Built Ford Tough

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/14903483/postups-important-mvp-race-deserves-hard-consideration He seems to have really regressed this past season, so it may be the best time for him to come over and try to rejuvinate his game. Or he is just not the same kind of prospect that people originally thought he was, which is also a pretty good possibility.

It hasn't happened between the two worst teams in a while (at least as far as I know), but it has happened recently. Toronto and Memphis where in this circumstance last season as both were tied for the 12th worst record and split the 13 ping pong balls available to them. Memphis won the coin toss and picked 12th because of that (and had 7 balls compared to Toronto's 6).. In 2007, the Blazers and T'Wolves both finished with a 32-50 record, which was 6th worst in the league and they split the chances of 6th and 7th place, which resulted in 53 combinations for each (63 for 6th and 43 for 7th). I'm sure there are more cases as of late as well, but these were the first two that came to mind.

There is no tie breaker for the lottery. If two teams finish with the same record, they both get the average of their respective positions in the lottery. If neither one of the two teams win the lottery, a coin flip is then done to determine who picks first and who picks second between the two teams that have the same record. If that doesn't make sense (because even as I read it I realize it doesn't sound too clear), here is an example. If Cleveland and Minnesota both finish the season tied for the worst record, you take the average number of ping pong balls that they can recieve so it would be 250 + 199 = 449. You divide that by 2 to get 244.5 balls for each team, but since 249 is an odd number, a coin flip will be done and whoever wins the coin flip would get 245 balls while the loser would get 244 balls. Should neither one of Cleveland or Minny end up with a top 3 pick, whoever won that coin flip for the extra ball would then get the 4th pick and the loser would get the 5th pick.

Wow, DeRozan gets absolutely no love from the refs. How the hell was that an offensive foul? Davis and Parker come back in and the lead goes back up to 12. Shocker.

Ok, now it is time to bench Bayless. He is playing too well. Triano needs to follow Scott's lead and put all of his players who are playing well on the bench. Throw out a lineup of Alabi, Wright, Evans, Ajinca and Calderon.

How many dunks have the Cavs missed tonight? I've counted at least 3 from Hollins and now Gee blows a wide open one, The Raptors are really going to have to pull out all the stops to lose this one. Is it possible to get Kleiza down to the ACC and regain his position as Tank Commander? The Raptors are looking like they need him right about now.

Triano needs to pull Bayless. If he continues to play like this, he might single handedly get this team back into the game in the 4th. Calderon's 0-7 shooting looks a hell of a lot better for the tank tonight. PS: What happened with Johnson and Graham? Saw that Graham got a T and JJ got a F-1 and have also heard Devlin and Armstrong mention it a couple times in the past few minutes.

Game is getting to close for comfort. I go and make myself something to eat and then come back to find a 12 point lead only. Get this defecit back to 20, please.

Damn Reggie Evans. Of course the one game he isn't a complete liability on offense is the game that the Raptors desperately need to lose. As weird as this is to say, take Reggie out of the lineup tonight and the Raptors probably have about 35 points right now, if that. EDIT: Wow, nevermind. I thought the Raptors cut into the lead quite a bit. Didn't realize it was still 20, haha.

Probably not, but a lot of that depends on who else declares for the draft. If somebody like Barnes declares and the Raptors can pick him at 3 or 4, I definitely wouldn't do that trade. Even if Barnes doesn't declare and this draft is as weak as it is looking like, I wouldn't give up an unprotected 1st to move up for Irving, as much as I like him. I'd rather just take a chance on a guy like Jones, Kanter or Valanciunas this season and then maybe grab a guy like Kabongo next season (depends on where they are picking, of course). I wouldn't have any problems with them packaging the pick and somebody like Bayless to move up and draft Irving, but I wouldn't really be all that happy with trading an unprotected first to do it, considering that first is going to be pretty high as well. Throw some protections on it and I probably would do it, though. Best case scenario for the Raptors, other than winning the lottery, would be for either Washington or Minnesota to win the lottery as I don't see either one of them drafting Irving. If the Raptors pick either 2nd or 3rd with both of them ahead of them, I think they have a legit chance of having Irving fall to them, especially if Barnes declares as I could see Williams and Barnes being picked ahead simply because they are much better fits with Wall and Rubio on the roster already.

Toronto showing Cleveland how to tank. Never thought I would see the day. Down by 20 and give up 60 points in the first half to the damn Cavs? Epic.

I don't mind Knight, but I think would be pretty upset if the Raptors drafted him. I know he is younger and all, but I don't even think he is that much better of a prospect than Jerryd Bayless is. I'd rather see the Raptors continue to develop Bayless and see what he can do than use a top 5 pick on basically the exact same type of player in Knight. This is why I wish the Raptors played him heavy minutes during the last 20 games of the season so that they can actually get a decent idea on what they have. Starting him for 3 games and giving him extended minutes for another 4 to finish off the season isn't nearly enough. They should've been given Bayless plenty of minutes for a while now to see if it would be worth continuing to try and develop him or if they would be better off drafting a guy like Knight or Kemba Walker.

How awesone was it when Jack Armstrong blatantly starts talking about how important it is for the Raptors to lose this game and, pretty much every game for the rest of they year while Devlin talks about how important a win is for the Raptors tonight?

Excellent 1st quarter for the Raptors. Fed DeRozan the ball constantly and am down by 11. Only bad thing about it was the fact that DeRozan has played pretty poorly despite being fed the ball for most of the quarter. I would've liked to see him play a bit better, but I guess if that happened, the Raptors wouldn't be down 11 to start the 2nd, so whatever.

He definitely isn't on the top of my list, but if Irving, Williams and Barnes (should he declare) are already gone by the time the Raptors pick, I wouldn't be opposed to them taking a chance on him considering he probably has the most upside of anybody in the draft and, in the off chance that he does reach his full potential, he may end up being a superstar. I'd rather take a chance on some high potential guy like Jones than draft somebody like Kemba Walker or Terrence Jones. Basically, in a weak draft like this, you might as well swing for the fences, whcih is why I wouldn't be opposed to taking a chance on a guy like him or Jonas Valanciunas simply because of their potential. One thing about drafting him is that should they drat him, they absolutely have to play him as a small forward. If they draft him with the intention of playing him at the 4, then I will be upset about it and would rather go with Kanter or Valanciunas over him.

It was never really a question if he would enter the draft or not as far as I am concerned. With Austin Rivers and Quin Cook coming to Duke next season, as well as Dawkins and Curry already there, you knew that everybody was aware of Irving's intentions of being a one and done for a while now. As far as I am concerned, if you are a lock to be picked in the top 5, you enter the draft, which is still why I think guys like Barnes, Sullinger and Walker (should all three actually go back for another year) are idiots, at least from a financial/professional standpoint, for going back. Even if there is a lockout, I don't see it ever being a smart thing to pass up being a lock for being picked int he top 5.

Bayless puts up around 20/7 in 3 games as a starter when Calderon was injured and what is his reward? Benched the minute Calderon comes back. Such a [expletive]ing joke.

From Ford's latest Stock Watch article: Sounding a lot like Barnes is actually going to return to UNC as numerous people are starting to report that. Should he go back, it is looking like that the Raptors will be drafting either Perry Jones, Enes Kanter or Terrence Jones (maybe Jonas Valanciunas or Jan Vesely, depending on how workouts go) unless they move up in the lottery, or both Minnesota and Washington are picking ahead of them as I can't see either of them drafting Irving with Rubio supposedly coming over next year and Wall.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/14903483/postups-important-mvp-race-deserves-hard-consideration This was from Berger. There is also speculation that should Triano be let go from the Raptors, he could end up in New York: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/if_walsh_goes_colangelo_could_be_gTcxMI19GGRqtyrsIq1S4O?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME= I'm getting to the point where I don't care whether or not Colangelo comes back, I just want this circus to come to an end. It seems like a new report comes out every week. One minute he is "99% likely to get a 5 year deal" and the next he has one foot out of the door. It is getting old, lol.

They actually do have the 3rd worst record as of right now. They just don't have sole possession of it as them and Washington are both tied at 21-56. This game is an absolute must lose for the Raptors, though. They have a much easier schedule than the Wizards to finish out the season so it is going to be tough to stay worse than them, or even tied with them. After tonight, the Raptors schedule looks like: April 08 - @ Philadelphia April 10 - vs New Jersey April 11 - @ Milwaukee April 13 - vs Miami While the Wizards looks like: April 08 - @ Boston April 09 - vs Atlanta April 11 - vs Boston April 13 - @ Cleveland (they play Indy tonight). Best case scenario, the Wizards go 1-3 while the Raptors have the potential to steal that game against Jersey or maybe even Miami if the Heat are resting the big three. So in conclusion, LOSE THE DAMN GAME!!!!!!

Scratch that, Toronto is pretty [expletive]ing great at defense...

Seriously? You won the lottery to draft LeBron James less than 10 years ago. Try being a Raptor fan. They win the lottery in 1996, but because of some ridiculous rule that states expansion teams aren't allowed the 1st pick in the draft for something like 3 years after they have been in the league, they lose out on Allen Iverson and instead draft Marcus Camby. Then the next time they win the lottery it just so happens to be the first year after players aren't allowed to enter the draft straight out of high school. So instead of drafting Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, the Raptors get stuck with Andrea Bargnani. Now this season they are projected to pick 4th in what is looking highly likely to be a two person draft in Irving and Williams. It just so happens that one of those two players (Williams) might not even be that good of a fit on the Raptors anyways. So really, boo freaking hoo. You tank, draft LeBron become an elite team for the next 7 years or so, lose LeBron and tank another season and you are bitching about shitty luck? Give me a break.

So Toronto is pretty good at defense...

I like the fact that the Raptors young guys, Bayless and DeRozan in particular, led the team to a win against the Magic, but this game was one that they absolutely had to lose. If they would've lost this game, they would basically have locked up the 4th worst record and moved into a tie with Washington for the 3rd worst record in the league, considering both Sacramento and Washington won the other day. Even though I like the win over a good team, I'd rather see them lose and possibly end up with the 3rd pick instead. PS: What kind of reception did Turkoglu get? I was at work and didn't manage to see any highlights either.

I think it is time to bring Calderon and Bargnani back into the lineup. The team is playing too well without them.