Built Ford Tough

Why even post this? If you want to get a reaction out of Heat fans, which you clearly do, at least post something somewhat releveant. This is just a pathetic troll job.

If Barbosa isn't in the lineup for this game, say hello to the Raptors backup point guard: http://www.nbadraft.net/files/players/sonny-weems-hd_0.jpg Maybe they could sign Alvin Williams to a 10 day contract? He could still play better defense than Calderon can, haha. Seriously though, this game is going to be an absolute massacare. The Raptors don't have a backup point guard (even with Barbosa in the lineup, how effective will he even be?), their big man rotation consists of Bargnani/Johnson/Evans/Dorsey and they will have about 9-10 players dressed. I love it!

No way in hell should the Raptors bench DeRozan in favour of Bayless and with the way that Weems has been playing as of late, he shouldn't either. I'm all for giving Bayless every opportunity to play, but he should not immediately come in and take over Weems starting spot, let alone DeRozan's. If he shows the ability to be effective as a point guard, I'd be fine with him starting at the point as Calderon is more effective as a backup, but he definitely shouldn't be stealing minutes from DeRozan. I like his potential, but developing DeRozan is a lot more important than Bayless.

Game 2 wasn't nearly as good as his first game. 8 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks on 1/6 shooting and 6/8 from the line in 23:50. Erie also lost the game 98-93. I like the rebounds and the 2 blocks are nice as well. The shooting isn't particularly appealing, but like I said before, any offense that he gives you is a bonus as far as I am concerned because he is never going to be an offensive player. I like that he is able to hit his free throws at a fairly high rate. It is always good to see a big be able to knock down his free throws. He has basically a week before his next game, so hopefully he can have a solid showing.

Don't forget to mention the fact that Chris Paul and Jarrett Jack are really close friends. I'm sure that was a huge part of this trade. It doesn't hurt that Jack is a great backup point guard either. I actually think Andersen might be a pretty good player for New Orleans. I was pleasently surprised by him so far this season as he is a very good shooter who makes a large majority of his open shots. With a playmaker as good as Paul on the roster, he will be getting a lot of good looks on the perimeter and could prove to be a nice asset assuming he continues to knock down open jumpers. I also think that Jack will play a lot better in New Orleans than he did in Toronto. You could tell he was fed up with the losing he has experienced throughout his career and he started to sulk and chuck with the Raptors. I'd expect the change of scenery and playing on a winning team will definitely rejuvinate him and he will play more like he did last season than the start of this season. New Orleans gets the luxury tax as well, I think. Never a bad idea to get under the luxury tax in a trade that you are getting the best player in, as well as possibly becoming a better team. In a related note, this is the 2nd time that Jack and Bayless have been traded for each other and neither of the original two teams were involved. I found that pretty interesting.

Or, you know, they like the fact that he is a $15M expiring contract. But no, that can't be why they traded for him. They clearly want him because they think he is worth the contract. I like this trade for Toronto. It sucks to lose Jack but he seems to be using this team similar to what Mike James did a few years back, which is to chuck up shots and inflate his numbers. He has been absolutely awful this season and has played with complete tunnel vision. Maybe it is because he knew the team wasn't going to make the playoffs and was just fed up with not playing on a playoff team, but he has played very poorly. Peja can be a nice mentor for DeRozan, Weems and Kleiza. Whether he plays or not is irrelevant to me because his contract is the real asset. If he can teach DeRozan and Weems a thing or two about shooting then it will be fantastic. Even if he is a huge bust and the Raptors let him expire at the end of the year, I'm fine with that as well. I like picking up Bayless as well. He hasn't shown much in his career so far, but he will be given a chance in Toronto that he has yet to receive anywhere else. He isn't a pure point gaurd and is a score first guard, but he has talent and if he can put it together he could be a nice spark plug off of the bench. Worst case scenario is he is another young asset to the team. The Raptors are quickly putting themselves in a very nice position fincancially. They have a lot of flexibility at the deadline with roughly $23M in expiring contracts between Peja, Reggie and Wright and the $14M or so TPE from the Bosh trade. If they can parlay some of these assets into a young player or a draft pick or something like that, it would be awesome. Best of all is that the Raptors save roughly $3M in salary for next season. It would be awesome if they could lure somebody like Marc Gasol away from Memphis with their cap space.

You are right. I completely forgot about him with his elligibility issues and what not. I actually liked him more than Brandon Knight, but he has completely slipped my mind. The only problem I have with him is that he is even more of a combo guard than Knight is. You don't need a pure point guard anymore, but I would still prefer a point like Irving over a combo guard like Selby, even though the talent may not be that big of a difference. Call me old school, but I'll take the pure point anyday.

It is possible, but they weren't going to send him to the D-League in order for him to get playing time. They were going to send him there for him to get his legs under him. He was never going to spend more than a game or 2 down there, with or without Andersen. Playing time was never the issue because they have said that he will be worked into the rotation regardless. It was all about conditioning for him.

I learned after the first couple of movies that you can't go into the movie with the expectations that it will rival the books. It simply isn't possible. If you don't go into the movie thinking that it is going to be as good as the book, you will enjoy the movie so much more. I started doing that after the 3rd or 4th movie and I enjoyed them so much more.

Not expecting much from him this season. I'm sure he will be sent to Erie for a game or two to get his legs under him, but even with that it will probably be after Christmas before he is finally in game shape and 100% ready. He was pretty raw in the first place and missing so much time in his sophomore season combined with missing training camp and the first 15 games or so of the season won't help that. It is good to hear that he is going to be ready to return soon, though. I said around the beginning of December and that is what it seems like will happen.

I don't care if they get the number 1 pick because this draft has 4 or 5 players that I genuinely want (Irving, Barnes, Jones, Kanter and maybe Knight depending on how he plays this year). If they finish with the worst record in the league, they can have the worst possible scenario happen in the lottery, which is move down 3 spots, and I would be completely fine with it because at least they would still get one of those 4 or 5 players. I don't want to see the team lose on purpose either. I don't want to see this team pull a New Jersey from last year. I want to see them play hard every night while the younger players show promise for the future, but find a way to lose down the strech. Is that too much to ask for?

Tonights' numbers: 13 points, 7 rebounds, 7 blocks on 4/10 shooting and 5/9 FT in 27:13 minutes of action. The BayHawks won 109-71 I defintiely like what I see, at least judging by these numbers. The points were more than I expected, which is awesome, but the blocks are simply amazing. 7 blocks is an accomplishment regardless of what league you are playing in. I wish I could've saw the game, but he looks like he played very well tonight.

So I'm not liking the win tonight. I can't help but get the feeling that Toronto is going to wind up finishing 10th in the East or something like that and wind up picking 12th overall, which would be absolutely awful. I do like to see guys play well, and tonight it looked like Bargnani, Kleiza and Johnson all played well, but I would like it a lot more if the team would manage to lose a close game down the stretch, like they were doing at the beginning of the season. I want Kyrie Irving on the Raptors so bad, but I get the feeling that won't be possible.

This is kind of what I am worried about. The Raptors haven't really been embarassed in any games this year, other than the Washington one. They've been right there in basically every other game and could easily be closer to .500 right now if a couple of bounces went there way during the final minutes. I'm scared that Colangelo sees this and thinks that the Raps are only a piece or two away from making the playoffs and, in an attempt to save his job, he will go and make a desperate move by acquiring some over priced veteran with the TPE to make them finish with around 30-35 wins, which would result in a pick around where they were last season. That is the absolute worst possible result for this team.

I wanted to watch it, but I couldn't get a working link so I said screw it and just watched the Texas/Illinois game (which turned out to be a good decision on my part as it was a fantastic game and Thompson looked outstanding). He actually ended up with 20 points, but who's counting? ^_^ Did anybody happen to see Kemba Walker's statline from Wednsday night? Dude went nuts with: 42 pts/8 rebs/3 asts/2 stls on 15/24, shooting including 4/9 from deep, with only 1 turnover. Put UCONN on his back in that game. I saw him play a couple times last season (once vs. Kentucky and I can't remember the other game) and I was impressed with what I saw. If the Raptors could manage to get a 2nd pick in the mid first round by trading Miami's pick along with Jack or something, I wouldn't mind them taking a look at Walker, assuming he continues to impress and they don't get Irving with their own pick. It is way too early to make any draft predictions, though.

Big night tonight. A lot of highly touted players are playing tonight. Kyrie Irving Harrison Barnes Brandon Knight CoJo Tristian Thompson CJ Leslie Probably some more that I'm missing. In case anybody was wondering, the games are: NC State: 6PM EST Texas: 7PM EST Duke: 8:30PM EST UNC: 8:30 EST Kentucky: 10:30PM EST Kansas is also playing at 8PM EST, although Josh Selby isn't playing. Too bad I work until 11PM tonight and I'll miss all of these games (as well as the Raptor game).

I'm far from a Heat fan and I think it is a typo. I was going to make a thread about it last night when I first say it, but I never bothered because I thought most people would brush it off as a typo, like I did. I've made plenty of typos before when typing Oden's name. It was usually Odem, but I've actually typed Olden before as well. If you aren't paying attention and going fast, it is easy to mistake. I'm sure it wasn't done on purpose. If it was, dick move on his part, but I really don't think he meant to type Olden. I can't see an NBA player trying to pile on Oden at this point in his career, unless he really, really hates him (think Q-Rich and Paul Pierce or something), and there is no indictation that LeBron has hostility towards Oden, or vice versa.

Like STATcity said, this has already been posted. Lets just say the other thread didn't exactly end well and neither can this one.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/playoffodds Predicts that the Raptors will finish 34-48 (best case scenario 51-31 and worst case scenario 16-66 ), which would be good for 9th in the East. Says a 25% chance of making the playoffs. Not that I think they will actually finish 9th (or put any sort of stock in these rankings from him), but god I pray that doesn't happen. Absolute worst case scenario yet again.

Barbosa will be back in the lineup tonight. http://thestar.blogs.com/raptors/2010/11/a-return-of-speed-and-an-all-star-ballot-gaffe-as-it-turns-out.html Honestly, I'm disappointed. I would've rather had him sit out for longer (have that wrist surgery) so that we can get an extended look of what Weems, DeRozan and, to a lesser extent, Kleiza can do with an increase in minutes. Now DeRozan and Weems will both be below 30 minutes and Barbosa will probably continue his chucking ways. Hopefully this doesn't mean that Weems will start to chuck again. When Barbosa went down he really eased up on the chucking, but when he was in the lineup he was playing awful. I pray he doesn't revert back to that form.

Yeah, I hate that too. Today was the first time that I was actually able to sit down and watch two college games (couldn't get a link to the Baylor one, but after watching this game I'm kind of glad) so it is nice to finally be able to form my own opinions on a game. I thought that Texas definitely outplayed Illinois in the first 30 minutes, but they showed their youth while Illinois showed their experience in the final 10 minutes. When they were going through that long scoring slump (7 minutes or something without a FG) Texas started trying to do everthing individually, especially Jordan Hamilton (who I thought was awful outside of his fast start. Complete tunnel vision). Their offense was completely stagnant and I thought they were lucky to get the game into overtime. Corey Joseph made a couple of nice plays (considering his struggles early on and the fact that he seemed to be injured) and it was enough to get the game into overtime. Balbay was huge in overtime, though. His defense on McCamey was absolutely smothering and was the difference in the game. Texas got off to that hot start in OT and Illinois couldn't answer back with McCamey not being able to even touch the ball. Tristan Thompson was awesome tonight, free throw shooting aside. This was my first time watching him and I definitely liked what I saw. He hit 4 tough turnarounds in the post, had two very nice dribble drives that he finished with a dunk and a floater and he was a huge presence defensively. He finished with 6 blocks and could've easily had more. You could tell that Illinois was hesitant when driving to the rim because of his presence on the floor. CoJo was the more hyped up one coming out of high school, but Thompson was the one who looked like a future star tonight with 20 points/9 boards/6 blocks/3 assists on 8/11 shooting. It was just a great game overall. Very entertaining. Probably the most entertaining basketball game I've seen this year so far.

Kyrie Irving. As for Oden, I don't know. If you can get him on a cheap 1 or 2 year deal, I'd take a chance on him. The talent and potential is still certainly intriguing, but I wouldn't throw any sort of offer that is for 3 or more years or more than $3/4M. I still think he can be a good player, but not enough to warrant a large deal. Problem with that is I don't think you can get him for that kind of an offer as I'm sure some team will throw money at him and roll the dice. I'd rather throw a large offer sheet Marc Gasol's way and hope Memphis isn't able to match. He doesn't have the upside of Oden, but certainly isn't as big of a risk and he is still a damn good center.

Tristan Thompson has one hell of a motor. That last block he had was absolutely nuts, even though I think it migh't been goaltending. He shows a great second jump that allowed him to get a tip in. Very quick off of his feet. He is showing very nice touch on his turnaround jumper in the post as well. He has knocked down 3 of them already. 12 points so far and he has only missed one shot (which he got his own miss and put it back right away). He also has 5 boards and 2 blocks. He has looked a lot better than I thought he would. Brandon Paul has looked really good too. I haven't heard of him before tonight, but I liked what I saw from him so far in the 1st half. He has a nice jumper and seems to have good scoring instincts. Great first half so far. Tied up at 45 right now as Tisdale just knocked down a buzzer beating 3. This has been a very enjoyable game to watch. Texas is an entertaining team.

Anybody else watching this game? Very entertaining game so far. Illionis is up by 3 right now, but Jordan Hamilton has been lights out to start the game for Texas. He has 11 of their 13 points so far, and has been doing it from the perimeter as well as inside. Demetri McCamey has gotten off to a very good start for Illonis so far, too.

Depends. Are we talking these players in their primes, or the broken down versions of them (talking about Iverson, Carter and Shaq)? I'd take a prime Carter back on the Raptors in a heartbeat, but wouldn't touch the current version of him. I'm guessing that most Sixer and Laker fans would feel the same way with AI and Shaq respectively. As for Amare, I don't see why the Suns wouldn't want him back. He didn't leave on bad terms at all, had kind words for everybody and would make them a dangerous team in the West instead of a fringe playoff team. Cleveland would take James back in a heartbeat. I don't care what anybody says. I'm not sure about Bosh, though. He would clearly be the best player on the team and a bonafide All-Star, but you come to a time when enough is enough. He would just hold the Raptors back from getting a top pick, while not being good enough to make them a contender. He isn't on the same level as a prime AI, Shaq and Carter so it isn't a no brainer like those would be.