Built Ford Tough

http://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/nba/raptors/article/1020146--feschuk-idled-nbaers-look-for-ways-to-fill-their-time Good for Sonny. It is interesting to note that Zalgiris, the team he is likely going to sign with (just need to finalize the contract and hash out the last minute details by the sounds of it), is supposedly Rytas' biggest rivals. Of course Rytas is the team that Valanciunas plays for.

Leafs re-sign Clarke MacArthur to a 2 year, $6.5M contract and avoided arbitration. Carolina also traded Joe Corvo to Boston for a 4th round pick, presumably to make room for their earlier signing of Tomas Kaberle (which was 3 year, $4.25M per). Coyotes locked up Keith Yandle to a 5 year, $5.3M per contract today as well. EDIT: Tampa is supposedly close to signing Stamkos to a 5 year contract with an annual cap hit of around $7.4M. If this is in fact true, what a steal for the Lightning.

Winnipeg locks up Andrew Ladd for the long term. Signed him to a 5 year, $22M contract today.

I agree with the people who are saying it is more due to him falling to 8 than actually being picked by the Pistons. At one point in time it was looking like he was a lock to go 3rd to Utah, wouldn't fall past 5 tand absolutele worst case scenario was him going 7th to Sacramento. The Jazz decide to go with Kanter instead, Toronto has Valanciunas fall to them (and even if he was gone it sounds like Biyombo would've been the pick and not Knight) and then the Kings trade down to 9 because they'd rather have Jimmer than stick at 7 and pick Knight. He lost out on a decent amount of money and I would imagine that he was really looking forward to being a top 5 pick, so that is probably why he looked so pissed at the draft. At least, that is how I took it.

Great game for Valanciunas today against the United States. They (Liithuania) were missing their starting point guard and 2nd best player, but they managed to make it a very close game, eventually losing by 2 points in OT off of a Jeremy Lamb turnaround from about 8 feet with 1.5 seconds left. He finished the game with 30 points, 15 rebounds and 4 blocks on 11-20 shooting and 8-10 from the FT line in 37 minutes. He also held Patric Young to just 15 points, 7 rebounds and 1 block. Lithuania were down by as much as 18 points, including a 10 point defecit at halftime, but apperantly Jonas went nuts in the 2nd half and carried them to what they thought was a last second win in regulation after he had a putback dunk that would've put Lithuania up by 2 with only a second or so left, but it was called goaltending. Great game from him either way, though. He really put his team on his back in the 2nd half. He is now the leading scorer, rebounder and shot blocker in the tournament with 21.4 ppg, 13.4 rpg and 3.6 bpg. The most impressive thing about all of this is that he is doign it in only 28 minutes a game. He is definitely having a fantastic tournament. A couple of tweets from Givony about Valanciunas: Another tweet showing Valanciunas' taking the loss really hard: Praise from the American coach:

I wouldn't say that. Did you ever think that you would see Hakeem Olajuwon in a Raptors uniform? How about Patrick Ewing in a Magic uniform? I'm sure there are many more examples that I could list if I really thought about this, but those are just two off of the top of my mind. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that Pierce gets moved either, but it wouldn't shock me at all if he did.

I can really only see his career ending in one of three ways. 1) He stays in Phoenix and finishes his career where it all started. 2) He goes to New York to reunite with D'Antoni and Amare with the hopes of potentially making one last run at a championship. 3) He goes to Toronto and finishes his career in Canada. I think scenarios 1 and 2 are much more likely than 3, especially now that Jay Triano is no longer the coach of the Raptors (him and Nash are very close) but I wouldn't completely rule out him wanting to finish his career in Canada.

With Melo and Amare being so ball dominant on offense, you need somebody that doesn't need the ball in his hands to make an impact. You also definitely need to find somebody who can guard the point of attack considering the lack of defense that you have from your two star players. A Kirk Hinrich with better ball skills and a more reliable perimeter jumper would be the kind of point guard that I think the Knicks would like to add.

The answer for the Hawks is a true franchise player, regardless of position. Although a center would be ideal so you could move Horford to the 4, I think you can definitely win a championship with Horford as your starting center considering how the vast majority of the players who play the 5 spot are really just power forwards thrust into that role anyways. How many true, impactful centers are there really left in the game? 4 or 5? Right now they basically have every player on the roster one spot too high in the pecking order. Johnson is a 2nd option forced into being a 1st option, Horford is a 3rd option forced into being a 2nd option, Smith is a 4th option forced into a 3rd option, etc... The only player on this team who really has the role that he should have is Jamal Crawford and that is obviously as an offensive sixth man. This team has almost all of the right pieces to become a legitimate contender, but the problem is that they are missing that one big piece and, as a result, everybody is forced into options one spot higher than they should be.

The CBA is their biggest roadblock if you ask me. If the CBA prevents them from being able to sign (or trade for) a legitimate center and forces them to trot out a Joel Anthony/Zydrunas Ilguaskas center rotation next season, they are going to be hard pressed to win it all. Wade, LeBron and Bosh are good enough, as they showed this past season by coming within 2 games of winning it all basically by themselves, but they definitely need to upgrade the center spot. As far as teams go, maybe the Thunder if Westbrook takes another substantial leap in his development, Harden continues to progress, Perkins becomes the defensive anchor that they had hoped he would be and Durant rounds out his game. Outside of that, you pretty much have the Lakers and maybe the Mavs, depending on how the Chandler FA situation unfolds and how well they can put off father time. I don't see a single team in the East that has much of a chance of stopping them, even if they go into the next season with basically the exact same team as they had this past year. Of course this is assuming no blockbuster trades happen and we end up with Howard and Paul joining forces in New York or if the Lakers manage to make a move to add Dwight.

I doubt it considering I doubt he will ever be considered a franchise player. I like the guy and have no problems admiting that what he did this past season for the Huskies was nothing short of spectacular, but I would be very shocked if he is able to do the things that he was doing last season in the pros. He can be a good 3rd option, maybe even a good 2nd option but I would be very surprised if he is ever considered among the upper echelon point guards at any point in his career. I see him having a fairly similar career to somebody like Devin Harris. A good player, clearly a starting calibre point guard, may make an All-Star game or two in his career but when push comes to shove, he will ultimately be a complimentary piece and not one that you build aroun. So no, I don't think that Walker will be the one to lead the Bobcats back to the playoffs, at least not as a franchise guy. He may be the emotional and vocal leader of the team, because he certainly seems to have those traits, but I would guess that somebody like Harrison Barnes, Anthony Davis, Quincy Miller, Andre Drummond, Dario Saric, or whomever they draft in 2012 and 2013 will likely be the player(s) that lead the Cats back to the playoffs as the franchise player.

The Bobcats are more likely to fight with the Raptors for last in the East than they are to fight for the 8th seed.

I think only Sim is playing, and yeah, he is a big boy. He is 7'4 and about 315-320 pounds. He is in terrible shape, though and doesn't really have much going for him other than being huge. I wouldn't ever expect to see him playing in the NBA. Valanciunas has 18 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocks on 6/14 shooting and 6/7 from the free throw line in 34 minutes today. Lithuania won 71-54 over Serbia. I'm not 100% sure, but from what I have read Valanciunas was facing a lot of double teams and even saw some triple teams which may be a reason for his low shooting percentage as he is usually very efficient. All of the focus seemed to be keeping Val out of the paint and forcing him into mid range jumpers. On the bright side, he only had 2 fouls in the 34 minutes that he played, and both of them were on the offensive end so that is nice to see considering per 36 minutes he has been averaging over 6 fouls a game. He also had a spurt of 7 straight points in the 4th quarter to really put the game out of reach, which is great to see him showing some killer instinct like that. Lithuania plays the United States tomorrow at, I believe, 7:30 EST time. I'm not positive about the time, but the game should be shown at this link: http://www.lrytas.lt/videonews/live/ It should be a good game, especially the Patric Young/Valanciunas matchup. After the USA/Lithuania friendly Patric Young pretty much called Valanciunas overrated and saying that he isn't a lottery pick calibre player. He made comments about how the only reason he had a good game against him was because the refs were giving him every call. The funny thing is that if anybody has proven that they are not worthy of a lottery pick in this tournament, it has been Patric Young. He has been outplayed by pretty much every big man that he has gone up against in this tournament. Hopefully Val has a great game and shuts Young up, but considering how much shit he talked after their first game in which he was absolutely dominated, I doubt that will happen.

San Jose making yet another big move. They dealt Heatley to Minnesota for Martin Havlat. I had a feeling that Healtey would be moved this summer after his disappearing act in the playoffs (again), but I did not see this trade coming at all. Not a bad return for Heatley considering how poorly he played last season and the contract that he is signed for. Havlat hasn't done much since leaving Chicago a couple of years ago (at least as far as I know, I could be wrong though) but I think him playing alongside Thornton and Marleau he could easily become the player that he used to be for the Sens and Hawks. Not sure how much more he has left in the tank though considering his injury history. Either way, it was a move the Sharks needed to make. Heatley could use a change of scenery as well, but I don't think it will do much good for him. He really isn't a good player as he is completely mediocore in basically every aspect of the game aside from being really good at finding open space in the offensive zone and, of course, his wicked shot. I guess playing alongside somebody like Koivu, who is a very good playmaker and solid defensively, might help him out a bit, but after seeing him this psat season, I wouldn't hold my breath. He looks slower, weaker and his shot wasn't as deadly as it used to be (although it is still very good). I've never liked the guy so I could be letting that interfere with my opinions of him, Franson is still pretty raw at this point. He has very good offensive instincts and the potential to become a very good offensive defenseman, but he needs quite a bit of work in his own end. His positioning isn't very good and his defensive awareness is pretty poor. He has nice size at 6'5 and 215 pounds or so, but he doesn't exactly make great use of these two things. I'm sure that is one thing that Burke will look to work on him with considering how he likes his guys to play, especially his defenseman. He was sheltered quite a bit in Nashvile last season as he only played around 12 minutes a game or so, but he is also only 23 years old and it was only his 2nd season in the league. He is a nice prospect who, at worst, is likely to be a number 6 defenseman for a team, which he pretty much is now, but if he puts it together I don't see why he can't become a solid top 4 defenseman who could possibly hit 35-40 points on a consistent basis. As for Lombardi, he likely won't play next season as he is supposedly still a long ways away from returning from the concussion that he suffered in the first few games of last season. When healthy he is an excellent skater, solid penalty killer and has some offensive talent as well. He isn't a first line center by any means but as a 3rd line center, like he would likely be in Toronto behind Grabovski and Connolly, he would be a nice fit. I haven't really seen much of him since he left Calgary though, so most of what I know about him is from a couple of years ago. He is a nice player but much like Connolly, he just can't manage to stay on the ice.

Meh, not watching Raptors ball will probably be less painful than actually watching the Raptors play next season.

Simon Gagne signs with the Kings for 2 years/$7M. Nice addition for the Kings, especially if he can stay healthy. Their top 6 is looking very, very nice next season with: Brown/Kopitar/Penner Williams/Richards/Gagne (not saying those are the lines, just the top 6 as I see it right now). They are going to be very good next season. Also, the Leafs overpaid for Tim Connolly with a 2 year/$9.5M contract. I don't really like the signing, but considering their desperate need for another center (since Bozak is clearly suited for a 3rd line role) and the complete lack of centers on the market, I can understand the signing. I'm not expecting much from Connolly during his time in Toronto, him staying healthy should probably be considered a success, but at least the Leafs aren't on the hook for any sort of long term cap hit and will be able to severe ties with him after 2 years when he undoubtedly gets injured yet again. Should he stay healthy it at least gives Kessel somebody who has some skill and speed to play with, so I definitely understand the thought process behind this signing. This is just a stop gap signing to buy some more time for one of Kadri/Colborne to hopefully prove that they can be a number 1 center, though. That is quite obvious. Also, according to Dreger he is making $5.5M in the first year and $4M in the 2nd year. If this is true, it should make it much easier to move him in the 2nd year should the Leafs want to dump him to some team that is needing to add salary in order to reach the cap floor. They will only have to pay him $4M but he will have a $4.75M cap hit for them.

I saw this on the Sportsnet ticker during the Blue Jays/Phillies post game coverage. I imagine it is just for 1 year or something considering the lockout, and if that is the case, good for Sonny. Even if it is for a long term contract, I'm not that worried considering how poorly he played last season, although I was somewhat looking forward to seeing how Casey works with him. His first season with the team he played pretty good defense and was a nice player for the team. He just got too chuck happy and neglected the defensive end of the floor last season, but I don't think that Casey would let him get away with it like Triano did. Either way, the Raptors will still retain his NBA rights so if they do want to bring him back they always can whenever his contract is up, assuming he wants to come back.

Just a correction on my previous post, Bhullar had 24 points and 14 rebounds against Korea, not 24. Anyways, have two more updates. Yesterday against Korea Valanciunas had 25 points, 17 rebounds and 2 blocks on 11/11 shooting in 19 minutes. He had 17 points and 11 boards after the 1st quarter, but the game was out of reach already by that point so Val didn't really play much more. Also worth noting that the Korean center was like 6'7 and vastly outmatched against a guy of Valanciunas' size and skill. Today against Canada he had 15 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocks on 5/6 shooting in 14 minutes. Unfortunately, his foul troubles came to a head in this game as he fouled out in only 14 minutes. He has around 9/7/2 in the first quarter, but then he started getting into serious foul trouble. He was dominating Sim Bhullar and if he was able to stay on the floor it sounds like he would've put up another Korea-esque game based on the way he started the game and how productive he was when he was on the floor. He is now averaging roughly 20 points, 13 rebounds and 4 clocks in 23 minutes on 68% shooting and 80% from the stripe for the tournament.

With not much else to talk about, I figured I would make a thread for us to discuss how Valanciunas plays in the U-19 World Championships that are taking place from June 30th to July 10th. Lithuania had their opening game of the tournament today against Croatia and they ended up losing 88-75. Valanciunas had 19 points, 13 rebounds and 5 blocks on 7-17 shooting and 5/6 from the charity stripe in 36 minutes. The next game is tomorrow against Korea. Not sure if there is a way to watch these games online (legally, at least) so I imagine this thread will mostly be box score watching and not much of actual play breakdown, but again, with the lockout putting a halt to most basketball related content, what else is there to talk about? PS: Canada played Korea today and won 109-94. They don't have the most talented team that they could've had (no Kabongo, Birch or Wiljter), but it is still nice to see them win, even if it was against Korea. Sim Bhullar (7'4 center) had 24 points and 24 boards on 9/19 shooting to lead Canada.

10 year, $40M. What a joke. These long term contracts that have played signed until their 40's to bring down the cap hit are just stupid. Even if it is a straight $4M across the 10 years, it is still stupid. The next CBA absolutely has to include a limit on the amount of years that a contract can be for. I hate these long term deals. I do have to admit that the Sabres defense is looking fantastic next season. Adding Regher and Erhoff to a d-corps that already had Myers, Leopold, Sekera and Gragnani (assuming he plays as well as he did in the playoffs) gives them a very nice mix of good shutdown guys/two way defenseman and offensive guys. This new owner is doing wonders for this franchise.

Even if they don't sign Jagr, or make any moves at all, I think you can make the argument that they are the favourites for Stanley, assuming nothing crazy happens with the top teams in the league (like a Stamkos offer sheet that TB refuses to match or something like that). All they really need is for Malkin and Crosby to come back healthy and that alone is bigger than any offseason move that any other team can make. I think if the two of them were healthy this past season that they would've won the cup, although Boston certainly deserved to win it all.

Kleiza is out until at least January anyways, possibly longer, so he isn't really a factor in this as it will likely be late Feb/early March by the time he is actually back into game shape anyways. There is probably a good chance that we won't even see him in the lineup at all next season, assuming there is one. Johnson will likely be the starter assuming no real changes are made and the Raptors just bring Weems back and hunt for a center in FA, which seems like that is the plan. He compliments Bargnani well with his defense and rebounding, but him and DeRozan aren't exactly the ideal pairing at the wing spots considering that neither one are capable of knocking down shots and neither one are particularly great at creating offense off of the dribble (DeRozan is competent enough at creating his own offense, but is a poor playmaker, while Johnson is pretty much the opposite). Of course, this is assuming that both come into next season as the same basic players that they were last season, which isn't exactly a fair assumption considering both of them are still young and developing. If I had the choice, I would like to see Kleiza as the starting small forward because his perimeter shooting would be huge next to DeRozan, but that isn't happening. I also think that a healthy Kleiza is a much better player than he showed last season. In an ideal world he is a 7th-8th man off of the bench (like his Denver days) but the Raptors lack talent and he is the most talented small forward that they have. I'd bet that Johnson is the starter, though.

He had 23 points, 11 rebounds and 2 blocks in 25 minutes today in an exhibition game against the USA's U-20 team. Not bad considering he hasn't really played much and hasn't practiced with the team at all considering how busy he was with the draft. Oh yeah, he absolutely dominated Patric Young (Florida center, projected lottery pick, possible top 10 pick this upcoming season). Young only put up 6 points and 6 boards (only 2 points and 2 boards while Valanciunas was in the game). The U-20 team isn't particularly good, but it is still prettty impressive how well Jonas played considering the circumstances.

Trust me, you do not want Motiejunas to play anywhere other than the 4. After watching the Raptors try and convert Bargnani (who I think we all can agree is a very similar player) from the small forward that he was in Treviso into a center, it just doesn't work. These guys are perimeter players who happen to be close to 7 feet and that is where they are the most comfortable. The worst thing you can do is try and get Motiejunas to bulk up in order to play the 5. The Raptors did it with Bargnani and not only did he show that he is not suited to playing center, him bulking up from around 225-230 pounds to 250-255 pounds hurt his quickness, which is one of the biggest strengths he had over opposing big men. They should've just came to the realization that Bargnani is not a center and let him continue to play the position that he was comfortable at, which was a stretch 4. Bargnani has plenty of talent, but the Raptors trying to turn him into something that he is not completely ruined his development. Just let Motiejunas do what he does best and don't try to turn him into something that he is not. Don't make the same mistake the Raptors made with Bargnani because it ruined what could've been a very good prospect.

Couple of more trades, both of which are highway robbery. Columbus sends Nikita Vilatov to the Senators for a 3rd round pick next season. Calgary sends Robyn Regher, Ales Kotalik and a 2012 2nd to the Sabres for Chris Butler and Paul Byron. Seems like the Flames want to officially blow it up and rebuild with this trade, no? Well, they followed this trade up by re-signing Alex Tanguay to a 5 year/$17M contract. That team is an absolute mess.