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.

Hustle for the 13th

I can't help but smile at watching these pointless raptor games and seeing O'Bryant, Voshkul and Douby going all out. To be perfectly honest with all you I've been so busy that I didn't know we had Douby until two games ago. Not to mention the fact that I didn't know that he had been released because he played pretty decently in Sacramento. I mean it's not like they have a lot of talent to start cutting people. Regardless, we got him and I really feel that he is definitely a steal. This guy can play, he can be the third pg and step up as a reserve if Jose goes down. In fact, the only aspect holding him back is the people on contract already. With our bench warmer banks holding up 4 million or so already, there's little money left for another bench warming pg. His ability and in fact, any of these three's ability to stay largely depends on whose going to be here. I have to think one of BC's priorities is to move Hump, Kapono, maybe Graham and hopefully Banks. I doubt he can get much for any of those but since graham is restricted, we can clear cap just by not offering him something till the last minute. If we can somehow get space from Hump and Kapono, then that means more than getting a player. Part of me thinks trading bosh is really the only way to ship off all of that deadweight by packaging banks, kapono and hump with Bosh. Regardless, he has to clear enough money to bring back pops and delfino while giving us enough money to pursue a good sg/sf. Delfino would be one of our more balanced two way players, better on the fast break while pops is that energy guy every team needs. Hump never cut it for me in that role because he's not athletic and aggressive enough.

Based on that, more so than heart and hustle, it seems if any of those three returns its simply because they were the cheapest alternative. I see douby having the best chance based on playing ability because if Jose goes down again, he can play decent minutes as a backup. Unfortunately his contract is a bit high for a bench warming guard to have. O'Bryant has the best chance in terms of contract simply because he is already in fact on contract and is extremely young and could just need a lot of offseason work. To me it's still not worth it. We don't need another tall lanky big and if we're going to occupy another roster spot, it should be a heavy big, which we should hope to see in Jawai and Hump, if he's still around. Finally, the last man standing is Voshkul. I love him as a cheerleader, always up and supporting the team but I just can't see them using him to fill a spot when we're looking for a drastic rebuild. I think he'll only be there if a) we can't make the right moves prior to camp and there happens to be a spot left, or the more likely choice, is b) that he gets signed again mid season.

Ah well, at the end of the day, despite how none of these guys really matter, it's nice to see someone on the raps trying to prove something.