toronto raptors linkage – oct 2
To hear the Raptors general manager tell it, there should not be a recurrence of Jason Kapono’s disappearing act in the regular season because there no longer is the logjam of players at his position.
“There were times, roughly 10-12 games, where he looked fantastic,” Colangelo said. “He looked like he was the guy who (I) signed to that deal and justified that deal. There were other times where he just seemed to float away. There was never a time you could look into a game and say that both Jason and Carlos Delfino played great. It was either one or the other, or neither. There was that one span where (Kapono) didn’t take a shot from behind the line for nine or 10 games. You’re talking about one of the best three-point shooters in the game, perhaps percentage wise, in history, and you don’t take a shot? I don’t know that is something that is explainable. Part of it becomes a mental thing for the player and part of it becomes a little bit of an uncertainty for the coaching staff.”
That was the rough part of Kapono’s year. The positives, most of them anyway, came during his brief playoff run.
“He becomes more aggressive and basically a vital part of the offence,” Colangelo said of the playoff Kapono. “He really played at an elite level.”
“I don’t know who’ll start at the two-guard.” Mitchell said. “It could be A.P., it could be Jason (Kapono).”
All but confirming that Jamario Moon will remain the starting small forward because of his athleticism and defensive abilities, the coach plans to split time for Parker and Kapono to get the most out of his two best three-point shooters.
“My mindset right now with those guys is those guys will split those minutes and depending on how guys are playing (it will determine) who’ll play a little bit more than the other,” the coach said.
“If Jason Kapono is lighting it up that night, Jason Kapono will play maybe 30 minutes and A.P. will play a little less regardless of who’s starting. If A.P.’s having a good night, maybe A.P. will play 30 minutes and Jason will play 20 minutes.”
This year, for all their improvements elsewhere, they’re thinner than ever in their weakest spots. Parker and Moon are still around, of course, as are the mercurial Jason Kapono and Joey Graham. But Carlos Delfino, the rare Raptor perimeter player who actually drove to the hoop in a first-round playoff loss to the Orlando Magic, is gone.
All this is being spun as a good thing by Sam Mitchell, the Toronto coach: “That’s why we thinned out the roster – it makes it easier for me to coach.”
Mitchell’s less-is-more theory goes that last season’s club had too many options off the bench, which meant he was tempted into quick-hooking players. Now he’s saying a roster tweak that limits his combinations is a “good thing.” Try and follow the logic.
“Some nights, even when they’re struggling, I’ve got to let `em play through it,” said Mitchell. In other words, he’ll have faith in his rotation now that he’s got no other choice.
That’s not exactly why Delfino’s not around. He got big money to play in Russia, and so Moon will be among those who’ll again need to be a key cog, which bodes well, at least, for his impending free agency. Who knows if he possesses the stuff of another level; though he’s impossible to dislike, he seems perpetually happy to be exactly as he is.
Before he left Alabama for training camp – a day or two late because he said he “misplaced” his passport in one of the boxes destined for his new abode – the town of Goodwater celebrated Jamario Moon Day. Raptor fans are hoping it’s his year, too.
“The doctor says the baby is due in January. I say December,” said Moon, who has attended community college.
“Every time the doctors give you the date, the babies always come early. Not always, but most of the time. So December will be interesting.”
Can we please, please, please, pull back on the Nathan Jawai’s Career Is In Jeopardy stuff I’m reading around here.
The dude, a really good guy it seems, still has to see more doctors, get more tests, check things out and could, actually, be on the court back home on Sunday. I think caution when dealing with “cardiac issues” is always wise but that’s what it is, caution. Not panic.
And the signing of Jamal Sampson is nothing more than getting a guy in to work out just in case. It doesn’t mean they expect Jawai to be out for a month, or a year, or forever. It means they need a backup plan in place, nothing more than that.
There is every chance Jawai will be fine and he’ll be doing this season what everyone expected him to be doing this season, sitting on the bench soaking up the experience and learning the game in practice.
Ever wonder what those guys wear under their jerseys?
Well, at camp at least, they wear heart monitors.
Every player, every practice, wears a little belt, an inch or so wide, around their chest with a heart monitor on it so the team’s training staff can see how fit they are, establish a base line to use as the season progresses and see who’s in shape and out of shape, I guess.
“As a player, if you are giving your best and you are performing, you want a fair shot at playing,” Kapono said of his uneven first season with Toronto after signing a four-year, $24-million (U.S.) free-agent deal that pried him from his beloved golf courses in Miami.
“The hardest pill to swallow is if you feel you’ve earned the chance to play and you don’t get that chance, it’s tough. It wears on you.”
It wore on Kapono enough that he convened private meetings with both Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell and general manager Bryan Colangelo to express his concerns.
“I don’t have an answer nor do I want any answers [for last season],” Kapono said yesterday during the NBA team’s training camp in the nation’s capital. “It’s whatever coach says. But I sat down and talked to Sam and talked to Bryan. But that’s private. The bottom line is we talked it out and Sam is going to do what’s best for the team and he can’t keep us all happy guys. No matter what, people are going to be upset. You can only play five out of 13 guys, so eight guys are going to be upset.”
“We never told Jason not to shoot the ball,” coach Sam Mitchell said Wednesday. “Don’t try to stir up some problem that this guy felt he was under-utilized last year. Guess what? Tough. Last year’s over, and we can’t go back and replay it.”
Fair enough. But as the Raptors head towards a new season, Kapono remains a bit of a mystery. Is he the guy who passed up open shots and was lost in the regular-season shuffle, or is he the fearless deadeye who averaged 15.6 points in Toronto’s five playoff games against Orlando? Is he a useful piece or surplus equipment?
“Let’s say for 20 games of the schedule he looked like the guy who you signed to the deal that we signed. And justified the deal,” said Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo, who signed Kapono to a four-year, US$24-million contract before last season. “There were other times where he just seemed to float away … didn’t take a shot. It’s something that I’m not sure was explainable.
“Part of it becomes a mental thing for the player, and part of it becomes an uncertainty for the coaching staff. How do you use someone who seems to be going through a cycle like that? It’s tough to explain.”
So, Colangelo went back to the lab this summer and made some significant changes to his roster. He traded T.J. Ford, Maceo Baston, Rasho Nesterovicand the No. 17 pick of the draft (Roy Hibbert) to Indiana for Jermaine O’Nealand the No. 41 pick (Nathan Jawai). The departures of Primoz Brezec andCarlos Delfino further pared down the roster, and Colangelo thinks that’s a good thing.
He spoke with NBA.com a week before camp opened.
Toronto’s latest free agent addition, Will Solomon, talked with Ryan McNeill during the Toronto Raptors media day about his experiences playing overseas, what he did during 10 hour bus rides in Europe, what motivated him to return to the NBA, and he shared his expectations for the upcoming season.
So in this first edition we have Jack talking about something he said on his radio show the Game Plan on Fan 590. If healthy Raptors could be good enough to get to Eastern Conference Final. Why does he think that? He will tell you. Also Andrea Bargnani at the 3 is it realistic for the Raptors and help them have success? Lastly it seems Jamario Moon is not in Sam Mitchell’s dog house and in fact he likely is the guy who has the 3 spot to loss. Doesn’t it make sense to have both Parker and Kapono on the floor together instead of both playing at the two spot? Jack breaks it down for us.
But despite all of this I had said that the door was being left open for Jermaine O’Neal to change my mind. I am a firm in thinking if you are a Raptor you are part of my team and I am going to support you or at least try to do so. The first challenge for J.O to impress me was his press conference after this trade happened. What was he going to say? Was he pissed to have got traded to Canada? How was he going to deal with all the questions about his health? What about all the problems in Indiana with the Pacers? I sat glued to the T.V waiting to hear what he would say. when it was all done he had not ducked any of those questions and had reasonable and logical responses to the questions from the gathered media. He thanked me and all of you the Raptor fans for welcoming him to the Raptors. He came off as every bit the NBA Veteran he was. There was a professionalism about it all.
The question that comes to mind is whether we did a proper physical before we drafted him. He missed most of summer league and couldn’t get past media day, not being crude here but isn’t it too soon to be seeing specialists? This one’s got early retirement written all over it. All the best to him too, he seems like good people. I really wanted to see how he reacts when he’s put in the game to defend Dwight Howard, I’m taking he’s seen nothing like the sort before. NBA initiation, it’s the best.
Again, nothing has been confirmed 100%, but this is how things seem to be unfolding in the coach’s eyes:
PG - JOSE CALDERON, Will Solomon, Roko Ukic
SG - ANTHONY PARKER, Jason Kapono, Hassan Adams
SF - JAMARIO MOON, Joey Graham
PF - CHRIS BOSH, Andrea Bargnani, Kris Humphries
C - JERMAINE O’NEAL, Nathan Jawai, Jamal Sampson
Humphries will likely see more minutes than Jawai and Sampson - with a rotation of bigs included Bosh, O’Neal, Bargnani, and Hump - while Kapono could still see some time at SF depending on the match-ups. He’ll be primarily used as a SG though.
“Just because you make the most money doesn’t mean you’re the leader,” Bird said last month. “A lot of guys didn’t want to step on toes. Not only here, but other places I’ve been at. They’d say, the guy makes the most money that means he’s the leader. That’s not the case. The leader comes from the guy doing the right thing, the guy that’s going to be there every day at practice, the guy that plays through pain without complaining. They do the necessary things to prepare themselves.
“I think the situation you have here, you had one guy making a lot of money and everybody just took it as he’s going to be leading us, and in some instances that was true. But I think more now that since it has opened you’ll see a number of guys stepping up.
“Really, you just need one voice. Usually your best leaders are ones that don’t say anything, they just play, prepare and do the right things.”
As is … the major problem with this team is the overall Lack of Quality Depth … but, there’s no denying the fact that the squad has 10 pieces to the puzzle of a 15-piece Playoff Contender Set, in the Eastern Conference, this season.
Smart suggested that Triano take a look at coming to Ottawa for the following year’s training camp. By the end of the summer, it was announced that the Raptors had accepted the offer.
Although all the practices are closed to the public (even the media have only limited access), there is an intra-squad game Saturday afternoon that sold out in a little over 20 minutes after it was announced.
“It’s a great thing for our school and our city in terms of basketball to have a professional team doing their training camp in our city. It’s an opportunity Saturday for the basketball fans in our city to see them up close,” Smart said.
“It’s great exposure for our university to have this level of sport on our campus.’
13. Toronto Raptors - No player is happier after this offseason than Chris Bosh, who now has a legit scoring threat to team with in the frontcourt in Jermaine O’Neal. If O’Neal can avoid injuries and return to his old self, the Raptors have a chance to do something special this year.
So when the newest Toronto Raptor spent a couple of weeks in the off-season training with Andrea Bargnani in Las Vegas, he wanted to see what the big Italian was made of.
“We played against each other, and I really just banged him to see what his reaction would be and he never backed down,” the bruising six-foot-11 O’Neal said Wednesday. “I think he knows what’s at stake here and the challenge that he has to accept and the things he has to do to be successful.”
Yesterday, however, the Raptors media was introduced to another Andrea Bargnani. This one seemed a little more jovial, laid back, and he even added a joke for good measure.
What was more impressive was that his physique seemed completely altered.
Having followed Andrea for six years now, his body has gone through some significant changes. Unlike Bosh, his shoulders were never rounded and his base was never small, thus, the potential to bulk up was never a question. Last year,
he weighed in at a shade over 250 pounds—the majority of which was due to a strong base. This year, his upper body seems to be defined, and this will no doubt help him finish at the basket with a little more authority at his current weight of 262 pounds.
After last season, Bryan Colangelo re-stated his position on Andrea, claiming he was still one of Bargnani’s “biggest fans”. Those are telling words coming from the man who drafted the likes of Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, and Michael Finley.
“Il Mago” talks to Eric Smith about his off-season workout, playing alongside Jermaine O’Neal and the start of training camp.
The Raptors’ off-season acquisition talks to Eric Smith about coming to Toronto, his time in Europe and his expectations for the season
The Spanish point guard talks to Eric Smith about the controversial team photo that the Spanish national basketball team took part in for the 2008 Beijing Games.
Nice to see that Sam Mitchell is re-examining the best role for Anthony Parker on this team … at last!
khandors last blog post..Second good news out of Raptors’ camp
Am I the only one who noticed that Fan 590 has listed our two dumbest players at SF in their depth chart?