In watching Carlos Delfino tear it up for Argentina at the Olympics, the one thing that came to mind was everyone connected with the team should be glad they still have his rights.

Not sure how he’ll do in Russia but NBA scouts had to come away from Beijing impressed with his all around play. He ran a lot of the offence as a point guard, didn’t take many of those crazy shots that he was known for at times here and was as consistent as he’d ever been.

Of course, we all know he can go for long periods being entirely invisible and that was his biggest problem in the NBA.

But as one exec said at the Olympics, “that’s a pretty good asset” for the Raptors to have.

But, no, he wasn’t going to be back here this season. It was a money decision, the Raptors didn’t have enough and didn’t want to spend what they had on him.

Maybe next year. Or maybe, because he remains a restricted free agent, they can work some sign-and-trade next summer. Whatever happens, extending the qualifying offer and not rescinding it seems like a pretty good no-lose move at the moment.

Do you know it’s almost a month to the day before camp starts?

Not sure anything of substance is going to happen with the Raptors between now and then – there are no rosters moves to make whatsoever – so it’s going to remain pretty quiet news-wise.

What’s going to happen is players will start filtering back into the city, probably beginning next week, and they’ll be hanging out at the ACC doing workouts and scrimmaging pretty much every day.

I haven’t heard how many players they’ll be bringing to camp as fodder, if I had to guess, it’d be three but no one who gets an invite has a chance to make the team.

A word of warning:
You are not going to see the same level of intensity every night for an 82-game season. Not going to happen. It’s one thing to play that way for 20 minutes or so for eight games over more than two weeks; it’s quite another to expect it on back-to-back nights in, say, Toronto and Milwaukee some Friday-Saturday in February.

What you are going to see, I think, is a different Bosh in “big games.” Important regular season games, playoff games, moments of tight games when they need a leader to step up on the defensive end.

Then you’ll see a new level of confidence, a new level of leadership that was born in the Olympics.

Every night? Not going to happen. It can’t. No one – not you, not me, not him – is wired that way.

- Toronto Star 

(audio) Bryan Colangelo

- The Fan