Built Ford Tough

Didn't he say prior to the game last night that this was probably the last game of his collegiate career? I thought I read or heard that somewhere, but I'm not sure.

I read a couple days ago that some guy from Iowa who is really close to Barnes saying that he was going back for another year. He broke Barnes to UNC before anybody else did and he supposed to be fairly credible. However, he said Barnes would make the announcement today and as far as I know, that has't happened and won't happen. I still say somebody gets into his ear and convinces him to declare. I know he wants a national championship, but when some agents get into his ear I think he will come to the realization that it makes more sense to enter the draft this year. The lockout is the only thing that worries me about him not declaring. If there wasn't the threat of a possible lockout and all the uncertainty with the CBA, I think it would be a lock that he declares.

He has never been a good catch and shoot player no matter where he has played. He wasn't one in Toronto or New Jersey and the reason (or at least one of them) why he was such a bust in Orlando is because they turned him into a spot up shooter. While he has developed into a solid shooter and is capable of having crazy shooting nights, he is, always has been and always will be, a slasher first and foremost. Carter is at his best when he is give the ball and allowed to create his own shot, whether it is getting all the way to the rim, pulling for a mid range jumper or even taking a couple of dribbles and launching a three. The problem with Carter is that he doesn't have the same athleticism that he did during his New Jersey days, let alone his Toronto days, and that is the main reason why he was so dangerous as a slasher. Take some of that explosiveness away and he struggles a bit to get his shot off. He still has flashes of his old self from time to time, but he isn't close to the same player. Add all of this to the fact that you want to have the ball in Nash's hands as often as possible and you aren't going to get too much out of Vince because of him not being all that great as a spot up shooter, which is what he will be the majority of the time he is on the floor with Nash.

Put up 26/4/10 on 9-14 shooting tonight. One game, I know, but in the 8 games he has started in, he is averaging: 15.9 ppg/4 rpg/7.7 apg on 48.9 FG%. Again, it is a small sample size, but it is no coincidence that he plays so well when he has a defined role on the team and doesn't have to constantly look over his shoulder in fear of being benched for the slightest mistake he makes. You are all for dumping Amir Johnson and Jerryd Bayless, two of the Raptors better young players, but you constantly praise the play of one dimensional veterans like Reggie Evans and Jose Calderon. You are the definition of the type of fan MLSE looks for.

Sick pass by Bosh.

6'3, 200 pounds and just turned 15 about a month and a half ago. Jesus christ. When I saw that interview with him on TSN, I thought the guy was like 20 years old. When they said he was 15, I almost shit myself. Could you imagine being your typical 14 year old hockey player and going up against a 6'3, 200 pound monster like him, who is not only physically a beast, but is a smooth skating, great passing and sick handed defenseman? That just wouldn't be fair. As far as him playing in the O as a 15 year old, it will be interesting to see how he does when he isn't in a physical league of his own. He looks like he can hold his own physically, but it will be interesting to see how he does when he can't just man-handle everybody. Regardless, being granted exceptional status is just ridiculous, considering the only other player to ever have that ended up having one of the best OHL careers ever (John Tavares, in case anybody didn't know).

I'm sorry, but one playoff series win as an underdog in the past 10 years doesn't prove anything. There has been what, 3 8 seeds to ever beat a 1st seed in NBA history? There have been like 3 of those in the past 10 years in the NHL. Take the NHL and you can find about 4 examples of bottom seeded teams making runs to the Finals in the past 6 years. Hell, last season you had a 7 and 8 seed in the Eastern Conference Finals. There is absolutely no way in hell that would happen in the NBA. That is just how the NBA works. In the NHL or MLB, you can steal a series with hot goaltending or pitching, but in the NBA superior talent will prevail 99% of the time simply because of the nature of the game.

Except you don't play every team in the East 4 times a year. Think about that for a second. If you played every East team 4 times a year and every West team 2 times a year, that would mean you play more than 82 games a year. You play your own division 4 times each, the opposing conference 2 times each and then you play certain same conference teams only 3 teams a year as opposed to 4. It is marginal at best, but playing in a weaker division does help a team. I'd much rather be in the Central and have 4 guaranteed games against the Bucks, Pacers, Cavs and Pistons than be in the Southeast and have 4 guaranteed games against the Magic, Hawks, Bobcats and Wizards. With that said, I don't really think their division has much of an impact on their record. Maybe if they were in the Southeast or Atlantic they may have a couple less wins, but they would probably still be first in the East.

He is actually decent at finishing at the rim. It is his jump shot that is completely broke. His eFG% inside the paint is 55%, compared to the 40% on jump shots. Calderon is out for the next 2 games at least, so it should be nice to see him be able to just go out and play his game without having to worry about being yanked for the first turnover he has or missed jump shot or blown defensive assignment. He hasn't played great this season and Calderon has, for the most part, been solid, but it is pretty hard to do much when you are being jerked around as much as Bayless is. The biggest problem with him is that his confidence seems to be completely shot. When he first got here, he was super confident and you could see from his play on the court, but since then he seems borderline depressed out there at times. He is an emotional player and you can tell that he is really down on himself right now, partially due to his play but probably due to the fact that he probably doesn't even have a clue what his role is on the team.

I doubt he stays. He is a top 3 pick most likely this year and probably the best small forward in the draft. Next season he could concievably be the 4th option on offense with McAdoo and Hairston joining the team and Zeller sticking around for another year, and with guys like Gilcrhist, Nash, Davis and Miller all likely to be 1 and dones, he might wind up being the 5th best small forward in the draft (depending on whether or not guys like Davis and Miller are a 3 or a 4). I know he is all about school and loves UNC, but I just don't see the guy coming back once agents get in his ear and he finds out that he is pretty much a lock for a top 3 pick. I wouldn't be shocked to see him come back, though. He genuinely seems to want to win an NCAA Championship, so he is one of the top prospects that I can see returning the most. I still think he enters, though.

Why just pick out those two games? March 28th against Utah: 25 points, 2 assists, 5 reounbs, 2 turnovers on 9-25 shooint March 27th against Golden State: 11 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds, 3 turnovers on 5-21 shooting March 22nd against Portland: 12 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, 6 turnovers on 3-15 shooting March 18th against Toronto: 25 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds, 5 turnovers on 12-27 shooting It isn't hard to put up points when you are taking 20 shots a game and have a USG% that rivals some of the superstars in the NBA. He is averaging 15.9 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 3.3 apg, 2.6 topg on 39 FG% and 22 3PT% in 31 minutes a game for Washington. Hardly anything to rave about considering he is taking 18.5 shots a game and has a USG% of 28. Washington is tanking and because of that they have given Crawford the green light to chuck away, and that is exactly what he has done. If you think what he has doen this season for the Wizards makes him a "beast", you have some low standards. Don't get me wrong, he is a decent young player, but I don't see what is so special about what he has done in Washington outside of maybe 2 or 3 games. Put any half decent guard on Washington and they are going to put up the same numbers as Crawford is, considering they will be taking nearly 20 shots a game.

Great loss. Just goes to show how pitiful the Raptors defense is, though. The Bucks, arguably the worst offensive team in the NBA, averaged like 106 points on 50% shooting against them this season. The best part of this is that the Raptors have been the worst defensive team in the league for probably the past 3 seasons, and ever year they have pretty much an entirely different roster. Go Colangelo.

I'd at least rent it and check it out for yourself. I agree with the comment that it isn't for everybody because it isn't your typical game and is fairly unique in its gameplay. It seems like one of those games where you will either love it or hate it, but I think it is superb. Definitely one of my favourite games that I have ever played on the Playstation 3. At the very least, I would rent it and make your own opinions on it because it is definitely one of those games that you have to experience for youself, at least as far as I am concerned.

Ed Davis puts up 21/11/3 on 8/11 shooting against the Clippers, which was after something like a 19/13 performance against the Warriors, and he is immediately sent back to the bench because Amir Johnson is back. I like Amir and what he has done this season, but seriously, why bench Davis for him when he has been playing so well lately in that role? If he doesn't get at least 30 minutes tonight, it is an absolute joke.

Dirk, Odom and Garnett aren't tweeners. They are just versatile big men. There is a difference. I wouldn't call Baron Davis a tweener, either. He is more than capable of running an offense, even though he may score more than create. Again these guys you are listing aren't tweeners (other than Beasley). There is a huge difference between being able to play two different positions well and being a tweener. A guy like Luther Head is a tweener. Mike James is a tweener. Andrea Bargnani is a tweener. Just because a guy is versatile doesn't mean he is a tweener. It just means he can play more than one position well.

Big game for the Raptors. With the Kings on a bit of a hot streak, the Raptors have managed to jump into 4th place in the lottery standings, and a loss tonight puts them, I think, 2 full games ahead (behind?) of the Kings. Sacramento has a tough schedule to finish the year so it is even more important that they lose this game, and if I had my way, every game for the rest of the season. The Raps are also 2 games behind (ahead?) of the Wizards for 3rd and Washington has some winnable games coming up, so there is the off chance that they catch the Wizards and sit 3rd for the lottery, which would be huge.

I definitely am. My brother came up a couple of weeks ago and was trading a bunch of games in so that he could buy Dragon Age 2 and Killzone 3 (I think), and this was one of them. He was going to trade in Red Dead Redemption but I told him I'd give him some money for it instead, so I bought that off of him and he threw in Heavy Rain as well since he said it was one of his favourite games ever. I haven't even touched Red Dead and after playing HR last night, I don't see myself playing it for at least the next month either.

Couple of comments from Chad Ford's chat: Anybody know what the details are about Valanviunas' contract? I haven't heard of any contractual problems with him until this from Ford.

Don't have much time to play video games right now, but I just started playing Heavy Rain last night. I only planned on playing for like an hour, but before I knew it, I had spent 3.5 hours playing it. I couldn't put it down, haha.

I haven't played one since College Hoops 2K7, but I'm done classes in about 3 weeks and will have about 4 months of free time on my hands (outside of work and all that stuff) and was thinking about investing in a new game that I can actually put some time in, which I remember putting a lot of time in this game. So anyways, my question is, what are the more up to date college games like? I know that 2K sports stopped producing them (right?) and I've never played an EA Sports one. Are they worth the money and can you actually get a lot of usage out of one?

http://coast2coasthoops.com/content/coast-2-coast-sources-derrick-williams-enter-nba-draft-9/ Not that this should surprise anybody. After the initial shock of losing in the tournament wears off, you knew that a guy like Williams, who is likely to go in the top 3, would declare for the draft. It really makes sense for him to declare this year anyways. I know, I know, there is the whole lockout possibility, but the fact of the matter is that when these guys are going to be picked in the top 3, hell, top 5, 99% of them are going to declare for the draft because that is simply too good of an opportunity to pass up. It is why I still don't fully believe Sullinger won't enter, either (although to be fair, he does seem like he is actually staying at OSU).

He was an inefficient chucker at full health, but he made up for it by being able to get to the line at a reasonable clip. You could live with him shooting 41-43% from the field and 33-35% from three because he was getting to the line 8-10 times a night, and hitting around 82-84% of those. Now, he can't get to the line at all and his shooting is even worse than before simply because he isn't able to create the seperation he was able to before the injuries. He was never any good as a spot up shooter even when he was at his physical peak and now he is pretty much forced into that role, even though he has always sucked at it. The bottom line is that Arenas was never that good to begin with. Take away his explosiveness and you haev a ball dominant, poor jump shooting point guard who isn't even worth giving the ball to considering he can't get to the rim anymore and was never a good playmaker.

Great entry from my old favourite, RaptorsHQ: http://www.raptorshq.com/2011/3/29/2078791/73-down-nine-to-go-the-hq-looks-at-the-raptors-final-stretch#storyjump The whole thing is a good read, but I particularly agree with the part that I bolded. The Raptors need to get an extended look at some of the younger guys that they have on the roster to see who is worth keeping and who should be kicked to the curb. This should've been done with about 15 games left in the season and now with only 9 games left, it is about time that they really take a good look at some of these young guys to see what exactly you can expect from them heading forward. I liked his comment about Bargnani starting at the two guard spot, though.

From my understanding, it may be in part due to them not wanting to commit theirselves one way or another before selling their portion. They don't want to give Colaneglo a long term extension and force the new majority owner into dealing with him for the next 5 years or so in case that decreases the value that they would receive for their share. On the other hand, they don't want to completely get rid of Colangelo in case the new owner actually wants to keep him around. That is purely speculation on my part because, as you said, it doesn't really make much sense why the teachers would want Colangelo gone considering their history of caring more about money than actually putting together a winning product with both the Raptors and the Leafs. I can understand where you are coming from in regards to the whole rookie GM thing, and I can agree with you on that matter assuming they go out and hire some run of the mill assistaint from a terrible organization such as the Warriors or something, but I don't see anything wrong with going after some assistaint in the Spurs organization (or some other high quality management group) like OKC did with Sam Presti. He may not have the experience of some more established guys, but he would have experience in working for a championship organization and would know what it takes to build a team that can contend for a championship. I'd be all for bringing in an established guy such as Kevin Pritchard, Jerry West, etc... as well, but I don't think a guy should be completely overlooked just because he hasn't had the opportunity to be a GM before. Hell, look at Massai Uriji and how well he has done in Denver so far. His experience as an assistaint to Colangelo gave him the experience needed to not only handle the Melo situation well, but get one hell of a return for him as well, possibly putting his team in a better position than had they kept Melo. EDIT: One thing that I forgot to mention is that I would definitely want this situation resolved, one way or the other, by the beginning of June at the latest. This is arguably the most important draft that the Rapators have had in their history, and they can't afford to have their GM situation in limbo heading into the draft. We all remember what happened the last time the Raptors had a management change right before the draft, and you can make the argument that it set the franchise back a good 3-5 years by completely blowing their pick (Araujo over Iguodala). They can't afford to have a repeat of that situation.

http://blog.rogersbroadcasting.com/ericsmith/2011/03/28/not-done-yet/ If this is true (which I have no doubts it is, as it has been mentioned numerous times already), this picture that was posted on RealGM pretty much sums up my opinion on this: http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/images/luv-tchr.gif Also, my new favourite member of the Raptors organization is: http://www.otpp.com/wps/wcm/connect/0899f0004cf6e364b6ccb6614697887d/glen_silvestri.jpg?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=0899f0004cf6e364b6ccb6614697887d