Built Ford Tough

Rather than put everything related to the Raptors search for a head coach in the Triano being removed thread, I figured it makes more sense to create a new one specifically for rumors/speculation/thoughts on who the Raptors next coach will be. Here are the first few rumors and/or speculation with actual names involved that I have come across. From Doug Smith's blog: From Stein: http://twitter.com/#!/STEIN_LINE_HQ/status/76424187891302400 A nice article on Frank from the Sun. http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/03/lawrence-frank-meets-raps-criteria And one more, from CBSSports. http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/29750190 (If you have any names that you feel I should add/remove from the poll, let me know as I just did this quickly off of the top of my head with coaches who were the most talked about for teams looking for a new coach).

Minny has a crap load of cap room (don't they?), so I don't see why salary should be a problem. I imagine the trade will be some sort of dual salary dump where the Raptors take on Flynn and a player who the Wolves would like to shed the salary of (like Webster or Pekovic or Ridnour) in exchange for somebody like Calderon to ease Rubio's transition. Calderon makes more money up front, but his contract is only for 2 more years and by trading Pekovic (or Webster) and Flynn, the Wolves are barely even spending anymore money despite Calderon's deal being larger considering it is expiring after next season (and who knows what will happen with a lockout). I think the Wolves would take on something like $1.5M more (closer to $1M if it is Webster instead of Pekovic) in salary, which is basically nothing considering how small of a payroll they are going to have for the next few years. This is assuming that the Wolves would want Calderon to make Rubio's adjustment from Spain to the NBA easier, which I think is a fair assumption to make. I'm not saying that a trade exactly like this will occur, but is certainly seems likely to me. Either way, getting a trade done wouldn't be a problem considering the flexibility that each team has at their disposal (Minny's cap space, Raptors TPE). It is more a matter of whether or not the Wolves want Calderon because that is who I see Colangelo wanting to move in a Flynn trade,

Fair enough. I wasn't taking a shot at you or anything, I just thought the exact opposite as I thought Dallas played better, but just had a couple of stretches where they missed some good looks or made some poor decisions with the ball that lead to easy transition opporunities for Miami. I thought that the game was fairly evenly matched and just had its stretches where Miami got into the open court which gave them plenty of easy baskets. When it was a half court game I thought Dallas controlled the play more than the Heat and were better in those situations, which is what the final 6 minutes or so were. A valid opinion to have, though.

What shit talk? Other than JYD and Poe's little back and forth, I don't really see too much shit talk going on (and I don't even consider that as anything). I thought it would be much worse. Granted, I haven't read through the entire thread so I may have missed something, but from what I have seen it is very civil. Why exactly should the Heat have won by 25, though? I didn't think that they played all that well outside of a couple of stretches (the end and beginning of the third and the period in the fourth before the collapse), but outside of those 14-15 minutes (and the last 6 minutes for Dallas) or so the game was fairly evenly matched with Dallas arguably playing better. You could just as easily say that Dallas should never have been in that situation in the first place considering they very easily could've ended up with a 10 point half time lead if not for the final 2 minutes. Not saying you are wrong or anything, just curious as to why you think Miami should've won by such a large margin considering I thought the majority of the game was pretty even. Also, did anybody see this during the broadcast? http://i.imgur.com/HuR88.gif

Yes, I'm a Leafs fan. What does that have to do with anything? PS: I think you are refering to BasX and, as far as I know, he is a Flyers fan.

By an even wider margin, I believe, since Miami grabbed 2 or 3 offensive boards in the final few minutes and I don't recall Dallas getting any (although I could've missed some). Bosh should've pulled one of these... http://gif.mocksession.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/BOSHTONGUE.gif.pagespeed.ce.FgHrqBXhxy.gif on Dirk during the final possession.

Good one.

I'm sure you have bitched about refing before. Everybody has. That wasn't my point, though. I was simply saying that some Heat fans constantly say that every other fanbase bitches about how Miami gets all of the calls, yet they are no different when the calls don't go their way and bitch just as much, if not more than everybody else.

Why, because he made the right decision and didn't call a foul? Chandler did not push Wade there, Wade just caught the ball too deep with too much speed and he knew that he had no chance of finishing that play so he tried to sell a foul call. And all am I saying is that Miami fans bitch about the officiating just as much as everybody else. This game has been called very well and only you seem to have a problem with how it has been called, considering you were the only who brought up free throws. And what do you know, the Heat have 11 freebies at the half and the Mavs have 13. There has been nothing wrong with the reffing in this game.

Holy shit. Miami's rotations on that last Mavs possession was absoutely ridiculous. The Mavs did a fantastic job of moving the ball but no matter how quick they moved the ball the Heat were always in position. Very impressive defense by the Heat.

The Heat have taken like 12 threes. I'm not positive, but nearly a quarter of their shots have been from beyond the arc. You aren't going to get free throws when you are taking spot up threes all of the time. Miller completely deserved that technical as well. Yeah, he has an injured shoulder but what is Barea supposed to do, give up an easy two for Wade? Sorry, not all people have the Bosh mindset where diving for loose balls should be illegal. PS: How on earth did Wade not get a T on that play? He literally ran towards the rough in addition to his huge reaction to the no call. I can't believe that there wasn't a T on that play.

Colangelo is on PTS right now and he has mentioned that there has been a lot of interest in the job and has received numerous calls from agents of coaches and some coaches themselves since the announcement that Triano won't be back next season. He also said that the coaches calling are what he considers to be "A-List coaches". Obviously he is going to say something like that, so who knows if it is true or not. He also did mention that he has a couple of leading candidates already in mind, although he doesn't want to make anything public as of yet in regards to who they are and when he will be meeting with some of the candidates. Ideally he said he would like to have a coach in place by the draft, but he said that he won't rush the process just to have a coach in place by the draft. If it takes 3 months he said he will take 3 months before making a decision as he wants to find the right guy for the team and organization. He said that Triano may even end up as an assistant again if that is what the new coach wants. He also said that if Jay wants to leave the organization and go somewhere else to try and resume his coaching career, whether as an assistant or a head coach, he will let Triano go if that is what he wants. He mentioned that Triano will be advising him on things like the draft, free agency and even in their search for a new coach. That was about the extent of the interview.

TIME: 9:00 PM ET TV: ABC

I can understand Biyombo, but I sure as hell hope the Raptors don't got after Leonard, at least if they stay at 5. Either trade down to get him, or just go and draft one of Knight, Walker, Valanciunas, Kanter or Biyombo (although he scares the hell out of me) and then take one of the several marquee small forwards next season. There is no reason for the Raptors to draft a small forward this year considering the depth of next years class and the fact that the best 3 in the draft (I still think Williams is a 4 so I'm counting Leonard as a 3) isn't even remotely close to the BPA at 5. On a different note, Raptors have released their workout dates: http://www.nba.com/raptors/node/17627 Knight will be in Toronto sometime next week: EDIT: Forgot to mention that they will be going to Chicago to meet with Kanter and watch him workout on Monday. I think I posted that earlier in this thread, but I figured I would mention it again considering it is just days away.

You are hilarious. Canucks fans get what they deserve? Every fan base has their idiots, you of all people should know that.

I will be shocked if the Raptors don't acquire him. Colangelo really liked him prior to the draft and as history has shown, Colangelo eventually gets "his guys". He went out and acquired Belinelli, Bayless and Johnson within the past two years, all of which he was linked to at the times of their respective drafts and was known to be interested in. I am willing to bet that after the draft Jonny Flynn is going to be a member of the Raptors. (Even if Kennedy isn't all that reliable, which I don't think he is, I still fully believe Flynn will be a Raptor by the time draft night is over).

Found this on RealGM. http://tapatalk.com/mu/63e194ab-f342-5cfd.jpg

That was a ridiculous play by Kesler to stay onside on that goal. I thought for sure that he was offside when the play first happened, but the replay clearly shows that he managed to keep his skate down and stay onside to set up that game winning goal. Thomas was brilliant tonight, though. He makes some ridiculous saves every night and even on the Torres winner he was damn close to making the save on a play that he should not have had any chance of stopping. Guy is an amazing goalie and is the biggest reason why I didn't want the 'Nucks to play the B's. Luongo was also good. He wasn't as good as Thomas and didn't have to make the difficult saves that he did, but he was great positionally and didn't give up any dangerous rebounds. He made the saves he needed to make and gave the team a lot of confidence it looked like. This game really changed in the Canucks favour when they started activating their defense and involving them in the offense. Edler, Erhoff and Bieksa all did great jobs of moving/rushing the puck up the ice and creating chances. That is one huge advantage that they have over the Bruins and it was one of the biggest differences in the game tonight, in my opinion. Great game, though. The first two periods were a bit hard to watch with the constant whistles, but that third period was excellent hockey and we are definietely in for one hell of a Stanley Cup Final this year.

This game has ben awful. Absolutely no flow with all of the constant penalty calls. Although to be fair, about 99% of them have been legitimate calls so at least they aren't making brutal calls. The only bad call that I can think of off of the top of my head is the Burrows goalie interference call considering it was marginal contact in the first place (which Thomas sold really well) combined with the fact that Thomas was well outside of the crease. I wish that we could see some more 5-5 play, though. That one stretch of about 3-4 minutes in the 2nd period was some great hockey and it woudl be awesome if we could see more of that.

Big opportunty for the Bruins to start the game. The Canucks were all over the Bruins for the first 5 minutes or so of the game and had all of the momentum until Daniel Sedin's double minor high sticking penalty. Getting a goal or two here would be huge for the B's. Thomas has looked great so far, though. Huge save on Daniel Sedin in the first minute or so and has made two other very nice saves as well (one on Raymond and not sure who the other deflection was, maybe Kesler?).

For what it is worth, it doesn't sound like Colangelo has any plans of just promoting PJ Carlesimo and will look outside of the organization for a replacement for Triano. It seems like the Raptors want an expereinced coach and aren't going the whole rookie approach like they have with Kevin O'Neil, Sam Mitchell and Jay Triano. Also, Eric Smith tweeted this, which makes it even more likely that the Raptors are looking for a guy with experience. So who is out there? Obviously there are guys like Rick Adelman, Larry Brown, Jerry Sloan and Lawerence Frank (who I would love to have), but what other experienced coaches are out there? Ettore Messina's name will undoubtedly be thrown around given his Euroleague career but outside of those five, all of which are probably unlikely to be interested in coming to a rebuilding team like the Raptors (except maybe Frank) I can't think of too many people that would be available that have legitimate NBA head coaching experience. I've always liked Frank so he would definitely be my number one choice. A good defensive coach, who will probably even be better after spending time in Boston under Rivers, is solid when it comes to drawing up plays and the X's and O's and is young so he makes sense to bring in with the young Raptors. He has experience with a variety of different teams as well, whcih is an added bonus. I'd love to have him be named the next Raptors coach and unlike the other guys I mentioned, I can actually see him coming to Toronto so it isn't too far fetched to thinkn he could be Jay's replacement.

This is a misleading title. He isn't really gone, he is just no longer the head coach. He is still with the team and will likely take over Gheradini's job as assistaint GM at some point in the future. There was speculation about him moving into the front office for a while now as a lot of people within the organization think he is much better served with a front office job than being a coach as he has a great basketball mind and is very respected there (as well as in Team USA circles and from his work with Team Canada). http://sports.nationalpost.com/2011/06/01/jay-triano-out-as-raptors-coach/ This isn't a surprise, though. When his option wasn't picked up fairly soon after Colangelo's extension, you knew that his future as head coach of the team was bleak.

At least that is what it seems like. http://www.tout.com/m/9944wo

Peja Stojakovic is guarding LeBron James.....

Why does Joel Anthony touch the ball on offense? The only time he should get any touches on offense is if he gets an offensive rebound, in which he should immediately throw it back out before he can turn the ball over.