Built Ford Tough

Hey iMan, do you know what exactly went down between Fields and Melo to make the two seem to hate each other? Was it just personalities that didn't mesh or did something happen between them? I noticed that that there seemed to be some genuine dislike between the two of them and Melo took a shot at him after the game: (Unless of course this was taken out of context, which is possible given it is only a Tweet)

I noticed him back on the bench talking with Jackson after he went to the locker room. Probably him saying he is fine and wanting to go back into the game? I didn't see him on the bench at the start of the 2nd half, though. Even if it doesn't sound bad or serious, given Curry's history any minor limp will be a huge concern for the Warriors. EDIT: Yup, he was asking Jackson to come back into the game and Jackson told him no.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8502220/xavier-rathan-mayes-no-24-recruit-espn-100-commits-florida-state-seminoles XRM himself is a nice player. He can be a bit of a chucker at times, but he can go off and put points on the board in a hurry. He has a nice shooting stroke and, even though he is only 6'3, does a nice job of creating space to get his shot off. With that said, the real story here is what this means when it comes to Andrew Wiggins' recruitment. From everything I've read Wiggins is down to two schools; Kentucky and FSU. The overwhelming majority believe that Kentucky is the favourite, but a lot of those people are second guessing that opinion now that XRM is going to FSU. For those of you who don't know why Rathan-Mayes committing to FSU is a big deal for Wiggins' recruitment, the two of them are best friends and grew up together. They lived about 15 minutes apart growing up, they both play for Huntington Prep and they played for the same AAU team (CIA Bounce). Their dads both played together for the Sixers as well. It will be interesting to see where Wiggins ends up. Like many people, I figured he'd go to Kentucky but I'm not as sure now that XRM, who I thought was going to end up playing for Illinois, is going to FSU.

I really like this team. I know their ceiling is a 7th/8th seed (unless Valanciunas becomes a 15/10/3 big man overnight, which obviously won't happen) but I think the last time I enjoyed watching a Raptors team this much was the 47 win team with Ford, Parker, Bosh and Rasho. Even during the games where they struggle, I think they are going to be a lot more entertaining than the Raptor teams of the last 4 or so years. PS: Lucas has no conscience. I'm fully expecting him to launch one from 35 feet with 18 seconds left on the shot clock before the season is over.

To be fair, it should've only been 2 fouls and 3 turnovers (plus another 2, possibly 3 points) since he got called for a bogus offensive foul call that was clearly a blocking foul. As for the game last night, here are my thoughts. - Fields looked better with Lowry in the lineup. He made some nice cuts that Lowry took advantage of, ran the floor well and played nice help defense. His shooting is still terrible and his free throw shooting is even worse. I'm a bit worried about teams packing the paint against the starting unit since neither Fields or DeRozan are a threat to do much from the outside. - Amir and Calderon PnR against 2nd units is going to be awesome to watch. I know I've mentioned this before, but it may not have been on here, but the Jose and Amir PnR is going to be huge for the Raptors, especially if Johnson is draining jumpers like he was last night. That sequence where he nailed 3 straight top of the circle jumpers was very impressive. - Alan Anderson is making a serious case for stealing backup SF minutes from Kleiza. He has drastically outperformed Kleiza so far in the preseason. He doesn't excell at any particular area, but he doesn't really have any weaknesses either. He can shoot the 3 ball, handle a bit, defend, slash and he doesn't try to do anything outside of his ability. I was impressed by him late last season and continue to like what I see from him. Kleiza has the ability to get on a hot streak and drop 20+, but it is looking like Anderson is the more consistent and steady player. - I love DeRozan's committment to attacking and posting up, but he really needs to start looking to distribute more. I know he is a scorer by nature and that his natural instinct is to try and score, but he is becoming way too much of a black hole on offense and defenses will take note of that. There was a possession where Fields had a smaller defender sealed down low but DeRozan looked him off and instead turned the ball over (I believe it was a charge) trying to create his own shot. - Lowry looked shaky early, but I thought settled in as the game went on. He was active on defense which resulted in a couple of steals and rebounds that enabled the Raptors to get out in transition. I'm a bit worried about his durability if he continues to throw his body around like he did last night. I love the aggressiveness, but it is a bit worrisome seeing him hit the deck multiple times in a game considering how important he is to the team. Oh yeah, and there was this: The thing I really like about this is how he used this to set up the defense for an easy jumper later in the game. I believe Barron was guarding him and he gave him the same up fake causing Barron to take a step back and Valanciunas stuck the jumper. His offensive game looks a lot better than it did at the end of his season last year.

Shouldn't be much of a surprise considering how broke the Kings are. Also, the days of players signing extentions and forgoing free agency off of their rookie contracts seem to be coming to an end. How many members of the class of 08 signed extensions prior to free agency? Off the top of my head the only players I can think of are Rose, Westbrook, Love, Gallinari and Hill. The class of 07 only had 5 (Durant, Horford, Noah, Conley and Dudley). It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a lot of these young players to sign extensions. Obviously some guys are no brainers, such as Durant, Love, Rose, Griffin, Westbrook etc... since they are getting a max deal no matter what. You are better off just letting yourself become an RFA and see what the market is like unless you are offered a very nice extension, which was the case for Gallinari, Hill and Conley. From a team standpoint, you are also probably just as well off to let them become an RFA. Sure you run the risk of somebody throwing a stupid offer at the player but if you already know that you are going to match anything (like the Pacers with Hibbert) why not let him become an RFA and have the chance of getting him for cheaper than what an extension would cost? Unless you are already a bonafide star, I think the days of seeing players sign extensions off of their rookie contracts are coming to a close.

I've gotten it for the past 3 years (broadband only, I've never gotten the TV package) and it is well worth the money as far as I am concerned. Like you, Raptor games are blacked out for me (even though if you want to get technical, Portland would be my "home" team since it is about 8-10 hours from where I live) but I also don't get home from work until 5:30 PST Monday-Friday which means that I will pretty much miss the first 3 quarters of every Raptor game. What I love about LP is that even though Raptor games are blacked out for me, I can wait until around 7 PM PST and I'll be able to catch the entire game without commercials. A lot of the time last year I'd watch a Leafs game and then after that finished I'd wait about 30 minutes and then catch the Raptors game. I honestly find it more valuable for all the replays and archived games than being able to watch games live. There will be nights where I can catch the replays of 3-4 games and it will take nearly as much time as watching 1 game live. But yeah, it is easily worth the money. Even if I didn't watch any team other than Toronto (which, obviously, I don't as I usually watch 3 games a night) I'd still say it is worth the $100 bucks. I'd definitely suggest you buy it. Even if Raptor games are blacked out live, you can just do what I do and watch full replays of the games about 30 minutes after it is over.

Nobody has a realistic shot. Lowry is the best player on the team, but he simply has way too much competition. I think he will be very good for Toronto, but he is not going to beat out the likes of Rondo, Williams, Wade, Johnson and Irving. Maybe if Irving has a sophomore slump and Lowry puts up something like 18/6/8 he will make it, but I don't see either of those things happening. Bargnani doesn't have as much competition, especially if he is considered a center, but I don't think he can get back to that 13 game form we saw at the start of the season, and even if he can, I don't think he can sustain it over 50 games. I'd say that he is the most likely Raptor simply because Bynum may be injured and his competition (again, assuming he is considered a center on the ballot) would be Lopez and Hibbert. Both would likely get the nod over him, but it isn't that unrealistic to think he could beat out one of them. DeRozan has no chance unless he takes a quantam leap forward in his all-around game. Even if he averages 20 a game on good percentages, like Lowry, there is just too much competition for guards in the East. He would need to average 20 and also chip in with around 5 boards and 3 assists but that is very, very unlikely. The only real chance the Raptors have at having somebody in the All-Star game is if they surprise everybody out of the gate and are sitting in 5th or 6th in the East. Then they may get that "best player on a surprise team" All-Star selection. As for the rookie game, I doubt Ross makes it but Valanciunas has a chance depending on the minutes he gets. If the preseason is any indication, I'd say that Valanciunas will defintely be in the rookie game, but I'd be fairly surprised if he goes 11/8 for the season. If I had to pick one player who is the most likely to represent the Raptors during All-Star Weekend, it would be Valanciunas, though.

Forgot to mention this the other day, but Lowry was back at practice on, I believe, Saturday and is expected to play tomorrow against the Wizards.

He had a really poor preseason last year if I remember correctly and we both know how well he played to start the season. I really am not overly concerned about Bargnani simply because he has been in the league for 6 years now. I put more stock into how a younger player who is still developing (such as Davis, Valanciunas or DeRozan) play in the preseason than a guy who has been in the league for 5+ years. Now, if he continues to brick all preseason and for the first handful of regular season games, yeah, I'll start to worry. 3 preseason games is hardly enough to panic about, though. His jumper really isn't falling much more. He is just taking less of them so it looks like it is falling more since you aren't noticing him missing too many during the course of the game. I could be wrong so I don't have the actual numbers in front of me, but from the eye test it really doesn't look like his jumper is falling more. I'm talking more about mid range shots off of the catch or a couple of bounces, though. I'm not including stuff that he is doing in the post, so that could be a reason why he doesn't seem to be sticking more jumpers to me. I was being facetious about the Fields comment. It was more in tune to just how bad he was. I didn't literally never notice him out there, haha. This is the only thing that you said that I completely disagree with. I think Davis was awesome offensively last night (according to his standards). Last night he showed how much he has been working on his offensive game. He made 3 plays that he simply doesn't make last season. 1. He caught the ball at the foul line, surveyed the defense to see where the help would come, pumped once, pumped twice and got the defender off his feet. He then took an explosive step around his man and finished with a nice finger roll at the front of the rim. 2. He caught the ball off of a kickout from about 16 feet on the left elbow, rose up and buried the jumper without hesitation. 3. He completely outmuscled his man for an offensive board, went up and finished through contact. Those three things were very impressive to me sicne his jumper was awful the first two seasons, he always seemed to be in a rush offensively and hie is usually the one getting outmuscled, not doing the outmuscling. Sure, they aren't jaw-dropping plays or anything like that, but given what Davis has shown his first two seasons in the league, those 3 plays really stood out and highlighted parts of his game that he has worked hard on over the summer.

Ok, so I really don't want to get too excited by a single preseason game and I know that you can't really make any real solid conclusions off of a preseason game, but man, Valanciunas is absolutely blowing me away. He looks a lot better than I ever expected from him. Assuming his play over the past two games isn't an aberration and is what he will give the Raptors on a consistent basis, there is no reason why he shouldn't be the starting center and playing 30 minutes a night I love how he is just all over the floor. His motor is going non-stop. It is awesome to see him hedge hard on a screen on 30 feet from the hoop, rotate back to his man to contest the shot, grab the rebound, throw an outlet and then absolutely sprint down the floor beating the guards across the court. His energy is off the charts. His length is a huge factor on defense. Monroe has really struggled scoring over Valanciunas whenever they've been matched up together. Add that to the fact that he is just everywhere and he has fantastic defensive potential. He showed more offensive ability than I thought he had. That running hook to seal the game late was beautiful, especially since there are maybe 3 players in the entire league who can block that shot. He had an impressive And-1 early in the game and he showcased his solid touch around the basket, but I already knew about that. The last thing I want to mention is that I love the space he creates on the defensive glass. Even though he only had 8 rebounds, he does a really great job of creating space for his teammates to grab boards. The only problem with this is that Bargnani is such a repulsive rebounder that I'd rather just see Valanciunas try to grab everything in sight. When Davis was out there with him, it worked much better, though. So, yeah, I'm going to try to not get too pumped about him, but I'm ready to go into full blown cheerleader mode if he plays like this all year. I just won't be able to contain myself. As for some of the other Raptor players: - Bargnani was very solid defensively tonight. He was passive on offense, but I liked the intensity he played with defensively. If he is still struggling offensively late in the final few games of the preseason I'll be worried, but right now I'm not too concerned. - DeRozan looked good early. There was a post move he had in the first few possessions of the game that was eerily Kobe-esque. I really like DeRozan in the post and I hope they make a focal point of having him there a lot this season. Considering his height advantage over most shooting guards and the fact that Bargnani floats on the perimeter, it really makes sense to have DeMar operating in the post. I wasn't really too impressed by him in the 2nd half of the game, though. - Amir was invisible again, Ross was awful on offense but played well defensively and Fields, well, did he even play? The box score says he played 23 minutes but I didn't notice him once. - Davis looked a lot better today. I wasn't impressed by him the first two games, but he looked good tonight. I still think he ends up the odd man out, but I do believe he will carve out a role somewhere in the league.

I've seen him play plenty of times and knew he was freakishly long, but it was usually on some some grainy, choppy stream so I never realized exactly how long he is. He wasn't even jumping and he was still getting piece after piece of Monroe's shots.

As good as Amir was in the game agaisnt Real Madrid, he was equally as awful in the game tonight. He was a complete dud tonight, especially when it came to guarding Drummond. He completely lost track of him on 3 seperate occasions and they all lead to oops for Drummond. He also did a terrible job boxing him out and that enabled him a couple of uncontested tip ins as well. He was also back to the old Amir picking up really stupid fouls. Calderon looked awesome on offense. Over the first two preseason games he has been less ball dominant and is spotting up in the corners/elbows in transition which is very nice to see since he is the best shooter on this team. I like how he doesn't insist on being the one to bring the ball up the floor anymore. His jumper was money tonight and I thought he did a nice job of not dominating the ball. Defensively, well, he was his usual self. Knight was able to get by him at will. Watching Knight split Calderon and Bargnani's doubles was almost comical. It was like they weren't even there. For the second straight night I liked what I saw from DeRozan. He started out the game with 2 straight trips to the line after aggressive takes and then followed that up with posting Stuckey up and drawing another foul. I also remember seeing him take Knight in the post, back him down, spin baseline and finish in the paint. I like his committment to working in the post and attacking the paint. Hopefully he keeps that up. Bargnani looked like crap again. Fields looked better but still not quite sure what to do at times. I think he'll play better when Lowry is on the floor as his dribble penetration will open things up for Fields to do what he does best; cutting and moving without the ball. If Anderson and Kleiza play like they did tonight, Anderson should be getting the backup small forward minutes instead of Kleiza. Anderson was much, much better than Linas tonight. Now, lastly, the moment all Raptor fans were waiting for, Jonas Valanciunas. He didn't play a whole lot but I liked what I saw from him. Defensively he was defintiely a factor with his length. Monroe really struggled shooting over him and I believe Valanciunas blocked 3 or 4 of his attempts simply because of his length. You can tell that the Pistons were aware of his presence on defense. I really like his mobility on defense. That probably impressed me more than the blocked shots. I specifically remember one play where he hedged hard on a screen beyond the left elbow arc and then quickly rotated back down to deflect the post entry pass on the right block to Monroe and then he had the presence of mind to throw the ball off of Monroe to force the turnover. I was really impressed by that play. Offensively he clearly has a lot of work. There was one play where they isolated him on the left block and it wasn't pretty. He defintiely shouldn't be getting many post up opportunities during the course of the season. However, I did like what I saw from him in terms of rolling. Him rolling hard to the basket resulted in a basket for himself, a DeRozan dunk and two open Bargnani 3's (one made and one missed). Him rolling hard to the basket on every pick is going to create a lot of open looks for his teammates. He certainly has a lot of work to do and there will be some serious growing pains, but all in all, I liked what I saw from him tonight.

When talkinga bout the East the Heat are at the forefront and they are followed by the Celtics, and rightfully so. They are the two best teams in the East and I don't really think there is a whole lot of debate about that (excluding a Rose-less Bulls, of course). However, after that you seem to hear the most about the Knicks, Nets or even the Sixers as potential darkhorse teams in the East. Yet you very rarely hear anybody talking about the Pacers despite the fact that they were one of the best teams in the East last season, didn't lose any major piece and have the potential growth of Paul George as well as a healthy David West to improve their team. I'd argue that they are deeper this year than they were last with the additions of Gerald Green, DJ Augustin and Ian Mahinmi So why exactly is nobody talking about the Pacers? Is it the fact that they didn't make any major additions over the summer? Is it the lack of sexy names on the roster? Is it the fact that the Pacers are a small market? Or are they just too much of a "known commodity" at this point? People know they are good, but don't think they truly have what it takes to be a darkhorse team in the East? Another question I have for you all is what kind of reception or hype do you think this team would get if they switched cities with the Knicks or the Nets? If the Pacers were in New York and one of those teams were in Indiana how do you think each team would be viewed?

I'll make sure to post my thoughts. Like the game against RM, I won't be watching it live so any post I make will be at least a couple hours after the game finishes.

With Ramon Sessions behind him and Sessions being a better player and point guard, how much leeway do you give Walker as the starting point guard? Since the Bobcats are clearly going to struggle to win games regardless of who starts at point do you just let Walker know that te job is his regardless and he doesn't have to worry about Sessions? Or should you make it so that he knows that if he doesn't perform his job will go to Sessions? Personally, I'm not a fan of Walker in any role other than an offensive sparkplug off of the bench, but I do think you should be 100% sure that he isn't a point guard before pigeon holing him into that role. With that said, I'd give him a fair bit of leeway, but if Sessions is clearly outplaying him and the team is performing better with him on the floor rather than Walker, I would seriously consider benching Kemba and handing the reigns over to Sessions.

Lets be realistic, Duncan was taking a huge paycut regardless. I love the guy and think he is still a very good player, but you have to take into consideration that he signed his previous deal when he was still a top 5 player in the league. Of course his new deal was going to be a huge paycut when you consider that he made $21M and change last season. I do agree that he basically could've went up to the Spurs and gotten whatever he wanted from them and I also agree that he is worth more than what he signed for (it was 3/30 right?), but it isn't like he took a 54% paycut from what he is actually worth at this stage in his career.

Crisp just absolutely robbed Fielder of a home run. Beautiful catch. Certainly doesn't make up for that gaff that basically cost the A's Game 2, but was still a very nice catch.

Sure it is proven, but that doesn't mean that getting too big can't have a negative impact on him offensively. His biggest advantage is his quickness and fluidity for a big man which enables him to take opposing bigs outside the paint and exploit them. If he his quickness advantage isn't as significant as it used to be, that is going to make it harder for him to get by his man and create seperation to get off his jumper. Keep in mind that with Valanciunas on the team now, he isn't likely going to be guarded by opposing centers anymore. He will have power forwards guarding him much more frequently than he has in years past so that alone will nulify some of his athletic advantages and if the extra weight slows him down even more, it will hurt him. As far as defense and rebounding go, Bargnani is what he is at this point. It doesn't matter if he bulks up to 300 pounds or slims down to 210 pounds. He is always going to be an attrocious help defender, adequate man defender and historically awful rebounder. That will never change so at this point I'd rather see him look to continue to build upon his strengths than sacrifice them for defense and rebounding. Defense and rebounding will simply never be something he is good at.

Casey said that assuming he feels fine tomorrow morning he will play tomorrow against Detroit. He went through a full practice today and said afterwards that he felt no pain or discomfort and is ready to make his preseason debut.

Amir seems to break down too much when he plays more than 24 minutes a night and when he has to bang with opposing centers, so I'd honestly rather see him continue to come off the bench even if he is the best overall big on the team. I'd rather have a fully effective Amir for 24 minutes a night than a broken down one for 30 minutes a night. Having Calderon and Amir running pick and rolls with Ross spreading the floor against opposing 2nd units will be a huge advantage for Toronto. Now, despite that, I'd still rather see the minutes distributed somewhat evenly between him and Valanciunas. The only time I'd be okay with seeing Gray on the floor is when they are playing Philly or LA. Other than that, he should be glued to the bench.

Lucas sure is a chucker. His shots were going in tonight so it wasn't really a problem but I can tell that he will drive me absolutely nuts if he plays like this (not looking to pass at all) when his jumper isn't falling. Of course, I knew this already so it isn't anything surprising. If his jumper is like it was tonight, by all means look for your own shot because it was definitely working for him. Amir looked awesome. He doesn't seem to be bothered by any sort of lingering injury which is nice to see since he really broke down towards the end of the year last season. With the big man depth the Raptors have this year I don't expect that to happen this season which will be huge since he is such an awesome energy big. Ross' jumper is beautiful. It sucks that he can't finish in the paint outside of open dunks or create his own shot at all, but when he has time to set his feet or take an in rhythym jumper, it is very nice to watch. I liked the perimeter defense they played. DeRozan, Ross, Lucas and Fields were all active, did a nice job fighting through screens and contesting shots. As far as the negatives I saw, the most obvious one is the frequency with which the Raptors fouled. They had a huge problem with this last season and that trend continued tonight. If they plan on playing an uptempo game, they really need to stop sending opposing players to the line every second possession. They reach way too often. Bargnani looked completely disinterested but it is the first preseason game so hopefully it is just some rust. Fields looked pretty lost offensively. There were times where he seemed to be completely clueless as to where he should go. He had one nice drive and drained a 3, but other than that he was a dud on offense. Not that I'm terribly surprised by that since it was the first game after all. Gray is just awful. Outside of grabbing some boards, he literally adds nothing to the team. He is way too slow on defense, has next to no mobility and offensively he is just clogging up the lane doing nothing. Why did they sign him to a $2.5M deal again? I'll leave it at that to avoid making this post too long winded. EDIT: Forgot to mention one thing and that is this: http://oi49.tinypic.com/122j12s.jpg Very pleased to see 10 of DeMar's 13 shots being attempted inside the paint. If he keeps up this kind of aggressiveness he will make a living at the line. He missed some very easy shots at the rim tonight but I don't care about that at all. It is very encouraging to see how he was constantly looking to attack the rim.

I knew he was nursing some sort of injury, but I didn't know what it was and how long he would be out. All I knew is that he wasn't going to play against Real Madrid and that the injury had something to do with his lower body. Hopefully he can get in a few preseason games since I think it will be very important not only for him, but the team as a whole, for him to get some game minutes since he is going to be such an important piece of the team this year. Of course, I wouldn't rush him back just so that he gets some preseason games under his belt. God forbid they rush him back like they did with Bargnani last year and we are stuck watching Calderon as the starter for the first month of the season.

I don't know if this means back in full contact practice (I know he has been practicing, but not sure if it is full contact or not) or if he is refering to game action. I do recall hearing an interview where he said that he hasn't felt pain in the calf for around 3 or 4 days. The Raptors play Wednesday @ Detroit and then Firday at the ACC against them. If I had to guess, I'd say he plays in that Friday game.

It probably does if you order the TV version, but I just order the computer package. I believe it is around $3/month as well. I just pretty much cut down my entire tv to nothing but basic cable (other than TSN2 and Sportsnet One) since I do most of my watching online anyways. I'm with Shaw but I imagine it is pretty much the same price.