Turkoglu A Tantalizing Scenario - Maybe Even Good

Okay, so you've probably heard the news that sent shock waves around the NBA: Hedo Turkoglu ditched Portland after pretty much closing the deal with them verbally in order to come to Toronto. I have a multitude of thoughts bouncing around in my head feverishly, possibly accelerated by the fact that I just drank a can of Red Bull.

First of all, wow..I honestly feel for Portland fans, that must suck big time. The Cleveland fans must be saying "now you know how WE feel!" Turkoglu has been in Portland for a few days, the negotiations were completed, just a matter of time to make it official, and he even had dinner with head coach Nate McMillan. Then he changed his mind. Just like that.

So I've read all over the Raptors blogosphere how bad it would be for Colangelo to sign Turkoglu, and the points are very valid:

• It would be way to expensive..
• Which would leave no cap space to sign any other good players
• Turkoglu is too old
• He was only that good because he had Dwight Howard in the paint
• He's overrated
• He can't play defense

And I honestly didn't want Turk to be our main pursuit either, I'd rather much prefer that Colangelo went after Artest, Ariza (which he apparently did), Kleiza, or just resign Shawn Marion. Or another situation I was secretly hoping for was that, after the Blazers got Hedo, Colangelo try and pry Rudy Fernandez away from them - He's a solid, solid talent with great potential, and would be a superb 2 or 3 while DeRozan gets used to the NBA game. As Malin has pointed out, he sees some Ginobili in him - again, not saying he will be ever in the same calibre as Manu, but he's definitely got a similar game. But obviously that's impossible now, so..

Back to Turkoglu - so like I was saying - he wasn't my first choice either, but I won't lie - I'm excited as hell. It's a tantalizing situation - we all know all the negatives. But they could be positives too. For one, yes he's 30, but guess what? Shawn Marion in 31, and Marion's game is all about his athleticism, while Hedo's never been known for jumping out of the gym. His game centres around his ability to use his height and body to get off shots against smaller opponents. Also, Marion is way past his prime, I would argue Turkoglu is right in the midst of his. Yes, you're right, he could be a defensive liability, but since when has Toronto been known for it's defensive presence, and since we're trying to play up-tempo basketball, we can maybe get away with it for even just the tiniest bit. Plus he's 6'9" - 6'10", so that has to bother his opponents somewhat...right?? Yup, we overpaid him, for sure - any team signing would, he's coming off his best year fresh from an NBA finals appearance, he's gonna get overpaid one way or another. What this does do however, is show Bosh the organization is dead serious about contending and getting back into the playoffs.

Furthermore, regarding that "He only looked so good because Dwight Howard got him open looks" argument - uhh...last time I checked, Chris Bosh draws double teams too. Now don't get me wrong, Bosh doesn't have anywhere near the beast of a presence that Howard has in the paint, but Bosh is definitely more skilled offensively than Howard, and he draws double-teams night in and night out. Remember when we signed Kapono and we were thinking, "Boy, Kapono is gonna make those defenders PAY for leaving him open to get to Bosh." Well, it's like that again, except 10 times better now.

The potential starting line up is...fascinating to me..because I have no idea if the team will discombobulate like it did with Jermaine O'Neal or gel to form a potent, cohesive unit:

PG - Calderon
SG - DeRozan
SF - Turkoglu
PF - Bosh
C - Bargnani

We would have a big, starting line up. We're talking about guys going from 6'10" to 7 feet in the front court. Offensively, there's no worries I think - it's not like Turkoglu will cancel out Bosh like J.O. did. And it'll be interesting to see how he meshes with Bargnani and rest of the squad. The bench is a huge issue again though, like last year, but already a bit better with Evans in there. The rest is hard to look at, and this is where it hurts - where is Colangelo going to get the money to sign even half decent players to fill out the roster? Sign-and-trade with Shawn Marion? Or will he work some more magic and sign a great unknown like he did with Jorge Garbajosa? I don't know, and all this together intrigues me, for better or for worse. But

We're most likely losing (in addition to Marion of course) Parker and Delfino too. I could give two shits about Parker but will dearly miss Delfino because I was really looking forward to having him back, I love his game and I'm not afraid to admit it. If there was someway, somehow, we could still resign him I'd be happy as hell.

Lastly, I have to mention this whole, actually wanting to come to Toronto situation. It brings me great joy as a Torontonian and Canadian in general to see a player actually cancel a deal he made in the last second because he wanted to be in T.O. Especially since players around the league generally will do anything NOT to play here with all the stereotypes they have of this city. We're naturally stigmatized whether we like to admit it or not, being the only team outside of the U.S. Portland has way more talent, and it's not like Turkoglu was taking a HUGE paycut to play for the Blazers instead of us (only $ 3 million more per year roughly). But the fact that Toronto's diversity and international flavour (as in a big Turkish population) actually drew a player here for once fills me with some pride, since it's usually the opposite.

On Bryan Colangelo: the guy has balls. His massive screw up with the O'Neal deal did not shake him one bit in terms of making gigantic signings that could go either way, and I respect that, for better or for worse. In his most important off season yet with the Raptors, you can't say he just sat on his ass and made soft decisions, which he's been accused of plenty and rightly so in the past. But if you look back, he's actually made tons of big-money deals with players who at the time seemed to get overpaid, highlighted by Steve Nash of course. This move by BC could backfire big time, or maybe, just maybe, it could be the key move that propels us to the next level.

I don't know, I have nooo idea, but I do think we have an intriguing situation in our hands this upcoming season. Again, not saying this deal will work or won't work, we have no idea until it actually plays out, but I do know one thing: I'm excited as hell.

DeRozan and other thoughts

Love the DeMar DeRozan pick. Apart from the obviously ridiculous athleticism he has, love his mannerisms; he seems very grounded, driven, coachable, and genuinely excited to be here in Toronto. And he kind of looks like a cat (not in a bad way). If his hops are anywhere true to the Vince Carter comparisons, then this city will get a bolt of lightning this upcoming season again and have a good distraction while the CB4 tensions continue. I like that DeRozan has not shyed away from the VC comparisons, and it was awesome to see him tweet "Toronto here I come. Air Canada's back."

I'm also excited to have Carlos Delfino, aka Playboy Argentina back. No he's not a superstar or anything, but I always liked his game - he can do a bit of everything - slash, shoot, play some point, and is a decent defender.

Is there anyway we can dump Marcus Banks? Remember him? I really hope somewhere out there, Roko Ukic is working on his game. He struggled mightily last year but also had his moments like the clutch performances against the Spurs and Magic. If the kid can develop a shot and learn not to over-dribble, he'll be just awesome.

Let Anthony Parker walk, who cares. We don't need to keep him around just to have a "good locker room presence." To tell you the truth, I'd rather keep Graham over Parker at this point: Yes Parker's the better offensive player, but Graham is much younger and more aggressive. Did I mention younger?

How's Shawn Marion doing? If we can somehow keep him with the rest of the core, we'll have a pretty decent team (with a few more fixes of course this off season).

Shaq to Cleveland, Vince to Orlando. Damn, the East just got tougher. I hate Vince, and I don't want to see him win, but seeing a Cavs-Magic playoff series with Shaq vs D-Ho and Vince vs LeBron would be amazing. And I definitely wouldn't want VC to reach the finals, but seeing him go up against Kobe on the game's biggest stage would be that much more crazy...as long as Kobe piledrives him of course.

My attempt at nicknames for DeMar DeRozan: DeDe? D squared? Devastator? Destroyer? Okay, now I'm just going with Transformers names, which you should absolutely see in theatres by the way.

I wanna see DeRozan hurt some rims, Delfino pose for some Armani ads, and Reggie Evans grab some nuts like an elephant. Your new additions to the 2009-2010 Raptors everyone!

Bargnani knows how to deal with racist players; lock'em in a room with Dwight Howard

I stumbled upon this little interview from an Italian site, and used Google to translate. This little segment was the most interesting I found (translation is shaky since its literal, but you can make out what he's trying to say):
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Now a matter a little 'more delicate. In Italy the players of color are targeted by racist songs. Even an Italian like Mario Balotelli is in their sights. Nba player accustomed to playing with guys from all over the world, how you rate this?

"For me it is such a thing outside the world that it is difficult to give an answer. It is inconceivable, but we must also be careful not to give too much importance to these people. And we must not do the whole apples and oranges, because it is a minority. In the world's all, you encounter all sorts of people and sometimes also deficient.

Italian football is, however, the victim of this scourge. While the basketball players have already played as Carlton Myers and Daniel Hackett.Why basketball is more than skin color?

"I do not know. If I have to tell the truth I like to be black. I have always envied their physicality. Jumping all like mad and it's great to see them play. If only jump as they ...».
Perhaps you would be the strongest player in Italy dell'Nba but you peck whistles and someone would say that you're not Italian. Have you ever thought about how to react if you were in a similar situation?

"I do not know how to react, but I have the solution to this problem. Take one of these racist and place it in a room together with Dwight Howard and let alone a few minutes to clarify (he says jokingly, ndr). I am sure that would work ... It is a fact that has cultural roots associated with 70 years ago. People who have this kind of problem in the wrong time, perhaps living in the wrong century and is out of time and the world. "
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It's interesting to hear Bargnani say that he'd love to be black because of the physicality and athleticism most black players seem to have so easily, at the same time I'm sure a lot of players (especially his size) would love to be him and behold that infinite range he has on the floor when he shoots.

I must say it's also nice and impressive that he answered a huge issue such as racism so candidly and handled it with grace. Football (or soccer if you're North American) players of colour playing in Europe facing incessant racism on their 'homecourt' is nothing new and it's cool to hear Bargnani address the issue. And the Dwight Howard thing, that had me laughing - you can't say the guy doesn't have humour.

Triano What does this mean? Part II

So I saw that my previous article got posted on a forum and saw that people were nice enough to talk about it which is much appreciated. After seeing some of the comments I thought I'd right a sequel to that.

First of all, my apologies for not including pop and adelmen, they definitely deserve it and just slipped my mind.

Second, in terms of Mitchel, what I meant was what some other people alluded to in that he is great at getting teams with less talent to play hard and play motivated. Thus he has strong value with rebuilding teams where the fans want to see the team still try. Even in the wake of that disaster raptor season before the playoffs, you have to give him props for keeping hte lid on what could have blown up into a team chemistry nightmare. As such, for young teams like the wolves, the grizzlies, the thunder, Sacramento, hes a goodfit for these teams. This is mainly due to the fact that people often say you are what you coach. He was heralded as a hustle player which is what he coaches and which is why he's not good in the playoffs where x's and o's, in game adjustments, in bound plays win out over hustle because usually everyone is hustling.

Third, the aspect of the importance of coaching. I did not mean to imply that coaching was unimportant what I meant was that the real significance of high quality coaching comes in the semi finals, conference finals, championship. AT the end of the day, less talent doesn't beat great talent but good talent can be made great with coaching. For example, with the Raptors this year, they don't need to bring in a high quality famous coach because the goal is to get back to the playoffs. For this mission, talent is more important. Once playoffs are reached, those one or two pieces that are added bring that talent up the necessary threshold. Its here where such talent is amassed that you need the high quality coach to push you over the edge and as someone alluded to, manage personalities. To sum up, its not that coaching isn't important, is that different levels of coaching meet different levels of teams. The poor rebuilding teams, need a coach that can still get you motivated, that can force you to play hard. The teams striving for playoffs and who are happy with the second round, this is where the majority of coaches who are just medium quality can fit. To get this far, generally the team with more talent wins and the priority of the team is to add more pieces, not fine tune. Finally, the championship calibre teams are generally already loaded with talent and the differentiating point comes from your head coach who knows how to manage all this talent, find the best fit for the team and can add those 3-5 wins that could mean home court or a championship.

Triano, What does this mean?

Well first off, congratulations to Triano on his deal!

So what does this mean for the raptors?

In a nut shell, nothing really. Coaching is perhaps the most over estimated aspect of basketball team performance in the league. In fact, for the most, there are really only a handful of coaches whose mere presence can add to the win column while the vast majority of head coaches out there are really only as good as their roster. Look no further than Mitchel, or Doc Rivers is perhaps an even better example. The year before he wins coach of the year, the celtics had what, an 18 loss streak and a record that rivaled the worst all time in NBA history. What did it take to win, a complete roster revamp. The same thing with Mitchel and the Raptors.

With the exception of george karl, jackson, sloan, jeff van gundy and carlisle, (apologies, I forgot to include the GREAT pop and adelmen) the rest of the coaching faculty are relatively mediocre, each with their own strengths and weaknesses but are made better by the right fit. Dantoni with a running team, mitchel with a younger team, jackson with managing star personalities and so on so forth. Its in fact extremely unfair to coaches that they carry the blame for underperforming teams but ironically, i think even the gm's know that its unfair, and in most cases, its simply to keep the fan base from rioting.

So why keep Triano rather than bringing in another mediocre or even a star coach. Well, no matter how a good a coach, you still need a talented roster. What I've seem to noticed is that the star coach is what helps push teams to title contention and as the raps are far from contending, its more crucial to change the roster now, and bring in the star coaches to help push us over the edge in a few years. Which also explains the length of his contract.

Other than that, there are really only two other reasons to keep him. The most important being that the players like him. What resonates with title contending teams? continuity and consistency. These need to start in the head office to spread down to the team and truly allow them to take steps. Every time something changes, you start again and the raps definitely don't need to take another step back. The last reason really is that he will be much more affordable as opposed to another mediocre coach which is extremely important with the roster makeover the Raptors need to make. In fact you'll probably se the raps make one big financial move while trading into the draft for low cost high potential roster picks to ease the burden should bosh leave while maintaing a decent roster. With the resigning of delfino, parker and pops, a low budget sg signing and returning marion through bird rights is enough to take huge steps forward but we'll get into that more after the playoffs.

Here's to a denver cleveland final!

Whose the better TEAM?

Something I've been talking about a lot with my friends is obviously the playoffs and who are the impressive teams and one thing that has really stuck out to me is that people are obsessed with looking at the paper. They seem to think success is dictated by who names do you have on your team, what do they average?

To me the biggest example is Denver. I'm not a carmelo fan at all and it's for that reason really that I have never really liked Denver but its amazing what one player can really do for a team. But if you ooked at the statistics behind it, iverson and billups really averaged very similar numbers. But what is not in the statistics is the chemistry. Denver is without a doubt so much better than they are on paper and it's for this reason that many people sleep on them. For this reason that a lot of people picked new orleans and probably a lot of people will pick dallas. What stands out about Denver is that they love playing together and they love being together. Karl has been quoted as saying that he simply loves his roster and can't imagine replacing anyone there. To me, Billups is the mvp of the playoffs so far, his statistical averages are nothing amazing but his presence and demeanor set the tone for new orleans and have already set the tone for the dallas series.

Cleveland is next. I'm not usually one of those people who supports the stacked teams, I'm definitely an underdog guy and its for that reason that I didn't watch cleveland that much throughout the regular season. But once I did towards the end of the season I was SHOCKED with how good they are. How much better they all make each other and what really stands out is how much fun they have with each other. The team itself is simply very genuine. But their secret ingredient for success is really their tenacity. From lebron to the 13th man on the bench, they all have that killer instinct and that work ethic so that they never let up and they want to always bury you by as much as thy can. So far in the playoffs, Denver is the only other team to show some semblance of this where they will BURY you if they give you the chance. Look no further from that 50 point ousting of the hornets. The fact that they were the only team to sweep is just further evidence that they are always prepared and always full effort and to me, this is their trophy to lose.

The lakers are undoubtedly the most talented team in the NBA and the fact that they know it is their greatest weakness. Nobody has more of a killer instinct than Kobe but to me the fact that he has a very quiet demeanor makes it so that the rest of the team doesn't feed off of that. I remember early on they were talking all about defense and you simply never hear that anymore . They are an offensive team first and foremost and they will only beat you by outscoring you. To me what is a real shame is simply the fact that as much great players as they have, If Kobe doesn't have an EFFICIENT night, they still lose and that simply shouldn't be happening.If he doesnt shoot the ball well, they lose but with so many people able to get their own shot, if he's off, they shouldn't keep running everything through him. Unfortunately, their probably still good enough to make the finals but if they dont develop that work ethic and commitment to playing hard on both ends for 48 minutes, they WON'T beat cleveland. Their weakness is still the same as last year, mental toughness. Houston showed an edge and the lakers couldn't respond. This is probably their greatest challenge because Houston is a defensive team with the best perimeter d in the league. If anyone can take them out in an upset, its houston. I'm not sleeping on denver who will make it to the eastern conference but the problem is they love the high scoring game which is la's strong suit while houston will slow the game, force more half court which is the lakers weakness. Its essentially the same problem they'll have with cleveland in that they also want a low scoring game and are defensive giants. The lakers need that edge and if they can't find it, their going home empty handed for SEASONS until they find someone who is VOCAL and brings that edge. Thats really what stands out about Artest is that although he spews a lot of shit, he is a vocal leader with attitude and edge.

(On a side note, I'd love for the raps to pick him up, resign marion, bring back delfino and parker and pops and I think we're set for the year then. Also I saw rasho talking with maurizo a lot so I really expect him back as the back up centre. Any trade they can get rid of hump, kapono or banks is just a bonus)

It's a bit weird to be talking about the great things other teams have because this is normally the time where we pine about the raps being eliminated but you cant deny the fat that there are some AMAZING teams out there who are really greater than their parts.

Also on a side note, van gundy is not an idiot but I'll never understand how you don't pass to your best player when the lead is dying away. It's a common symptom of how they always blow leads and let people back into the game and you'd think they'd learn that after the Phili series. AFter seeing it so many times, they DESERVE To lose but i still want them to kick boston's arrogant ass.

Chris Bosh is Rorschach from Watchmen

With many fans calling for Bosh's head and blaming him for this disastrous season, its turned CB4 into a vigilante in his own city a la Rorschach. Brian Colangelo seems like he is going to stay put with his franchise player and is just praying that Bosh doesn't leave, hoping CB4, with a better squad around him next season, can save him of his job, and the fan base from going berserk. People who want Bosh to stay are hoping CB4's mindset in the summer of 2010 is not this:


"All the fans and management will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll whisper, "no."


* cue "The End is The Beginning Is The End" song.