Linkage – July 10
Calderon, 27, now will be expected to lead the Raptors to another level as the starting point guard. His backup probably will be Roko Ukic, 22, the club’s 41st draft pick from 2005, who played for Lottomatica Roma last season in Italy. Interestingly, both Calderon and Ukic were acquired by Toronto’s former GM, Rob Babcock, who was fired in 2006.
Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo said there still are a couple of issues to iron out, including a buyout, before Ukic is brought over.
“I have no doubt that he is an NBA-ready guard. He has played at a very high level, competively, in Europe,” Colangelo said. “I think with his length, at 6-foot-5, with long arms and some range, he is going to be a factor defensively. And he has a knack for finding ways to get the ball to people and score points.”
O’Neal said he felt it was time to get out and his prayers were answered a few weeks ago when he became the centrepiece of a six-player deal with the Raptors that sent starting point guard T.J. Ford to Indiana.
Raps head coach Sam Mitchell was virtually bouncing off the walls yesterday with excitement over the prospect of having two quality big men in O’Neal and Chris Bosh in the frontcourt.
“If you want to compete with Boston and Detroit (in the East), you’ve got to get better, and we feel like we couldn’t ask for much more to get a player like Jermaine,” said Mitchell, comparing the two to the young duo of David Robinson and Tim Duncan in San Antonio a few seasons ago. “And my message to my other players is, they’d better get out and run if they want some shots, because when we come down and set up, the ball is going to Jermaine or Chris.”
“This is Chris’ team,” he said, of Toronto’s captain, Bosh. “I’m here to help him lead this team. He is their centrepiece. I’ve been through some rough times over the last four years and to get this opportunity makes you want to do whatever is necessary for the team to be successful.
“I think the thing that I will bring to the team is a different defensive presence,” the 29-year-old added. “I will clog the middle, take charges, block shots, alter shots … I think Chris and I can make some special things happen together (on defence).”
It was over dinner that Jermaine O’Neal first got to really speak to one of his new teammates, the guy who’ll get him the ball this coming NBA season.
And while they were breaking bread at a ritzy Toronto eatery Tuesday night, O’Neal found something in Jose Calderon that may come more to the fore now that the Spaniard is the undisputed backcourt leader of the Raptors.
“He has that real Euro-toughness,” was how O’Neal described Calderon. “He has a swagger about himself.”
“I think that (swagger O’Neal detected in Calderon) fits with my personality because I do play aggressive, I do play physical, I do like to bang and if I can kind of get everybody to do that and take some the pressure off (Chris) Bosh so he won’t have to bang as much, we’re going to be good.”
While O’Neal sees yesterday as a new start, it’s just a continuation of an amazing growth spurt for Calderon, who began is Toronto career as an over-matched, injured neophyte on a 27-win team in 2005-06.
But from that year, he’s grown into one of the top point guards in the NBA and the Raptors felt comfortable enough to deal away T.J. Ford to give him the full-time job.
That loyalty to him is echoed by Calderon, who didn’t even listen to an offer from another team before re-signing with the Raptors.
“It was really difficult for me to think … about not being with the Raptors,” he said. “This year was really, really good for me, my family because I feel at home, I feel really comfortable. I never see myself with another jersey.”
And he wasn’t about to gloat over taking the No. 1 job away from Ford.
“I don’t win, he didn’t lose or something like that,” he said.
“We change direction … now I have the confidence of the team and I will try to do everything for this team so it’s not win or anything.”
In a move widely-reported for a couple of weeks, the team introduced veteran broadcaster Matt Devlin as the play-by-play man for the 2008-09 season. Devlin has worked as the lead broadcaster for the Charlotte Bobcats and Memphis Grizzlies.
“It’s a top-shelf city and top-shelf organization,” said Devlin.
Devlin replaces the popular Chuck Swirsky, who left to become the play-by-play man for the Chicago Bulls.
Devlin said it’s difficult to describe his broadcasting “style” because it’s always evolving.
“I’ve always tried to be straightforward and fair,” he said. “People tune in to watch Chris Bosh and Jermaine O’Neal.”
Devlin’s broadcast partners on the various networks that will carry Raptor games next season are still to be finalized. Both Leo Rautins and Jack Armstrong are expected back in some capacity.
The trade that sent T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic and first-round draft pick Roy Hibbert to Indianapolis for O’Neal and Nathan Jawai can be viewed as a win-now move, and this corner is usually all for those. But this stroke obviously isn’t as bold as the one made last summer by the champion Boston Celtics, who committed to exceeding the luxury tax – spent money to make money, in other words – while surrounding their big acquisition, Kevin Garnett, with the right role players.
The Raptors, committed to not exceeding the tax threshold, have no freedom to fill out a roster that’s looking awfully shallow. So this is a go-for-it-now move that doesn’t go far enough – if, that is, the championship is the goal.
And perhaps this is the kind of roster a risk-taker like Bryan Colangelo, the Raptors GM, was destined to be left with after his best bets backfired. Many of his moves in his two-plus years in Toronto have been gutsy, but also fraught with long-term downside that has often come home to roost. Similarly, trading a first-round pick for a soon-to-be 30-year-old like O’Neal is a gamble a lot of elite teams don’t make unless it puts them on the title’s doorstep.
Even if acquiring O’Neal turns the Raptors into a top-five team in the East – and that’s no given when you look at Philadelphia’s signing of Elton Brand yesterday, and when you consider that Boston, Detroit, Cleveland and Orlando are all formidable – the future’s cloudy. A team that once billed itself as young and upcoming will likely start just one player under 27, Bosh. As unassailably sensible a signing as Jose Calderon is, he’s 27 and perhaps nearing his peak. And it’s not as though the Raptors are stocked with on-the-verge youth.
In other words, they’re likely headed for unenviable status, a couple of notches below a championship contender, but not nearly bad enough to acquire a blue-chip draft pick. That’s perfectly acceptable when the core’s young and vastly talented and ever-improving. It’s not anymore.
There’s a whole lot of love out there for Matt Barnes, who is one of the dozens of still-to-be-signed free agents floating around.
First off, I’m not sure where the suggestion comes that the Warriors, who are stumbling and bumbling along the free-agent path looking for a way to ease the pain of Baron Davis’s departure, aren’t going to keep him.
And, second, he made $3 million last year so unless he’s going to cut his salary by more than half, he’s not a fit here.
How happy was Jermaine O’Neal when he found out he was about to become a Toronto Raptor?
He shed some long overdue, man-sized tears.
Part joy at leaving behind what had become for him a toxic environment in Indiana, part sadness at having been the face of a team that had slid from a 61-win season and talk of an NBA championship to a dysfunctional mess in four short seasons, the tears all looked the same as they rolled down his cheeks.
He was at his home in Las Vegas when his mother called to tell him news of the deal was crawling across the television screen. Even as he was getting that report, his agent called to let him know that, yes, it was real. His eight-year roller-coaster ride in the U.S. heartland was over. Next stop, north of the border.
“I always wondered growing up why you see so many athletes or stars go down the wrong road or just checking out mentally and doing certain things, but I understand totally now,” said O’Neal, who says he’s fully recovered from a torn meniscus in his left knee that caused him to miss 41 games last season and which plagued him much of the previous two seasons. “Not one day when you’re going through [hard times] are you thinking about one dollar. You don’t think about one paycheque, you don’t think about one car, one house. You’re just miserable as hell. And I got to the point where I was extremely miserable. Everything around me was falling apart.”
“There’s been some talk and discussion about maybe this is abandoning a plan to develop the young core,” said Raptors president and general manager Bryan Colangelo, who had anointed Ford as the team’s point guard for the foreseeable future just two summers ago. “By virtue of us making this deal, I don’t think we’ve abandoned with respect to the core, especially the young core. … We’re going to go from here with the continued plan that we’re going to win basketball games and compete with the best. We feel that this deal has put us in a position to do that.”
It finishes a remarkable rise for Calderon, who inspired so little confidence after his rookie season — he shot just 16 per cent from the three-point line in 2005-06 — that Colangelo traded for Ford and handed him the starting job.
Last season, Calderon shot 51.9 per cent from the field, 42.9 per cent from the three-point line, and 90.8 per cent from the free-throw line, making him one of the most efficient shooters in the game.
“After the first year, I was almost thinking of going home,” said Calderon, 26. “I got injured [plantar fasciitis], we only won 27 games and I wasn’t Jose Calderon, I couldn’t play like myself.
“The first year was really tough for me, but I kept working and I’m really happy to be here today.”
Calderon even found time on his big day to pay tribute to Ford, whose own ambitions as a starter were an obstacle for Calderon.
“I learned a lot from him,” the Spaniard said. “He’s a great player. I learned a lot every day in practice. I knew my role and last year, he got bad luck to be injured and I got to start. But it was great; he was a good partner.”
Of all of Jermaine O’Neal’s talents - basketball, obviously, being the big one - talking is high on the list. He speaks expansively, with conviction and intelligence, and upon being introduced as a Toronto Raptor on Wednesday the six-time all-star said all the right things. It sounded great.
Will it look great, when the season starts? Well, like everything in life, that depends. It depends on Andrea Bargnani’s development, or non-development; it depends on how point guard Jose Calderon, officially re-signed Wednesday, fits as a full-time starter; it depends on whether Jason Kapono actually shoots the damn ball this season.
But as much as any of that, it depends on what version of O’Neal the Raptors got from Indiana. Is he the injury-hobbled shadow he has been since 2005? The stubborn star in a star’s league? Or is he a veteran who has just survived the basketball equivalent of a near-death experience, and who is a better player and teammate because of it?
See how it sounds great? If O’Neal is healthy, you can see this team going up a level or two; he’s an outstanding interior defender, a capable scorer, a big-time big man. If he and Chris Bosh can mesh, and Calderon can deliver, and the shooters make shots, then the Raptors could be a top-four team in the East - but so could Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia with Elton Brand, Orlando, Washington and Cleveland.
And that’s why Wednesday was the beginning of general manager Bryan Colangelo’s second life in this city. The honeymoon is over thanks to Ford, and especially to Bargnani. Well, Ford is gone, and since Bargnani has not become a star, Colangelo swung a deal for someone who is. How it all meshes together is impossible to assess from here, but Colangelo has staked his Hogtown reputation on a risk, again.
“As soon as the season was over [I] took a week [off], a week and a half off, and then went out to my home in Las Vegas and checked into the academy and I’ve been working ever since,” O’Neal said. “I feel good, I feel strong. I still have work to do, but the knee is healthy, no swelling, no problems. And I have no doubt that this will be a healthy year for me, and I’m going to play a lot of games.”
Raptors president and general manager Bryan Colangelo added that O’Neal underwent several tests in Toronto, and received a green light from the team’s medical staff.
“It was really difficult for me, because everybody was asking, to think about not being a Raptor,” Calderon said. “These three years were really good for me, because, like I said, I felt like I [was] home. I was comfortable. I never see myself with another jersey.”
“We’re very fortunate that he wants to be here and is our starting point guard,” Mitchell said. “And it’s a very special day for me because we’ve been through a lot growing together, losing together and now we’ve been winning together.”
With the moves, the Raptors are poised to be right up against the league’s luxury tax threshold, which was announced as US$71,150,000 Wednesday.
Toronto will get there when it signs Croatian point guard Roko Ukic - Colangelo said he is close to negotiating a deal to bring him to the NBA - as well as another guard to play behind Calderon.
After years of matching up with the likes of Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki out West, Brand landed in an Atlantic Division that now features a Jermaine O’Neal-Chris Bosh tandem in Toronto, with Kevin Garnett already in Boston.
A conference that just two years ago sent three .500-or-worse teams to the postseason looks much tougher now.
“Everybody’s been talking about how the East hasn’t been strong,” Knicks President Donnie Walsh said. “Well, one thing I know, that changes. They get strong.”
Walsh recalled that the West wasn’t as deep early in his tenure with the Indiana Pacers, but that has clearly changed.
“There were a lot of bad teams,” Walsh said. “Look over there now, that gets corrected real quick. They go out and get players and they rectify that. So the same thing’s going to happen in the East.”
Detroit Pistons President of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars announced today that the team has signed Darrell Walker, Pat Sullivan and Harold Ellis as assistant coaches.
Jermaine O’Neal to Toronto
Now that this deal is finalized, what do the Raptors have? A powerful and versatile inside-scorer who has confessed that he’d rather play at the high-post. An oft-injured player who has routinely come up short in the clutch. A big-time rebounder who’s always in foul trouble. If O’Neal can stay healthy, and if Sam Mitchell can restore his belligerence, then the Raps will have the perfect compliment to the softly slashing talents of Chris Bosh.
Despite O’Neal’s considerable downside, getting him (and getting rid of T. J. Ford) is well worth the gamble.
GRADE: B
Jose’s press conference finally confirmed suspicions I’ve had for quite some time now; that Roko Ukic is not necessarily going to be the automatic back-up to Jose and that the final roster spot on the team will be occupied by either an experienced back-up point guard or combo guard. This was revealed when questions about Jose mentoring Roko Ukic gave way to Sam Mitchell admitting that they were simply going to play Ukic as many minutes as they felt he was capable of handling. I’d been arguing on the site for a while now about my concerns with the depth at the point guard spot and I found it reassuring to see that BC and co. were on the same wavelength. After all, Jose has yet to play starter minutes over an 82 game season himself so having him do that without an established back-up with NBA experience just seemed like a bit of a risk…especially after all the rah rah about looking to contend for a title now that JO is on board.
My question though is, how are the Raptors going to pay this backup? It was revealed during the Jose press conference that after the final salary cap numbers were released, Toronto would have actually been over the luxury tax had they finalized their original deal with Calderon. Therefore Jose agreed to restructure things and take less in this first year, so that the Raptors could slip under the tax limit.
$1107 bucks under to be exact!
So with that figure in mind, I’m just not sure how Toronto is going to be able to compensate another player financiallly.
How about O’Neal’s praise for Andrea Bargnani? The two seem to have seen lots of each other already in Vegas where they’ve been working out, and even after the press conference during a one-on-one chat with new play-by-play man Matt Devlin, O’Neal continued to mention Bargs as someone he thinks is really going to give opposing defence fits alongside he and Bosh. If Andrea can get his game at least back to where it was near the end of season one, it’s true that Toronto suddenly will have a platoon of weapons to let loose on the opposition. Sam Mitchell stated yesterday that the ball would go to Chris or Jermaine on offence and the club would play through the sets from there but a focused and prepared Andrea definitely ads another element to such a dynamic.
Jose Press Conference Part 1 Part 2
Jermaine Press Conference Part1 Part 2 Part 3
“I tore [my meniscus] two and a half years ago,” a solemn O‘Neal admitted to the media when asked about his knee. “I tore it slightly and then ended up tearing it a little bit more because I continued to play on it. It was a meniscus tear and I didn’t want to have the surgery because I wanted to continue to play with the team and be out there for the team.”
Why would a player try to gut it out through a serious knee injury when his reputation and next contract is at stake? Because O’Neal knew the Indiana Pacers franchise needed him on the court and he felt guilty not helping out however he could. Even if that meant playing on one leg he wanted to suit up and help the franchise maintain their status as one of the elite teams in the Eastern Conference.
“Obviously the team was going through such a tough time with a lot of off the court situations, so with me not being in there I knew it would be a really effected team. It compromised the health of my knee a little bit. I played on it for a year and a half and decided I need to have surgery because it was gradually getting worse. I started missing a week here, a week there, so I thought it was in the best interest of my career to have the surgery.”
O’Neal elected to have surgery to clean things up last summer. While the surgery was a success, he rushed back to the court last fall because Indiana had a new coach in place and he wanted to ensure he would have a strong grasp on the new offensive sets the team would be running.
He quickly realized this was the wrong choice as he was forced to play on one leg. When the realization hit early in the season that he wouldn’t be able to endure the rigors of an 82 game schedule or play at the level he was used to, O’Neal decided to shut things down to ensure that his knee would return to full strength for the 2008-09 season.
“I made a career move when I decided to sit out the 43 straight games. I went out and got independent doctors and some of the best knee specialists in the country and they really all came to the conclusion that I needed to sit out, start rehabbing and calm the knee down. If I wanted to be healthy going into next season, and not only next season but being healthy going into the summer, I had to make that initial move.”
Earlier this week the Toronto Raptors announced that Matt Devlin would be taking over for the legendary Chuck Swirsky next season and I had the pleasure of chatting with him on Wednesday afternoon.
So much change and it really was all on display today. Well most of it. Hassan Adams and Nathan Jawai are in Vegas getting ready for Raptors first summer league game with takes place in just 3 days. That was part of the reason for double press conference today. Colangelo did mention that the Raptors were also happy to acquire Jawai in the draft as part of the trade. Jawai is really someone who could turn out to be something. He is a really raw talent and playing with Jermaine O’Neal and Chris Bosh on a daily basis should help him learn. Jawai got into basktball late in life but many NBA scouts were very impressed with the guy nicknamed “Aussie Shaq”.
This is a fantastic move by the Raptors, because although he won’t say it, Jose Calderon won the starting point guard job from TJ Ford last season. TJ makes too much money to stick around and be a sixth man.
Now, the Raptors starting line-up is looking pretty damn good. Oh, and big. Very Big.
They finally have a true centre in O’Neal who can play both ends of the floor very effectively, which should help Bosh when he’s double teamed, and vice-versa.
With two 6′11″ guys in the paint, it leaves the seven footer on the perimeter, where he likes to be. And this will bode well for Toronto, as Bargnani will have a load off of his shoulders and won’t have to live under much pressure being the number one pick from last year.
He’ll also flourish with his continuous improvements of driving the ball since O’Neal and Bosh can clear out the paint a little bit for him.
Will he put up 20 a game? No. But I do predict the sophomore slump is over, because defences around the league are going to have to make some serious adjustments.
(video) a new scoreboard is being installed at the acc this summer for leafs and raptors games
Toronto Raptors President Bryan Colangelo, an Atlantic Division rival, certainly is impressed.
“Their athleticism is off the charts,” Colangelo said. Brand is “one of the best low-post players around. This makes me glad that we were able to bring in a big man of our own in Jermaine O’Neal” in a trade from the Indiana Pacers.
In 2004, when the Harlem Globetrotters asked Jamario Moon to jump, he asked how high?
Now, the Toronto Raptors star, after a great rookie season, jumped at the chance when he was chosen to represent the National Basketball Association team in Alberta.
“I guess they just chose the guy with the biggest smile,” says Moon, 28.
The small forward will be in Calgary next week for the Raptors’ Summer Basketball Camp from July 14 to 18.
Moon will appear in Edmonton first, on Monday, before making his way to Calgary on Tuesday.
“They picked me because of what I went through to get to where I am today,” says the Goodwater, Ala., native. “I guess I’m an inspiration for (the kids) to keep doing what they want.”
“I loved meeting new people and living in different cities, and learning how the basketball business works. My highlights are new people and new places.”
His biggest highlight was signing with the Raptors last summer and playing through his first full season in the NBA.
“Overall, it was just great. The fans and the city took me in like I’d already been there for five years. The only downside was the first-round (playoff) exit, but you take that and you build on it.”
This time last year the Raptors were introducing Jason Kapono to the Toronto faithful, a player seen as a crucial piece to the Toronto Raptors puzzle. He was looked upon as another outside threat to bolster the team’s already potent outside attack that, despite the presence of All-Star big man Chris Bosh, defined the team’s style for much of the 06-07 season.
Since that time, though, the Raptors saw their hot shooting come and go at random, their ball movement to find those shooters breaking down, and their defense become so woeful that little-to-no pressure seemed to be the order of the day on most nights.
Today, however, marks the beginning of a new era of Raptors basketball - one centered around two All-Star calibre big men on a team that has been starved for size since the origins of the organization. For the first time the Raptors have a dominant post threat on offense AND on defense with regards to O’Neal, and his presence dramatically reshapes the way that Sam Mitchell’s club is going to play the game.
The Raptors bench now has Hassan Adams and Roko Ukic acting as back-up guards (with one more minimum-salaried guard to come, most likely Daniel Ewing), they have Andrea Bargnani and Kris Humphries as the backup bigs, and Jason Kapono as the only real scorer off of the bench. There are gobs of question marks surrounding this supporting cast, especially considering how little viable NBA experience is contained within it. Adams was a bit player two seasons ago in New Jersey, Ukic is a rookie point guard, Bargnani took a huge step back in his development last year and Humphries…well, he’s Kris Humphries. Even Kapono, the most experienced and well-paid player on the reserve unit still has to prove that his electrifying breakout in the Playoffs can be translated into the regular season. There are those that would like to see him reinserted into the starting five, but doing so would leave only Bargnani as any kind of a scoring threat off of the bench, which wouldn’t seem to serve any of those involved particularly well. As a reserve, Kapono can get more touches and more control in the offense as opposed to being a fourth or fifth option in the starting five.
Jermaine O’Neal has arrived in Toronto with a bang and a smile.
O’Neal charmed the assembled media Wednesday as the Raptors announced his acquisition from the Indiana Pacers along with the rights to Nathan Jawai for T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, Maceo Baston and the rights to centre Roy Hibbert.
Raptors.com’s Mike Ulmer had a bunch of questions for O’Neal.
Jose Calderon assumed his crown, yesterday.
The 27-year-old arrived to meet the press after signing a multi-year contract with the Raptors. With the departure of point guard T.J. Ford in the deal for Jermaine O’Neal, Calderon now has the controls of the team firmly in hand.
Raptors.com’s Mike Ulmer had some questions for the Raptors number eight.
This is Day One of my Raptors blog…there is so much to cover…where do you begin…
Let’s start with you. Throughout the course of the year I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you and interacting through this blog (the name is not decided on yet…let us know if you have any thoughts on a name!)… I’ll cover a wide range of topics, most specifically your Raptors and the NBA.
Even with us on the national team, some guys will find a way to be negative. I’d bet some money that reporters on t.v. in Spain are not saying one bad thing about their national team that’s in the Olympics. Why is it like that with Americans? Especially at a point when our team is trying to bring back the prestige and dominance of United States. Why should we be so negative?
This is a big deal and in my opinion, every American should root for every sport being represented by the U.S.A. in Beijing. This only comes once every four years and I think this is bigger than any negative story that we can read or watch any other day out of the year. From Ping Pong to Basketball, let’s support and root for our country.
GO USA!!!!!!!!!!!
Jose Manuel Calderon has signed a five year deal with the Toronto Raptors. He will be the starting point guard for the team with large aspirations in the NBA Eastern Conference. Jose Manuel was introduced to the Canadian media by the Raptors’ President Bryan Colangelo.
José Manuel anticipates returning to Spain next Thursday morning to immediately start playing with the Spanish National Team in San Fernando (Cádiz - Spain).
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