Embry speaks to MLSE board, "weighing options" (Pg. 8)

[Raptorfan2012]

Who said BC did not update the Board on trade scenarios? I am sure BC laid out some sort of plan to right the ship or whatever. Just nothing leaked out yet. Dec 15 is coming up so we will see what happens.

[Yosemite Dan]

what a **** joke

its no wonder why the raptors are the laughing stock of the nba, and one of the most embarassing franchises in all of pro starts.

we have piss poor ownership, and the single worst gm in the entire league

What are you talking about?

Do you have any concept of how an organization is run, let alone an organization the size of MLSE?

Every single board member sitting in that room is infinitely more knowledgeable than you are on how to run an organization. Making a rash decision, like firing the GM in his last year before having a succession plan in place, is profoundly idiotic.

LOL MLSE is a major joke. A rash decision would have been 3 years ago. We are 2 years passed the time a decision should have been made. This organization has no respect for the product on the court/ice/pitch. They can have as much f'n time as they want. They will be taking alot less revenue out of my pocket.

Its a **** sports City and MLSE is the main culprit, BC should be long one. Its not the coaches or the players faults they were put in this kind of tam make-up & situation.

Agreed. MLSE makes money in spite of itself. Their management of all 3 of their properties has been pathetic. But when you have the cash cow that is the Maple Leafs and own 2 major franchises in one of the biggest cities in North America and the corporate centre of the entire country, then it is quite difficult NOT to make money.

Case in Point. Harold Ballard was a miserable old man with dementia and that couldn't care less about pleasing fans and was notoriously cheap with the Leafs and made bizarre managerial moves over 2 decades where the team was an embarrassment for at least 15 of those 20 years yet he was making money hand over fist because he had the Leafs. That's all he needed.

[fatal9]

Making a rash decision, like firing the GM in his last year before having a succession plan in place, is profoundly idiotic.

Given BC's track record, it's not a "rash decision". People would have said the same thing in this off-season, that "what's the point of firing BC when he is the last year of his contract?"

Well, since then he signed Fields to an outrageous contract, extended and overpaid DeRozan for no reason at all, spent his off-season trying to build around a 38 year old point guard and reached for a draft pick that might not have been the BPA or he could have traded down for.

You don't keep a guy like this around and give him another chance to make a move to save his job instead of doing what is in the best interest of the team.

[Yosemite Dan]

Making a rash decision, like firing the GM in his last year before having a succession plan in place, is profoundly idiotic.

Given BC's track record, it's not a "rash decision". People would have said the same thing in this off-season, that "what's the point of firing BC when he is the last year of his contract?"

Well, since then he signed Fields to an outrageous contract, extended and overpaid DeRozan for no reason at all, spent his off-season trying to build around a 38 year old point guard and reached for a draft pick that might not have been the BPA or he could have traded down for.

You don't keep a guy like this around and give him another chance and make a move to save his job instead of doing what is in the best interest of the team.

Touche.

It appears that a significant segment of this board still harbours fear of losing BC. He's treated as some sort of security blanket, that if he's fired then the organization is lost in the wilderness, as opposed to the team which is now running around naked in the woods metaphorically speaking. His salesman persona and last name appears to still hold a lot of weight for some bizarre reason.

Stefanski has the capability to steer the ship and avoid icebergs until the spring. It would be an irresponsible decision not to fire BC in the coming days.

[Section_306]

The problem is that people still show up to games in middle of the league attendance figures. This product does not deserve an audience, whatsoever. Another problem is this "Canadian team" complex some people hold - thinking that there is a chance we lose the franchise if we don't come out and always needing to confirm the fact that we belong as a city in the NBA. Toronto and the GTA is a financial and metropolitan giant, it's the NBA that should be worried about losing us, not the other way around.

This product has been garbage for far too long and attendance needs to start reflecting this to send the dissatisfied message home to those that need to feel it financially and otherwise.

[daleface]

what a **** joke

its no wonder why the raptors are the laughing stock of the nba, and one of the most embarassing franchises in all of pro starts.

we have piss poor ownership, and the single worst gm in the entire league

What are you talking about?

Do you have any concept of how an organization is run, let alone an organization the size of MLSE?

Every single board member sitting in that room is infinitely more knowledgeable than you are on how to run an organization. Making a rash decision, like firing the GM in his last year before having a succession plan in place, is profoundly idiotic.

What are you talking about?

Toronto sport franchises run on their own. Toronto is a sports city where people will watch and support a team regardless. You don't need to be business savvy to own a Toronto team.

If MLSE owned a team outside of a big market. They would be feeling the effects of their ineptitude and failure.

You can't just assume your being successful just because your in the green. Even more so here, when you have a team that's the laughing stock of the league, have been in the bottom for years and no FA wants to go to unless they have no other choice or being overpaid.

MLSE is failing to acknowledge they have a problem.

When you have everyone that follows this team knows just how bad this organization is and heading. How can you say ownership knows what their doing? Make a decision? They can't make one because they have no clue what their doing.

[Yosemite Dan]

The problem is that people still show up to games in middle of the league attendance figures. This product does not deserve an audience, whatsoever. Another problem is this "Canadian team" complex some people hold - thinking that there is a chance we lose the franchise if we don't come out and always needing to confirm the fact that we belong as a city in the NBA. Toronto and the GTA is a financial and metropolitan giant, it's the NBA that should be worried about losing us, not the other way around.

This product has been garbage for far too long and attendance needs to start reflecting this to send the dissatisfied message home to those that need to feel it financially and otherwise.

Unfortunately, this city likes anything "big league" and will flock to it no matter the product (like most major cities) so I think the inferiority complex doesn't really apply to a great degree. And another reason why the Argos and Marlies can't draw flies, they are regarded as 2nd rate.

And basketball is a fun game to watch in the ACC so people like to take their kids down and have fun because there's alot going on and the upper deck is not that expensive. These type of fans want to go down and be entertained by the side shows that happen in timeouts and basketball is a fast moving sport easy to understand. The kids and casual fans won't get bored unlike say baseball where kids will get bored and the true fans would rather watch on TV.

The Raptors have a large casual fanbase that wont live and die by the team and that will go down to the games as opposed to watching on TV because its a fun nite out. The young kids and female ratio at Raptor games are alot higher than Leaf or Jay games. Whether they win or lose doesn't hold weight as much as it should. They don't get put off by a poor team like a hardcore fan will.

[ForeverTFC]

Given BC's track record, it's not a "rash decision". People would have said the same thing in this off-season, that "what's the point of firing BC when he is the last year of his contract?"

Well, since then he signed Fields to an outrageous contract, extended and overpaid DeRozan for no reason at all, spent his off-season trying to build around a 38 year old point guard and reached for a draft pick that might not have been the BPA or he could have traded down for.

You don't keep a guy like this around and give him another chance and make a move to save his job instead of doing what is in the best interest of the team.

Touche.

It appears that a significant segment of this board still harbours fear of losing BC. He's treated as some sort of security blanket, that if he's fired then the organization is lost in the wilderness, as opposed to the team which is now running around naked in the woods metaphorically speaking. His salesman persona and last name appears to still hold a lot of weight for some bizarre reason.

Stefanski has the capability to steer the ship and avoid icebergs until the spring. It would be an irresponsible decision not to fire BC in the coming days.

Except we are ignoring some key points here:

-Colangelo is the President of the Toronto Raptors. Many facets of the organization report to him, not just who we know and see. To move on from that, there needs to be a succession plan. Even if it is Stefanski or Embry, it has to be thought out.

-This is a new board, with a collective 1 Billion Dollars less in its pocket. Decisions which see additional costs incurred will likely be more scrutinized.

-By all accounts, Larry Tennenbaum is still firmly in the Colangelo camp.

All the points above will give us a clue on how this board operates. Now, this does not mean that Colangelo won't be gone tomorrow. But the board has not given any indications that he will be fired. My original post was in response to "the board being made up of a bunch of morons." My response was that it is moronic to make a move for the sake of making a move without fully understanding where everything is going.

[Hero]

Anyone know how to become an executive at MLSE?

[ForeverTFC]

what a **** joke

its no wonder why the raptors are the laughing stock of the nba, and one of the most embarassing franchises in all of pro starts.

we have piss poor ownership, and the single worst gm in the entire league

What are you talking about?

Do you have any concept of how an organization is run, let alone an organization the size of MLSE?

Every single board member sitting in that room is infinitely more knowledgeable than you are on how to run an organization. Making a rash decision, like firing the GM in his last year before having a succession plan in place, is profoundly idiotic.

What are you talking about?

Toronto sport franchises run on their own. Toronto is a sports city where people will watch and support a team regardless. You don't need to be business savvy to own a Toronto team.

If MLSE owned a team outside of a big market. They would be feeling the effects of their ineptitude and failure.

You can't just assume your being successful just because your in the green. Even more so here, when you have a team that's the laughing stock of the league, have been in the bottom for years and no FA wants to go to unless they have no other choice or being overpaid.

MLSE is failing to acknowledge they have a problem.

When you have everyone that follows this team knows just how bad this organization is and heading. How can you say ownership knows what their doing? Make a decision? They can't make one because they have no clue what their doing.

AGAIN: Brand new board. Brand new direction. Brand new decision making criteria. Not to mention only 6 months in.

We are still going to pretend like we know how they operate?

[Section_306]

The problem is that people still show up to games in middle of the league attendance figures. This product does not deserve an audience, whatsoever. Another problem is this "Canadian team" complex some people hold - thinking that there is a chance we lose the franchise if we don't come out and always needing to confirm the fact that we belong as a city in the NBA. Toronto and the GTA is a financial and metropolitan giant, it's the NBA that should be worried about losing us, not the other way around.

This product has been garbage for far too long and attendance needs to start reflecting this to send the dissatisfied message home to those that need to feel it financially and otherwise.

Unfortunately, this city likes anything "big league" and will flock to it no matter the product (like most major cities) so I think the inferiority complex doesn't really apply to a great degree. And another reason why the Argos and Marlies can't draw flies, they are regarded as 2nd rate.

And basketball is a fun game to watch in the ACC so people like to take their kids down and have fun because there's alot going on and the upper deck is not that expensive. These type of fans want to go down and be entertained by the side shows that happen in timeouts and basketball is a fast moving sport easy to understand. The kids and casual fans won't get bored unlike say baseball where kids will get bored and the true fans would rather watch on TV.

The Raptors have a large casual fanbase that wont live and die by the team and that will go down to the games as opposed to watching on TV because its a fun nite out. The young kids and female ratio at Raptor games are alot higher than Leaf or Jay games. Whether they win or lose doesn't hold weight as much as it should. They don't get put off by a poor team like a hardcore fan will.

I really can't dispute this, and it's really depressing to think of the the fanbase that attends, as you describe them. It seems us hardcore fans are heavily trumped by the casuals and it makes me long for even a tenth of the NYC fan's mentality, as nasty as some might paint them - they do deliver a message quite sternly of their dissatisfaction.

If the majority of people in the building are just happy to be there, how do things change?

[ForeverTFC]

I really can't dispute this, and it's really depressing to think of the the fanbase that attends, as you describe them. It seems us hardcore fans are heavily trumped by the casuals and it makes me long for even a tenth of the NYC fan's mentality, as nasty as some might paint them - they do deliver a message quite sternly of their dissatisfaction.

If the majority of people in the building are just happy to be there, how do things change?

As someone who lived and worked downtown, I would dispute this. When you can buy a ticket for under $10 and walk over to the game after work leads to those numbers.

When you have a combination of well paid, single individuals in the area, you will get a decent showing each night.

[Phenomenologist]

what a **** joke

its no wonder why the raptors are the laughing stock of the nba, and one of the most embarassing franchises in all of pro starts.

we have piss poor ownership, and the single worst gm in the entire league

What are you talking about?

Do you have any concept of how an organization is run, let alone an organization the size of MLSE?

Every single board member sitting in that room is infinitely more knowledgeable than you are on how to run an organization. Making a rash decision, like firing the GM in his last year before having a succession plan in place, is profoundly idiotic.

Uhhh... they did the same exact thing with Babcock, fired him in January, gave it to Embry to clean out the dead wood before BC came in. And it was still very up in the air at Babcock's firing whether BC was leaving Phoenix.

They did a preemptive strike with Babcock because they were afraid that he would make a stupid panic move to save his ass, much like the position we are in now. And since BC has proved just as incompetent as babcock, it may be prudent to do the same here to avoid a BC panic move (trading Davis for a veteran to look like he did something).

Nothing wrong with canning him now and letting Stafanski man the ship, maybe get rid of some deadwood and take the spring to hire someone for next year

Yah, seriously. A succession plan? You need to stop talking like you know what the **** you're talking about ForeverTFC. Stefanski is a perfectly adequate interim solution until we can start searching for a proper replacement. The risk of a lame duck GM throwing more and more poo at the wall in a desperate attempt to convince his bosses to change their minds ... that is a real problem. BC needs to go, like, yesterday (well, actually, like 5-6 years ago, but who's counting?)

[Section_306]

I really can't dispute this, and it's really depressing to think of the the fanbase that attends, as you describe them. It seems us hardcore fans are heavily trumped by the casuals and it makes me long for even a tenth of the NYC fan's mentality, as nasty as some might paint them - they do deliver a message quite sternly of their dissatisfaction.

If the majority of people in the building are just happy to be there, how do things change?

As someone who lived and worked downtown, I would dispute this. When you can buy a ticket for under $10 and walk over to the game after work leads to those numbers.

When you have a combination of well paid, single individuals in the area, you will get a decent showing each night.

I did my tour of duty back in the day on Yonge & Adelaide, and I can tell you this, when the team was this brutal, I couldn't find a soul to head down to the ACC with me, there were a million better ways to enjoy an evening in their minds.

[ForeverTFC]

Yah, seriously. A succession plan? You need to stop talking like you know what the **** you're talking about ForeverTFC. Stefanski is a perfectly adequate interim solution until we can start searching for a proper replacement. The risk of a lame duck GM throwing more and more poo at the wall in a desperate attempt to convince his bosses to change their minds ... that is a real problem. BC needs to go, like, yesterday (well, actually, like 5-6 years ago, but who's counting?)

Yeah, let's fire the PRESIDENT and General Manager of the club, before we know what to do with it. Forget every person who reports to him. Forget the fact that the entire organization would likely be tossed in chaos without a proper protocol to follow after his dismissal.

When Babcock was hired and fired, Richard Peddie controlled the Raptors. Now, Brian Colangelo controls the Raptors. Wayne Embry only controlled the basketball aspect in the interim. Being the President is more than a title. Educate yourself about the circumstances before flaming me.

I never said it would out of realm to fire him this season, but I did say it would be naive to do it without a plan for what to do after. Seeing as how everyone in the organization expected more, I'd be hard pressed to believe that they had a contingency plan drawn up before the season started.

[Zeno]

^Why not just put Ed in as president of basketball operations in BC's place and keep BC on as president until the season is over?

[Phenomenologist]

Yah, seriously. A succession plan? You need to stop talking like you know what the **** you're talking about ForeverTFC. Stefanski is a perfectly adequate interim solution until we can start searching for a proper replacement. The risk of a lame duck GM throwing more and more poo at the wall in a desperate attempt to convince his bosses to change their minds ... that is a real problem. BC needs to go, like, yesterday (well, actually, like 5-6 years ago, but who's counting?)

Yeah, let's fire the PRESIDENT and General Manager of the club, before we know what to do with it. Forget every person who reports to him. Forget the fact that the entire organization would likely be tossed in chaos without a proper protocol to follow after his dismissal.

When Babcock was hired and fired, Richard Peddie controlled the Raptors. Now, Brian Colangelo controls the Raptors. Wayne Embry only controlled the basketball aspect in the interim. Being the President is more than a title. Educate yourself about the circumstances before flaming me.

I never said it would out of realm to fire him this season, but I did say it would be naive to do it without a plan for what to do after. Seeing as how everyone in the organization expected more, I'd be hard pressed to believe that they had a contingency plan drawn up before the season started.

Your entire argument re: keeping Colangelo for now is premised on the following assumption holding: an ownership group that you yourself volunteer to be sophisticatedly run does not already have a succession plan in place. And you base this flimsy assumption on the almost laughable notion that because the extent of our atrociousness this season wasn't expected, our ownership was caught completely unawares. This, of course, is a ridiculous justification for an equally ridiculous premise.

Our GM is in the last year of his contract and there is new ownership, meaning that regardless of how we were projected to do, any even semi-competently run entity would have already planned for an eventuality they knew was coming (and, note anyway, that it was only according to our own GM and media hype that we were a playoff team; the vast majority of outside opinion had us finishing well out of the playoffs). Your entire argument makes no sense. You pretend like firing BC would suddenly launch our franchise into a state of disrepair (how much worse could it get, btw?). What if he suddenly died tomorrow? The notion that contingency plans aren't already in place....that is the notion that's laughable.

There is no reason BC couldn't be fired tomorrow. Would it take time to adjust? Sure, but so does any change in corporate structure at such a high level. My guess, you're a BC apologist who is trying to rationalize (read: delude himself into) keeping BC on board for longer.

[Berserk_Raptor]

Casey should keep workin, we're not going to accomplish big things this season, anyway.

[Phalosopher]

So the Spineless MLSE board meet, sleek presentation by Colangelo is made, some relevant questions are asked, Wayne Embry-aka god father- tacitly agrees with Bryan's assessment that the team's issue has been "focus", bryan's hide is saved, wine and cheese is served , Le Doug is briefed for tomorrow's Toronto Scar article and inevitable is avoided for yet another day....this is the demonstration of what Toronto professional sport franchises and their leadership are all about... smh

[OAKLEY_2]

My guess is Larry T and BC are somewhat tight. Both good sales people and competent back slappers. Both watching the money. There is with MLSE an air of Honest Ed's to the whole operation. Some tacky lights, cheesy merchandise but a nice piece of real estate behind all the fanfare. Every time BC is poised to get heat by the board Larry probably softens up the team at both the board level and the management team that he in fact leads. The whole search for a GM - I mean Exec VP of Ball Ops had strategy for appeasing the board written all over it. I can't imagine that the "plan" and "process" schtick isn't now wearing just a bit thin at this point. The horror in all of this is you don't have very much media scrutiny in this an NHL lockout season. That has to be really disconcerting that sports scribes see fit to laugh off the Raptors spending having wet dreams about a hockey season.