is flop and flail around the court. It is sickening to watch.

No, just stupidity.

So Alan Anderson is 2-7 (or 6, I don't even know anymore, it could be 100 for all I know) in overtime. It is only logical that Casey should draw up a play designed for him to jack another 3. Ugh.

Anderson has a wide open Calderon 10 feet from him, but no, he decides to jack a fadeaway, corner 3 ball over LeBron. I think I'm starting to hate him more than Bargnani.

Speaking of things that piss me off, Alan Anderson has taken every single Raptor shot in overtime. Yeah, that definitely should happen.

So Amir fouls out and Miami has gone small, you bring Ed Davis back in, right? Wrong. Aaron Gray time. I'm really starting to reach my limit with Dwane Casey's rotations and substitution patterns. And who would've guessed it, Miami puts Gray in a pick and roll immediately and it leads to a wide open Allen 3. I'm absolutely shocked. I did not see that coming at all.