Built Ford Tough

I don't think so. Add to this the fact that Colangelo traded TJ Ford, a huge expiring (Rasho Nesterovic) and Roy Hibbert to the Pacers for a broken down Jermaine O'Neal making $20+M a year, and he has spent almost $300M on players who, for the most part, aren't even league average. Granted he did manage to get out of the Turkoglu and Kapono deals as well as trade O'Neal so the Raptors didn't actually spend the full amount but you get my point. Although it is close as King was a disaster, but I think Colangelo wins. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the extension by any means. I can fully understand why Holiday was given it because, like a lot of other people, I expect him to take that leap this season with his increased role. I do like his game. I was just pointing out that on the chance that Iguodala wasn't holding Holiday back and what we saw from him last season is what we will see from him the rest of his career, then this is a pretty big overpayment because he really wasn't very good offensively. Defensively, he was very good, but he was well below average offensively.

Obviously he won't be putting up these kind of numbers (21/7/8/5) every night, but I don't think it is unrealistic to think he could average around 17/5/7 for the year. Remember, Toronto doesn't exactly have a dominant rebounder (Valanciunas has potential, but is still a work in progress on the defensive glass) so that will open up rebounding opportunities for him, especially since DeRozan and Bargnani are such terrible rebounders for their positions. Same for the scoring since it will likely be a 1a/b/c deal with him, Bargs and DeRozan, so he is going to get the attempts. The assists are pretty obvious since he will have the rock a lot and be relied on to create a lot of offense. On another note, after watching the entire game, I really think the Raptors got shafted by the refs tonight. It still doesn't excuse the lost as the complete implosion down the stretch cost them the game. Even with the poor officiating they had this game in the bag if they executed and defended properly, but there were definitely a lot of questionable and just plain bad calls go against the Raptors tonight. Hibbert and West in particular seemed to get away with a lot of fouls or had some really chincy ones go their way.

Curry was pathetic tonight. It was so bad that I honestly question why he wasn't just benched and have Jack run the show in the 4th. He was just awful on both ends of the floor. The only thing he did well was rebound. He was lucky that Dragic's shot was off as well or else Goran would've dropped 25+ on him. As bad as Curry was, Lee was about 5X as bad. It was actually comical seeing Gortat repeatedly swat Lee's weak attempts all game long. I swear all 5 of Gortat's blocks came against Lee. Scola was also abusing him in the post. I actually wonder why they didn't exploit that matchup more during the course of the game because it seemed Scola was scoring every time he had Lee on him in the post. I can understand why Lee was on the floor down the stretch since Bogut, who I thought played really well, was absolutely gassed, but man, he was just brutal tonight. Luckily for these two, Landry stepped up big time. Great 4th quarter for him and he really was the reason why the Warriors won a game they had no business winning (not that Phoenix played well, GS was just that bad tonight). One thing that I really hated was the way Jackson handled Barnes. Why even start that guy if you are just going to have him stand in the corner for 6 minutes, yank him for the rest of the half and then basically do the same thing in the 2nd? It was only one game so I won't think too much of it, but if that is how Jackson plans on utilizing him, he might as well just start Rush (or Jefferson if he wants to keep using Rush off the bench) and let Barnes actually get some touches with the 2nd unit. He isn't going to develop if that is what his role on the team is going to be. As for Phoenix, well, all I can say is that it is going to be a long season for them. Then again, I think most people already realized that. After all, Michael Beasley is their number one option and that just has disaster written all over it. All in all, this was a very ugly game. I'm kind of surprised I actually watched all of it because there were multiple times where I came very close to shutting it off.

And if they don't you look like a Bryan Colangelo.

Well, this is a fairly large overpayment if he doesn't take a step forward this year. Much like the DeRozan extension (although not nearly as bad since, at the very worst, Holiday is a great defender while DeRozan doesn't do anything great), these extensions seem to be banking on the player taking a step forward this season and are based more on potential than actual production.

Aside from a 6 or 7 minute stretch the in the 3rd quarter, San Antonio looked really out of sync offensively tonight. Their ball movement wasn't nearly as crisp as we are used to seeing from them, there was a lot more standing around and when they did get a good look from deep, they weren't connecting like they usually do. Of course, it is the first game of the season so I'm not surprised at all that there were some issues with their timing on offense. Duncan looked very good, though. He struggled a bit with turnovers (had 5) but other than that I liked what I saw from him. His jumper looked better than ever, he was active on defense (11 boards and 3 blocks) and was very effective on offense (24 points and 3 assists). He really took control of the game down the stretch after the Hornets took the lead late. New Orleans really doesn't have anybody who can contain him, even at this stage of his career. Leonard was the 2nd best Spur. I love how active he is at both ends of the floor. He really pounces whenver he sees an opening on defense. He came away with 5 steals and probably had another 3-4 tips that almost ended up as steals. On offense he was the only Spur who had the touch from outside and he also did a nice job moving without the ball for some looks around the basket. If he ever becomes able to consistently create his own offense off the bounce, he is going to be an All-Star. There is no doubt about that in my mind. For the Hornets, I was impressed by Vasquez in the first half. He did a fantastic job controlling tempo and finding his teammates. At one point he had, I believe, 8 assists and 0 turnovers and that was just in the half (finished with 13 assists and 3 turnovers). He was a bit wild in the 3rd but I think that was more due to him realizing his team needed a spark and tried to create something out of nothing. Davis' numbers look nice (21 points, 7 boards, 6-12 from the field and 9-9 from the line) but to be perfectly honest, I didn't really notice him out there other than the first quarter and when he was at the line. Defensively he had a really poor game, especially when he was guarding Duncan. Offensively he didn't really do anything on his own and relied on his teammates setting him up. Full credit to him for knocking down the open looks, but I never really got the sense that he was leaving his stamp on the game, which is actually pretty scary considering he had a very good game numbers wise. Rivers was his usual self. 1-9 shooting (only basket was a breakaway layup off an Aminu steal), 2 assists and 3 turnovers. He was lucky he got bailed out on a couple of drives otherwise he would've had another turnover, another missed shot and 4 less points.

That is terrible logic. I'm not sure if you were a Raptors fan during the Carter era or not, but that exact line of thinking was basically the beginning of the end of the Carter era. Grunwald and company overpaid fan favourites like Alvin Williams and Jerome Williams (as well as Antonio Davis) and because of so much salary being committed to complimentary players, Toronto could never get Carter the running mate he needed. They got desperate and made the disasterous Olajuwon trade and things went nowhere but down after that. You can't let things like that factor into contractual decisions. Then again, Colangelo has proven to be completely incompetent at contract negotiations (and, well, basically every other aspect of being a general manager), so this really shouldn't come as a surprise that he drastically overpaid DeRozan.

Raptors really pissed this one away down the stretch. Terrible offensive execution and too many blown defensive assignments (particularly on West who torched them in the 4th with 14 points) was the difference int his one. Sure, you can point to the obvious charge on West and the weak call on Lowry that led to 3 Indy points, but that doesn't excuse the numerous breakdowns they had down the stretch. EDIT: And that last play sums up perfectly what I said. What the [expletive] was that? You have two chances to draw up a play and that is what you come up with?

Calderon has to shoot that. There is no reason why he should pass up a 3 to swing it to DeRozan for a contested 3. Just a bad decision on his part. And that was clearly a charge on West. There really is no debate about that one, that was a charge.

Davis gets the dunk, but that should've come about 5 seconds earlier as he was wide open off the pick but Lucas completely missed him. Luckily Anderson made a nice move in the corner to get by his man (Stephenson I think)and force the help, which opened up Davis once again. I like what I saw from the Raps in that quarter, though. They didn't exactly shoot the ball all that well (FG% dropped from 39% to 37%) but their activity level was off the charts (at least in comparision to what I'm accustomed to seeing from Raptor teams) and that enabled them to take an 8 point lead heading into the 4th despite the poor shooting.

Valanciunas and Lowry seem to be rubbing off on Bargnani. I've only watched the 3rd quarter (will watch the first half later) but he seems to be playing with a lot more passion. I also heard a nice, loud, "[expletive]" after he missed a dunk which I can't say I've heard before.

Latest update: 4 years, $38M.

He has agreed to a 4 year, $42M extension. However, the deal is incentive based and according to Koreen (a Raps beat guy), the guaranteed money is less than $40M and more than $36M. Not really a big fan of this. I'd rather them play out the season and let his play dictate his value. I hope he proves me wrong and proves he is worth it, but at first glance this isn't really an ideal scenario. Of course, this should come as no surprise since Colangelo is always overpaying people. With that said, his play in the preseason was very encouraging and if he can carry that over into the regular season, this won't be that bad of a deal.

Don't tell that to Reggie Miller. According to him, Howard's free throw stroke looks phenomenal. Who cares that they aren't going in or any trivial thing like that, it looks tremendous.

"Hey Mike, you have/had Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard on the floor, so what do you do?" "Post up Ron Artest every possible chance, duh!"

Mike Brown is such an awesome coach. "Hey Steve, go walk the ball up the court, pass it to Pau 20 feet from the hoop and then park your ass in the corner for the next 18 seconds."

Atta boy, Howard. You throw a huge hissy fit. Luckily for Brand, Howard missed his head otherwise that would've been bad.

Wright actually had a very good season last year. Obviously he is no match for Howard or anything like that, but he is a hell of a lot better option than Curry.

First Raptor game I'll have ever attended.... Ok, not really. Anyways, Bargnani may not be playing tomorrow as he was sent home from practice today with the flu. http://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/2012/10/30/andrea_toronto_raptors_bargnani_flu_could_miss_season_opener/

None of that really has anything to do with running the 2nd unit, though. You are impressed by his scoring and shooting off the bench (don't get me wrong, it was a lot better than I expected as well) but he didn't really show any ability to actually run the offense with the 2nd unit, which is what I'm saying. I have no problems with Lucas playing the Barbosa role from last season of instant offense off the bench. Based on what I saw in the preseason, I do believe I'd have a problem with him actually running the offense with the intention of getting others involved. Even the 3.3 assists don't tell the story since a lot of those came as bail outs late in the clock. I remember plenty of times where he would have a wide open Valanciunas, Johnson or Davis rolling to the rim and completely miss them. Or he would have Kleiza, Ross or Anderson spotting up on the perimeter on one of his drives and would look them off in favour of putting up a shot of his own. Sure, they went in during the preseason but what happens when those shots aren't falling? That is what I mean by I'm not impressed with him running the 2nd unit. I'm not trying to sound condescending or anything like that (and I apologize if I come off that way). I'm genuinely curious what it is that you saw from Lucas that made you impressed with his ability to actually run the 2nd unit and get others involved.

Wright plays for Philly now. He was part of that 3 team trade that landed Jarrett Jack in Golden State. As for starting Barnes, I kind of like it simply because I love Rush off the bench and the only position where Golden State isn't two-deep is the 2. If you start Rush at the 3, you are likely going to see him get a fairly quick hook anyways since you'll need him to spell Thompson.

I think Garnett is a giant prick, but I loved his reaction to Allen shaking a bunch of the Celtic players/staff. Showed absolutely no emotion and didn't even acknowledge Allen. Then he stares him down a bit after Allen slaps him on the shoulder.

One thing that makes me hesitant to pick Terry is the fact that Boston is so deep. Terry is probably a top 3 bench player in the league, no question about it, but the Celtics are also going to have Jeff Green, Avery Bradley/Courtney Lee (when Bradley returns), Jared Sullinger and Leandro Barbosa (I don't like him, but he will jack up shots if he gets minutes) all off the bench and I could see it being more of a score by committee thing as opposed to one guy being the focal point of the bench. Add to that Terry getting a lot of minutes with the starters and I question if he is going to have enough shots to really put up numbers that will make it tough to ignore other players (Lou Will comes to mind) who'll likely have more appealing stats. His impact on the team will be large, but I just don't know if that will be enough to win the award since we know how stat heavy these awards can be.

Nope. I believe Courtney Lee will be starting to begin the season and then there is a good chance that Avery Bradley will take over when he comes back from injury, although that isn't expected to be until January so who knows what may happen between now and then. Terry will most definitely be coming off the bench, though. Rather than throw out the usual names (Manu, Terry, Lou Will, etc...) I'll add Macrus Thornton and Ben Gordon. Gordon in particular could be in for a very big year playing for the offensively challenged Bobcats. There really aren't many players on that roster who are capable of scoring so Gordon will be putting up a lot of shots for them. Although both of them would be hard pressed to win the award unless they put up absolutely gaudy numbers. Has anybody ever won the award on a non-playoff team other than Dell Curry (and the Hornets were .500 that year, which I think we can all agree the Kings and Bobcats won't come close to). Oh yeah, what about Harden's replacement in Kevin Martin? If he has a bounce back year he can definitely contend for the award.

Just out of curiousity, how often do you guys all get together like this and go to sporting events, whether baseball, basketball, hockey, etc...?