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Happy Christmas Eve everyone! I'm going to roll out a gimmick I've been thinking about doing for a while, I call it "headline tuesday." Basically, every Tuesday I will log on to ESPNs main page and write some abstract thoughts about some of their main headlines. Lets do this.
Fake Headline: NBA cancels Christmas Day slate, cites pathetic match-ups. Commissoner Stern considers flexing games from March.
Man I wish they could flex some future games for those first three abominations. How about Getting Indiana-Miami, Portland-OKC, Suns-Mavs, we can leave Houston-San Antonio and Golden State-LAC as they are, come on David, you can do it! Alas, on to the actual headlines.
Headline # 1: Romo Gets Epidural
Essentially Tony Romo is getting an injection to see if he can play this week and potentially help the Cowboys make the playoffs. This story just irritates me on so many levels. This Cowboys team (despite what Jerry Jones may tell you) is not very good, I think we can all agree on that. Whether they get bounced in week 17 in a do-or-die game against the Eagles or the first wild-card game of the playoffs is the only pertinent question left here. So why then risk the long-term health of the quarterback you just signed to a seven year extension? Shut him down for the season, let him get healthy and come back stronger next year. If Kyle Orton manages to pull off some playoff magic along the way so be it, but I don't think this Cowboys team can win the Superbowl this year, simply not worth the risk in my opinion.
Headline # 2: Nets' Pierce Fined 15K for Flagrant on Hill
Alternate: Garnett Says Nets Still Lack Identity
Two for the price of one! Man, what a sad season for the Brooklyn Nets. This team was supposed to challenge Miami? At the rate they are going they wont even make the playoffs and to make matters worse, they will have no draft picks in one of the best lotteries of all time. The way this organization is being run is an absolute joke. At this point the classy thing to do would be to trade KG and Pierce to teams that actually have a chance of making the playoffs, don't let their career end like this, please Billy King, if anyone can make this team worse its you.
Half-baked trade idea: KG + Pierce + Deron Williams to the Suns for at least 2 of their picks, one of Dragic/Bledsoe and Emeka Okafor's expiring contract. Of course, there is no way in hell the Suns do this but I thought I'd throw it out there.
Headline # 3: Garret Not Coaching For His Job, Jones Says
Ugh, nobody likes you Jerry Jones!
Headline # 4: D'antoni: "Find Another Team If Discouraged"
Man has it finally sunk in to Laker fans that they probably will not make the playoffs this year? The fact that their winning percentage without Kobe Bryant is higher than the percentage of winning with him speaks volumes about how wacky this Lakers season has been. Lakers fans: Settle down, you have had an incredible amount of success and have been spoiled by having some of the best players ever play for you. The Lakers' management baffles me as well. The smartest course of action would be to shut Kobe and Nash down for the year, trade Gasol for picks + assets and luck into a franchise player (the most Lakers thing ever). After all that is done sign Westbrook and Love and boom! Instant-contenders (Don't think that this can't happen). Luckily for us, the Lakers are satisfied being a 10 seed and stupid enough to believe that they can make serious noise in the playoffs. Let's enjoy this while it lasts, it does not happen often to this franchise.
Headline # 5: Bettman Upholds Ban for Bruin's Thorton
Good job Gary! Well done! I would have suspended him for longer.
Headline # 6: 49ers foil Falcons, grab playoff berth
This game made sure that some crazy scenarios (including the Seahawks dropping to a 5-seed, the Saints not making the playoffs, and Arizona winning 11 games and not making it to the playoffs) are all in play for week 17, most of them are really unlucky and the big losers here are Cardinals fans who really may have the scariest team. A real shame that they peaked in a season where the NFC has so much quality teams.
This is a video that pinpoints exactly the moment Cardinal fans had their hearts ripped in half.
See you next Tuesday for more headlines.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Thursday, December 19, 2013
The Curious Case of the Toronto Raptors: Coaching Edition
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"There are a lot of things that need to change with this franchise in order to undo the mistakes of previous regimes. In the next few posts, I will outline the things that need to change and make no mistake these things will happen with Masai Ujiri in charge."
I wrote those words on December 4th, Rudy Gay was traded 3 days later. In Masai we trust.
To be perfectly honest, the ruthlessness and efficiency with which Masai got rid of one of the biggest cancers in the league shocked me. I had a whole mini-series of posts delayed by the trade and the subsequent rumors that followed it, but I think that things have settled down enough to proceed. In this post I will examine the # 1 problem with the Toronto Raptors: coaching. Sadly, coaching is not only an issue this season but it seems to be an ongoing theme with this franchise. Sigh. Let's get started.
1. Player Development
I am going to start this section by posting the stats of some players:
Player 1: GP: 80 Min: 34.6 FGM-A: 7.3-17.1 TO: 2.9 PTS: 20.3
Player 2: GP: 80 Min: 27.5 FGM-A: 4.0-8.3 TO: 1.8 PTS: 9.7
Player 3: GP: 80 Min: 20.9 FGM-A: 2.8-6.9 TO: 0.9 PTS: 7.6
Player one is Kevin Durant in his rookie season. I want you to pay special attention to the amount of minutes Durant was getting as well as the amount of field-goals he got to take. At that time, Seattle (Durant played his first season there before OKC robbed him and the Sonics) knew that they were not going to be competing for a championship anytime soon; keep that in mind for what is to come. Player two and three (as most of you deduced, seeing as this is a post about the Toronto Raptors) are Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross respectively. The only problem with this is that I took the Stats for Ross and Val from THIS season (their second in the league). Once again, pay close attention to the minutes and shot attempts each player is getting. Seeing something wrong with this picture? Its one thing if the Raptors were serious title contenders and other, more established players were getting the majority of minutes, but lets be honest: this team sucks. So for the love of everything that is good WHY ARE WE NOT PLAYING OUR PROMISING YOUNG PLAYERS MORE??? I realize that using Durant is an extreme example but can you imagine if Seattle did to him what the Raptors are doing to Val/Ross now? The Raptors have this whole idiotic system in place where they:
-Want to put Val in a position of success
-Punish him severely for making mistakes and/or blowing defensive assignments
-Sit him during crunch time situations
In last nights tough loss to the Bobcats Valanciunas sat from about 5 minutes left in the third until the start of Overtime. Read that sentence again, once more: can you imagine if Seattle/OKC did this with Durant and Westbrook? Shouldn't the hapless Raptors, who are not going to be winning a title anytime soon be desperately developing their young talent in hopes that the players can blossom into stars? Even if they don't pan out at least by playing them you know that you gave them a real chance and wont get burned if they start producing for another team.
2. Game Management and Blowing Leads
I touched on the game against the Bobcats last night and mentioned in the previous section that it went to Overtime. What I did not mention is that mid-way through third quarter the Raptors held a 16 point lead. The Bobcats were on the road, playing the second night of a back-to-back, and down by 16 points; had Casey been coaching them, they would have lost by 35. So how did the Bobcats claw back and win the game? Absolutely shitty decision making by Dwane Casey that's how. He threw out line-ups that featured Hansborough and Patterson (Neither guy can create his own shot but both guys love to hold the ball and try to do so anyways) he refused to call time-outs (more on this in a bit) and he refused to change things up on time. If this was the first time the Raptors blew a big lead, I would not waste time writing this, it happens to everyone. With the Raptors however, blowing big leads is a disturbing trend. Even more disturbing is the amount of one-possession losses that the Raptors have accumulated during Casey's tenure. If your coach is constantly allowing big leads to evaporate and gives fans heart attacks with his awful end-game decisions then its time to hire a new coach. I'll leave off this section with this awesome video that perfectly sums up Dwane Casey as a coach: Big lead blown, awful end-game play calling and having Aaron Gray on the court to double team Kobe Bryant during a key posession.
3. Timeouts and Player Intelligence
This section is pretty simple. Casey does not know when to call a timeout to kill a team's momentum. I can use the Bobcats game from last night as evidence. Hell, Raptors Republic a website way more devoted to this team than I am regularly gives Dwane Casey an F for his coaching performances. That link will take you to the grades from last nights game, they sum up Casey's mistakes better than I could here. Dwane Casey also sucks at educating his team about simple things such as: foul when you are losing and the other team does not have to shoot the ball because there is less than 24 seconds left in the game. Sigh (again).
I mean did this guy really orchestrate the defense that last beat Miami in a playoff series? I think we gave Rick Carlisle way too little credit on that one. Can the Raptors hire some better coaches? For once I would like them to give the job to an established coach who wins games, I am tired of the Kevin O'neil, Sam Mitchell, and Jay Triano's of the world.
Hey Masai, Feel free to fire Casey after reading this, you made us all happier by trading Rudy last time (I can hope can't I?)
I wrote those words on December 4th, Rudy Gay was traded 3 days later. In Masai we trust.
To be perfectly honest, the ruthlessness and efficiency with which Masai got rid of one of the biggest cancers in the league shocked me. I had a whole mini-series of posts delayed by the trade and the subsequent rumors that followed it, but I think that things have settled down enough to proceed. In this post I will examine the # 1 problem with the Toronto Raptors: coaching. Sadly, coaching is not only an issue this season but it seems to be an ongoing theme with this franchise. Sigh. Let's get started.
1. Player Development
I am going to start this section by posting the stats of some players:
Player 1: GP: 80 Min: 34.6 FGM-A: 7.3-17.1 TO: 2.9 PTS: 20.3
Player 2: GP: 80 Min: 27.5 FGM-A: 4.0-8.3 TO: 1.8 PTS: 9.7
Player 3: GP: 80 Min: 20.9 FGM-A: 2.8-6.9 TO: 0.9 PTS: 7.6
Player one is Kevin Durant in his rookie season. I want you to pay special attention to the amount of minutes Durant was getting as well as the amount of field-goals he got to take. At that time, Seattle (Durant played his first season there before OKC robbed him and the Sonics) knew that they were not going to be competing for a championship anytime soon; keep that in mind for what is to come. Player two and three (as most of you deduced, seeing as this is a post about the Toronto Raptors) are Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross respectively. The only problem with this is that I took the Stats for Ross and Val from THIS season (their second in the league). Once again, pay close attention to the minutes and shot attempts each player is getting. Seeing something wrong with this picture? Its one thing if the Raptors were serious title contenders and other, more established players were getting the majority of minutes, but lets be honest: this team sucks. So for the love of everything that is good WHY ARE WE NOT PLAYING OUR PROMISING YOUNG PLAYERS MORE??? I realize that using Durant is an extreme example but can you imagine if Seattle did to him what the Raptors are doing to Val/Ross now? The Raptors have this whole idiotic system in place where they:
-Want to put Val in a position of success
-Punish him severely for making mistakes and/or blowing defensive assignments
-Sit him during crunch time situations
In last nights tough loss to the Bobcats Valanciunas sat from about 5 minutes left in the third until the start of Overtime. Read that sentence again, once more: can you imagine if Seattle/OKC did this with Durant and Westbrook? Shouldn't the hapless Raptors, who are not going to be winning a title anytime soon be desperately developing their young talent in hopes that the players can blossom into stars? Even if they don't pan out at least by playing them you know that you gave them a real chance and wont get burned if they start producing for another team.
2. Game Management and Blowing Leads
I touched on the game against the Bobcats last night and mentioned in the previous section that it went to Overtime. What I did not mention is that mid-way through third quarter the Raptors held a 16 point lead. The Bobcats were on the road, playing the second night of a back-to-back, and down by 16 points; had Casey been coaching them, they would have lost by 35. So how did the Bobcats claw back and win the game? Absolutely shitty decision making by Dwane Casey that's how. He threw out line-ups that featured Hansborough and Patterson (Neither guy can create his own shot but both guys love to hold the ball and try to do so anyways) he refused to call time-outs (more on this in a bit) and he refused to change things up on time. If this was the first time the Raptors blew a big lead, I would not waste time writing this, it happens to everyone. With the Raptors however, blowing big leads is a disturbing trend. Even more disturbing is the amount of one-possession losses that the Raptors have accumulated during Casey's tenure. If your coach is constantly allowing big leads to evaporate and gives fans heart attacks with his awful end-game decisions then its time to hire a new coach. I'll leave off this section with this awesome video that perfectly sums up Dwane Casey as a coach: Big lead blown, awful end-game play calling and having Aaron Gray on the court to double team Kobe Bryant during a key posession.
3. Timeouts and Player Intelligence
This section is pretty simple. Casey does not know when to call a timeout to kill a team's momentum. I can use the Bobcats game from last night as evidence. Hell, Raptors Republic a website way more devoted to this team than I am regularly gives Dwane Casey an F for his coaching performances. That link will take you to the grades from last nights game, they sum up Casey's mistakes better than I could here. Dwane Casey also sucks at educating his team about simple things such as: foul when you are losing and the other team does not have to shoot the ball because there is less than 24 seconds left in the game. Sigh (again).
I mean did this guy really orchestrate the defense that last beat Miami in a playoff series? I think we gave Rick Carlisle way too little credit on that one. Can the Raptors hire some better coaches? For once I would like them to give the job to an established coach who wins games, I am tired of the Kevin O'neil, Sam Mitchell, and Jay Triano's of the world.
Hey Masai, Feel free to fire Casey after reading this, you made us all happier by trading Rudy last time (I can hope can't I?)
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
The Curious Case of the Toronto Raptors
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One would think that Raptors fans would have grown immune to ugly (or in this case monumentally horrific) losses such as last night's 112-103 defeat to the Golden State Warriors. With this franchise as it turns out, there is no such thing as immunity.
About 20 minutes after the loss to the Warriors last night, RealGM, reddit, and Raptors Republic spawned about 500 posts of straight frustration venting about this team and this organization (I was one of them) I thought it would make me feel better, but this morning it is possible that I am even more upset, hence the un-retiring of this blog. I honestly don't even know where to begin. I could talk about how our "best" player, team captain and fearless team leader, the one who is so committed to winning that he banned others from looking at box scores following games (the irony here is too much), is so universally hated by Raptors fans right now that its making the hate for Bargnani look mild. The player in question is an absolute laughing stock in the NBA analytics community, a perennial black hole on offence who constantly takes (and makes roughly 39%) such bad shots that even Kobe Bryant and Nick Young are laughing at him. A guy with the audacity to smile after losing a game in which his team held a 27-point lead in the 3rd quarter. You know what? Lets start things off by talking about this player, for those of you who live on another planet and have never heard of the sport of basketball, the players name is Rudy Gay.
The more we see the guy play the more we realize why Memphis gladly gave him to us. Its a wonder that people didn't put two and two together when this trade happened. An underrated Memphis squad that made a deep playoff run without Rudy Gay, then fizzed out in the first round with him, and finally traded him away and made the conference finals! This trade was Colangelo's last-ditch attempt to save his job, one in which he rolled the dice on a terrible shooter, ball hog, and career loser, a perfect fit for this franchise actually. Now don't get me wrong, I really like the Raptors and I really want to see them be a successful team. However, after almost 20 years of mediocrity (and that is being polite) where the highlights of this franchise have been: one playoff series win, a dunk contest, and free pizza when they score 100 points. This is a franchise that has created a culture of quality players bolting at the first chance they get, botching draft picks in laughable fashion, and overpaying decent players who wouldn't make half as much anywhere else. In all seriousness; try to come up with a list of top 10 moments for this franchise. Odds are that beating the 70 win Bulls will be on there and quite frankly, when a regular season win in a year that you did not even crack 30 games in the W column makes your top 10, something is very very very wrong.
There are a lot of things that need to change with this franchise in order to undo the mistakes of previous regimes. In the next few posts, I will outline the things that need to change and make no mistake these things will happen with Masai Ujiri in charge.
Up next. everybody's favourite coach: Dwane Casey who may get more than one post devoted to him.
About 20 minutes after the loss to the Warriors last night, RealGM, reddit, and Raptors Republic spawned about 500 posts of straight frustration venting about this team and this organization (I was one of them) I thought it would make me feel better, but this morning it is possible that I am even more upset, hence the un-retiring of this blog. I honestly don't even know where to begin. I could talk about how our "best" player, team captain and fearless team leader, the one who is so committed to winning that he banned others from looking at box scores following games (the irony here is too much), is so universally hated by Raptors fans right now that its making the hate for Bargnani look mild. The player in question is an absolute laughing stock in the NBA analytics community, a perennial black hole on offence who constantly takes (and makes roughly 39%) such bad shots that even Kobe Bryant and Nick Young are laughing at him. A guy with the audacity to smile after losing a game in which his team held a 27-point lead in the 3rd quarter. You know what? Lets start things off by talking about this player, for those of you who live on another planet and have never heard of the sport of basketball, the players name is Rudy Gay.
The more we see the guy play the more we realize why Memphis gladly gave him to us. Its a wonder that people didn't put two and two together when this trade happened. An underrated Memphis squad that made a deep playoff run without Rudy Gay, then fizzed out in the first round with him, and finally traded him away and made the conference finals! This trade was Colangelo's last-ditch attempt to save his job, one in which he rolled the dice on a terrible shooter, ball hog, and career loser, a perfect fit for this franchise actually. Now don't get me wrong, I really like the Raptors and I really want to see them be a successful team. However, after almost 20 years of mediocrity (and that is being polite) where the highlights of this franchise have been: one playoff series win, a dunk contest, and free pizza when they score 100 points. This is a franchise that has created a culture of quality players bolting at the first chance they get, botching draft picks in laughable fashion, and overpaying decent players who wouldn't make half as much anywhere else. In all seriousness; try to come up with a list of top 10 moments for this franchise. Odds are that beating the 70 win Bulls will be on there and quite frankly, when a regular season win in a year that you did not even crack 30 games in the W column makes your top 10, something is very very very wrong.
There are a lot of things that need to change with this franchise in order to undo the mistakes of previous regimes. In the next few posts, I will outline the things that need to change and make no mistake these things will happen with Masai Ujiri in charge.
Up next. everybody's favourite coach: Dwane Casey who may get more than one post devoted to him.
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