Built Ford Tough

Number 28 is... Kevin Willis http://blogs.thescore.com/raptorblog/2011/08/03/ultimate-raptors-rankings-no-28-kevin-willis/#more-4589 My favourite Raptors moment for Willis was when the Raptors made their first ever appearance in the playoffs in 1999-2000. He averaged 13/9 in 25 minutes while holding Ewing to 15/10. I know that Ewing was 37 years old at the time and not the dominant player he once was and that the Raptors lost the series in 3 straight games, but I remember watching Willis play and couldn't help but be impressed by the hustle and heart he showed in that series. He was traded the next season for Keon Clark and Tracy Murray who were both key reserves for the Raptors, but it still was sad to see Willis go as he was a great leader for the team. His absence was definitely felt with the team and it wasn't addressed until they went out and got Charles Oakley.

Not surprising. I've been saying it for a while now. The NBA and NBAPA are much, much further apart than the NHL and NHLPA were back when they lost an entire season to a lockout and pretty much everybody figured that the NHL would have a lockout that, at the very least, would wipe out half the season. The best case scenario is a half season, but I don't even expect that. The lockout is going to go on for as long as the players allow it if you ask me because I don't see the owners budging on some of their more critical demands. The end of the lockout will likely come when the players give in to the owners demands, at least in my opinion.

Go to Raptors.com and instead of clicking on Roster from the Team dropdown bar, click Management. That is completely up to date in terms of coaching staff and management, aside from McKenchie, at least as far as I can tell. Or, just click here: http://www.nba.com/raptors/News/management.html lol.

Your Raptor information is a bit out of date/inaccurate in a couple of ownership/coaching areas. First off, Richard Freddie should be Richard Peddie, and even then he isn't exactly the owner of the team. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment are actually the owners (majority at least, as Larry Tanenbaum is also part owner) of the team and Peddie is just the CEO of that company. Listing him as the owner is a bit false, though, since it really is MLSE who owns the team and if Peddie was replaced as CEO of MLSE, it wouldn't make any difference in their majority share of the Raptors. Secondly, the coaching staff is a bit out of date as Casey made some changes when he came over. Alvin Williams hasn't been an assistaint coach for the past season or two as he now has a front office job (Director of Basketball Development I believe), PJ Carlesimo and Alex English were let go after Casey's hiring and they were replaced by Johnny Davis, who is now the lead assistaint taking over for Carlesimo, and Tom Stenner. Eric Hughes, Mica Nori and Scott Roth were the three holdovers from Triano's old staff. Lastly, Francesco Cuzzolin isn't with the team anymore as he went back to Italy after this past season. The Raptors hired Alex McKechnie, who worked with the Lakers for 8 years, as their Sports Medicine head. I'm not sure if he falls into the catagory of Strength and Conditioning Coach exactly, but I know that Cuzzolin isn't with the team anymore. http://www.nba.com/raptors/News/mckechnie_072111.html Other than those three things, everything else seems to be in order. Great job with all of these. They are very impressive.

At least according to Hoopsworld... http://www.hoopsworld.com/Chat.asp?CHAT_TOPICS_ID=1770#ixzz1TS3SbSiq It would be nice if he could be serviceable enough to the point where the Raptors won't go out and overpay for a stop gap center but I wouldn't count on that considering how raw he looked last season. At the very least it would certainly help the Raptors tank job next year. Of course it is Hoopsworld so I certainly doubt the validity of this.

I knew it was bad immediately, but only because you could hear him screaming in agony immediately. It was clear as day on tv, so I couldn't even imagine how bad it was live. Calderon and Jefferson's reactions just solidified how bad it was. It certainly didn't look as bad as Livingston's injury, in fact it looked relatively harmless, but I think you could argue that it was just as serious as it basically ended his NBA career (although Livingston is hardly the player that he should've become due to his injury).

The only way I'd put Malone as the best power forward ever is if you classify Duncan as a center considering he has spent a large chunk of his career as a center. You can argue that Duncan has played more center than power forward since the Rasho Nesterovic left the Spurs which I believe was after the 2005-2006 season. Even then, that is only 5 years out of a 13 year career which definitely isn't enough to classify him as a center. That is no slight against Malone because he had a phenomenal career, but Duncan has accomplished more in his career than Malone did, and who knows, Duncan may add a couple more accolades to his career before he calls it quits, although it is probably safe to rule out any major hardware.

I was just thinking about all of the Hall of Fame talk for Yao and how so many people are saying that he is a "first ballot, 100% lock" for the HOF, and if that is the case, there can't be any argument that Manu isn't a first ballot lock, right?

It is no secret that this team has been devestated by injuries, particularly to what was considered to be their two franchise building blocks in Brandon Roy and Greg Oden. Despite the fact that Oden has never really been able to stay on the floor for any significant amount of time and Roy is a shell of his former self, the Blazers have consistently been in the middle of the Western Conference pack and haven't been an easy out in the playoffs. So it begs the question, just how good would a healthy Portland team be? Would they be a legitimate championship contender? Would they be a top 3 team in the West?

So you think Valanciunas is too big of a risk, so you would pick Vesely instead? Ok...

Number 29 is... Jorge Garbajosa http://blogs.thescore.com/raptorblog/2011/07/27/ultimate-raptors-rankings-%e2%80%94-no-29-jorge-garbajosa/ He was a nice glue guy for the team and even though I think a lot of Raptor fans, and even Colangelo himself, overrated his contributions a bit, he was an integral piece to the Raptors only division championship and they certainly missed his veteran savy in the playoffs against the much more experienced Nets. Of course what I think he will be remembered for most, at least during his time in the NBA, was his horrific injury that he suffered against the Celtics. I can't seem to find a video of it anymore, but I am sure most fans, at least Raptor fans, know which injury I am talking about. That injury pretty much ended his NBA career, although his determination to come back early and play for his country that summer didn't exactly help his recovery either. Eventually he was bought out of his contract and his short NBA career was over.

Pretty stoked about the Jays getting Rasmus without giving up any real major pieces. Stewart is a nice prospect but he was hardly a sure thing to be a future starter for the Jays and they have nice pitching depth in the minors anyways, so they may have just given up a handful of relievers for a 24 year old starting center fielder who they now have under control until, I believe, 2014. Of course there are still the future considerations to think about, but as the deal stands right now I absolutely love it. The only guy I'll miss is Jason Frasor as I've always liked him. At least he managed to set the franchise record for appearances earlier in the season. I'm very excited to see a lineup of C: D'Arnaud/Arencibia 1B: Lind 2B: Hill (although I hope he is long gone and is replaced by somebody who doesn't completely suck) 3B: Lawrie SS: Escobar LF: Snider CF: Rasmus RF: Bautista DH: Thames/Encarnacion (if he continues to swing the bat like he has over the past month) On top of this they also have guys like Gose and Hechavarria who are intriguing prospects as well. Of course none of this really means anything unless the league makes changes to their playoff format because the no matter what the Jays do, they are still in the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox, which makes the chances of making the playoffs slim.

I'm not arguing that the criteria is perfect or anything, but the bottom line is that he is ranking them based on a criteria that Ellis doesn't fit. It isn't "absolutely ridiculous" to leave Ellis and Curry off of the list, like you and Legacy suggest, considering the criteria is 5 or less years of experience, which I think is fair for a ranking that is based on potential. I agree that there have been plenty of players that have improved greatly throughout the 6-10 year span, but the list of players who stopped developing after their 5th year in the league is a hell of a lot greater than the ones who continued to. More often than not, you know what kind of player you have on your hands after he has been in the league for 6 years and I think it is safe to assume that what we see is what we get from Ellis. He has been the same player for the past 4 years, so why should we suddenly expect him to suddenly become something else? If you want to take it that far, though, why stop at Ellis? If we are saying that anybody who doesn't have 10 years under their belt, or your definition of a true veteran, should be considered why not include Dwyane Wade and Mario Chalmers? Deron Williams and Anthony Morrow? Hell, Chris Paul is the same age as Monta Ellis, twice the player he is, so should we put him and Marco Belinelli in the discussion as well? Sure, guys like Chalmers, Morrow and Belinelli aren't as good as Stephen Curry, but that is more than made up for by how much greater guys like Williams, Paul and Wade are than Ellis. I'll give you that Wade isn't the best example since he is almost 30, but the point remains for 25 and 26 year old Paul and Williams respectively.

Evans was the Rookie of the Year in 2010 with averages of 20/5/6 on 46% shooting and a TS% of 53. He had one of the better rookie seasons in recent memory, perhaps even one of the better rookie seasons ever. The expectations were for him to build on these numbers and maybe even become a top 5 shooting guard in the league this past season. However, as everybody knows, that didn't exactly happen. He took a significant step back last season with averages of 18/5/5.5 on 41% shooting and a TS% of 48. His numbers were pretty down across the board, especially in the advanced metric sections. Was this regression due to him being hampered by injuries all season (he only played in 57 games and, if I recall correctly, was bothered by plantar fascitis for most of the year) or is he simply not as good as his rookie year suggests? So my question is, which year do you think was the anomaly, his rookie season or his sophomore season?

Or you can consider the fact that Ellis has played 6 years in the league and therefore doesn't meet the inital criteria of having 5 or less years of NBA experience...right?

Harden has been used as the Thunder's sixth man for the first two years of his career despite the fact that he is clearly the third best player on the team and some would argue the 2nd most important player behind Kevin Durant. Thabo Sefolosha has had the starting SG spot on lock but after Harden's mini coming out party in the playoffs many people wondered whether he should be given the reigns as the starting shooting guard next season (whenever that may be), while others have continued to think that him being a 28-32 minute sixth man a la Manu Ginobili is the role he is best suited for. With Thabo signed for another 3 seasons I'm sure this will be a continuous debate, assuming he continues to be one of the premier defensive shooting guards in the league and Harden doesn't become a bonafide star. So the question is, do you think Harden should be the starting SG for the Thunder? If so, when should he take over from Harden?

Explainations and such at: http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=20463#ixzz1TFCmWPZe Thoughts on this? I definitely see some questionable rankings here and normally I wouldn't post something from Hoopsworld anyways, but since there isn't much to talk about now, I figured I might as well.

Speculation is that it will be some sort of combination of red, silver and a dark blue, which makes sense given the look of their logo. There is no word on when the jerseys will be released, though.

I guess it can give us something to talk about for a day or so, but I don't really see the point in doing a top 30 list for a team like Toronto considering their awful history. I bet that a large majority of NBA fans could barely even name 30 Raptor players. Anyways, number 30 is..... Mike James http://blogs.thescore.com/raptorblog/2011/07/20/ultimate-raptors-rankings-no-30-mike-james/ I think that this was one of my favourite James moments with the Raptors, simply due to my distaste for the Knicks (especially at that time, I don't dislike them as much now as I did then) and Marbury. He also had some very nice quotes during his lone year in Toronto (some of which are in the link above). He was a chucker and was out to get his in a contract year, but despite all of that, he was actually pretty damn good for the Raptors that season. You could argue that his lone Raptors season was the best statistical season from any Raptor not named Vince Carter or Chris Bosh. It was definitely an anomoly and a case of a player padding stats on a bad team, but he wasn't as bad as some fans and media personalities made him out to be. I am glad that the Raptors walked away from his ridiculous contract demands, though.

http://1.cdn.nhle.com/jets/images/upload/2011/07/110722_logos_news.jpg http://jets.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=569911&navid=DL|WPG|home They are going to release their uniforms and colors at a later time. Thoughts on the logo? I like the secondary logo a lot (the one with the hockey sticks), but not sure how I feel about the main logo (the one on the left).

It is going to be awesome to see the Raptors lineup. We will go from something like: Shaq/Gasol/Baylor/Kobe/Magic or Parrish/McHale/Bird/Hondo/Cousy to Antonio Davis/Chris Bosh/Morris Peterson/Vince Carter/Jose Calderon (although I would have Stoudamire here, not sure who you will be listing) At least it isn't as bad as the Bobcats...

He is closer to not being in the top 10 than he would've been to beign in the top 5. The guy was very good, but you can make the argument, and a very valid one, that even when he was healthy he wasn't better than Dwight Howard. So it Dwight Howard a top 5 center? I don't think anybody would argue that right now and a healthy Yao and Dwight is basically a toss up.

Yeah, the Cavs really butchered this pick, at least at first glance. Valanciunas is the ideal player that you want beside a point guard like Kyrie Irving. Nice size and length, very good pick and roll player, solid athleticism (for his size), good finisher and doesn't need the ball to be effective on offense. I think that the two of them could've been a poor mans Chris Paul/Tyson Chandler pick and roll threat. All of that is nice and all, but the biggest reason why I would go with Valanciunas is for the simple fact that I think he is a better prospect than Thompson. Thomspon may be the safer pick, but Valanciunas is definitely the better prospect.

Carlesimo didn't work in the Spurs front office, though. I said that working in the Spurs front office was good enough for me, not just working for them in general. Funny you should bring up the Thunder as your example since the team was built by a former Spurs assistaint GM. Thought that was kind of interesting.

Why are the Heat hard to root for? They have made the playoffs consistently for the past 6 or so years, save the one injury riddled season, they have a championship within the past 5 years, have a star studded team and they are coming off of a finals appearance. They are a pretty easy team to root for considering their success lately. I think you are missing the point (or I am), but from what I gather the easiest teams to root for are teams who regularly experience success while the hardest teams to root for list consists of teams who are difficult to root for because they are usually in the bottom of their respective leagues and have a history of poor decisions.