Built Ford Tough

I thought Darryl Morey was some sort of super genius? The guy is trading basically all of his assets for Pau Gasol and the chance at signing Nene to a $70M deal? :lol: Good luck ever being successful in the playoffs with a Gasol/Nene frontcourt while having to go through a Kobe/Paul backcourt, a backcourt which you would be directly responsible for building. This is seriously like something you would see in a movie. That is how utterly unbelievable this whole situation is.

Does this really surpise anybody? Billups has always been a whiny bitch. Even when he was a journeyman scrub bouncing from teams like Boston to Toronto to Minnesota he still had a ridiculously inflated ego and opinion of himself.

I read that he didn't fail his physical with the Raptors, which is what was first thought, but the Raptors did see something in his MRI that they did not like so they backed out of the deal. However, they never actually said that the deal was "dead" and there is a chance that they will revisit the deal in 2-4 weeks.

[quoteThe Raptors will sign veteran point guard Anthony Carter. Carter finished the 10-11 season with the Knicks after being included in the Carmelo Anthony trade, but had been with the Nuggets since 2006.] http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/217325/Anthony_Carter_To_Sign_With_Toronto#ixzz1gAZWeGDt And the scrubs keep on coming. Colangelo should be done now, unless he has a trade planned or something. I actually don't mind either of these signings, though. Carter is a nice veteran 3rd string point guard who could be a nice mentor of sorts to Bayless. Gray is another big body, but he will likely get a chance to play some decent minutes this season. I don't expect much of him, but it is certainly better than signing some scrub veteran. At least he is a young scrub. EDIT: Forgot to mention, they signed Rasual Butler as well. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wizards/toronto-raptors-sign-veteran-free-agent-shooting-guard-rasual-butler/2011/12/10/gIQAarkAlO_story.html This was a move made after it was found out that Pietrus wouldn't be coming to Toronto, so basically the backup plan to Pietrus. The odd thing is that Pietrus may still end up in Toronto but the Raptors, after this signing, have no roster space. Which means somebody is going to be waived or Colangelo has a trade in mind.

Kidd Carter Marion Dirk Haywood with Terry off the bench. Could you imagine this team 5 years or so years ago? They would basically be the perfect mesh of skill sets. Great perimeter defense in Kidd and Marion. Elite scoring duo between Carter and Dirk. Very good defensive anchor in Haywood. Elite rebounding from the perimeter between Kidd, Marion and Carter. Fantastic clutch play from Carter and Dirk. Then add to all of that the dynamic scoring punch from Terry off of the bench. Of course you can play this game with plenty of teams around the league. I just love the way that these skill sets would've meshed.

No, he wasn't. The final year of his contract was for $18M, but only $4M of it was guaranteed. As long as the Suns waived him within 3 days of the beginning of free agency (at least I think it was 3 days, not 100% sure on the specifics), they were off the hook for the other $14M. Bottom line, he wasn't amnesty cut. I am 100% sure on that.

Maybe reuniting with Kidd will help Carter get his game back? He had some of his best years when playing with him. Of course, he was much more athletic and explosive back then and if playing with Nash didn't help him get back on tract, I don't think playign with Kidd will make much of a difference either. I have to admit that a part of me is looking forward to seeing how he plays in Dallas. Does he project to be the starting shooting guard?

Armstrong returns to the lineup, Connolly gets hurt the same game. I guess it was too much to expect these two to be able to actually stay on the ice. One of them has to be injured or else the world just wouldn't be in balance. On a serious note, that had nothing to do with Connolly being fragile or anything. Just a unfortunate event where Ovechkin's skate hit him in the lower back. Hopefully it isn't too bad and just stung a bit. EDIT: Looks like it was nothing as Connolly is back. It probably just knocked the wind out of him/stung a bit and they decided to go to the back and check if he was cut or anything like that.

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/217282/Wilcox_Signs_With_Celtics#ixzz1g5gIe2Iw http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/217283/Jeff_Green_To_Sign_One_Year_Deal_With_Celtics#ixzz1g5gPlsQH That Perkins trade is looking worse by the minute. The Celtics think so little of Green that they aren't even going to give him a long term extension, and he will likely leave as a UFA next season. Oh well, they replaced Perkins with Wilcox at least.

Found this on Real GM as well: http://i.imgur.com/NIdqY.jpg

http://www.nba.com/magic/news_hughespruitt_120911.html I imagine both will be for the minimum, but even then, I don't understand either of these signings. Hughes is completely washed up and Pruitt was never any good in the first place. I'm not sure of who is still available, but I have to imagine they could've found some better options than these two.

Great day for the Blazers. Roy retires and now Oden may not be able to play this season. Man, even I feel sorry for this team and I really couldn't care less about this team.

Good for Orlando, if this in fact true. Players demanding to be dealt to specific teams is bad enough. Players meeting with those specific teams while still under contract? That is despicable.

It sounds like this trade was simply a case of the Suns paying the Raptors to take Pietrus off of their hands. They sent cash to Toronto in addition to Pietrus and the 2nd rounder that they got in return is one of those ridiculously protected ones that never actually amount to anything. So they got Pietrus for nothing more than the $5.3M cap hit he brought with him and whatever money that Phoenix isn't paying for. If I had to guess, I'd say that Phoenix is probably paying for around $2-2.5M of the deal.

Armstrong back in the lineup. Over/under on how long before he is back on the IR? I say under 5 games.

The Raptors wouldn't be moved even if an American bought them. Even with them being an absolute joke of a team for the vast majority of their history, they are still in the top 10 of the most valuable NBA franchises in the league. The league wouldn't let an owner up and move them when they are doing so well. It would be a brutal business move.

I still think a healthy Kleiza is a valuable bench piece. He isn't a starter like the Raptors had hoped as he is too much of a tweener, but if he is able to play the bench role as a 3 and stretch 4 in certain situations. He seemed to come in and tried to play outside of himself in order to live up to the expectations. That isn't to say I am upset with this acquisition, especially since Kleiza is out for at least another month anyways. It will be some healthy competition between Pietrus and Johnson for the starting small forward spot. The move doesn't surprise me at all. Colangelo was after Pietrus when he was with Golden State and as he has shown plenty of times in the past, Colangelo really goes after the guys he likes. He picked up Johnson, Belinelli and Bayless after showing strong interest in them during the draft, he traded for Barbosa after him being a favourite of his in Phoenix, he signed Kleiza last summer after coming close to signing him the previous one, and now he trades for Pietrus. If only he was in love with superstars instead of average role players.

Go back to Brazil, then. I couldn't care less if he was on this team or not, and I know many other Raptor fans share that opinion. He will just steal touches from more important players on the roster, Jerryd Bayless in particular. The only value that he has to the Raptors is that his contract is up at the end of the year.

Brilliant. The tank is going to be firing on all cylinders this season. I don't know how much I like the contract being for two seasons, but oh well.

I'm on my lunch break and saw it on the ticker while watching Prime Time Sports. Sounds like it is for a conditional 2nd round pick, although I don't know what the condition on it is as of yet and won't find out until after work, since I have to leave in about 5 minutes.

No, they are over the cap. The cap is $58.044M and Heat are at $65.313M without the Battier and Curry signings.

The thing is that Gilbert is technically an owner of the Hornets so he is fully within his rights to play the "veto" card, just like any other owner. By the book, there are 29 owners of the New Orleans Hornets right now so any owner, whether it is Cuban, Arison, Gilbert, Allen, Jordan etc..., are allowed to veto the trade. That is why it was such an awful decision to make the Hornets a league owned team. If you have a single owner, this trade likely goes through (unless Stern really wants to ruin any credibility he has left, which is already very little). However, since the owners of the other 29 teams get an equal say, you know that they are going to shoot down the trade since they don't care about what is best for the Hornets, they care about what is best for their teams. Paul going to LA to join forces with Kobe and Bynum (or later Howard as most everybody expected) is not good for their teams so they are going to pull the veto card. It sucks and makes the league look terrible, but they are well within their rights to do what they did tonight. Luckily for the NBA that the players have voted on the new CBA already (they all have, right?), otherwise I could easily see this resulting in them continuing the lockout and wiping out not only this season, but future ones as well.

He will be the token Canadian sitting on the bench waiving towels. I highly doubt he plays much at all, maybe 10 minutes a night at most. Less if Alabi proves to be more than a complete stiff, which is highly unlikely.

Actually, you are wrong. Stern has the authority to block trades for the best interest of the league per the league constitution, which every owner agrees to when purchasing their team. Add in the fact that the league owns the Hornets and Stern has every right to block this trade. It is a joke how it all went down, but Stern does have the authority to block a trade from happening if he deems it is necessary, especailly since the Hornets are owned by the league.

The problem was allowing the league to own the Hornets in the first place. Anybody with any common sense saw this situation coming the minute the league purchased the Hornets. It is a huge conflict of interest having the Hornets owned by the league.