Built Ford Tough

DeMar DeRozan http://www.celticstown.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/demar-derozan-toronto-raptors.jpg Bio Height: 6-7 Weight: 220 Born: August 7th, 1989 College: USC Averages 12.4 points, 4.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 46.3 FG%, 12.4 PER in 30.6 minutes

How is it the worst contract ever when it isn't even the worst contract in the NBA right now? Rashard Lewis, Gilbert Arenas and maybe Elton Brand all have worse contracts than Johnson does. Sure, it is far from ideal but he is still a bonafide 20/5/5 player when healthy (which I don't think he has been so far this season) and that is a hell of a lot more than you can say for a guy like Lewis, who gets paid $20M+ to sit behind the three point line, play god awful defense and score 12 points a game. Arenas and Brand have the injury excuse tied to them, so I can understand cutting them a bit of slack, but what is the excuse for Lewis? You've posted this probably 3 or 4 times now, and you have yet to even give any sort of reasoning for why it is the worst contract ever.

Well, seeing how that was the first game of his career, of course it was the highlight of his career. It's not like there is a large sample size to choose from in his entire 21 minute NBA career.

Watching Bayless in the 4th quarter reminded me of why I was such a huge fan of TJ Ford's when he was in Toronto. He had some very impressive plays in the 4th, particularly that nasty crossover on John Wall and the hesitation move that led to the wraparound pass to Dorsey. He finished with 5 assists, but really, he could've easily had around 8 from what I saw as he was getting guys some very nice looks but they couldn't convert or were fouled. Loved his play, especially the way that he was going after Wall both offensively and defensively. I can't really comment on anything else as I really only saw the 4th quarter, so I can't say anything about DeRozan, Bargnani and Barbosa, but all three looked like they had solid games as well. Oh yeah, did Kleiza pass the ball at all tonight? I literally didn't see him pass the ball once in the entire 4th quarter. He is one of the biggest blackholes that I have ever seen.

Probably true, but if there was tampering involved, which lets be realistic, there probably was, why not expose it? There are so many things that make you believe that there was in fact tampering invovled in these three getting together. From James' body language and seemingly quitting in the playoffs, Bosh's attitue and play post All-Star break, comments about how they've been waiting "months" for this to happen and all of the speculation that this was all set in motion during the 08 Olympics (and that is just what we as fans are aware of, who knows what happened behind the scenes). I don't see anything wrong with him investigating the possibility of tampering here and I think good on him for exposing it, should he find anything.

Hopefully Davis plays at some point during the 2nd half as that is all I will be able to catch. I get off work at 11 and there is a replay of the game on from 10-12:30 so I'll be able to catch most of the 2nd half. Hopefully the Raptors play better than they did against Atlanta. That was just a pathetic showing by them. Of course, I don't want to see them play too well and win this game because this is one of the games that I will actually be hoping they lose. Games against the other bottom feeders in the East are the kinds of games that are vital in tanking.

Brandon, Carter expires after this season, actually. He has a team option for next season, but clearly nobody is going to be picking up that option, regardless of where he is playing to finish the season. I don't see how this would go down without a third team involved because of financial reasons, like stated above. Smith is horrible at managing salary, but I don't think even he will put together arguably the two worst contracts in the NBA on the same team in Lewis and Arenas. Lewis' deal is a year shorter than Arenas' , but I don't see the point in Washington making that switch considering Lewis is just a joke of a player now, especially at that price tag. The only way I can see Washington up for this swap would be if Arenas has another off the court fiasco and they finally say "[expletive] it, we need to get this guy out of here and as far away from John Wall as possible" or something. I also don't see a third team wanting to take on Lewis' deal, either. The only contract, other than Arenas, as bad as his is Brand's, but it doesn't make much sense for Philly to trade Brand for Lewis either. So yeah, I don't see this trade going down either, at least with the rumored names above. I could see a possible Carter/Orton for Arenas/Blatche kind of deal going down if Washington is desperate to dump salary closer to the deadline, but I don't know how Lewis will fit into the picture because he has the worst contract imaginable.

At least according to the completely unreliable Doug Smith: http://thestar.blogs.com/raptors/2010/12/d-league-lessons-and-where-to-chow-down.html I obviously can't comment on his practice habits considering I don't see them, but it seems like a lot of the time whenever a Raptor player is really laid back and has a calm demeanor, he gets labeled as somebody who "coasts" in practice. I remember this was said about Camby and, more recently, Carlos Delfino but as far as I know, nobody ever really complained about Delfino's effort in practice. Hard to really comment on anything, though. With that said, even if he is a slacker in practice, I'd rather have a guy who brings it in games than a guy who looks like a god in practice and stinks it up in games like a Joey Graham and Rafeal Araujo (I think I remember reading how he was pretty good in practices).

They are actually talking about buying a 66% share in MLSE, but I figured the topic I used would draw more attention considering this is a basketball forum. http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=343627 I doubt this would have any real huge impact on how the Raptors are ran because, as far as I know, Colangelo was given full independence by MLSE when he was hired and is allowed to make all the decisions he wants in regards to the team without interference (same with Burke and the Leafs). It is a huge story regardless, though. Sadly, if this does happens it would mean more games on Sportsnet and, as a result, more Leo Rautins. Ugh.

http://www.orlandopinstripedpost.com/2010/12/1/1847994/source-orlando-magic-discuss-gilbert-arenas-trade-with-washington Is there a worse GM in the league when it comes to cap management than Otis Smith? If this is true, and Arenas does wind up in Orlando, I don't see how that can be disputed.

So, umm, how about Kemba Walker? He had another 30 point outing tonight, as well as 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals and 16(!) free throw attempts. He has scored at least 30 points in 4 out of the Huskies 6 games so far (as well as a 29 point game) and is averaging a cool 30 points, 3.6 assists, 4.2 rebounds, 2.2 steals on 53% shooting. Not too shabby. Other noteable prospects numbers tonight were: Brandon Knight - 23 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists on 8/12 shooting (4-6 from three) Terrence Jones - 18 points, 10 rebounds, 2 assists on 7/12 shooting Jared Sullinger - 11 points, 13 rebounds, 1 block on 3/9 shooting Harrison Barnes - 8 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist on 2-9 shooting John Henson - 16 points, 6 rebounds, 1 block on 8-11 shooting And some Canadian content, Kris Joseph put up 16 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals on 7-12 shooting. Just thought I'd bump this thread a bit as it has been a while since anybody made any additions to it.

To be fair, he never actually said that he hopes Cleveland retires his jersey, at least from what is posted above. He just said that it would be a great honor and would love to see it happen. He puts his foot in his mouth an awful lot, especially over the past 6 months, but I don't really see anything wrong about what he said here. He is simply saying that he would love to see his number retired. He probably will never have it retired because of the way that he left, but players have had their jerseys retired for less than what he accomplished in Cleveland.

Honestly, he looks like the exact same player as last year. His scoring has just gone up because he went from taking 14 shots a game last season to 17 a game this season and his USG% has increased from 22 to 28. Sure, he gets to the line a couple more times a game this season but he has looked like the exact same player this season as he has for the past season or two. And what do you mean by you "hope to see him keep being consistent"? How has he been consistent this season? The only thing that has been consistent about his play is his great first halves and invisible second halves. He also has not been driving to the hoop "way more" this season either. 85% of his shots are still jump shots and that is right around the number that he was at last season. Evidently we haven't been watching the same Bargnani this season because he looks like the same player to me with the only noticeable difference is the amount of touches he gets a game.

I hope he starts down the road, but not immediately. From what I've read, he is supposedly still horribly out of shape and is sucking air after about 5 minutes of playing time. Yesterday's game was supposedly really bad for him in terms of his conditioning (which is impressive considering he had a solid game numbers wise) and looke exhausted out there. Give him another couple of weeks so that he can get his legs under him and then put him in the lineup. Throwing him to the fire right away and inserting him in the starting lineup while still being horribly out of shape is just not smart.

http://www.nba.com/raptors/news/davis_recalled Doesn't surprise me because, like I said last night, I was expecting this. I would've liked to see him spend another week in the D-League, but with Evans getting injured I don't think anybody should be surprised to see him get an earlier call up.

Not sure exactly. I think the original plan was for him to play the games this weekend, next weekend and probably the Tuesday game on the 7th before making his return. That would give him around 5 games to get his legs under him and the Raptors certainly don't want to rush him back. However, with Evans now out of the lineup for the forseeable future, they may decide to bring him up a bit earlier than expected. The Raptors don't play again until Wednsday, so I wouldn't be too shocked if they give him a few minutes during that game. If it were up to me, I would keep him down in the D-League for another week. Let him play the two weekend games and then bring him up. By the sounds of it he is still very out of shape and is sucking air after about 5 minutes of playing time. No point in bringing him up if he isn't going to be able to play more than 5 minutes without getting exhausted.

Numbers from the game earlier today: Alabi 9 points, 8 rebounds, 3 blocks on 4/7 shooting in 19:33 Davis 10 points, 5 rebounbs, 4 blockson 4/5 shooting in 17:10 Alabi showed his shooting touch by draining a 16 footer from the right baseline off of an inbounds play when Fort Wayne didn't bother covering him. That is the only highlight I saw that included Alabi. As for Davis, he had a nice dunk over a couple of Mad Ants defenders that showed nice explosiveness considering his lack of paying time as of late and the fact that he is coming off of a knee injury. I wish I could actually watch one of these games, but unfortunately I've had to work during every single one of them so all I can go off of is the box scores.

Weems I think is clearly better. I do admit that he defense has slipped this season as he is trying to do more offensively, but he showed last season that he was a solid defender when he played. He started off the year playing pretty solid defense, but he has slipped up a bit lately. I still think it is unquestionably better than Evans', though. As for Bayless, I admit to not seeing much of him throughout his career (no games this year before being traded to Toronto and maybe 5-10 games during his time in Portland), but in his 3 games with the Raptors I think he has been pretty solid defensively. He fouls quite a bit and his lack of a wing span hurts him a bit as well, but he makes good use of his quickness and generally does a good job of keeping his man in front of him. He has been better so far than either Calderon or Jack were for the Raptors. No way is he a worse defender than Calderon, Stojakovic, Kleiza or DeRozan, though. I'd say Bargnani as well, but his man defense has actually been pretty solid so far this year (can't say the same for his help defense).

He is not one of the Raptors best defenders. He is an awful defender. Just because he is a good rebounder doesn't mean that he is a good defender. Amir Johnson, Joey Dorsey, Julian Wright, Jerryd Bayless and Sonny Weems are all better defenders than Evans is.

This was his third career triple double. It's not like he is consistently putting up these kinds of numbers. He had 1 less assist in this game than he did in his previous 4 games. He has had double digits in assists 5 times in his career in his 7 seasons. So, yeah, seeing him easily pick apart the Raptors defense with his passing and putting up just his 5th or 6th career double digit assist game like it was nothing is pretty sad. Not taking anything away from him because he had a great game tonight, but this is hardly the norm for him. The Raptors defense was simply pathetic tonight.

Even though the Raptors are getting dominated and are down by 18, it is so nice to finally have a point guard (combo guard would be the proper term, I guess) that can get into the paint and to the line. The Raptors haven't had a guy who can get into the paint like Bayless since Ford was with the team. He has a long, long way to go before he can be relied on to run an offense, but I like the aggresssiveness that he plays with. It is a nice contrast to the caution filled game that Calderon plays. This quarter has been absolutely ugly for Toronto, though. Bricked jumper after bricked jumper with the occasional charge thrown in here and there. They've turned it over 6 times as well. Defensively, they are getting absolutely picked apart as well. It is pretty sad when Josh Smith is dropping 7 dimes on you. Solid quarter for the tank, though. 3/17, 6 turnovers and the halftime lead grew from around 6 points to 20. I like it.

I love how Rautins continues to say that Bargnani doesn't get the ball enough and needs more touches when he has a USG% of nearly 28% (27.7 to be exact). How many more touches should Bargnani be getting? Throughout his career in Toronto, Bosh only had a higher USG% than Bargnani has so far this season one time, which was last season (28.7%). I agree that he has played well and should be fed the ball in the post when he has great position, but come on. The guy is clearly getting enough touches.

I understand the thought process behind starting Dorsey, and he certainly has given them some very good things to start the game, but I would've prefered to see Johnson start. Sure, there is a chance that he may pick up some early fouls, but how is he ever going to sort out his fouling issues if he is coddled and never given the minutes that he should? I hope that Johnson gets at least around 30 minutes a night off of the bench at least.

I never thought I would enjoy these early Sunday morning games, but this is two in a row that I am happy about as if they were any later I wouldn't be able to watch them. Should be interesting to see how badly the Raptors get abused on the glass in this game without Evans. Johnson is a decent offensive rebounder due to how active he is at going after loose balls, but he is hardly anything special when it comes to grabbing defensive boards. Obviously Bargnani is a non factor on the glass as well, and if the Raptors are set on playing either Kleiza or Stojakovic at the 4 as well, which sounds like it may be the plan, well, that doesn't bode well for them either. Rebounding has surprisingly been one of the strong points of the Raptors this year as they rank 5th in the NBA in rebounding differential (+2.7), but you have to think that is going to take a serious hit without Evans.

Sounds like he may not be out for as long as most people expected. http://www.torontosun.com/sports/basketball/2010/11/27/16345046.html When I first heard that he suffered a fractured foot, I definitely expected around 2 months before he got back into the lineup, but if it is closer to a month or a month and a half, that isn't nearly as bad as I first thought. Then again, his foot injury last season was originally supposed to keep him out of the lineup for a couple of weeks, yet that lasted until the All-Star break, so who really knows what will happen.