A Word On Douby, Ukic, & O'Bryant

As the season has been ending (thank goodness), the scrubs have been getting more playing time, although I thought this should've happened much earlier. We all have a pretty rough idea of most of the Raptors players, except Quincy Douby and Patrick O'Bryant. The last two games against Philly and Washington, we've been exposed a bit more to these guys and they've actually shown something.

Quincy Douby has shown positive signs of being a serviceable backup point guard. He's made good passing decisions, handled the ball well and has shown he can shoot decently. Fans are commenting on boards to drop Roko Ukic and keep Douby, but I think that's a mistake. I say keep Douby & Ukic. I don't know if its feasible financially, but I think that would be ideal: Douby can be the primary backup next season if Ukic is still not ready. Besides, anyone who can ball with a unibrow is work keeping right?

Speaking of Ukic, yes, he's played terribly the last month or so. He's tried to take it on his own too many times, and needs to make wiser passing choices, and of course work on that mugly jumper. All in all though, people are throwing him under the bus way too fast which is pretty typical or Raptor fans. I'm not saying he's going to be an elite player by any means, but I do think he can be a good, no very good one. He's got potential: great handles, a willingness to drive the ball, a slick-ass spin move that seems to his signature along with the floater (not that he has much else in terms of offense, at the moment anyway), and size at 6'5" as a point guard. This offseason will tell a lot about him in terms of work ethic. Is he gonna kill himself like Bargnani did last summer?

Patrick O'Bryant is an especially peculiar case. Since we've gotten him, he's shown nothing but what's been reported around him - disinterested, lazy, and (what looks like) a poor work ethic. Yet the past couple of games, he was blocking shots, rebounding, making shots, and even..(gulp) hustling. In all fairness, he hasn't really gotten decent minutes (as a Raptor) in strides - you can't expect a clear evaluation of a guy if he's gonna get the hook after 2-3 minutes of playing time. But when he did, he's shown life. Hell, against Washington, I swear I even saw him do a little drive and hook in the paint. Plus, he's mad young, and we all know big men take a much longer time to develop. So he's worth looking at in the summer again at least. And you can't say, "doesn't matter because we didn't play great teams." It's not like Philly wasn't trying, they needed to win as much as any team since they're fighting for the 5th spot, and Washington wasn't just lying down for us to run over them. Equally big offseason for Patty O' B, as Jack Armstrong and Matt Devlin likes to call him.