Should Bryan Colangelo be Fired

[McFurious1]

Burke has been a way way better GM than BC. Here's how you test it: Look at the assets Burke started with when he took over the Leafs, and look what they have in comparison now. Now look at the assets BC started with as the Raptors, compared to what they have now. In terms of assets and value, the Leafs have gone strongly upwards and the Raptors down. And this is despite BC spending the last 2 seasons tanking. If BC was being measured at what he had 4 years it would be proof of an even more embarrassing fall off a cliff asset value wise

The people who believe Burke has been as bad as or worse than BC, are judging it in the way Toronto sports media likes to judge things, by how many times the team gets to the playoffs. In reality judging a team by its assets and taking into account how massively better the Raptors were to start the BC era than the Leafs were to the start the Burke one, shows Burke in no way should be compared to a GM as bad as BC

The argument is BC vs JFJ. BC is that bad. I think JFJ is still worse but it's an argument IMO

Oh ya that Kessel trade was a good one wasn't it.

[Dr Positivity]

There are much worse things than trading for a blue chip forward and all-star and the face of the team.

In 08 Schenn was the only blue chip young piece. It was almost an oasis in the desert to have 1 young blue chip player. The rest was worn out old guys, bad contracts and bit players.

Now the team has much more. Kessel is an all-star. JVR has 1st line potential and a steal for a player who's upside was as low as Schenn's. Morgan Rielly is getting superstar comparisons to Leetch and Neidermayer and is one of the most dynamic offensive defense-men in the draft in years. Kadri still has high potential. Garidner and Gunnarson are both nice pieces, especially the former. Phaneuf and Lupul are only 27/28 and good players so they're nice to have too. Other prospects like Franson, Frattin, Colborne, etc. The team is in much much better position than they were in 08. It's not even close. They have far more dynamic talent and youth and asset depth.

Now look at BC in 06. He has Bosh, #1 pick, capspace, Charlie V., young Jose, etc. By 2010 we're looking at Bargnani, Calderon and Amir on big contracts, Jack, Derozan, Davis. Assets wise we fell off an absolute cliff. We went from a team with a superstar, a #1 pick and other valuable pieces, to one only slightly better off than an expansion team. The 2010 Raptors look a lot like the Leafs when Burke started in terms of talent and assets. The only difference is that the Raptors made the mistake of waiting 2 years and counting to fire BC for screwing up the team that bad.

BC can't hold Burke's jockstrap. Burke is one of the most intelligent GMs in the league and more passionate than anyone. BC is a politician used cars salesman who's more blind to his mistakes than a bat

[TylerTheDebater]

He has until the end of the year. No reason to fire him, but he needs to know he's gone if we don't make the playoffs. He needs to even start interviewing people by midseason if we're not at .500. I know the injuries aren't his fault, but all the bad contracts ARE. Landry has been a disaster. Kleiza was injured when we signed him and hasn't been healthy until now. Bargnani is having his worst season. Ross can't crack the rotation. These are his mistakes. If he can't improve the team this year, even with injuries, he cannot come back.

Even ESPN was giving us love as a playoff team. Now we're terrible. If he can't improve it, he is not worthy of a return.

[JunkYardSubs]

Guys I dont think BC will make it past this year anyway, don't worry

[OAKLEY_2]

Remember this?
"Don’t expect any movement on the Toronto general manager’s search for a couple of weeks. Team president Bryan Colangelo was in Europe last week and won’t start whittling down his group of candidates until the middle of the month. Sixers GM Ed Stefanski, former Hornets GM and coach Jeff Bower and Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey are among the candidates, but former Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard is also believed to be in the hunt and is a strong candidate. Pritchard took a player personnel job with the Pacers earlier this summer, but has an out in his deal that would allow him to leave if a GM job became available."

Well they gave it this title.
"The Toronto Raptors are finalizing an agreement with former Philadelphia 76ers general manager Ed Stefanski to take over as the franchise’s executive vice president of basketball operations, league sources told Yahoo! Sports."

Guaranteed if the board of MLSE have seen enough BC gets parachuted into a 2 year contract as President of basketball operations and Stephanski takes over as GM and VP. Place your bets.

[ATLTimekeeper]

Remember this?
"Don’t expect any movement on the Toronto general manager’s search for a couple of weeks. Team president Bryan Colangelo was in Europe last week and won’t start whittling down his group of candidates until the middle of the month. Sixers GM Ed Stefanski, former Hornets GM and coach Jeff Bower and Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey are among the candidates, but former Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard is also believed to be in the hunt and is a strong candidate. Pritchard took a player personnel job with the Pacers earlier this summer, but has an out in his deal that would allow him to leave if a GM job became available."

Well they gave it this title.
"The Toronto Raptors are finalizing an agreement with former Philadelphia 76ers general manager Ed Stefanski to take over as the franchise’s executive vice president of basketball operations, league sources told Yahoo! Sports."

Guaranteed if the board of MLSE have seen enough BC gets parachuted into a 2 year contract as President of basketball operations and Stephanski takes over as GM and VP. Place your bets.

Titles don't really mean anything. It's who has the phone. Your scenario is possible, but they may just want a clean break altogether.

[FluLikeSymptoms]

Maybe BC will be hired away mid-season. Lose 'em like you got 'em? Or is that just girls?

[whysoserious]

Remember this?
"Don’t expect any movement on the Toronto general manager’s search for a couple of weeks. Team president Bryan Colangelo was in Europe last week and won’t start whittling down his group of candidates until the middle of the month. Sixers GM Ed Stefanski, former Hornets GM and coach Jeff Bower and Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey are among the candidates, but former Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard is also believed to be in the hunt and is a strong candidate. Pritchard took a player personnel job with the Pacers earlier this summer, but has an out in his deal that would allow him to leave if a GM job became available."

Well they gave it this title.
"The Toronto Raptors are finalizing an agreement with former Philadelphia 76ers general manager Ed Stefanski to take over as the franchise’s executive vice president of basketball operations, league sources told Yahoo! Sports."

Guaranteed if the board of MLSE have seen enough BC gets parachuted into a 2 year contract as President of basketball operations and Stephanski takes over as GM and VP. Place your bets.

Having BC as Pres. of Basketball Operations and Stefanski as GM does not change the direction of this organization and what's happening. Stefanski is still taking his queues from the President and he was hired by the guy you feel is no longer competent to be the GM.

Stefanski could very well stay on in a case of BC being gone, but moving one up and giving the other more control on basketball moves doesn't change anything. With BC gone, Stefanski may feel compelled to execute his own vision, working for BC he's still gonna listen to BC's vision.

[hillbilly hare]

He has until the end of the year. No reason to fire him, but he needs to know he's gone if we don't make the playoffs. He needs to even start interviewing people by midseason if we're not at .500. I know the injuries aren't his fault, but all the bad contracts ARE. Landry has been a disaster. Kleiza was injured when we signed him and hasn't been healthy until now. Bargnani is having his worst season. Ross can't crack the rotation. These are his mistakes. If he can't improve the team this year, even with injuries, he cannot come back.

Even ESPN was giving us love as a playoff team. Now we're terrible. If he can't improve it, he is not worthy of a return.

The interesting thing is that if this thread is any indicator, Clownangelo has managed to warp the evaluation process of his reign of error here. So many are focusing on this season and only his most recent poor decisions, as in signing Fields, the Nash embarrassment, Ross over Drummond, not going after someone like Scola via the amnesty, and so on. It's been said that if we make the playoffs this year, Colangelo's job should be safe! Unbelievable. The guy has been brutal for several years now, it's not just this off-season.

The team is as bad as it is because of the accumulation of bad moves over a 3 or 4 year span of time. I know I keep bringing this up, but the most telling mark of the truly poor job Colangelo has done here is this: we have zero All-stars on the team. In his 7 off-seasons here he has added Minus -1 All-stars. That is a truly pathetic bottom line. Even some of the most maligned and mocked and muddle-headed GMs in the league have done better. David Kahn has 1 All-NBA guy on the team with Love and another 3 possible All-stars if heathy (Rubio, Pekovic, Kirilenko). He even showed the proactive intelligence that nobody would've given him credit for when he shipped out Al Jefferson when his trade value was still solid. Or Billy King, who of course has the luxury of Prokohov (sp?) money, but he has 3 possible All-stars on the roster.

Colangelo has zero. And he lost the only one he inherited. How does he still have a job?

[OAKLEY_2]

Excellent article below. We have been more mediocre than bad under BC. Very MLSE if you ask me. The real indictment of BC is that he has been like a coach too easy to give the hook to players in each and every offseason with more or less the same average results. We do have 3 players of promise and we have to at least worry about what would happen to them with a management cleaning of the house. Players bolting is our biggest issue as a franchise.
http://www.torontolife.com/daily/inform ... lo-raptors

[hillbilly hare]

Excellent article below. We have been more mediocre than bad under BC. Very MLSE if you ask me. The real indictment of BC is that he has been like a coach too easy to give the hook to players in each and every offseason with more or less the same average results. We do have 3 players of promise and we have to at least worry about what would happen to them with a management cleaning of the house. Players bolting is our biggest issue as a franchise.
http://www.torontolife.com/daily/inform ... lo-raptors

Can't say I agree with the biggest problem being players bolting. We haven't had that many impact players whose bolting was a big problem. The lack of impact players/All-stars is and always has been the problem. We've had 1 (one!) in the last 8 years. How Bosh (and Lebron) was handled is now the textbook for GMs around the league who are worried about their stars bolting. Unfortunately our former boy wonder was not ahead of the curve on that one. It's not a Raptors or Toronto thing, it's a bad GM thing. Cleveland, Utah, Denver and Orlando all recently went thru the same thing. Only us and Cleveland lost our star for basically nothing.

Mediocre or bad under Colangelo doesn't change much. And let's be clear about his version of mediocrity: well under .500 in the win column. Mediocre = Below Average. Lots of folks even say it's better to be bad than mediocre, as you'll get better draft picks. Whatever. But Colangelo's mark on this team has been to pile up mediocrity year after year, until the team sank under the weight of so much ballast.

The fact that he is still here, and still getting another chance, just one more shot at the playoffs, just one more chance to turn the corner, and on and on, is really just unbelievable.

Let's tally up Colangelo vs. Babcock one more time:

Babcock: at the helm for 1.5 seasons, 2 off-seasons to work with, inherited a team with 1 All-star and 1 soon-to-be All-star, a team that went 33-49 the year before and 24-58 the year before that. Under Babcock, the team went 33-49 his first year (same as year before) and started his 2nd and final season pathetically, he gets canned and the team ends up 27-55. Horrendous, pathetic, embarrassing and so on. Though just about where the Raptors had been for a while.

Colangelo: at the helm for 6.5 seasons, 7 off-seasons to work with, inherited a team with 1 All-star, 1 All-Rookie teamer, cap space and the 1st overall pick in the draft. In all his time here and with all the assets he has had, the team now has ZERO All-stars. We have had 1 winning record in his 6 full seasons here. Under him in recent years the team has returned to its embarrassing past levels of ineptitude with 33-49, 22-60 and 28-54 (pro-rated) seasons. AND YET, the guy is STILL HERE! And serious discussion is being waged here and elsewhere about whether to extend his contract in the near future or not!

What should poor old Don Knotts/Rob Babcock say? Image is everything? Excuse me while I get off Raptor Coachlines at the next stop, Unreality Ave?

[RealSuperfan]

I would have loved to bring Kevin Pritchard on board when the opportunity was there, even if it was for assistant GM duties. Stefanski doesn't thrill me especially now considering he's been under BC for a while. I think there's no question we need a breath of fresh air and it won't be coming from those two. Just imagine for a second if someone were to take over the reigns.. someone that wasn't attached to Bargnani like our front office is, somebody with a new approach and philosophy. I've always wondered throughout the years and even up until now what some of the offers have been pertaining to Andrea.

I don't think there's any doubt the Colangelo era has run its course, at least in the eyes of of us hardcore fans. I'm really not sure what MLSE's line of thinking here is; sure BC has made them $ which is all fine and dandy but 6.5 years later and Toronto still hasn't established an identity of any sort in the basketball world. It's been almost 20 years since our inception and save for a few moments, this franchise hasn't done much. I'm not holding my breath with BC and I really can't forecast any real change until he's gone. Acquisitions like Lowry and Valanciunas have been encouraging but I think a new outlook woud be refreshing.

[HomieOmey]

I don't really see the reasoning behind firing BC right now. I think the justification has been there in the past, but right now seems like a really weird time to fire him considering

1. Jonas looks very promising
2. It was mostly expected that we would suck
3. Lowry is one of the team's best acquisitions ever and the draft pick we are set to give up could still end up a number of different places.
4. DD is quickly proving to possibly be worth his new extension
5. After sticking with the Bargnani experiment as long as he has, trading him a week into the season would have made little sense.

All that being said, I've never been BC's biggest fan, and I do think that the decision to fire him or keep him should be given a lot of consideration this season. I'm assuming management can know for sure exactly how serious of an offer he made for Harden, which should be taken into consideration - just as much as the drafting of Ross, imo. If, closer to the trade deadline, we're still seeing the same Bargnani in a Raptors uniform, can pretty much bank on giving up a pick in the 4-7 range, and still feel uneasy about the DD contract (while obviously still hating the contract given to Fields), then sure... fire him and try to correct the path this team is on before the second half of the season starts.

[hillbilly hare]

I don't really see the reasoning behind firing BC right now. I think the justification has been there in the past, but right now seems like a really weird time to fire him considering

1. Jonas looks very promising
2. It was mostly expected that we would suck
3. Lowry is one of the team's best acquisitions ever and the draft pick we are set to give up could still end up a number of different places.
4. DD is quickly proving to possibly be worth his new extension
5. After sticking with the Bargnani experiment as long as he has, trading him a week into the season would have made little sense.

All that being said, I've never been BC's biggest fan, and I do think that the decision to fire him or keep him should be given a lot of consideration this season. I'm assuming management can know for sure exactly how serious of an offer he made for Harden, which should be taken into consideration - just as much as the drafting of Ross, imo. If, closer to the trade deadline, we're still seeing the same Bargnani in a Raptors uniform, can pretty much bank on giving up a pick in the 4-7 range, and still feel uneasy about the DD contract (while obviously still hating the contract given to Fields), then sure... fire him and try to correct the path this team is on before the second half of the season starts.

Whoa. Number 2. Who "expected that we would suck"? Some pundits or fundits had us challenging for a playoff spot. Our own GM sure didn't think we'd suck and he was the guy calling the shots. He stated that we were in win-now mode and aiming for the postseason. If that is true, as widely reported, then by definition Colangelo failed big time - no, huge time.

PR note: if Colangelo and his followers are now able to flip the flop and start to say that they "expected we'd suck" this season, then western civilization as we know it won't change much, but I'll be gobsmacked by the sheer audacity of the man and probably even tip my (Jays) cap.

The whole off-season is there in a nutshell. The most important off-season we've had in years. As things played out, we had the chance to go one of two ways: aim to win now and make the playoffs, given all the resources we had; or, when Drummond fell to us at 8, we actually had the chance to take a step back, look at the bigger picture, and possibly decide to pick the huge upside young center with (maybe) Andrew Bynum potential, and build for the future.

Colangelo chose to go win-now. Okay, fine. He actually probably had already decided that long ago, and he's not known for being fast on his feet and able to change direction quickly -> except when he's defending and promoting himself.

Okay, so we go win-now. That puts the onus back on the puppeteer. But Clownangelo has always been more Pinocchio than Gepeto. So how does the off-season go re. building a playoff team? I think somewhere between badly and underwhelming.

The Lowry acquisition was indeed excellent, though of course we gave up a very nice asset. In the off-season lead up we were debating Lowry vs. Dragic and lots of us favored Lowry but realized that he'd cost us an asset, vs. just signing Dragic straight up.

Note re. the PG upgrade. Excellent, of course. But, as we were trying to put together a team to make the playoffs, we started off by upgrading what was our best position last year. Jose has his flaws, but he was our best player last year and a solid PG. I'm not complaining about Lowry by any means, it's just that we might've been able to use that draft pick differently and to address a more pressing area of need.

The embarrassing Nash chase and related Fields signing was one of the more depressing sights in recent Raptor history.

The Ross pick is what it is. He was not the best prospect available, though he must've been considered the best combo of best player (now) and still with room to improve. He hasn't looked like much so far, if he was picked to help us make the playoffs.

Jonas is promising but BC left him out to dry. When Scola got amnestied how the hell did no one think he'd be a good solid veteran CHEAP acquisition to school all of our young big men? He'd also make trading Bargnani easier to deal with from the viewpoint of making the playoffs, e.g. Scola takes over at PF if Andrea is traded for a SF.

Anyway, I won't drone on any further. I don't agree that there's anything wrong with firing him now. I'd do it because he's been a failure and failure breeds more failure.

[Scase]

I don't really see the reasoning behind firing BC right now. I think the justification has been there in the past, but right now seems like a really weird time to fire him considering

1. Jonas looks very promising
2. It was mostly expected that we would suck
3. Lowry is one of the team's best acquisitions ever and the draft pick we are set to give up could still end up a number of different places.
4. DD is quickly proving to possibly be worth his new extension
5. After sticking with the Bargnani experiment as long as he has, trading him a week into the season would have made little sense.

All that being said, I've never been BC's biggest fan, and I do think that the decision to fire him or keep him should be given a lot of consideration this season. I'm assuming management can know for sure exactly how serious of an offer he made for Harden, which should be taken into consideration - just as much as the drafting of Ross, imo. If, closer to the trade deadline, we're still seeing the same Bargnani in a Raptors uniform, can pretty much bank on giving up a pick in the 4-7 range, and still feel uneasy about the DD contract (while obviously still hating the contract given to Fields), then sure... fire him and try to correct the path this team is on before the second half of the season starts.

This is the exact thing that Hillbilly Hare was saying, the reasoning behind firing him is because of the 6 years prior, how this season is going is irrelevant. Short of his "vision" actually being a success this year and us having a 45-50 win season there is no reason for him to remain here. And I don't know if you've been watching this season but that's pretty unlikely.

Hell the second reason you gave alone is enough of a reason to fire him. After 7 years we are STILL expected to suck? We've had one good year in his tenure here and that was an aberration.

Above all the most important reason to fire him ASAP is simply to get a new GM (entirely new not someone from the current FO moving up) in place to start working the phones with HIS plan. This franchise needs a vision change as soon as humanly possible.

[HomieOmey]

Whoa. Number 2. Who "expected that we would suck"? Some pundits or fundits had us challenging for a playoff spot. Our own GM sure didn't think we'd suck and he was the guy calling the shots. He stated that we were in win-now mode and aiming for the postseason. If that is true, as widely reported, then by definition Colangelo failed big time - no, huge time.

PR note: if Colangelo and his followers are now able to flip the flop and start to say that they "expected we'd suck" this season, then western civilization as we know it won't change much, but I'll be gobsmacked by the sheer audacity of the man and probably even tip my (Jays) cap.

A lot of posters, including myself, mentioned the playoffs being a realistic goal. However, that had a lot more to do with the lack of great teams past the obvious top 4-6. I always maintained that I could just as easily see the Raptors finishing 7th-9th in the East as I could see them finishing 12th-15th. I'm pretty sure most were in the exact same boat. "Challenging for a playoff spot" was never really heralded as being some great accomplishment more as something made possible because of the lack of strong teams. And sure enough, we're 2.5 games back from 8th and 1.5 games above 15th. That with a perceived difficult start to the season.

[HomieOmey]

This is the exact thing that Hillbilly Hare was saying, the reasoning behind firing him is because of the 6 years prior, how this season is going is irrelevant. Short of his "vision" actually being a success this year and us having a 45-50 win season there is no reason for him to remain here. And I don't know if you've been watching this season but that's pretty unlikely.

Short of a 45-50 win season there is no reason for him to remain here? If that's the thinking, he should have been fired before this season started as those were never really realistic expectations. Again, I'm not a fan of his at all, I just think this would be very weird timing to fire him. I agree that he should have been fired earlier, but he was kept around. I mean just a few months ago people were praising him for 1) Getting us "one of the top coaches in the game," and getting both Lowry and Jonas. The whole Nash ordeal was a disaster, but it's not like the Knicks or Nets didn't go through a similar speed bump in their pursuits of James/Bosh. Remember that the Nets also threw ridiculous money at an unspectacular role player. Apparently an awful trade for Crash, overpaying for Lopez, and trading for "the worst contract in the NBA" was enough to save the Nets GM from doing a horrible job.

It just seems like bad timing to me. Yes, he should have been fired prior to this point, and I would not shed one tear if he was fired tonight, I just don't get the timing. Especially during a rather ugly schedule with most hammering on and on about the refs being absolutely atrocious.

[Throwback24]

This should be above the 'Trade Bargnani' thread.

[Throwback24]

Post game bump.

[Alfred]

I just think this would be very weird timing to fire him.

The team starting 2-7 would be a weird time to fire him? I don't think there'd be any "weird time" to fire him. Just plug Stephanski into the GM spot temporarily, until they find the new General Manager.