02.20
Right now, Toronto is building around the core of Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani, Ford and Calderon. Once Calderon is signed, all will be under contract through 2010, when all this comes to pass. But with Bosh making the max, Calderon and Ford essentially combining to do the same, and Bargnani eventually commanding a significant deal – assuming he’s no bust – Colangelo will face some tough choices. Maybe he keeps both his point guards, paying to play two guys to play 48 minutes per night at a very high level.
But maybe he doesn’t. And unless he can stay healthy between now and then, which seems unlikely, that is where Ford’s injuries will come in. That is where the decision will be made, if it is made at all.
Financially, of course, Toronto can afford it. General manager Bryan Colangelo has already sent signals to his fellow GMs that Toronto will match any offer that Calderon receives as a restricted free agent this summer, and he means it.
Of course, he said the same thing about Joe Johnson back in Phoenix, going so far as securing authorization from ownership to pay Johnson US$75-million, before dealing the swingman to the Atlanta Hawks, who had made the US$75-million bid in the first place. But then, one of the teams that could have theoretically put together a similar bid for Calderon’s services – Atlanta, as it happens – just traded for Mike Bibby last weekend.
But let’s say the Raptors re-sign their Spanish point guard – the one that Doc Rivers has called "a mini-[Steve] Nash" – to a deal worth somewhere between US$6- and US$8-million per year, with the higher end getting more realistic with every quality Calderon start.
Combine that with Ford, who is scheduled to be paid US$8-million next season, and US$8.5-million in the two seasons beyond that, the second of which is a player option. If the number for Calderon is, say, US$8-million, the combined number would make for the fifth-highest-paid point guard in the league this season, behind only Stephon Marbury, Jason Kidd, Steve Francis and Baron Davis.
So the question is this: In a league where smart salary structure is one of the key elements in building a durable championship team – see San Antonio – can Toronto build such a contender when two of its four most important players play the same position?
"We will pay everyone if we’re in a position to compete for a title," says Colangelo, simply. He also notes a lot can happen between now and then. Fair enough.
But look at the cores of the league’s better teams: San Antonio is built around power forward Tim Duncan, point guard Tony Parker and shooting guard Manu Ginobili. Dallas is now constructed around power forward Dirk Nowitzki, point guard Jason Kidd, small forward Josh Howard and shooting guard Jason Terry. Phoenix? Point guard Steve Nash, power forward Amare Stoudemire, centre Shaquille O’Neal and shooting guard Leandro Barbosa.
The L.A. Lakers, Utah, Portland, New Orleans, Denver, Houston, Boston, Washington, Detroit – not one of those teams has, as part of their core of major players, two guys who play the same position. Toronto does.
Without Ford, the backup point guard duties will fall to Juan Dixon, the one Raptor most open to being traded because he’s seen so little playing time.
“I’m just here, working hard everyday, helping my team,” said Dixon, who is in the final year of his contract and therefore attractive to clubs looking to clear space under the NBA’s salary cap. “Yes, I would like to play, but I enjoy being a Toronto Raptor.
“It’s unfortunate T.J. went down with another injury. Hopefully, he’s getting better, but if I have to play some point guard, I’ll do my best to help my team win games.”
But given that major trades already have been made and the Raptors are not expected to be active, the NBA deadline will continue to be a minor event in Canadian sports TV.
The exception is Raptors NBA TV, which will air hourly updates and a live Full Court Press deadline show at 2 p.m. EST.
There will be additional trade information on Raptors Today at 6 p.m. Raptors NBA TV will also pick up TNT’s trade deadline recap later in the evening.
Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo would love to make a move for a bruising big man, but with just little-used forward Joey Graham and the expiring contracts of Juan Dixon ($2.55 million US), Carlos Delfino ($1.868 million), who the club would like to keep, and Darrick Martin ($770,610) up for grabs, the Raptors will be in tough to do anything of substance.
In terms of young big men, they don’t come any better than Bosh and Howard, the respective faces of their franchises and roundball ambassadors who genuinely enjoy their roles.
Howard, 22, is among the game’s most dominant post players.
Bosh goes so far as to suggest that Howard has no peer in the paint.
"I’ll say it,” Bosh began. "Right now, he’s probably the most dominant low post player in the league."
"We’re definitely going to have to pay a lot of attention to him,” Bosh said. "He’s very strong inside.
"I’m going to let him know early in the game that I got him, but I can’t guard him by myself."
Much like opponents game-plan against Bosh, the key is to get the ball out of Howard’s hands.
The danger in doubling down is that Orlando’s perimeter players are more than capable of knocking down shots.
Whether it’s on the catch or on the dribble, the Raptors are expected to double-team Howard, who is virtually unstoppable if he’s able to carve space in the post.
"We have to fight him off the block,” Bosh said. "We have to be physical and meet him early (when Howard ventures into the post).
"We have to make the rest of the team score."
A no-show at yesterday’s practice, it looks as though T.J. Ford will be a no-go for tonight’s matchup against the Orlando Magic.
The company line with the Raptors is that Ford’s status will be determined at game time, but the more time Ford misses the tighter the fragile label grows around the lightning-quick point guard.
Ford’s latest ailment is an abdominal strain, a murky condition that could mean Ford misses one game, one week or perhaps even one month.
Brendan Malone makes his return to T.O. tonight. The coach of the expansion Raptors is an assistant on Stan Van Gundy’s staff with the Magic.
As the years go by and as people reflect on the hoops history in Hogtown, Malone’s name isn’t mentioned enough.
The fact is that no coach in the history of the Raptors was able to do as much with so little on the floor and deal with so much off-the-court issues than Malone, who is held in high esteem in NBA circles.
As difficult as it is to deny Ford’s skill and statistical heft – and this corner has made a case for his value to Toronto’s franchise from the day he was traded here for Charlie Villanueva in 2006 – it’s impossible to overlook another scary number. Since he came into the league in 2003, Ford has missed approximately 41 per cent of his team’s regular-season games.
Ford’s absences, mind you, have come in large chunks, including an entire season lost in 2004-05 to vertebrae-fusing surgery and 30 games on the sidelines this year after a pair of on-court collisions left him with frightening neurological symptoms that ran from shooting pain throughout his upper body to a sore thumb. Other than that, he’s been relatively dependable. He played 72 regular-season games for the Bucks two seasons ago, 75 for the Raptors last year.
Maybe Ford’s latest injury is, indeed, nothing to worry about. Certainly it’s comforting for Mitchell and the club to consider that Calderon, whose contract expires at season’s end, will only get to test the market as a restricted free agent this summer.
That means the Raptors can (and, by all indications, will) match whatever offer gets thrown Calderon’s way. Whether Ford will, in time, prove himself durable enough for the rigours of the NBA is unknowable conjecture.
Whether the Raptors need an insurance policy in case he can’t make a go of it is, as this season has taught them, inarguable.
We’re talking to Sam Mitchell yesterday about T.J. and stuff and he’s saying it’s too bad the little guy’s injured but they’ll deal with and he’ll trot out another point guard behind Jose and mentions Juan and, ta-da, Carlos.
Not sure if that means Delfino’s definitely in the mix but it was the first time he’s said it out loud. If you’ve noticed, they’ve had Delfino run just a couple of sets but always with another PG on the floor.
The big concern with Delfino is if he can avoid turnovers when he’s running plays and how much being a PG will take away from the other stuff he does well, like slash, rebound and defend big twos and threes.
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What, pray tell, was the most inconsequential Raptor deadline day trade?
I’ve got Shawn Respert for Acie Earl in 1997 in a landslide.
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Had a couple of queries about Garbo earlier this week. He’s got the full cast off, wearing some sort of brace but that’s about to go and he can begin full rehab shortly. It’s not like he’s been doing nothing, though, we’ve seen him in the weight room doing a variety of exercises almost daily.
Don’t get your hopes up, though, it’s still a longshot that he puts a uniform on this season.
Dixon, the younger brother of former University of Maryland star and current Toronto Raptors guard Juan Dixon, was preseason second-team Juco All-American by the NJCAA and a first-team sophomore All-American by Sporting News.
"My brothers pushed me to be the best I could be," he said. "They’ve helped me out, and I’m always ready to work hard."
A Baltimore native, Dixon is one of the leading candidates for Player of the Year in the Panhandle Conference, regarded as one of the most competitive Juco conferences in the nation.
Toronto Raptors — The Raptors appear to be "stuck" with their current roster for the second half. Their biggest second-half boost could come from Andrea Bargnani, who has picked up his play of late after a slow first half. He’s averaging 17.7 ppg and 4.3 rpg in February after averaging just 8.7 ppg and 3.5 rpg in January.
The proposed deal – made a little awkward by the Warriors not wanting to burn up their trade exception just to dump Mickael Pietrus – would be Pietrus and Austin Croshere for Joey Graham and Juan Dixon, the two names that have apparently been tossed around.
This trade helps both teams to a certain degree, but more than anything it rids each one of their most recent malcontent (that being Pietrus and Dixon). Croshere helps out the Raptors because his contract, although a small one, is an expiring deal, freeing up more room for Toronto to resign Carlos Delfino and Jose Calderon. Pietrus’ contract is also expiring and he has purportedly agreed to waive his George Bird Rights should Golden State find him a new locale.
Graham was the 16th overall pick in the 2005 draft, the earliest draft selection for any Hillsborough County product.
After high school, Graham and twin brother Stephen, also a Brandon alum, signed with Central Florida. Two seasons later, they both transferred to Oklahoma State.
His finished his career at Brandon with 1,023 points and was named The Tampa Tribune’s Boys Basketball Player of the Year as a senior.
The Tribune recently caught up with the 6-foot-7 forward, whose team hosts the Orlando Magic tonight (7, Sun Sports).
RaptorsTalk Video Podcast
I just got back from the Raptors practice facility … and Juan Dixon told me he has NOT asked for a trade.
Dixon insisted that the “rumors” that are out there are simply not true. In fact, according to Juan, he hasn’t even had a conversation with Bryan Colangelo regarding “wanting out” or anything like that.
Dixon admitted that he’d like to be playing more — but what player wouldn’t want that?!
Chris Bosh’s campaign began months ago with his CBTV campaign, in which he took on the role of everything from an Oxford-schooled reporter to a used car salesman in an effort to encourage fan voting for his all-star appearance. While unsuccessful in gaining enough votes to become an all-star starter, Bosh gets the award for most creative player with his series of videos that have attracted well over half a million views and landed him the respect of many fans who appreciate his authentic and unpolished approach.
Aside: Bosh’s Web2.0 efforts carry an important lesson in web self-promotion etiquette: authenticity can go a long way, often a lot further than polished/canned content. When asked about his approach to marketing, the 23 year-old is noted for such statements as “I’d rather do it myself; I know myself better than anybody else or anybody that I could hire knows me.” This fresh approach has garnered Bosh respect both on the web and around the league, where he is gaining support and capturing much attention.
For this past weekend’s All Star game in New Orleans, the NBA produced virals for some of the Slam Dunk competitors to promote text message voting, including the Toronto Raptors’ Jamario Moon. That video, alluding to a behind the free throw line slamma jamma has all the essential ingredients for a great Youtube clip: it’s short, it looks homemade and it has that “I gotta see that again!” punch that turns a video into viral.
Augmenting the official NBA clips is an influx of player-produced videos like this one made by Chris Bosh. Bosh, in an effort to persuade fans to vote him onto the Eastern Conference All Star team, used Youtube to display his lighter side. And to his success, over 500,000 looked at his “Bubba” clip and Bosh ended up starting the All Star game in place of injured Kevin Garnett.
The blog Dunson Checks In is comparing each NBA team to a popular movie. Pretty funny stuff and of course I had to highlight what they had to say about the Toronto Raptors.
if the pieturs/croshere for dixon/graham trade is on the table, i take it right freaking now. no questions asked. pietrus has been on my radar since last season.
on a side note, golden state is all over the map, they sign webber, rumored to move pietrus and are looking into jermaine oneal. think they are worried about the developments in the west too? i would be if i were them.