Jack A Rap? Roko, & New Marcus Banks Nickname

The possiblity of Jarrett Jack becoming a Raptor just keeps on adding to the amount of presents that Raptors fans are getting this offseason. Colangelo sure isn't pulling any punches huh? I wasn't too sure of the proposed 4 years/$20 million offer at first but this could end up being another steal if not a solid deal in general. The Jack man is strong, can shoot, and play decent defense, and of course, most importantly, put our worries of struggling when Jose is resting on the bench at ease.

I like Roko, I really do - I probably like him more than most people, but I can't deny that he just hasn't shown enough yet - he's shown flashes of brilliance here and there, but he's definitely not stable enough to run a team given serious minutes. Plus his two summer league games have been subpar so far. But I am confident he will get there, so until then, it's good to have a proven point guard in Jarrett Jack who could arguably start on a lot of teams. Adding Jack should motivate Roko that much more.

And as for Marcus Banks, Jarrett Jack is now his torturer - Banks must've thinking he was so close to the possiblity of seeing court time this upcoming season but the possible arrival of Jack just kills it. Marcus Banks, just infuriates me now, thinking about it - what a deadbeat, his new name is Carcass Banks. He's useless, like a dead body .

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.

Rok-A-Fella: Roko leads Raps to a gutsy win over Spurs

Look at it anyway you want, but that was one hell of a win by the Raptors. Let's face it, no one realistically expected the Raptors to beat the Spurs, and even more so, no one could've predicted Roko Ukic would be the clutch performer down the stretch to lead Toronto to that win. Especially without Bosh, Calderon, or Graham for that matter.

Even though we were up around 6-8 points most of the game, us Raptors faithful knew the lead would vanish in the fourth, but we couldn't even hold on that long - the Spurs came out halftime focused and disciplined and led in the third. And we started out the fourth quarter missing 8 of 10 shots. Yet somehow, we found a way to come back, and guys like Bargnani, Kapono, and Ukic stepped up big time. Bargnani may have shot 8 for 21 but when it mattered most he was huge, finishing with 23 points and 8 boards. You've got to love this guy's confidence, he started out in a slump but kept shooting and never hesitated. And he started out the game with a couple of strong drives in the post on Tim Duncan nonetheless. Kapono was given the green light to fire at will by Triano, and he did just that, scoring 21 points - a significant amount of them actually included him dribbling the ball and even driving.

Finally, of course the player of the game - Roko Ukic, scoring a career high 22 points. This kid has great potential. He's figured out his niche - driving the ball straight at his defender and dropping floaters or getting layups, something Calderon used to do last year. As frail as he looks, he's got good size at the pg spot (6'5") which gives him a good advantage and he's wiry with some long arms. His most impressive asset are easily his handles - they're just smooth, and look so natural - add that to his quickness, and you've got a potentially superb point guard in about 2 years. It's almost a good thing that he can't shoot well yet because that forces him to drive and we all know how much of a dire need that is on this ball club. That clutch 3-pointer he hit was just pure confidence, and must have the shocked the hell out of Spurs fans, and probably Raptors fans as well. But of course it was his next bucket that was the dagger. You'd think the ball would be passed around to Bargnani, O'Neal, Parker, or Kapono, but instead Roko saw single coverage and had the balls to do it himself; dude just TOOK it to Parker. He almost travelled too, spinning and almost losing his footing but was able to put up the shot and it rolled in. That drive reminded me of a lot of the one he did on Jameer Nelson against the Magic which was also the game-clinching play.

I wasn't even going to bother watching this game, but I did because I love Manu Ginobili, appreciate Tim Duncan to the max and admire Gregg Popovich. Ginobili is just a joy to watch - he looks awkward on his drives but just slithers through the lanes with great precision and has surprising athleticism. He dropped a season high 32, 15 of them in the fourth quarter.

Jermaine O'Neal deserves a shout out for his defense on Duncan; he didn't shut him down by any means (Duncan had 20 and 10), but he made it difficult and that's all you can ask. I thought Paul Jones had a good point on the post-game show on the FAN 590 : he said J.O., having been an all-star plenty of times and some juice to his name from previous years, got the leeway to play Duncan tighter than most other players would've gotten to (without getting called for fouls). Yes, he still finished with 5 fouls, but he would've probably been out much earlier in the game if he was just any other player.

• You've got to love Popovich's honesty and point-blank answers. When asked if his team wasn't ready or maybe looked past this game, he said "no, we were ready, we busted our ass out there, the Raptors just played better and earned that win" (I'm paraphrasing)
• That last play was definitely not what the Spurs wanted - a Tony Parker fadeaway with J.O. contesting, so we should actually credit the Raps for once on a clutch defensive play - hey, Pop even said so.
  
• Speaking of the last play, how many of you thought Roger Mason was gonna burn us with a 3?
• Parker almost blew it with that turnover, but did that 3 right before.
  
• I was scared as hell when JO was taking those free throws, not because I thought he was going to miss, but because I had no idea how he is with clutch free throws.
  
• Thank God Triano didn't pick Solomon to play the pg slot tonight.
• I was watching some of this game from a stream, and the live chat that goes on with it are filled with hilarious comments from users. Such as: "Chris Bosh looks like a malnourished alien."