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What He Really Needs Is A Ring (Part 3)
Posted on | August 17, 2009 | 6 Comments
Well, this didn’t start out being an epic, but as you may have guessed by now, I don’t have a real problem when it comes to padding my word count. I also didn’t intend to take so long before I posted the third volume, er, part.
So with the Raptors coming off a somewhat disappointing season, with fewer wins (41), injuries and another first round exit, Colangelo needed to make some changes to the roster.
Ford had become a problem and Calderon was an unrestricted free agent who was getting interest from Miami. Nesterovic was not suited for starting anymore (if ever) and Bargnani was nowhere near ready to start at center (and a lot of people were questioning whether he would ever be ready). While Ford was a talented PG, he’d had two very serious back injuries in his short career. There was very serious questions about his durability as well as his attitude. Colangelo could not have predicted Calderon would have become the player he has when he signed Ford at, what many believed, was a fairly low cost for a top tier point guard. He couldn’t have predicted Horford would blindside him during a game in Atlanta, forcing him to miss nearly two months. Ford was now damaged goods but with $25 million owed to him over the next three years. The Raptors had to trade him, but it would be difficult to find a taker without taking back a player with question marks in return.
It was a few days before the draft when rumours started circulating that a trade was in the works for Indiana’s former All-Star center, Jermaine O’Neal. When the trade finally went down, it was T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic and the Raptors 17th pick for O’Neal. O’Neal was certainly a big name, as well as being a big player, however he’d struggled with injuries the previous few seasons and did not look anything like the player who, in 2004, placed third in MVP voting and made the 2nd Team All NBA. All his troubles can be traced back to the infamous Pacers-Pistons brawl that ended up altering the careers of several players and doomed a once elite Pacers team to eventual perennial “lotterydom” (copyright pending).
The Pacers went from 61 wins to 44 (although still making it to the 2nd round of the playoffs where they lost against…the Pistons). They had the same roster, but the players weren’t the same. O’Neal, Artest and Stephen Jackson, the three main culprits in the brawl for the Pacers, all struggled. Artest was eventually traded to Sacramento for Peja Stojakovic, Jackson had more legal troubles, and O’Neal began to break down. In the four years since the brawl, O’Neal missed 120 games partly due to suspension, but mostly to injury. Just when O’Neal was about to enter his prime (the brawl happened when he was 26), his career started to unravel. The season before he was traded to the Raptors, he missed half the season to injury, scored the fewest points per game since the season before he won the Most Improved Player Award in 2001 and his leadership was being subtly questioned by GM, Larry Bird. If anyone was in need of a change of scenery, it was O’Neal.
While many armchair GM’s bemoaned the loss of a 17th pick, few apparently realized the chance of getting even a half decent player at that spot. In the previous 10 years, only 4 players picked in the 17th spot even ended up being rotation players, most being cut before their rookie contract even finished. The odds of getting a half decent player, especially in a draft that wasn’t thought to be particularly deep, were pretty small. Yes, there ended up being a few half decent players available, but Courtney Lee was possibly the best of the bunch and he only averaged 8.4 ppg. He would have added depth, but not made much of a difference in the win column. And is he really much better than Marco Belinelli or Antoine Wright? Long term, the Raptors didn’t miss out on much.
Author’s Note: There is a false belief among some fans that Colangelo was responsible for trading away the Raptors 2007 first round pick, as well. That pick was traded away by Glen Grunwald in 2002 for Lamond Murray.
Another problem some people had was with O’Neal’s contract. It was (and still is) massive. O’Neal signed the contract when he was an All-NBA center, but never approached that again, as mentioned earlier. Unfortunately for those armchair GM’s, the Raptors payroll ended up being only a little higher than it would have been without the trade. It’s not as if they would have had lots of money to use for free agents. They would still have been well over the cap.
THE THIRD SEASON (with Colangelo)
While many predicted the addition of O’Neal would be disastrous, it wasn’t as bad as many seem to think. Sure, the Raptors struggled almost immediately, and O’Neal never averaged even close to the 20 ppg he did during his best years, he did bring the three things that he needed to: An inside scoring threat, interior defense and above average play at the center position, something the Raptors hadn’t had since the turn of the century. While O’Neal didn’t live up to his contract, he didn’t really need to for the Raptors to succeed. What the Raptors needed was for players other than Bosh (who started off the year with MVP numbers) and O’Neal to play well. While Calderon put up good numbers, it was apparent fairly early that he was not healthy. And every other Raptor regressed. There were numerous games where Bosh and O’Neal were the only players who could find the basket.
Moon stopped rebounding like he did the previous season, and with his low basketball IQ, his ill-timed shots and decision making hurt the team. Moon suddenly came down with Vince Carteritus- the desire to be known for more of an all around game, which apparently means avoiding the paint like Allen Iverson avoids practice. Kapono was also apparently under the impression that shooting too much could give him tunnel carpal syndrome, so turned down more shots than Shawn Kemp turned down groupies. Since shooting was really the only thing he did well, it ended up not being a good idea. Even Anthony Parker, who had always been pretty consistent, started showing his age and watched his shots hit more iron than net. Bargnani, who is no one’s idea of a small forward, had to step into the spot for a period, not because he was finally playing well, but because the Raptors had no other choice. He didn’t exactly light the league on fire, and couldn’t guard anyone on the defensive end from that position. Still, he showed enough flashes that he was starting to look like not a total bust but he still showed the consistency of a 6 year old with A.D.D..
By the time O’Neal started missing time with knee problems, the Raptors seasons was already down the tubes. Former Coach of the Year, Sam Mitchell was a casualty of the horrid start to the season and was fired after an embarrassing loss to Denver that had the 12 year old ball boy scoring a career high. Canadian international basketball icon and Raptors assistant coach, Jay Triano, stepped into replaced him. While his impact wasn’t felt in the win/loss column, the team played better. Bargnani, who started at center in place of the injured O’Neal, finally seemed to `get it’.
The change in Bargnani was immediate. His first game starting at center he scored 26 and never looked back. He ended up averaging close to 20 ppg the rest of the season while shooting a vastly improved percentage. He even looked much better defensively, not having to guard quick wing players he could keep up with. His rebounding, though, was still a concern and after a strecth where he rebounded the ball half decently (although still not great), the last two months averaged fewer than 6 per game.
What allowed Bargnani to play most of the rest of the season at center was a trade that sent Jermaine O’Neal, having been healthy for about a month, to Miami for Shawn Marion. It was probably the least surprising trade in NBA history. Colangelo drafted Marion and he wasn’t fitting in very well in Miami. People were talking about the trade over a month before it happened. Miami President, Pat Riley, apparently wanted to see how O’Neal returned from injury before pulling the trigger. The final six games before the trade, O’Neal scored 20 or more points four times.
On the surface, Shawn Marion was exactly the type of player the Raptors needed. His athleticism was something that was in short supply with the Raptors, his rebounding would make up for the deficiencies Bargnani had, and his defense was something the Raptors desperately needed.
Author’s Note: While I didn’t dislike the trade, I wasn’t a huge fan of it. There were two things I was most worried about. The first is that although the Raptors needed upgrades in the defense, rebounding and athleticism departments, Marion didn’t address what I felt what their most glaring need: A guy who could break down the defense and initiate on offense. Calderon is a brilliant point guard who can run an offense (and that’s a lot more rare than a lot of fans realize) and shoot a high percentage, but he’s not the guy you want creating with 5 seconds left. He’s just not that type of player. And Bosh got far more criticism than he deserved when he was forced to take on role no other big man was asked to do, and that was to score at the end of close games. He did better than he should have, but still not nearly well enough.
The Raptors still struggled after the trade for Marion until, with 13 games to go, everything started to click. Calderon was finally healthy, Marion seemed much more comfortable, and the rest of the team seemed to finally understand what Coach Triano wanted. They strung off a season high 6 wins in a row and finished 9-4.
Unfortunately, it was too little, too late and they finished 6 games out of the playoffs with more questions entering the offseason than ever before. Would Colangelo trade Bosh if he felt he wouldn’t re-sign the next summer? Was Marion simply a short term rental? How would Colangelo return the Raptors to the post season? The most important question has rarely been asked. Can Colangelo build a Championship team?
Colangelo had a vaunted career in Phoenix and deserves all the accolades given to him, but for all their success, Phoenix never reached the Finals, let alone won a Championship. In the modern NBA (and even before), no team that did not at least have the ability to play excellent defense, has never won a Championship. In the last 25 years, only one Championship team did not have a player on either the first or second All Defensive Team. That was the year Miami won, and they had Alonzo Mourning and Dwayne Wade, who both got several First and Second Team votes, as well as Shaquille O’Neal, so they could definitely play some defense. Boston won their most recent Championship by turning themselves into the best defensive team in the league.
Phoenix, for all it’s offensive glory, was never much of a defensive team. Marion and Raja Bell were really the only above average defenders the team had and neither were ever very close to making the All-Defensive Teams.
The Raptors team that Colangelo built when he arrived in Toronto had some pretty good defensive players in Anthony Parker, Garbajosa, Carlos Delfino and even Nesterovic was better defensively than most gave him credit for. Still, none would ever be mistaken for Bruce Bowen.
Bosh, for all his great offensive skills, has never been known as a great defender in the NBA. In the Bejing Olympics, he showed the ability to be a very good defender, and did show pretty good defensive instincts coming into the league. Up until now, though, he has never seemed to put much focus on it. And while Bargnani is a better defender than he was his first couple of years, he’ll never get many, if any All Defense Team votes. Calderon is a better defender, when healthy, than many fans give him credit for, but he’s never going to be above average. He simply doesn’t have the strength or lateral mobility. So considering that no matter who Colangelo gets for the other two starting spots, at least 3 out of the five starters are not going to be above average defenders. It’s safe to say that the Raptors are not going to be an above average team defensively.
I never intended this to be four parts, but it looks like I will need one more `episode’ to wrap things up. The next post will be what Colangelo has done this summer and how that shapes the future for the Raptors.
But What He Really Needs Is A Ring (Part 2)
Posted on | August 7, 2009 | 2 Comments
When last we left Bryan Colangelo and the Raptors, he had a summer of remaking the team. Gone were the perennial losers and the malcontents, in were the team players and upstanding citizens. For the most part, anyway. He was even able to extend Chris Bosh’s contract until 2011 (with a player option for 2010). Obviously Bosh had respect for Colangelo and what he wanted to do.
With a lottery pick and nearly $10 million in cap room available, Colangelo decided to draft a big man who, at that point, could do little else other than shoot from outside. Also, instead of spending all the cap room on one big name free agent, Colangelo decided to use it to add some depth to the roster, and two out of the three free agent signings were not even NBA players. Interestingly enough, other available free agents that Colangelo decided not to go after included Trevor Ariza, Ben Wallace, Drew Gooden and possibly the biggest free agent out there at the time, a 29 year old, Eastern European born and raised small forward who was drafted in the middle of the first round by the Sacramento Kings and played for them during their heyday. Sound familiar? It was Peja Stojakovic. Oh, and Marcus Banks was also a free agent and signed a 5 year contract with Colangelo’s old team, the Phoenix Suns.
THE FIRST SEASON (WITH COLANGELO)
Head coach, Sam Mitchell, had his work cut out for him with eight new players on the team, and six different nationalities. The month of November was not especially kind to the team and it went 7-13. That would be the last, and only, losing month of the season. For all of Mitchell’s faults as a coach, how quickly he was able to bring together this new team and get them winning was extremely commendable. What he lacked in X’s and O’s, he more than made up for in getting everyone on the same page and playing together.
TJ Ford had a career best season and was able to stay healthy. Anthony Parker provided a steadiness and leadership from the shooting guard position the team had lacked. Jorge Garbajosa struggled shooting the ball, but provided the toughness and smart play from the small forward position, and even Nesterovic played pretty well, starting the majority of the season at center. Plus, Jose Calderon made massive strides shooting the ball and ended up becoming one of the better backup point guards in the league.
Andrea Bargnani didn’t have the season that many expected a number one pick to have. He showed his deficiencies rebounding the ball, struggled to stay out of foul trouble and didn’t exactly light the league on fire on the offensive end. He even missed a month due to an emergency appendectomy, coming back for one game before the end of the season. He shoot the ball much better in the playoffs and came in second to Brandon Roy for Rookie of the Year (in a year where there was little real competition).
The biggest catastrophe, however, came when Garbajosa, who had finally been shooting the ball better near the end of the season, fell awkwardly in a game in Boston. Without going into too much detail, some called it one of the worst looking injuries in NBA history (behind Shaun Livingston’s a couple of months earlier). His toughness and defense would be sorely missed in the playoffs where they faced the now hated Vince Carter and the New Jersey Nets. Despite having home court advantage the Raptors lost in six games.
Still, the season was a huge success going from 27 wins to 47 wins. Colangelo was second Executive of the Year Award and Sam Mitchell won Coach of the Year. The future looked bright once again, for the team.
With the core of the team seemingly set, Colangelo needed only to added some depth to the team, especially at small forward and shooting guard. He was able to turn two generally useless 2nd round picks into a viable player, in Carlos Delfino, found a hidden gem from their summer league team in Jamario Moon, and signed former Miami sharpshooter, Jason Kapono with their mid-level exception.
THE SECOND SEASON (WITH COLANGELO)
The team started off the season by playing .500 ball for the month of November. Fitting, considering that’s what they would finish the season at. They scored more, but won less.
Jose Calderon continued his improvement, making him and TJ Ford possibly the best PG tandem in the league. Anthony Parker continued his solid, if unspectacular play, and Jamario Moon surprised everyone by becoming the starter at small forward.
Of course, as always, there were problems. Kapono showed that Miami was smart not to match the Raptors offer while shooting very well from the field, just not nearly often enough. He couldn’t play defense and ended up playing less than 20 mpg. Bargnani couldn’t build on his rookie season and actually regressed. Mitchell even tried starting him, but Bargnani couldn’t hold onto the spot and was eventually supplanted by Nesterovic.
Like seemingly every Raptor season, though, injury struck and changed the fortunes of the team. TJ Ford was clipped by rookie Al Horford laying the ball up and came down hard on his back. After a previous back injury nearly ended his career during his rookie season, Ford and the Raptors were worried. He would end up missing nearly two months. Thankfully for the Raptors, though, Jose Calderon stepped up and played extremely well in Ford’s absence. So well in fact, that when Ford returned, he was relegated to the bench. A role he did not relish. It would eventually cause him to be shipped out of town.
With the Raptors sputtering at the end, they finished the season without home court advantage in the playoffs against a young and improved Orlando Magic. On the plus side, Jason Kapono finally remembered how to play and had a spectacular playoffs shooting the ball. He ended up more than doubling his season scoring average and shot a blistering .585 from the floor, including .542 from behind the 3 point line. Bosh, also had a good playoffs, raising his scoring average a couple of points. No one else played well, especially Bargnani and Nesterovic, who may still have nightmares to this day about the beating Dwight Howard lay upon them. After losing to the Magic in five games, one thing was apparent. The Raptors needed to add some interior toughness and upgrade their center position. Bargnani, for all his offensive talent, didn’t look like he was going to be ready to be the Raptors center anytime soon. If ever. The words “bust” were being whispered around the league.
Unlike the previous summer, Colangelo needed to do some major retooling. He needed to rectify the point guard situation, and try and re-sign free agent Jose Calderon and he needed to find a real center who could defend the lane and score inside. Whatever is a GM to do?
End of Part 2
But What He Really Needs Is A Ring (Part 1)
Posted on | August 5, 2009 | 4 Comments
It’s been three years since Bryan Colangelo came to Toronto with the promise of being the saviour of the franchise. The team hadn’t made the playoffs in four years, they were still reeling from former franchise player, Vince Carter, deserting them while still playing for them, and then being traded away for Eric Williams and a collection of GI Joe action figures, and the franchise was getting a reputation as a perennial lottery team that was probably the worst place in the league to be traded to.
B.C. (BEFORE COLANGELO)
Flashback to the 2000-01 season. Vince Carter, coming off his triumphant play in the Sydney Olympics, which included “The Dunk, was electrifying the NBA with his high flying act. He had his best season, averaging 27.6 ppg, was 2nd Team All-NBA and led the Raptors to a franchise best 47 wins and a trip to the second round of the playoffs, narrowly losing to Iverson’s 76er’s in a seventh game. The future looked incredibly bright for the Toronto Raptors.
Then disaster hit.
Things looked pretty good at first. While fan-favourite Charles Oakley was no longer with the team, his career was pretty much done, anyway, and the team had a few guys to replace him, anyway. Jerome Williams, who arrived from Detroit in the middle of last season, future Hall of Famer, Hakeem Olajuwon and Keon Clark, who was acquired in a trade for the over the hill, Kevin Willis. The Raptors had a tough, defensive minded front line to back Vince Carter up. Then Carter, who had only missed seven games in his first 3 seasons, went down. The first time.
In the years that followed, Carter progressively got more injury prone and the Raptors went into a tailspin, becoming a perennial lottery bound team with rotating roster made up of misfits and injury prone players. The architect of the franchise’s best team, the likeable Glen Grunwald, was fired, as well as most of the front office, and replaced by Timberwolves executive, Rob Babcock.
Now, I’m no NBA insider, but I, personally, would not choose a guy whose most recent mentor was Kevin McHale, who is in the top five of GM’s who inexplicably had long tenure’s despite making horrible personnel moves (right behind Elgin Baylor). I mean, the Timberwolves are best known for only being able to surround former MVP, Kevin McHale, with a half decent enough roster to get out of the first round of the playoffs once. Or nearly destroying the franchise by have a secret agreement with Joe Smith that the NBA found out about, coming down on them. Hard.
Babcock’s first order of business: bypassing Andre Igoudala, who fell like a gift from heaven in the draft (he was projected to go as high as 5th), so he could draft a player that most didn’t expect to be drafted ten places later, Rafael Araujo, because he was the “most NBA ready player”. By NBA ready, I guess he meant ready to sit on the bench. He ended up being very good at that. His last order of business was the trading away of former franchise player, Vince Carter (who should have been traded away well before he sulked his way out of town) which may go down as one of the top 10 worst trades in NBA history. He was so gun-shy after fan and media reaction to the trade, he never pulled the trigger on any deal again. Then he was fired.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE MESSIAH
Before arriving in Toronto, Bryan Colangelo was the toast of the NBA. He’d rebuilt a Phoenix Suns team into one of the most exciting, and best, in the NBA, managing to win an Executive of the Year award along the way. When new ownership came in and decided to tighten their purse strings, Colangelo realized that they were not serious about winning. He left in an acrimonious parting that still has Suns owner Robert Sarver bitter to this day.
Colangelo arrived in town to a Raptors team that needed a facelift. It did have going for it a young big man with a very bright future, a number one pick in the upcoming draft and some cap room. His arrival brought with it immediate respect. For him and the franchise.
Like Babcock, his first order of business was the draft. And like Babcock, Colangelo made a pick that would be criticized for years (including by me), but Colangelo also rebuilt the entire roster, changing the entire atmosphere of the team.
Author’s note: When Colangelo picked Andrea Bargnani, I felt it wasn’t a good pick. Now I’m not going to pretend that I wanted Brandon Roy and knew he was going to be the best player in the draft. No one did. I felt that Marcus Aldridge, because of his interior defense and ability to play inside, as well as play center, meant that he would be a better fit to play beside Bosh. I also felt he was a better player. And while Bargnani seems to have finally turned the corner on his way to becoming a good player, I still feel he doesn’t fit well with Bosh.
The Raptors only had one PG on the roster, Jose Calderon, who had a decent rookie season after coming over from Europe, but was certainly not someone you’d want starting, so they traded away Charlie Villanueva, a soft, outside shooting PF masquerading as a bad-defense-playing SF for mercurial PG, TJ Ford. He was exactly the type of PG the Raptors would need.
Colangelo also was able to turn lottery bust, Araujo, into a serviceable, and young, PF, in Kris Humphries, and fan favourite, but one-dimensional shooter Matt Bonner and seldom used Eric Williams into a legitimate veteran center, in Rasho Nesterovic. He also signed two big names from Europe, Jorge Garbajosa and Anthony Parker. All the incoming players were from winning teams and injected a winning attitude into the franchise.
End of Part 1.
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