1M Olympics

First of all, lets make no mistake about it - the necessary improvement with this Raptors team needs to come on the defensive end. It’s really too bad that they could not continue playing very well together as a group, as they were before the All-Star break. On both ends the concentration and focus was there before. Now these guys are looking like complete strangers again. There is too much looking for one guy to create stops, rather than to be a part of five guys all adding to the effectiveness of the defense from the point of attack to securing the rebounds.

Yet as much as the defense is a sore spot, I still find the way they play on the offensive end to be a part of the problem. The shot selection, and the way that shots are settled for without making the opposing defenses work, leads to a whole lot of transition points going the other way. The play on the offensive end mirrors what happens on the defensive end. There’s just not a great idea of what each guy needs to be doing to add to the sum of the parts. …

Yet Another Corner to Get Around

It seemed like it happened already. There was Andrea Bargnani, playing some very nice help defense, blocking shots, playing with energy, bringing home a win with Bosh out of the lineup. Cue Colangelo blathering on about the man’s greatness to a couple of puckhead radio guys. Jay was doing a great job with Bargnani. Andrea was understanding what he could do out there, establishing himself in this league and becoming the player they had all imagined when he was picked at number one. He had definitely turned the corner.

Well, around every corner is another corner. Andrea has shown what he can do. Now he needs to do it with some consistency. Against sub-par teams, and in home games, it’s hard not to be happy with his game. Against stiffer competition, particularly while on the road, the drop-off is dramatic. There is no reason for this team to lose three games in a row, with or without Bosh. But if Bargnani fails to bring any energy to games, then the losing streak could seem endless. He becomes a 7-foot barrier to success. Colangelo goes in hiding. Jay Triano looks like the main character in a …

Confidence

If you’ve seen the greatest of all Elvis movies, and surely you have, then you’ll know of the song Confidence. It comes in the pivotal moment of Clambake where Elvis needs to sing a song, and some ugly kid needs help in being convinced to slide down a slide in the playgorund. So Elvis sings:

with a C and an O and an N and a F and an I and a D and an “ents” - put ‘em all together and you’ve got confidence!

The song owes much to Sinatra’s High Hopes as imagined by a von Trapps tribute act, with instrumental interludes of children’s songs as though interpreted by Aaron Copeland, thrown in for good measure. It’s truly beautiful. To top everything off, Elvis takes a basketball with rainbow-colored panels, and sinks a one-handed shot like he was a pre-gun-toting Agent Zero. The video should be played in the Raptors locker room before every game. Just for the heck of it.

Confidence is what has been on display as of late, more than just high hopes, and it’s getting the job done. It is one of the key elements of team play that …

Post-Valentine Heart

At the time of writing this, I’m getting anticipatory feelings about real basketball action resuming, and thinking about what the Raptors need to finish the season strong. And I think it’s going to come down to heart. As simple as that. Well, actually finding a consistent three-point threat woudn’t hurt. But heart is going to be a big part of the equation.

What does that entail exactly? It’s hard to say. Those damn Yankees needed miles and miles and miles of it. What kind of tremendous poetic imagery is that? They don’t write songs like that anymore. It makes me think of a terrible mess of roadkill though, so I guess it’s a good thing they don’t. But what better way to describe the impact of heart? It’s a tough one, and although I’m tempted to drink some Sprite in order to come up with flourishes that would make a Jack Kerouac sit in the center of his own universe and cry at the beauty of it all, I suspect the Sprite trick works about as well as the dunk contest ended up.

We know it when we see it. It was mostly heart that allowed …

Boshtown

Chris Bosh makes it a homecoming while enjoying the All-Star weekend in Dallas. But with what he’s been saying of late, it seems that his heart lies back here in Toronto. He’s been talking about recruiting other players, and letting them know what the city has to offer, and he doesn’t appear to see that as a major challenge. Of course winning would help that whole process along nicely. So let’s hope that continues to happen, and the current culture around the whole team takes root enough to lure in some more talent into Bosh’s long, welcoming arms.

But how does Bosh get past the perceived notion that he’s in the Great White North where all that really matters is hockey and curling? How does he get over not being in the USA himself? Hears how he puts things in a pretty nice perspective -

“It is a hockey town, but they know what basketball is. They cheer when the ball goes in, and when we win they cheer even more. It’s a pretty simple game. People follow basketball all over the world. So for people who say its a hockey town, its getting a little …

The Message

Mr. Colangelo put together a little message that was sent out to all the major media outlets last week. He said something a little different from “it’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under”, although he did point out that he was close to going there early in the season when the schedule was tough. But pointing at the tough schedule “wasn’t an excuse, it was a reality” Keepin’ it real Bryan. Keepin’ it real fo sho. And what a great way to make excuses without making excuses.

The biggest part of his message had to be this line: “I’m talking about not only a tweak, but in a big deal, we’re going to be a buyer, not a seller.”

My question is - who is this message directed at? Is it a message meant be heard loud and clear by all the pushers and pimps, those being the sad GM’s of teams in financial hardship? Is he meaning to make them very aware that the Raptors are ready to look at offers even if Bosh is off the table? Or is the message meant mainly for Chris Bosh …

Palindrome: the day before the day after

So I wake up and see that it’s 0102 2010. Same backwards and forwards. All those twenties and tens are nice to look at huh? I vaguely recall something about 2010 that had everyone’s interest for so long, but it’s not quite taking shape. Oh it’s there in my memory bank, but it’s not taking shape in reality as so many suggested for so long. 2010 is all about the twenties and the tens and little else, with 10 wins being the nicest of them all to look at.

With this palindrome day being followed up with Groundhog Day, I just have to applaud the backwards and forwards consistency of Chris Bosh. When Tim Duncan retires, I hope that Charles Barkley will be able to continue using the term to describe CB4. And I hope that he can still call him a Toronto Raptor, and that 10 win months keep piling up. This Groundhog Day is one that can be repeated over and over, gladly, from my vantage point. As long as he leads this team to the strong showing that seems all but apparent before the break, and …

Making Waves

Are we actually lucky to be Raptor fans?

Remember how awful and unfortunate it was to get the number one pick a year before the number one pick was going to be Greg Oden? I mean people were happy enough, but hoping Colangelo could trade down all the same, while ultimately envying the number one pick that was still a year away from eligibility. Maybe we all should have just been very happy and left it at that, because as things turn out, our guy has turned out pretty good, while the other guy that was supposed to set the world on fire has turned fewer heads then that crazy old man singing Pants on the Ground on American Idol. Oh - and there he is missing another season with his own pants on the ground, and surely happy now that Apple has come out with a tablet, because the Oden Penis app just wasn’t going to be properly handled by your regular iPhone.

And not only is our pick turning into a unique, consistent performer on both ends of the court, but he’s doing it with a pretty good team around him. Some young players …

Dog Days

These are the dog days of the NBA. Legs getting heavy. Effort needed as much as sheer talent. And leadership comes into play. If the Raptors can summon up the determination they showed here against the Bucks, then they should be able to take advantage of their schedule right up to the break. And they really need to if they want to hit the final stretch well-positioned. Teams like Charlotte and Chicago are playing well, and the Heat might get on a roll with the addition of Rafer. Hopefully the dog days will not be as kind to those guys as they can be for our guys.

The big dog that the team needs to get into the hunt, is obviously Hedo. Is he missing the incessant barking and howling of Stan Van? Now there’s a voice that auto-tune cannot fix! But maybe it’s the voice that keeps on calling Hedo. Ever since sitting to end the game in Cleveland, he looks a little more ready to just fight through a sustained stretch and worry a little less about his role. Jarrett Jack went through such a spell himself, although without quite the threat of …

Winning Big

Remember before Bosh was selected in ‘03, how badly the Toronto Raptors needed some credible, functional, viable size? Things might have even bottomed out completely in Bosh’s first season, when he played C with a banged up knee and a skinny frame, and there was no other real size to be had outside of the “Banger Brothers”. After that we saw the arrival of the Haffanator, who seemed like an evolutionary twist on the Huffman-Huffamazing. Actually the whole collection of bigs throughout the first half of the decade could all be lined up on a chart not unlike the one showing the link from ape to neanderthal to human, with the more human calibre of NBA talent appearing so rarely as to suggest a process as slow as evolution.

Finally we have found the missing link, or links actually. Bosh, Bargnani, Amir “Dirty Baby” Johnson, Rasho, and the pre-season wonder - Reggie Evans. Add to that the size of Hedo, and it is clear that this team can finally play big. But can they win big? Or is it simply a horrible irony that what teams need to win in the NBA today, is speed …