Built Ford Tough

8th + DeRozan.

Then don't watch.

Smith really is playing some unreal hockey. Everything Sean Burke touches seems to turn to gold.

The way I see it, the Raptors will likely miss out on the following 7 players: Davis Beal MKG Robinson Drummond Barnes Lamb Those 7 are easily the top 7 in this draft in my opinion. Their only hope in landing one of them is if somebody either falls in love with PJ3 during workouts, or Sullinger jumps into the top 7, bumping one of them down. I seem to be much higher on Lamb than most people on here or even guys like Ford and Givony, so maybe I'm wrong about him and he is a late lottery pick. I think he will soar up the board during workouts and measurements, though. If they do keep the pick, I'm fairly certain they go with either Lillard or Marshall, assuming the top 7 is what I have posted above. Very big reach. I'd be very surprised if Nash comes to Toronto. The only way I could see it is if they amnestied Calderon and gave him a max contract for like 3 years or something, but Colangelo said he won't amnesty Calderon and, judging by comments from both him and Casey, Calderon will be back with the team next year. The only player on this team I wouldn't trade is Valanciunas. I couldn't care less if next seasn started and the Raptors had 15 new players. Funnily enough, I think Davis is the most likely player to be traded. He really doesn't seem to be in the Raptors plans. In fact, I think he will likely be packaged with the pick, which is something I forgot to mention in the OP. The most logical person I can think of is Iguodala. Colangelo's two main draft targets seemed to be MKG and Barnes and in his post season press conference, he made it clear that he is looking for a starting small forward. Iguodala is always rumored to be on the block and he makes right around the $12M that the Raptors have to work with (I think he is around $13.5M, but not 100% sure). He is exactly the kind of guy Casey loves and, well, I think you can see where I'm going with this. Problem is, that does nothing but make Toronto the new Sixers. A perennial 7/8 seeded treadmill team. Then again, those seem to be the type of teams Colangelo is the most adept at building, so I'm fully expecting it.

It is purely speculation on my part, but assuming they don't move up in the lottery, I'm about 90% sure that Toronto will trade their pick either before draft night or on draft night. Colangelo has basically confirmed that this was the last "tanking" season and he will be very disappointed if they aren't in the playoffs next year. So assuming they trade out of the draft completely and look to acquire an established player, what do you think they could get for the 8th pick? They will have around $12M in cap space to play with, so they could conceivably absorb a fairly large contract if they wanted to.

Worth its own thread or should we just keep all the suckitude in one? Anyways... Kemba Walker made history himself. He had the worst FG% of any player who would qualify for the FG% title in the 3 point era. He shot 36.63% (281-767) this year. If he had made one less shot, going 280-767 he would've had the worst FG% in a season since 1965-66.

Raptors lose tiebreaker against Golden State and will officially (barring freakish lottery luck) pick 8th and will have a 3.5% chance of getting the first pick. On the bright side, they get the 7th pick in the 2nd round instead of 8th. I would not be surprised at all if they trade the pick now. In fact, assuming they don't move up, I'd be willing to bet that the pick is traded either on draft night or before it. You could tell that Colangelo was after one of MKG or Barnes with all of his comments about the draft and needing a small forward, but at 8 there is no chance that either of them are there. I don't know if they will trade out all together, but I'd be very surprised if they stay at 8. This is all just my personal belief, of course.

For those of you who don't know, the tiebreaker for teams who finished with the same record is a coin clip. The results were: Cleveland won against New Orleans. Cavs 3rd heading into lottery, Hornets 4th Sacramento won against New Jersey. Kings 5th , Nets 6th Golden State won against Toronto. Warriors 7th, Raptors 8th New York won against Dallas. Knicks (pick will go to Houston) pick 16th, Mavs pick 17th Dallas won against Utah. Mavs pick 17th, Jazz (pick will go to Minnesota) pick 18th Clippers won against Atlanta. Clippers (pick will go to Celtics) 22nd, Hawks 23rd Lakers won against Memphis. Lakers (pick will go to Cavs) 24th, Grizzlies 25th Chicago won against San Antonio. Bulls 29th, Spurs (pick will go to Golden State) 30th The full pre lottery draft order is: 1. Charlotte 2. Washington 3. Cleveland 4. New Orleans 5. Sacramento 6. New Jersey 7. Golden State 8. Toronto 9. Detroit 10. New Orleans (from Minnesota) 11. Portland 12. Milwaukee 13. Phoenix 14. Houston 15. Philadelphia 16. Houston (from New York) 17. Dallas 18. Minnesota (from Utah) 19. Orlando 20. Denver 21. Boston 22. Boston (from LA Clippers) 23. Atlanta 24. Cleveland (from LA Lakers) 25. Memphis 26. Indiana 27. Miami 28. Oklahoma City 29. Chicago 30. Golden State (from San Antonio)

In the East 3 of the 4 lower seeded teams won their series. In total half the series (4 of 8) were won by the lower seed. Why I love NHL playoffs more than any other league's playoffs.

This should cheer you up. Remember when I complained about the two Boston wins and the Atlanta win and you said not to worry about it as the two Bobcat losses made up for it? Well, if they would've lost those games like they should've, the Raptors would have the 3rd pick.

The first Raptor player to get a triple double since Alvin Williams back in 2001.

Yay for the 8th pick. What a [expletive]ing joke.

The team New Jersey dressed for this game is an absolute disgrace. A Raptors team without Bargnani, DeRozan, Bayless, Amir and Calderon, their 5 best players, are beating them by 30. Not that I blame them, if Colangelo and Casey were smart they would've done the same thing.

So glad the game didn't end on that Bruins PP. It would really, really suck to see this series be decided by a chincy call like that. Also, Seidenberg is a beast. The battle between him and Ovechkin in this series has probably been my favourite individual matchup so far.

Bergeron does not look right out there. He is clearly playing at around 50%. I don't remember the last time I've seen him get completely outworked along the boards like he has in this game.

I didn't expect anything else since both Colangelo and Casey only got two year deals. I just hope that Colangelo doesn't put this team into basketball purgatory next year. I understand that they will need to make some moves to add talent and make a pusy for the playoffs, I just hope that they don't end up handcuffing themselves for the future in an attempt to have a "quick fix" like he did when he first came to the team. Another unrelated point but one that I wanted to mention was this:

Mayo played for a couple of different schools. Rose Hill Christan High School (he was only in 7th grade when playing for them, though) North College Hill Huntington Prep He only played one year at Huntington As for Patterson, yeah he played there as well. He led them to 3 straight West Virgina state championships, the last of which was with Mayo.

You may actually get your wish. I would be fairly surprised if Lithuania doesn't qualify for the Olympics, especially with Kleiza being back on the team and another year of Valanciunas development, but it is a possibility. I doubt he plays in the U-20's since we saw how much better he is than everybody else when he dominated the U-19's last year. I would imagine he would play in the Summer League over that.

Nope, he is in the class of 2014, so as of now he isn't expected to go to college for another two years. He is currently playing high school ball at Hunntington Prep, which is located in West Virgina and was named the West Virgina Gatorade State Player of the Year as well as the Sophomore of the Year for all of college ball. He averaged 24.2 points, 8.5 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.7 blocks per game this past year and his team went 28-2. He also played in the Nike Hoops Summit where he scored a World team high 20 points in their victory of the USA team. He actually outplayed Shabazz Muhammed in the first half of that game. However, he may reclassify to the class of 2013 (much like Nerlens Noel did this year) and that would mean he would be able to go to college after next years high school season. If he does reclassify, he would likely be the top prospect in next years high school class (it would be between him and Jabari Parker, another small forward). Even if he doesn't reclassify, he is still already heavily recruited. Even under the assumption of him being two years away from college, he has already received offers from Kentucky, North Carolina, Florida St. and West Virgina. I believe WVU and FSU both made an offer to him druing his freshman season. From everything I've read, it sounds like he will reclassify and enter college in 2013-2014. Hope that helps.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/britt_robson/04/25/regular.season.grades/index.html#ixzz1t5fiTE8j The other two players with no ties to the T'Wolves were Yi Jianlian and Adam Morrison. A pass can be given to Derrick Williams (for now) since he is still just in his rookie season, but it really is remarkable how you can have so many high draft picks and still come out with blanks nearly every time.

No. I just go over there a couple times a week and browse. I'm not registred or anything. Agreed on Parker. He has been, in my opinion, a top 4 point guard in the league this year right there with Paul, Rondo and Nash. The Spurs have the most efficient offensive and considering they've done it without Manu at 100%, while monitoring Duncan's minutes and with no backup point guard for half the year (Ford's injury and then his retirement) it really shows just how good Parker has been this year. Credit should go to the rest of the team because it has been a team effort, but Parker is definitely the biggest factor. Well, they will play 2 of those teams since the Clippers and Grizzlies are locked into the 4th and 5th seeds (homecourt is still up for grabs) and it is looking like the Jazz will clinch the 8th seed tonight. I agree with you that they have a great shot at making the WCF. Even though the Grizzlies beat them last year and I would rather not play them, I still think they will beat them this year. I'd actually be more worried about that matchup than I would one with the Thunder. Like you, the Lakers are the one team I think the Spurs would prefer not to play.

Gotta love Reggie throwing out the words All-Star, Olympic gold medalist and one of the most prolific scorers in the league when describing Redd. At least he did think to mention that he did jack up his knees. Not hating on him or anything since he has played better than anybody could've hoped for this season and has had a nice impact on this game, but he is making it sound like Burks is having to guard the 25 ppg, prime Redd.

Reminds me of a guy, Steve Weinstein, who played for the BCHL team here (Vernon Vipers) a few years ago. He played all 60 games, played in all roles (PK, PP, ES) and would log around 20-22 minutes a night and he went the entire season without picking up a minor penalty. In his 157 games in the BCHL (playoffs included) he had a total of 24 PIMs. Obviously the level of hockey is significantly higher in the NHL but it really is remarkable how guys like this can play so many minutes and avoid picking up penalties. You would would expect that there would be at least 5 or so lazy penalties where they get caught tired or something during the course of a year.

Phoenix has turned the ball over about every 3rd possession and had their shot blocked every 4th possession, yet they are only down 7 at the half. They should consider themselves very lucky.

Lol at Gortat not even being able to get a shot off. What is that now, 5 of his shots blocked? EDIT: And another one. This is ridiculous.