Built Ford Tough

Over the past decade, the NBA’s Western Conference has been the dominant Conference in the NBA. From the Los Angeles Lakers 3-peat at the beginning of the decade, to the San Antonio Spurs consistently being among the leagues elite and basically winning a title every second year, to the Lakers winning their fourth NBA Championship of the decade this past season, the Western Conference has been the cream of the crop in the NBA this past decade. In fact, the NBA Champions have come out of the Western Conference seven times this decade. Over the past ten seasons, the Western Conference playoff teams have a winning percentage of 0.643 which is significantly superior to the Eastern Conference’s winning percentage of 0.574 during the same ten years. Make no mistake about it, the West has been home to the best of the best for the last ten years and just may have been the toughest conference in NBA history, but is that still the case? The Eastern Conference has begun to pick it up over the past two seasons and last season was the first time this decade that the collective winning percentage of the playoff teams in the Eastern Conference was above 60%. Three of the top 4 teams in the NBA were apart of the Eastern Conference last season in the Boston Celtics, Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers. The biggest knock on the East this past season was that aside from these three team, they had little to no depth in the rest of the conference, but with some of the moves that have been made during this offseason, I don’t know if that is the case anymore. The second tier teams of the Eastern Conference have definitely improved by a great deal this offseason. The Washington Wizards made a trade just prior to the draft and in the process added some much needed depth to the lineup by acquiring Mike Miller and Randy Foye from the Minnesota Timberwolves. Combine that deal with the fact that it seems like Gilbert Arenas is going to be healthy for the first time in two seasons and that they have their starting center in Brendan Haywood back healthy as well, the Wizards are certainly looking much better than the abysmal 19-63 team that they were last season and are more than capable of competing for a middle of the pack playoff seed assuming that everybody stays healthy. The Atlanta Hawks didn’t make too many moves during the offseason, but they did make one trade with the Golden State Warriors which say them acquire explosive scorer Jamal Crawford who looks poised to give the Hawks a potent scoring threat off of the bench. They also added another dangerous scorer by the name of Jeff Teague, their first round pick in this years NBA Draft. Most important of all perhaps, they managed to resign veteran point guard Mike Bibby who may be the most important player on the Hawks roster. The thing about the Hawks though is that this is a team that didn’t need to make a bunch of moves this past offseason as they are coming off of a 47-35 season and a fourth place finish in the Eastern Conference despite being a relatively young team. They are counting on a lot of internal growth from the likes of Josh Smith, Al Horford and Marvin Williams, and if the past few seasons is any indication, their is a good chance that they will get that growth. Even if their young three are basically the same players as last season, they will still be a team to be reckoned with in the Eastern Conference and capable of knocking anybody off on any given night. The Chicago Bulls lost their leading scorer from the past season in Ben Gordon, but there is absolutely no reason to write them off because of that. Fresh off of his Rookie Of The Year season, look for Derrick Rose to take the next step in his game and become the undisputed leader of this upstart Bulls team. Rose has a tremendous amount of potential and it would not surprise me one bit to see him become one of the top 5 point guards in the entire NBA next season. The Bulls are also going to get promising young small forward Luol Deng back and he is more than capable of making up for some of the scoring that they will miss with Gordon leaving. The Bulls are another young team and are counting on young big men Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah to become better players, and having an entire training camp to completely implement John Salmons and Brad Miller into the mix is only going to help the Bulls as well. Last season we say that Bulls give the defending NBA Champion Boston Celtics all that they could handle and more in their epic first round matchup, and the young Bulls are looking to take the next step as a team, which they are more than capable of doing. The Toronto Raptors underwent a complete roster overhaul this past season and are looking much better off as a result. They added the very versatile Hedo Turkoglu to their roster. Having Turkoglu on the floor addresses one of the Raptors biggest needs which is a talented, perimeter playmaker. Last season the Raptors had arguably the worst perimeter rotation in the entire league, and adding Turkoglu, a guy who is very adapt at creating for others, scoring himself and is a dependable late game performer, is going to help out the Raptors tremendously. Another one of the Raptors biggest problems last season was that they had nobody to turn to with the clock winding down as all of their perimeter players are not good at creating for theirselves, which is just another thing that Hedo is going to add to the team as he is one of the best late game performers in the entire NBA. The Raptors also added some toughness down low by trading Jason Kapono to the Philadelphia 76′ers for rugged Reggie Evans as well as signing former Raptor, Rasho Nesterovic. Evans is one of the most ferocious rebounders in the entire NBA and is the consummate hustle player that gets after you every second that he is one the floor. Nesterovic gives the Raptors a good interior defender, a capable rebounder and a great veteran big man off of the bench and presence in the locker room. The Raptors also addressed the gaping hole that was their backup point guard by signing former Indiana Pacer Jarrett Jack. Having Jack as the backup point guard will give the Raptors a very familiar change of pace point guard combo that they had so much success with when TJ Ford and Jose Calderon were playing together. Jack was not the only backcourt player that they added as they also acquired defensive specialist Antoine Wright from the Dallas Mavericks and talented, albeit unproven, Marco Belinelli from the Golden State Warriors. These two, along with first round draft pick DeMar DeRozan, will be battling it out for shooting guard supremacy all season long, and is a significant upgrade from last seasons rotation of Anthony Parker and Jason Kapono. The Raptors have underwent a complete makeover, gone is Shawn Marion, Jason Kapono, Anthony Parker, Joey Graham, Kris Humphries and Nathan Jawai. Coming to Toronto is Hedo Turkoglu, Reggie Evans, Marco Belinelli, Jarrett Jack, DeMar DeRozan and Rasho Nesterovic. The Raptors had three glaring weaknesses last season and those were perimeter talent, depth and defense. Bryan Colangelo has managed to address two of those three weaknesses and the Raptors are looking like much better than the 33-49 team that we say last season and a team that is poised to make a serious push for the playoffs. The Miami Heat and Philadelphia 76′ers didn’t make much noise this offseason, but I am never going to count out a team that has a healthy Dwyane Wade on it. We also have to keep in mind that rookies Mario Chalmers and Michael Beasley are bound to make improvements to their game and provide Wade with some more help on the floor. If Jermaine O’Neal can stay healthy he will give them a good interior defender and shot blockers well. The Sixers lost Andre Miller which is a huge blow, but they will have a healthy Elton Brand on the team and if he is able to mesh well with the team they can be very dangerous. Andre Iguodala and Thaddeus Young are both young and improving, and if Louis Williams can step up to be a legit starting point guard in the NBA, the Sixers aren’t a team to mess around with either. The Detroit Pistons are another team that is worth mentioning as they had a fairly busy offseason by signing Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva and Chris Wilcox. Although I am not a huge fan of the moves that the Pistons made, with a lineup of Stuckey/Hamilton/Prince/Villanueva/Wilcox with Ben Gordon off of the bench just may prove me wrong. So all of the moves that the second tier teams in the Eastern Conference made this past offseason, combined with the fact that the Celtics, Magic and Cavaliers all made what many consider to be improvements to their roster as well as the fact that teams like the Houston Rockets and Phoenix Suns look like they might fall off this season, is the power shifting to the Eastern Conference? http://www.alldaynba.com/nbageneral/is-the-power-shifting-to-the-eastern-conference/#more-151

Good article, Erick. One thing though, I don't see any reason why Toronto would want Sessions or how he would be a good fit on the team. Before signing Jarrett Jack I would definitely agree with you, buy seeing how they are going to be paying Jack around $4-5M per season and the fact that it would take something similar in order to get Sessions to the team (and they only have the minimum to work with), the Raptors would have like $19M tied up between their point guards, and one of them, either Sessions or Jack, would hardly even play. Sessions would not be a good fit for the Raptors as they already have a starting caliber point guard in Jose Calderon and a more than capable backup point guard in Jarrett Jack. Good article though.

The only posters that came from ISH were myself, ATID and KIWI. That is all I think. Oh yeah, I guess Jamie and 40 lol. I still post there though and have posted there since June of 06, although I do more lurking over there than actual posting.

Definitely AtTheDriveIn. We posted on Insidehoops together (although I was there before he was) and then when NBAD was created both of us posted and were staff members there as well. We didn't really talk much until NBAD though.

I don't remember exactly, but I think that they were flirting with a payroll of $100M. Don't hold me to that though, but I do know that it was something absolutely ridiculous considering the fact that they were one of the worst teams in the league. I am pretty certain it was at least $90M.

Even with Turkoglu's contract the Raptors won't be close to the $79M payroll that the Celtics have. Turkoglu's contract is going to be something like $12M per if I am not mistaken, and that only brings the Raptors payroll to $64M and then add around $2M for Rasho's contract and that puts the Raptors at $66M with their roster pretty much set in stone. The Cavs would still have about $15M more on their payroll than the Raptors will. Even with the salarys of Turkoglu and Rasho not being listed, the Raptors are still under the luxury tax threshold and will have around the 14th highest payroll. You are right about Dallas though as Marion will probably make around $10M per if I recall correctly, and that will put them at around $80M and Kidd got what, $9M per? That would bring them to around $89M which would be the second highest payroll behind the Lakers. By the time the season starts the Cavs will probably have the 5th highest payroll in the league behind the Lakers, Mavs, Jazz and Celtics.

No it won't. Even with Shaq's $20M coming off of the books next season, the Cavs will have a payroll of around $48.8M in 2010/2011 and if the cap drops like expected to, that only leaves them with something in the range of $3-6M in cap room. The Cavs have the third highest payroll in the NBA as of right now (at something like $79M) and the only two players that are expiring are Shaq and Z and even with their combined $31ish million in expiring contracts, it only brings them to just under the cap.

First off, just wanted to say that this was a good post. They have a lot of talent on the bench, that is for sure, but the thing that makes me hesitant on annointing them one of the best benches in the NBA is that they are relatively inexperienced and unproven. I like what players like Nick Young and Javaris Crittenton bring to the table but they really haven't proven to be able to consistently bring it night in and night out. They will have games in which they play very well but then they will be non-existent out there. The same thing can be said about players like Andray Blatche and Javal McGee as well (I can't really comment on McGuire as I don't know much about his game). These two are two young big men that have a lot of potential, but neither of them have really shown that they can be relied on to bring a consistent game to the table. I am a very big fan of Randy Foye though, I think that if he is given the minutes he could really do some damage under Flip this season and has the potential to be one of the best sixth man in the league. As far as I know, the rotation will look something like this: PG: Arenas/Foye/Crittenton/James SG: Miller/Young/Foye/Stevenson SF: Butler/McGuire/Stevenson PF: Jamison/Blatche/McGee C: Haywood/Oberto/McGee and that is definitely has the potential to be one of the better benches in the league, but I am going to have to see what kinds of progress all of the young players like Blatche, McGee, Young and Crittenton have made over the course of the summer before I can get a firm grasp on how good of a bench this will really be. I am going to take the chicken's way out here and I am not going to call them one of the best benches in the NBA but say that they have the potential to be one of the better benches in the league.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see Miller get some minutes at the small forward spot if Young or Stevenson earn some extra minutes during practices and/or games. Correct me if I am wrong, but Dominic McGuire is the backup small forward right? If that is the case and Flip wants to get somebody like Nick Young or Deshawn Stevenson some more minutes, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him slide Miller to the three when Butler is taking a breather and have either Young or Stevenson at the 2 during stretches of games. This is assuming that Flip would want to get Young or Stevenson some extra minutes at the expense of McGuire though. To be honest though, the only players that the Wizards have that have proven worthy of having minutes handed to them are Arenas, Miller and Foye. Young and Crit are very solid prospects, but at this point in their careers, I don't think that they should be heading into a season expecting to have minutes handed to them and they should expect that they are going to have to earn any minutes that they get. The same thing can be said for a player like Deshawn Stevenson who is coming off of an abysmal season last year. Internal compeition is a good thing though if you ask me. The competition for minutes at the 2/3 positions is just going to bring out the best of everybody involved because they know that if they want to continue to get minutes, they are going to have to earn them. The Wizards have a logjam at the wing positions, that is for sure, but sometimes having a logjam proves to be a good thing because it will either bring out the best in somebody or bring out the worst as they compete for minutes.

UFC-Fedor negotiations are officialy over as Fedor signed a 3 fight deal with StrikeForce (not sure how much he is making per fight though). SF agreed to co-promote with M-1 and that sealed the deal.

I don't see Kleiza playing in the NBA next season. I definitely think that he is going to head overseas and sign with somebody over there because most likely, the largest contract he will get in the NBA is the minimum.

Makes sense and all, and I agree somewhat with you, but you can also look at it the other way as well in that a lot of the times somebody is not even going to bother reading what you wrote if they see a large post and will just leave the thread as a result. If somebody does take the time to read all of it and reply to it, well, there is a very good chance that they are somebody that it would be worth getting into a debate with. At least that is what I have seemed to experience a lot in the past, but I admit that I have also experienced a lot of what you described. Honestly though, I don't intend to make my posts so long before I post them. I go into a thread and don't intend to post a long, article-esque post, but sometimes one thing leads to another and I will say something that gets me end up writing about something else and so forth lol. Like I said above, I just get carried away haha. And Erick, I just don't see how Charlotte is going to contend for a playoff spot. If you ask me, they aren't even a .500 team and it is definitely going to take a record of at least .500 to make the playoffs next season, probably more. Even if Philly struggles or another team is hit by injuries, Charlotte is going to, at least in my opinion, have to leap frog more than just one or maybe even two teams to get into the playoffs next season as I think that they are around the 11th best team in the East as of right now. There are surprises every year so maybe Charlotte will be that team that surprises me next season. Who knows?

Ovechkin and Crosby will both stay with Washington and Pittsburgh respectively for their entire careers. I just don't see either of those two ever leaving where they are now and the cities that they play in absolutely love them. These two are basically the two players that rejuvinated the Pens and Caps (you could throw in Malkin for the Pens as well, but Crosby had the biggest impact). I wouldn't be surprised to see Malkin as a Pen forever as well, but I wouldn't be shocked to see him leave. Obvioulsy Broduer will be with the Devils his entire career considering he will probably only play for around 2-3 more years. The same can be said for Lidstrom. Jarome Iginla will be a Flame as long as they don't decide to blow up their roster and move him in the process. Mike Richards will be a Flyer for life. He is the prototypical Philadelphia Flyer. I think that Henrik and Daniel Sedin will be with the 'Nucks for life as well. Pavel Datsyuk will be a Wing forever if you ask me. Toews and Kane I can both see being Hawks for their entire careers as well, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of them eventually left. Rick Nash will probably be a Blue Jacket for life, but I wouldn't be surpised to see him leave towards the tail end of his career. I think that Luke Schenn will be with the Leafs his entire career as well but that might be just because he is my favourite player on my favourite team lol. Then there are the obvious ones like Henrik Zetterberg and Rick Dipetro who are locked up for basically the duration of their careers and nobody would trade for Dipetro at how much he is making. I don't see Zetterberg leaving either. Those are just the guys off of the top of my head though. A lot will hinge on whether or not they manage to win with their current team and don't decide to go ring hunting at the tail end of their career.

Lol, its like I used to say on the old OTR, I get carried away sometimes when posting and don't even realize how long my posts end up being haha.

Why does everybody always talk about this "high spped, frantic pace" that Paul and the Hornets love to play all of the time? The Hornets have been among the slowest paced teams in the NBA in every single season of Paul's career. All it takes is one quick look at Basketball Reference and you will see that the Hornets play at a slow pace and are usually among the slowest teams in the entire NBA. Just look at where they have ranked among pace since Paul was drafted: 2005/06: 21st of 30 2006/07: 23rd of 30 2007/08: 26th of 20 2008/09: 28th of 30 I always hear people say that Paul loves to play at this high speed pace and loves to push the ball up the floor, and while that may be the case, the Hornets have been one of the slower paced teams in the entire NBA since Paul came into the league, and Paul seems to have done pretty damn well in a half court offense. He is going to miss the pick and roll with Chandler and the lob passes to him though. That is definitely going to be something that Paul will miss about Chandler, but aside from that, Okafor is the superior offensive player in basically every way. The funny thing is that Chandler has this reputation as a fantastic shot blocker but his highest bpg average in a single season is 1.8 and he averages 1.4 for his career. On the other hand, Okafor's career high in blocks is 2.6 and his career average is 1.9. In fact, Chandler's highest bpg average in a single season is only 0.1 higher than Okafor's lowest bpg average as his worst blocking season was 1.7. Per 36 minutes Okafor has Chandler beat as well as he averages 2 to Chandler's 1.8. I'm not saying htat Okafor is the superior shot blocker, but it is interesting to point out the fact that Okafor has, over the course of his career, averaged more blocks per game than Chandler and his worst season when it came to blocking shots is very, very marginally worse than Chandler's best. I agree with you about Okafor not being nearly the same type of athlete Tyson is though, but Okafor is a much smarter player as well as a better one on one defender. Chandler is a very good help defender and is good at coming from the weakside to contest shots, but Okafor is the superior overall defender if you ask me. One thing that is very overlooked when it comes to Okafor is how long he is. People rave about Chandler and his length, but Okafor actually has a longer wingspan than Chandler does as his is 7'4" to Chandler's 7'3". Would you mind explaining to me how exactly Chandler is a game changer? What is it that he does that changes games exactly? His defense, while good, is not at the level of a Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, Tim Duncan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Bill Russell type of level where he can dominate a game on the defensive end of the floor. His offense sure as hell is not game changing. So what exactly is it that makes you say Chandler can be game changing when at worst, Chandler is slightly better than him on the defensive end of the floor and Okafor is a superior offensive player? I can definitely agree with you on this. The Hornets are in dire need of some perimeter help. Aside from Paul, the Hornets are really lacking any sort of talent on the perimeter. Peja Stojakovic is nothing like he used to be, Morris Peterson is always injured and even when healthy is nothing more than your run of the mill role player, Rashul Butler is just a shooter and not much else and Julian Wright is unproven and who knows what he is going to give you. The Hornets are a very weak team on the perimeter, unless I am forgetting somebody. That doesn't mean that I don't like the trade because of the simple fact that Okafor is the better player than Chandler is (in my opinion). I just don't see how people don't like the trade on the Hornets behalf. Yeah, they don't get a lot better as Okafor isn't a monumental upgrade over Chandler, but he is still an upgrade on the offensive end of the floor and at worst is a slight downgrade defensively (I think he is just as good if not better than Chandler defensively). Chandler is coming off of a very poor season and there are questions about his health, while Okafor has been very healthy in his career aside from his sophomore season and is just as good if not better in every single catagory of the game aside from athleticism. I don't see how the Hornets are going to make the playoffs this season. Yeah, they are going to be good defensively, but they are going to be horrific offensively, and unless they add a scorer to the roster, they are going to be even worse offensively than they were last season because, while Okafor wasn't a great offensive player, he is still undoubtedly better than Chandler on the offensive end of the floor. Last season the Bobcats couldn't make the playoffs and they are virtually the exact same team this seaosn and may even be worse if they don't work something out with Felton. So combine the fact that the Bobcats are at best the exact same caliber of team as they were last season, which they didn't make the playoffs, and the fact that the East easily got better this offseason, I don't see how the Cats are going to be even close to making the playoffs. I mean I don't see how the Bobcats are going to finish better than any of the following teams: Cleveland Boston Orlando Atlanta Chicago Miami Toronto Washington Philadelphia That is 9 teams right there that I think are going to be easily better than the Bobcats and then there is also a team like Detroit that has a very good chance of being better and potentially sneaking into the playoffs. That puts the Bobcats around 11th place if you ask me. To each their own though, I just don't see how they are going to make the playoffs in the much improved Eastern Conference without getting some offensive firepower.

From what I have seen of him, I wouldn't classify him as a good perimeter defender. He seems to be more of an annoying perimeter defender than an actual good one. As a Warriors fan you are obviously more inclined to speak about him because you have seen him play a lot more than I have because aside from his international experience with Italy I really haven't see enough of him to have a complete breakdown of his game and we all know that international basketball is entirely different from the NBA. From what I have seen though, I have got the impression that he is more like a Sasha Vujacic type of defender. One that gets up tight on you and plays really pesterting defense. He will get up tight on you and annoy you with his aggressive defense but isn't really a good defender when it comes to actually stopping his man. He isn't a liability out there but he isn't really going to do much to stop his defender either. Just your average NBA defender that the majority of offensive players won't have much trouble scoring on. Like I said though, you have definitely seen more of him and would be in a better position to make the argument though. As for your comment about him being one of the Raptors better perimeter defenders, that isn't really saying much at all lol. Calderon is a very good offensive point guard, but when it comes to defense he is a borderline liability. Turkoglu definitely won't be earning his paycheck on the defensive end of the floor either and who knows what kind of defense DeRozan will be playing. He was a pretty good defender from what I saw at USC, but it is going to be a whole different story when it comes to guarding NBA players. Considering the fact that the Raptors are probably going to be one of the worst, if not the worst, defensive teams in the entire NBA, it doesn't really say much for Belinelli if he is going to be the 3rd best perimeter defender on the team behind Wright and Jack lol. As for who I think will be the starter, it really is a toss up between Belinelli and DeRozan. I think that they will start DeRozan and play him for about 7-9 minutes at the start of each half and the of the playing time that he gets will be dependant on how well he plays during that stretch. I think that having DeRozan out there at the start of each half and having him play alongside talented players like Bosh, Bargnani, Calderon and Turkoglu will be good for his development because he won't be asked to do too much. It will allow him to come along slowly as he will just focus on playing defense, hitting open shots when they present theirselves and things of that nature. Then they can bring Belinelli off of the bench as an offensive spark and allow him to have a big role when he is out there with the majority of the second unit. It is ultimately going to come down to either DeRozan or Belinelli in my opinion though. Wright is the best defensive player of the three but having Wright out there really isn't going to do much for the defense because he isn't a lockdown defender or anything like that. I say go for broke and have an offensive powerhouse type of lineup with Belinelli or give DeRozan some valuable experience playing with the best the Raptors have to offer.

Who do you all think is going to be the starting shooting guard for the Raptors next season? They have three shooting guards on their roster in DeRozan, Belinelli and Wright and none of them are head and shoulders any of the others. All three of them bring something different to the table as well. Wright is the best defensive player but is limited elsewhere. Belinelli is undoubtedly the best on the offensive end of the floor and is a very good shotoer but doesn't do much defensively. DeRozan is a phenomenal athlete and definitely has the most upside of the three but he is a very inexperienced and a very raw player. Anyways, who do you all think the Raptors will have in the starting lineup and who do you want to see in the starting lineup the most?

I'm not too concerned. I have never really been a fan of Delfino's and hated his inconsistent chucking two seasons ago. I like his grit and toughness, as well as his decent defense and rebounding from the two guard spot, but there is absolutely no way that I would cave into his ridiculous demands of $5M per season and I sure as well wouldn't be willing to go into the luxury tax, or get extremely close to it, to sign a player like Delfino. If the Raptors never traded for Belinelli, I would still want Delfino back, but that was only because he really was the only option. He would be the best shooting guard on the team, but it wouldn't be by that much. I'd rather not pay him and just role with a shooting guard rotation of DeRozan, Belinelli and Wright. Hardly a loss though, I was never a big fan of his and only wanted him back because the Raptors had no other options really.

Coleman will throw one punch and then gas. The guy has absolutely no cardio (which is to be expected considering he is like 45 years old lol) and Tito's cardio has always been one of his best attributes. A poster on Sherdog summed up what is going to happen in that fight perfectly in a little poem. Coleman gasses, Tito passes, Elbow to the head, Coleman is dead Lol, but seriously, if Tito comes into the octagon and doesn't have massive amounts of rust considering he hasn't fought in like 2 years or something and is coming off of back surgery, Coleman is going to get worked. The Hammer is one of the UFC's legends and one of the pioneers of the sport, but the guy is so far past his prime that it isn't even funny. The Nevada State Athletic Commission were hesitant to even clear Coleman to fight against Bonnar at UFC 100. That is how far past his prime he is. It is a fight though, so you never know what is going to happen. All it really takes is one punch (although Tito does have a very good chin) to finish the fight. Dana White hasn't said that nothing will happen with Fedor and basically left the ball in his and M-1's court. If M-1 drops their ludicrous demand of co-promotion, Fedor will be in the UFC. If they aren't willing then Fedor will never be in the UFC.

Not sure if you care or not, but I thought I would post what Dana White had to say about the Fedor situation in case you were interested: Rest of the article is here Its a good read if you are interested.

Source Full article HERE The upcoming Franklin/Belfort match is going to be a very fun fight to watch. Vitor loves to stand and bang and Franklin, although he doesn't have ruthless knockout power (he does have KO power, just ask David Loiseau), he is a good, technical striker. That fight should be very similar to Rich's last fight back at UFC 98 when he went up against Wanderlei Silva. That should be a very enteraining fight. Not exactly what I would consider to be main event caliber, but considering the fact that most of the UFC's big names are all tied up as Lesnar just fought at UFC 100, GSP is injured and just fought as well, Penn is fighting at UFC 101, Machida is defending at UFC 104, Anderson Silva is fighting Forrest Griffin at UFC 101, Rampage and Rashad are tied up with TUF and fighting in December and Randy Couture is fighting Antonio Rodrigo Nogueria at UFC 102. So considering the fact that most of the UFC's to tier talent (which is what Franklin is) are all locked up at events right before or right after UFC 103, this is a quality main event to top off a well rounded card. As for Tito Ortiz, I am so pumped to see him back in the octagon. He has always been my favourite fighter and I am interested to see how he bounces back after his back surgery. I honestly think that he is still a legitimate fighter in the Light Heavyweight division, and although he is probably not going to contend for the 205 Championship, he is still going to be a very relevant fighter in that division. Coleman-Ortiz is going to be a very good tune up fight for Tito. I know that Coleman is coming off of a win against Stephan Bonnar at UFC 100 but I just don't see how he is going to beat Tito. Should be an interesting fight between two ground and pound specialists though. Anyways, it sucks that the UFC and Fedor couldn't get anything done, but this is definitely two great moves on their behalf.

Well as of right now the Raptors have 14 players on their roster which leaves one more roster spot before they have the maximum allowed roster of 15 players. What do you think the Raptors are going to do with that last roster spot? Will they try to bring Delfino back despite having 3 shooting guards? Will they try to bring Pops back as the 3rd power forward? Will they look to bring in a player like Joey Graham or another backup small forward for the minimum (not exactly sure who's left at this point? Will they just go with a 14 man roster and leave that open roster slot open for a potential move down the road? If I had to make a guess, I would think that they will either try to bring in a 3rd power forward or they will just simply leave their roster at 14 and leave some wiggle room in case they need to make a trade during the course of the season. I don't think that Delfino is going to be back with the team anymore, but I am not completely ruling that one out either. To be honest, I could actually see any one of the scenarios that I listed above happen lol.

Nah, it is official now. The other threads just reported that the deal was going to happen, but it wasn't officailly annonced until earlier today. But really though, I think that everybody knew Rasho would be rejoining the Raptors this upcoming season. This was one of the worst kept secerts of this past offseason.

I think that the Raptors are going to give DeRozan the starting spot next season because having him on the floor with Calderon, Turkoglu, Bosh and Bargnani will make it so that he doesn't have a lot of pressure on him. He can just go out there and play defense, hit shots when the opportunities present theirselves and just get a general feel for the game rather than have him come off of the bench where he would have to assume a more prominent role. I say that they give DeRozan the starting two guard spot, but limit his minutes to around 15-20 a game on average. Then they will have Belinelli come off of the bench and provide an offensive punch with the second unit. They can also play DeMar at the backup small forward spot (as well as getting some backup shooting guard minutes) if they want to start Belinelli/Wright or have DeRozan come off of the bench. Regardless of what they ultimately decide to do, it is certainly nice as a fan of the Raptors to see that they have options at the wing positions, which was definitely not the case last season as Parker was the only reliable wing player that the Raptors had last season and he is not a 30 mpg player anymore.