Linkage - May 17
Raptors centre Rasho Nesterovic exercised the player option on his contract for next season yesterday.
The 7-foot, 270-pounder averaged 7.8 points and 4.8 rebounds in 71 games last season, his second with the Raptors.
Nesterovic, who will make $8.4 million US next season, has averaged 7.0 points and 5.5 rebounds in 699 career games with Minnesota, San Antonio and Toronto.
A few left over notes from the Canada Basketball presser yesterday.
One point worth mentioning is that Richard Peddie, Bryan Colangelo, Mauritzio Gherardini and virtually the entire basketball staff at MLSE was on hand for the announcement. It’s easy to beat on MLSE as this heartless corporate maching squeezing every last dollar out of …..okay, I’m getting carried away. The point is these are busy people and their presence proved that the relationship between the Raptors and Canada Basketball is real and growing.
The men’s national team will be holding their training camp at the ACC, for example, and my understanding is that MLSE is providing the use of Ricoh free of charge while splitting the revenues with CB. Every last dollar helps at CB, but just as important is the apparently sincere time and interest shown by Colangelo et al.
Few players did more to aid their cause this season than Calderon, who flourished for the second consecutive season with T.J. Ford missing significant time because of injury. Calderon proved this season that he could run the team as a starter (56 of the Raptors’ 82 games).
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Stanford men’s basketball coach Johnny Dawkins said Brian James, an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks, and Mike Schrage, the director of basketball operations at Duke, have agreed this week to become members of his coaching staff.
James recently finished his third season with the Bucks, but was not retained when head coach Larry Krystkowiak was fired last month. He had been an assistant coach for the Washington Wizards, Detroit Pistons and Toronto Raptors before that.
The Raptors have some work to do as an organization; their first-round playoff loss to the Orlando Magic made that clear.
Still, picking a quality player like Moon out of obscurity is a boon to a team like the Raptors trying to improve despite being well over the salary cap.
He’ll become a restricted free agent in the summer of 2009.
One other Raptor note: Rasho Nesterovic opted to stay a with the team next season (as expected). He is coming off a fine year but he was going to be hard pressed to find another franchise to pay him $8.4 million next season.
The problem with trading either point guard and not getting a back-up in return (unless Toronto really covets the services of Mardy Collins) is that then the Raptors need to go out and grab one via free agency. Chris Duhon would be tops on my list but Toronto doesn’t have a lot of loot to go around and there are other areas that need to be addressed.
Can you afford to deal from a position of strength (point guard) and not solve any of your team’s weaknesses?
That’s going to be a very large question for Bryan Colangelo this summer…
It is becoming a very tough problem to deal with and the Raptors being able to put out the fires and keep both point guards is starting to look more and more impossible. I have stood almost alone in my belief that both will return. I am starting to think that the people involved are not in any mood to make that happen. Bryan Colangelo is stuck in the middle of all of this. Which ever option he decides to go with if this becomes an a or b thing will be subject to a mixed reaction at best. Many want Ford out of town but as I have tried to explain his value is at an all time low and will not yield what people are expecting. If you trade Calderon the fan base will be unhappy as they feel he is the better of the two point guards. It really is a bad place for Colangelo to be.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but midway through the season Calderon voluntarily surrendered his starting position to Ford, who’d grown a little bitchy about his role as a reserve. At the time I thought that maybe this spoke volumes about the Spaniard’s competitiveness—or more specifically the lack of it—but maybe there was something else behind it. Was Ford becoming too much of a cancerous malcontent? Was Calderon simply taking one for the team in the name of padding Ford’s ego? I pose these as questions because I really don’t know (and am not trying to pull a Peter Vecsey by stating conjecture as fact), but there was clearly something going on there behind the scenes.
More tidbits: Salami and cheese is getting left in Canada, which is too bad, because I really enjoy that snack; Swirsky says he took the job in part because he wanted to raise his kids in the west suburbs of Chicago; that he has a ‘maniacal’ work ethic; and that he’s “not much of a party guy.” I, for one, see that as a refreshing change of pace. Wayne Larrivee’s late-night exploits are the stuff of legend, and trust me: once you put a little chop in front of Tom Dore, look the fuck out. Party animal, that guy.
The interest in Calderon wouldn’t be overwhelming, but it would certainly be more than Ford. If they want to separate these two, trading Calderon or just letting him sign with someone else could be the only way.
Which brings us to Delonte West. Delonte will be a restricted free agent this season, just like Calderon. The Cavaliers will have some decisions to make. Is West their guy? Should they try to go after Calderon? Do they have the assets to get Calderon? That will be the tricky question.
If Calderon really does hit the trade market, I think Danny Ferry HAS to be involved and see if he can work something out. The Raptors are, predictably, saying that they will match any offer, and with the Cavaliers limited cap space available anyway, it would be impossible for them to just sign Calderon. The Cavaliers realistically probably don’t have the assets to get Calderon in a trade. Sure, the Cavs have expiring contracts, but the Raptors are a playoff team. They don’t need cap space, they need impact players. Could the Cavs trade their own restricted free agent Daniel Gibson, along with maybe Anderson Varejao, to Toronto to entice them to move Calderon? It’s possible something like that could be done, but I’m not sure where exactly either guy would fit into Toronto’s rotation.
Her involvement with the media got so intense due to her opinions on players, coaches, refs that the Raptors executives had to bring in Vince for a meeting to discuss the situation. Vince didn’t manage the situation very effectively. He certainly didn’t nip the situation in the bud like Lebron did a few days ago. Carter never stood up for himself or told his mom to step off. He just continued to let her make a fool out of herself and him publicly.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Besides Antonio (who was technically a PF), Rasho has been the best centre the Raptors have ever had. Keon was pretty nifty too (especially pound for pound), but he was really a PF.
Q: Is there a waiting period now for when Rasho could be moved?
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