Built Ford Tough

Your parents having sex...

Say Bosh was to come out and say that this is his final season with the Raptors and he would not be signing an extension in the summer and the Raptors were forced to move him, what kind of return do you think that they would be able to get for him? Also, how much of a difference do you think the return would be if the Raptors were to trade him at the deadline, or make a sign and trade deal during the offseason?

01-02 the Raptors were one of the better defensive teams in the league. When Carter went down during the final stretches of the season and the Raptors made their playoff push, they did it with their defense. For the most part though, back during the Carter era, the Raptors were more of a defensive oriented team, although they could still score. I would say that they were slightly more defensive oriented than offensively, for the most part, at least from what I remember. Actually, now that I just took a quick look at the numbers to refresh my memory, they were basically slightly above average both offensively and defensively with the 00-01 season being the exception as they were one of the higher scoring teams in the league (while still being fairly solid defensively). To be perfectly honest though, it wouldn't matter if you put Tom Thibodeau as an assistant, or even head coach, on this team. The way that Colangelo has built the team will always mean that they are one of the worst defensive teams in the league. There is only so much that a coach or a system can do, if you don't have the proper personnel to execute what the coaching staff wants or the system demands, it doesn't matter. It would help a little bit, but it would not make a significant difference. No matter what the systm, coaching staff or whatever is, players like Jose Calderon and Andrea Bargnani are still going to be liabilities defensively. At least that is my stance on it.

When we talk about the terrible teams so far this season, it seems like people are only talking about the New Jersey Nets, and right fully so consiering their abysmal 0-15 start to the season, just two games away from tying the worst start in NBA history, but nobody seems to be talking about the Minnesota Timberwolves. The T'Wolves are a pathetic 1-14 so far this season and their only win came against, you guessed it, the New Jersey Nets back on a Damien Wilkins buzzer beater in the Wolves first game of the year. Since then they have managed to go on to lose 14 straight games. The T'Wolves have actually been less competitive than the Nets this season as they are losing games by an average of 14 ppg while the Nets are losing by an average of just a tick over 10. The Nets rank 30th in ppg and offensive rating while the T'Wolves are 28th and 29th respectively. The Nets rank 8th in oppg and 11th in defensive rating while the T'Wolves are 24th and 23rd respectively. Granted, Minny has been without Kevin Love who is an integral piece to their team, but injuries can't be used as an excuse when you look at what the Nets have went through this season so far. So why is it that all of the focus has been directed towards the New Jersey Nets when you can easily make the case that the Wolves have been a worse team so far this season?

He wasn't seriously injured. He has a few facial lacerations and is already out of hospital. They were just talking about it on the news. ESPN sounds like they are just trying to hype up the story to be more than it really was.

I was looking through RealGM and came acrosse some things on there that put into perspective just how bad the Raptors are defensively (well, to add another perspective, I guess). Take a look at these numbers: Opponent Assist Rate (% of opponent possessions ending in an assist): 21.8% (27th of 30) Opponent Assisted FGM Rate (% of opponent FGM that are assisted): 60.8% (28th of 30) Opponent Turnover Rate (% of opponent possessions ending in an turnover): 11.1% (29th of 30) Defensive Plays Rate (% of defensive plays per 100 opponent possessions): 12.7 (28th of 30) Opponent Free Throw Rate (% of opponent attempts ending in free throw attempts): 37% (28th of 30) Opponent 3-pt Rate (% of opponent attempts ending in 3-pt attempts): 25% (28th of 30) Even the worst defensive teams in the NBA are only usual at the bottom of 2 or 3, maybe 4 if they are really bad, of these catagories, but the Raptors have somehow managed to be basically at the bottom of all 6 of these catagories. These numbers basically show that opposing teams can do whatever the hell they want against the Raptors as they are epicly terrible at stopping any sort of 3 point attempt, drives, free throws etc... Here is something that maybe just as concerning as the numbers that I posted above. http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7113/tovfoul1g.jpg In case you aren't aware of what this graph is showing, it is the number of fouls committed per turnovers forced. Basically what this is showing is that the Raptors foul at a high rate, yet still manage to turn the opponent over very rarely. So when the Raptors do decide to play aggressive defense they aren't forcing the opponent to turn the ball over at all, and usually end up commiting a stupid or weak foul that ends up sending them to the free throw line. The Raptors aren't gambling on defense or anything like that, but they are getting burned worse than teams like Golden State who basically gamble on every possession. How pathetic is that? Lets take a look at Jose Calderon for a minute as I was looking through 82games.com and found something so pathetic that it actually made me laugh. Say what you want about PER, but it can be a very useful stat if you look at it correctly. Well, Calderon has a PER of 17.5, which isn't terrible at all. The league average is around 15 or so according to an article that I read a little while ago (I'll try to find a link if I remember). However, defensively opposing point guards have a PER of 23.7 against him. How bad is that? Well, lets look at some of the elite point guards PER numbers and PER against: Steve Nash: 25, 14.8 against Deron Williams: 20.8, 16.5 against Chris Paul: 36.3, 19.5 against (hasn't played as many games so numbers are somewhat inflated) So, basically, opposing point guards are as effective as a Steve Nash against the Raptors because of Calderon's incompetence defensively. Granted all of the blame can't be put strictly on Calderon's shoulders as defense is a team issue, but as the primary defender you can put a lot of the blame on him. I would do this same thing for Bargnani, but as a Raptors fan, I don't know if I would be able to stomach what I may find, lol. On defense the Raptors are just a complete mess though. Going beyond statistics and what not, and just speaking from a fans perspective who has only missed 1 game so far this season and bits and pieces of others, the Raptors simply are not committed to playing defense. It seems like there is little to no communication, Triano's system of "protect the house" is not working because the Raptors are getting destroyed all over the floor, the Raptors play uninspired at this end of the floor, there is no help and I could probably go on and on for another couple of paragraphs about the Raptors matadoric defense, but I will save you all the trouble of reading what I am sure you are all already aware of. Bottom line is that the Raptors are on pace for being the worst defensive team in the history of the modern era, and I don't see anything from them that would suggest that it will turn around anytime soon. They let the Charlotte [expletive]ing Bobcats drop 116 or so points on them. Enough said. EDIT: Here is part of that article I was talking about in regards to Calderon's PER and what not. http://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/nba/raptors/article/731529--feschuk-a-case-of-d-eacute-j-agrave-vu-for-raptors

This is older, but still relevant so I thought I would post it anyways. It is an ESPN Insider article so I'm not going to post it on here, but he basically goes on to say that Bargnani is absolutely clueless when it comes to help defense and doesn't know how to read the play as it develops etc... The sad thing is that this just may be true and that would mean that the Raptors have arguably the worst help defender and worst individual defender in all of basketball at arguably the two most important positions defensively (center and point guard). You have got to love it. Anyways, do you think that Bargnani is in fact the worst help defender in the NBA, or at the very least, one of the worst?

http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/tim_chisholm/?id=299997 I honestly don't even think that starting Wright is going to make any difference at all. Wright, while a solid defender, is nothing special on that end of the floor and is by no means going to have a major impact on the Raptors defense, it will be marginal at best. Wright is not a good basketball player as far as I am concerned and from watching him this season I am almost at the point where I would consider him to be a scrub. However, he does make sme good points about DeRozan. I don't agree with him when he has said that DeRozan has struggled defensively because he has done as good of a job on that end of the floor as you could expect him to in my opinion, but if he isn't out there with the starting lineup all of the time he will get a more promminent role offensively which could help his confidence. Wright isn't going to make much of a difference defensively because as long as you have Calderon at point guard and Bargnani at center you are not going to be a good defensive, but if moving DeRozan to the bench helps speed up his development or something like that, it is worth a shot. If Wright does start though, he better not chuck up shots like it is his day job.

I'm going to with hold judgement on the Bucks until I see a couple of things from this team. First, I want to see how they manage to play when they face some legit teams on a consistent basis. Not trying to hate on the Bucks or anything, but their schedule so far has been ridiculously easy thus far. Just take a look at their wins thus far: Detroit at home Minnesota on the road New York at home Denver at home Golden State at home New Jersey at home Charlotte at home Memphis on the road So out of their 8 wins 6 of them have been at home, and only 1 of them have come against a team that is above .500. They have lost to: Philly on the road Chicago on the road Dallas at home San Antonio on the road New Orleans on the road So other than Denver, the Bucks have lost to basically all of the teams that they have played who would be considerd above average or good. They are 2-4 on the road. They have had an easy schedule, but then again you can say that they have won the games that they were supposed to win. Still though, lets see what their record is when they play some good teams consistently. They have lost 2 in a row thus far and their next 3 games are against the Thunder, Magic and Bulls (the last 2 are at home) so they could end up on a 5 game slide or so. Secondly, lets see if Jennings can continue this level of play all season long. He has gotten off to a great start but 14 games or so is very little in terms of an NBA season. Lets see if he can continue to put up these kinds of numbers and sustain this level of play over an extended period of time and avoid hitting the rookie wall like so many players do. Teams are going to start focusing more on him defensively and going after him more offensively and lets see how this will affect his performance. The Bucks have definitely been better than I thought they would be, but lets see where they are at when they have played some tougher competition and see how they handle the adversity that is inevitably going to come at some point during the season.

http://www.nba.com/raptors/news/rapsnbatv_blog.html When I first heard about his injury I thought that it was not big deal and he would miss a week or two at the most, but with him still being out of the lineup, and judging by what I have heard not even being close to returning, and now the news abou thim going to see a foot specialist, I am wondering how serious this injury really is. The Raptors could definitely use Evans and his grit in the lineup, so hopefully he isn't forced to miss much more time.

Lol, I wouldn't say that it makes them less of a threat in the Atlantic because McGrady or no McGrady, the Knicks are still completely irrelevant in that division.

Does anybody know why Hibbert didn't play last night, or if he did play, why he didn't play much? I missed the first half as I didn't get home from work until the 2nd half, and I didn't notice Hibbert on the floor. Is he injured? I was really looking forward to seeing him play. I liked him as a player at Georgetown and was looking forward to seeing how he has developed since his rookie season.

http://thestar.blogs.com/raptors/2009/11/sometimes-you-get-what-you-deserve.html I honestly couldn't disagree with Smith more on this subject. Yeah, DeRozan isn't putting up jaw-dropping stats and isn't in the running for Rookie of the Year or anything but to say that he has been awful makes me question whether or not Smith simply had too high of expectations for DeRozan, or if he is watching the same player that I am. Prior to the draft everybody knew that DeRozan was a project and was very raw so I am very happy with what he has given the Raptors so far. Who cares about the numbers that DeRozan is putting up? What do you expect DeRozan to put up when he is the 5th option whenever he is on the floor and is getting 5 shots a game? For a player that was supposed not contribute much in his rookie season, averaging 5.5 points and 3 boards on 44% shooting in just 18 minutes of play is good enough for me. Its not like the Raptors need scoring from him anyways, and even if they were in need of scoring its not like DeRozan is going to be the one getting the ball with players like Bosh, Bargnani, Turkoglu, Calderon and Bellineli on the team. The fact of the matter is that he rarely even gets any touches on offense and most of them come either on the fast break or off of a broken play. How can you expect him to put up any better numbers than what he has taking that into consideration? One thing on the "numbers" issue, is that I am pretty sure DeRozan had like 10 points at the half against the Nuggets and scored most of his points before garbage time while the game was still up for grabs. I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that Smith is the one in the wrong on that particular subject. As far as his comments about DeRozan not playing with any energy, playing lax defense and all of that, I definitely disagree there. He has been the Raptors second best defender so far this season, at least when it comes to the starters, which isn't saying much, but is still worth pointing out. You also have to factor in that so far this season DeRozan has had to guard players like Manu Ginobili, Ben Gordon, Vince Carter, OJ Mayo, John Salmons, Jason Richardson, JR Smith and Dwyane Wade. I would really like to see any rookie, let alone a 20 year old project, step in and play lockdown defense on these kinds of offensive talents. Almost all of these players could be considered good to great offensive players. The only player that I can really say went off on Ginobili, at least from memory, was Manu as the rest of the players had others guarding them when they got hot. He held Dwyane Wade and Vince Carter to below 40% shooting when he was guarding them if I recall correctly. Out of all of the Raptors starters, he is the one that is hustling for loose balls, diving on the floor, looking to get on the boards (at least for the wing players) etc... the most, so I hardly see how he isn't playing with enough energy either. I have lost count of how many times I have seen DeRozan get out on the break and run, only to have Calderon pull the ball out or pass it to somebody else instead of the wide open DeRozan. He is almost always looking to get out and run because he knows that is where he can make an impact. Yeah, at times DeRozan tends to fade away and become somewhat invisible out there. He will make some rookie mistakes that will result in a turnover or bad shot on offense or a blown assignment or easy opportunity on defense and has been somewhat inconsistent, but again, what did you expect? Should Triano be like Mitchell during Bargnani's rookie season and bury him on the bench every time he makes the slightest mistake, and in the process, completely destroy his confidence and set his development back? That would be dumber than this "article" from Smith. I honestly don't think that they need him to work harder, and they sure as hell need players like Jose Calderon to be better more than they need DeRozan to. Considering his role on the team, what was expected of him coming into the season, and the fact that he is only 20 years old and is a project, I don't think that you can complain about the way that DeRozan has played so far. Obviously he hasn't been great, but I think that we really couldn't, or shouldn't have, expected more out of him thus far. To avoid making this post into an unreadable wall of text, if it hasn't already gotten to that point, I am going to stop here. Am I alone in thinking this, or do you guys agree with me?

http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=299611 Lol, this trade has the #4 pick in the 05 draft being traded for the #45 pick of the same draft. Just thought that was kind of funny. On the actual trade itself though, this is defintiely a good move on the Habs part. It may just be because I have never been a fan of Latendresse and although Pouliot has struggled to start off his NHL career, he is somebody who could be an impact player if he develops and reaches his full potential. Even if Pouliot doesn't pan out, its not like Latendresse was doing much of anything. At worst this is a sideways move. Two players who needed a change of scenery.

The funny thing is that I said all of these exact same things back when we had Ford and Caderon both on the team and I had so many people jumping down my throat calling me a Ford homer, Calderon hater (well I am ), a terrible Raptors fan etc... lol. Glad you came around Travesy. (not saying that you were one of these fans becaue I don't think that I ever even mentioned anything about the Ford/Calderon debacle on OTR).

Perfect lol. Thanks a lot man.

http://i49.tinypic.com/nqolms.jpg I was planning on using this as my avatar, but it is too small and you can't really read the writing/tell whats going on, so instead, I thought I would just post it here. Whoever made this deserves some major props lol. The icing on the cake for this picture would be if somebody had photoshopped Gatorade bottles onto the tray .

I'm pretty sure him waiting or whatever he is doing is not changing anybody from Toronto's opinion of him. If anything, as time goes on, people from Toronto might eventually begin to forget it (doubtful considering how passionate Toronto sports fans are lol). I'm sure that even if Carter had a great reason for what he did and his explaination was absolutely infallible, Toronto fans would still give him hell every time he comes back to the ACC. I could be wrong though as I am sure somebody that actually lives in the Toronto area would be able to contribute better than I would on this particular subject.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/os-orlando-magic-1122-20091121,0,2512032.story I actually really want to hear Carter's side of the story. I think that it would be very interesting to hear Carter's side of the story and see how it compares to how most Raptor fans say it. I've never really got caught up in the whole hating Carter fad. If Carter wasn't playing on the Magic, who are my least favourite team along with the Celtics and Knicks, I would be cheering for him to win a Championship this season because it would be great to see him win a Championship in my opinion. If he wanted to come back to Toronto after his contract is up with the Magic, much like Ben Wallace did this year with the Pistons, I would be all for it and would be estatic to have him back in Toronto, even if he is a shell of his former self. Yeah, I was pissed off about the way that he left, especially that final quarter of a season when he played like complete [expletive] which resulted in the Raptors getting absolutely raped in the trade, but I definitely have never held a grudge against the man like a lot of Raptor fans seem to do. Maybe it is because I am from Western Canada instead of actually in the GTA and it changes my opinion on the matter or something, I'm not really sure. One day though I definitely hope that we get to hear Carter's side of the story. I would definitely pay to read about this in a book or something. I think that it would be very interesting.

My ideal trade would be a Calderon for Kirk Hinrich swap. The Raptors will lose out offensively as Calderon is the better shooter and usually makes better decisions, but Hinrich's defense at the point guard position would be an absolute blessing for this team. Hinrich wouldn't even need to do much offensive as the Raptors could just have Turkoglu handle the ball more, which he should anyways, and let Hinrich be a spot up shooter more than a creator, which is a better role for him imo. If there was one trade that I could make it would definitely be a Calderon/Bargnani for Hinrich/Noah swap. This trade would do wonders for the Raptors defensive and rebounding problems and would greatly increase the overall toughness of the team. Too bad this is a pretty unrealistic trade because I doubt that Colangelo would even consider trading Bargnani and probably even Calderon, while I don't see the Bulls giving up Noah. I've been saying that I would love Hinrich as the starting point guard on the Raptors for the last year and a half now, but I am at the point where I would just trade Calderon for an expiring contract, sign some point guard in free agency (Brevin Knight or someone, not sure of who the free agent point guards are right now) and have Jack start. Playing in Toronto has never affected him. He has almost always torched the Raptors ever since he was traded here. Just look at the game logs from Carter's trips back to Toronto since being traded: 2005-04-15: 39/9/4 on 58 FG% 2005-11-04: 20/7/6 on 53 FG% 2006-01-08: 42/10/3 on 51 FG% 2007-02-14: 17/6/10 on 33 FG% 2008-02-13: 15/3/7 on 33 FG% 2008-04-11: 21/6/2 on 60 FG% 2008-11-21: 39/9/6 on 61 FG% 2008-12-15: 20/10/5 on 33 FG% Excluding today's game, his career averages against Toronto are: 26.6/7.5/5.4 on 48 FG%. Playing in Toronto has never affected Carter. He has always thrived playing against his former team and not only has he put up great numbers against the Raptors, there have been numerous times that he took over the game in the final minutes to either win the game at the buzzer, or put the dagger in the Raptors. Raptor fans should start to realize that Carter feeds off of the countless boos from them. He loves it, and you could see that in todays game when he was jawing with somebody in the crowd and then about 10 seconds later hit an incredibly tough shot then turned around and smiled the the crowd. The biggest knock on Carter is that he tends to play umotivated, so it is pretty retarded for the Raptors crowd to give him even more motivation when playing the Raptors because a motivated Carter is a scary player.

Calderon should be glued to the [expletive]ing bench. How the hell do you give Jason Williams an open look like that, considering that the guy can do nothing but shoot? Then you go and make a terrible play on offense that should've led to an easy two for Orlando if Redick didn't make a boneheaded decision. I'm just sick and tired of Calderon. I wish that Calderon was that clip board that Triano destroyed earlier. At least Calderon. -_- What do you know, another brick on a wide open jumper from Calderon. And now he just put up an airball.

No, not the clip board. What did it ever do to you Triano?

Rasho soars in for the offensive rebound and put back. Air Rasho is on display in full effect tonight! Amir Johnson has been unreal so far today. Definitely the best game that I have seen him play so far as a Raptors. He has been all over the place both offensively and defensively and just not giving up on any play. His energy off of the bench in this quarter is the reason why the Raptors are only 3 points down.

Rasho "Abdul-Jabbar" Nesterovic with the sick skyhook over two defenders. All hail Rasho!

6'9 I think and they probably don't want Bargnani guarding him to avoid him getting foul trouble. Bargs can't seem to guard Howard without picking up a bunch of fouls.