Feschuk: Moves not enough for championship

[Shaazzam]

I actually brought up Camby a long time ago in this thread IIRC.

The point about AB being a PF wasn't neccesarily about hypothetical situations. I was responding to the fact that you said that he was a PF. Well let's move the hypothetical injury situations aside. Say everyone is healthy, what position is AB going to play? PF.

Now say my hypothetical injuries do come about, Bosh gets hurt and we don't get anywhere. What do we get? A lottery pick. Maybe we get that stud wing you are looking for. Or maybe we get Rubio? ISn't that a lot more exciting than the 17th in a flat draft?

Then we have CB4, O'Neal's expiring, AB's expiring, and a lottery pick. We are still in a better position financially to move forward because we don't have Corey Maggette, who plays no defence, locked up for 5 years at $50M or whatever he is getting.

And as for your LOL's, Miller plays no defence. I'm not sure why you don't seem willing to accept the fact that this team needs to get better defensively. Maggs and Miller do not fill that void. The major plus for miller is that his contract expires going into 2010.

[SHootaR]

ok but again, lets NOT pretend we will be getting injured. if bargs plays PF...are you telling me bargs gets a measily 13 minutes a game for the next 2 years?? is this the 1st overall pick we envisioned?? lets pretend it is and we WANTED to wait till 2010 for him...are we really going to want to sign bargs over bosh?? can't see this happening. regardless i don't think the plan when drafting him was to wait till bosh's contract was up, thats absurd at best.

and quit harping on miller i'm just throwing names out there lol! the point is OPTIONS. maybe its richard jefferson isntead of Maggette. altho really i dont see whats so bad about maggette, his defense is barely worse than parkers. parker is vastly overated man on man. either way swingman will still burn our players on the perimiter right?

so my point is we'd have flexibility to get a big who's really not too far off of what JO is imo for a fraction of the cost. Camby is a possibility whos off the books at the same time. This of course would have to assume denver is in rebuild mode. Chandler's another guy, altho I cannot see them wanting to trade him even if they're out of playoff contention.

maybe there's not too many options at the Centre position. and we would be taking a gamble these guys would be available. so maybe this would be a better move who knows. i'm hoping it works out, i just dont see this team right now winning anything special.

[Death Knight]

There can only be one champion anyways. Would anyone complain if we become the 2nd team (1st being champions) like the Lakers did this season? It may not be 1st, but 2nd is something as good as you can get to build on.

I know these writers have to write something to get their pay cheques, but I am tired of these people writing obvious stuff that is so unnecessary.

[WD-40]

oops, quoted myself instead of editing

[WD-40]

We won't win the championship this year. Well that's not surprising. Short of trading Joey Graham for Lebron what one move could?

It doesn't hamper our cap past 2010. A nice year for free agents to boot. We lose a talented PG with injury concerns but we have Jose to step up and hopefully Roko will rise to the occassion. If there is one thing I trust the Smitch to do it's have his PG's produce. We lost Rasho a solid vet. But I think the Smitch grossly misused him anyways. And I think Hibbert is a nice big. But, as long as JO plays 50+ games and the playoffs I imagine the trade will be great for us. I'm warming up to it more and more. JO's confindence has installed confidence in me.

It also allows BC to potentially part with Bargs and save face for picking him due to the successful trade that led to the resurection of Jermaine Oneal's career and back to all-star status. Although I hope Bargs turns it around before that happens.

Personally, I'll be happy with 2 rounds of hard fought basketball. Which I think we are way more likely to achieve now.

edit: I've typically liked Feschuk and think he's a decent writer. And while I don't mind his negativity like others seem to, lately he's becoming predictable and boring. His comments about BC not having his cuff links on was chump writing. I'm starting to skim him like I have been doing with Smith for quite some time.

[whysoserious]

It seems that there may be an underlying contradiction, for lack of a better word, on the board. I see many saying that this season will be a success if we do get out of the first round and yet it seems that if we don't win a championship within the time frame of O'Neal's contract we won't be a success.

So is that what the expectations really are? To win a championship in two years? Are their really any moves available to us that would warrant that type of expectation? Looking at Boston, if they didn't get Ray Allen, they were not getting KG. That is also a team with a mystique, a rich history of excellence that seeks to draw others to it and they can build on that glory together. Is there two moves out there this summer that people think would do that? I see opinions on trading TJ for a wing and then finding a defensive centre for a draft pick and Rasho. Really? Which big is undervalued enough and has the proven history of dominant defensive play that a team would be willing to move for Rasho and Hibbert?

Camby?

We are the Toronto Raptors. An expansion team. And the only one of those IIRC correctly to win a 'chip thus far was Miami. And they had one of the dominant bigs of his generation. Not a model we can follow either.

We need to utilize Detroit model. A deep, excellent rotation of bigs. An efficient offence. And we need to catch lightning in a bottle with our guard play like they did.

For me I love watching quality ball, night in and night out. If we have an exciting product and can compete at a high level, that's exciting for me and justifies all the time I spend into following this team. Because I am overly invested in them. Maybe my standards are lower than many around here, but it works for me.

i think you're failing to see my point. I never expected a ship anytime soon. which is the very REASON i hate this JO trade. It reeks of 'lets win right now!' and i hate it. we gave up too many assets for something that likely will NOT win us a championship during his stay. i'd rather see us not make the playoffs these next 2 years but at least have the framework for something special, rather than waste these 2 years away and rebuild come 2010. Look at what LA got last deadline for expirings...who's to say if we traded ford for a swingman this year instead, or better yet, calderon for a much better swingman, that at the deadline this year we can't flip rasho, parker, bargnani, etc etc for a star?? Someone we can build with bosh, our new swingman, TJ, etc etc. We'd have our 17th pick still to develop, AND we'd have 4 BIG pieces to start building a year earlier.

I love postes like this. Let's go to the Lottery! Let's go to the Lottery! Where success is guaranteed, even though history suggests otherwise.

Is there any example of teams that built strictly through the draft with lottery picks and worked themselves to a championship level. The closest scenario is the Spurs and two of their three best players were taken in the late first round and second round.

Seriously, people need to get over this mentality of missing the playoffs and thinking drafting players will suddenly result in a championship or getting the assets needed. There simply is no one way to build a team. Look at teams like Atlanta that continuously miss the playoffs, get draft picks and still haven't moved any further along then what Brian has down with whatever was on his plate in two plus seasons. And now he got one of those elite defensive presences we all wanted down low.

You keep pointing to Maggete, look at what he signed for. How were we even going to sign him, we didn't have cap room so it would have had to be a S&T and there goes some of those assets you keep pointing to using to address the center position.

This is not simply a win now move. It's a move designed to address our needs. Simple as that and if the team excells we still have some assets to make another move and if note, we can use JO the following year as an expiring to get an even bigger piece.

[whysoserious]

Now I see where you are coming from. You want to watch a crappy team that might payoff 5 years down the road. And once we build that "framework", the young guys bolt or have to be locked into five years deals which can pretty much eliminate any possibility of tweaking the roster if it doesn't work out.

I know that's where I want to spend my entertainment dollars.

i never said i WANTED to watch a crappy team. but as a diehard leaf fan, raptors fan, and not a diehard but still a jays fan who follows them, i'm sick and tired of the Toronto theory, which is to do everything possible to compete and hopefully make the playoffs, but never start from the ground up and suffer through some bad years to eventually become a REAL team with chemistry, ala detroit/san antonio etc.

you speak of entertainment, but if that entertainment is just a short term fix with no chances of real success, i feel sorry for you that this is what satisfies you. I'm actually looking forward to the leafs coming up moreso in the years of mogilny signings, owen nolan trades or brian leech deadline deals b/c we're finally starting the rebuilding process. I will actually enjoy watching a losing product, but a product I can see development in to a greater goal in future years.

Now OBVIOUSLY the raptors would not be a bad team with the idea I proposed, so i'm not sure why you took the extreme. I simply said i'd RATHER watch a non-playoff team with championship aspirations than a team with no such goals get into the playoffs and get embarrassed. if we traded calderon for a good swingman as i suggested...we're looking at still a playoff team (it'd be ahrd to argue against that). But we can swing a deal using rasho/bargs/parker ala lakers and get a 4th piece along with some nice youngins (17th pick, moon) and start to build something special. Right now we have to wait 2 years until we start that special something and even then we have no guarantee Bosh will want to stay after starting the whole process all over again.

I'm sorry, but did I miss something, when exactly were Detroit and San Antonio bad for many years to become good. SAS hasn't been bad for probably about 12 years or so other than the one season David Robinson was hurt. Looking at Detroit, how many of those guys were drafted internally? Not much of the core and the pieces used to get some of those guys weren't drafted by Detroit either.

As for the last paragraph I don't understand what you are saying. A non-playoff team with championship aspirations vs a Playoff team with no such goals. Doesn't the playoff team have more championship aspirations than the non-playoff team? How does a non-playoff team have more championship aspirations than the playoff team?

Please go root for teams like the Hawks and Bobcats that continually look to the draft to find their next saviour after the last one didn't quite work out.

[Cassius]

Wow.

In other shocking news: E=MC^2

I'm not sure how swapping 20 million in salary to address a glaring need and give a rising star a chance to shine is win-now.

That sounds more like common sense to me.

[SHootaR]

whysoserious you seemed to misinterpret my entire msg lol. that sucks. i didn't suggest we would even miss the playoffs, in actuality we wouldnt with the addition of a nice wing. i just said i wouldnt care even if we DID miss the playoffs, if we were in a better direction with more options than being stuck with this team for the next 2 years when we wont win anything special and will have to redbuild again in 2 years. whereas with the new swing we have locked up, and the 17th pick...AND the player we get for rasho/filler at deadline..we have 4 or 5 pieces to build around starting THIS season...bosh, jose OR TJ, swing (maggette? jefferson?), 17th pick, rasho/filler trade.

[cchrome]

ok but again, lets NOT pretend we will be getting injured. if bargs plays PF...are you telling me bargs gets a measily 13 minutes a game for the next 2 years?? is this the 1st overall pick we envisioned?? lets pretend it is and we WANTED to wait till 2010 for him...are we really going to want to sign bargs over bosh?? can't see this happening. regardless i don't think the plan when drafting him was to wait till bosh's contract was up, thats absurd at best.

and quit harping on miller i'm just throwing names out there lol! the point is OPTIONS. maybe its richard jefferson isntead of Maggette. altho really i dont see whats so bad about maggette, his defense is barely worse than parkers. parker is vastly overated man on man. either way swingman will still burn our players on the perimiter right?

so my point is we'd have flexibility to get a big who's really not too far off of what JO is imo for a fraction of the cost. Camby is a possibility whos off the books at the same time. This of course would have to assume denver is in rebuild mode. Chandler's another guy, altho I cannot see them wanting to trade him even if they're out of playoff contention.

maybe there's not too many options at the Centre position. and we would be taking a gamble these guys would be available. so maybe this would be a better move who knows. i'm hoping it works out, i just dont see this team right now winning anything special.

Where Bargs fits in was never the point, I for one would also have made another selection also but that also isnt the point, you gave the impression that getting JO is a bad move and Maggette and some other C is the better. Options for what, you still have to acquire those options, and if you cant realistically get them its a wasted thought. I am trying to look at what we have now and the positives this trades brings us, it solves our most glaring needs; Defensive presence/Rebounder/Scorer. You were proposing to over spend on a slasher and sign some 2nd tier C to make us a solid defensive team, with scoring punch, more than likely Dwight Or Perkins will still bully whoever you suggest, Maggette can score all he wants, but Bosh and Rasho or whoever will be sitting on the bench fouled out or watchin someone pull down the boards. Getting JO is the best possible solution for what we gave up, we got a 6 time All-star. Instead of being a critic (not just you, its most fans, Im just frustrated with this) let's see what this bring us instead of hypothetical solutions, and grade the deal properly during the season. It was a risk but a very good one, and the best availible.

Suggesting Jefferson, why stop there? There's 10....15 other guys. I thought you were sold on overpaying for Maggette. Camby is 34 and 40 pounds lighter, and also 'injury prone'. Will never get Chandler with these assets.

When you're frustrated and have an injury, but playing for nothing, no playoffs, ownership just traded away all your boy's from the team that you stood up for, media beating you up, could you mentally go 100% all the time, these guys are human. He shut it down. What if he comes back rejuvinated and this helps him like sheed going to Detroit? What if he has a positive effect on our locker room and creates spacing? What if he helps get Bargs confidence back? Whats the price on that?

Now obviously youve realized toward the end of this post that maybe this deal isnt so bad, but Raptor fans need to just need to take a real deeper look at this move, and see BC is tryin to improve this team step by step. The sg/slasher will come, by him making this trade its evident to me that he knows what our needs are and in what order to go about getting them.

[SHootaR]

Now I see where you are coming from. You want to watch a crappy team that might payoff 5 years down the road. And once we build that "framework", the young guys bolt or have to be locked into five years deals which can pretty much eliminate any possibility of tweaking the roster if it doesn't work out.

I know that's where I want to spend my entertainment dollars.

i never said i WANTED to watch a crappy team. but as a diehard leaf fan, raptors fan, and not a diehard but still a jays fan who follows them, i'm sick and tired of the Toronto theory, which is to do everything possible to compete and hopefully make the playoffs, but never start from the ground up and suffer through some bad years to eventually become a REAL team with chemistry, ala detroit/san antonio etc.

you speak of entertainment, but if that entertainment is just a short term fix with no chances of real success, i feel sorry for you that this is what satisfies you. I'm actually looking forward to the leafs coming up moreso in the years of mogilny signings, owen nolan trades or brian leech deadline deals b/c we're finally starting the rebuilding process. I will actually enjoy watching a losing product, but a product I can see development in to a greater goal in future years.

Now OBVIOUSLY the raptors would not be a bad team with the idea I proposed, so i'm not sure why you took the extreme. I simply said i'd RATHER watch a non-playoff team with championship aspirations than a team with no such goals get into the playoffs and get embarrassed. if we traded calderon for a good swingman as i suggested...we're looking at still a playoff team (it'd be ahrd to argue against that). But we can swing a deal using rasho/bargs/parker ala lakers and get a 4th piece along with some nice youngins (17th pick, moon) and start to build something special. Right now we have to wait 2 years until we start that special something and even then we have no guarantee Bosh will want to stay after starting the whole process all over again.

I'm sorry, but did I miss something, when exactly were Detroit and San Antonio bad for many years to become good. SAS hasn't been bad for probably about 12 years or so other than the one season David Robinson was hurt. Looking at Detroit, how many of those guys were drafted internally? Not much of the core and the pieces used to get some of those guys weren't drafted by Detroit either.

As for the last paragraph I don't understand what you are saying. A non-playoff team with championship aspirations vs a Playoff team with no such goals. Doesn't the playoff team have more championship aspirations than the non-playoff team? How does a non-playoff team have more championship aspirations than the playoff team?

Please go root for teams like the Hawks and Bobcats that continually look to the draft to find their next saviour after the last one didn't quite work out.

you dont understand what i'm saying b/c most toronto fans wouldnt lol. you've been brainwashed by toronto GMs everywhere.

it's entirely possibly for a playoff team to have less chances than a non-playoff team to win a championship in the future. not sure if u ever followed the leafs...but this is the definition of their team pre-lockout...buying enough pieces to keep us competitive and in the playoffs. but anyone with a shred of knowledge could see we would never win a cup without retooling or dismantling the team. we had no defence and cup champions need a good blueline. there might be a young team that just missed the playoffs with lots of cap room in the offseason that has all the tools or blueprint to win a cup down the road, just needs some internal development and a couple pieces.

the 76ers are a decent example...they had a worse record than us and probably were an inferior team but their blueprint was better...they have a legit defending centre, a couple up and coming nice athletic swingmen, some cap space etc etc.

think outside the box.

[SHootaR]

ok but again, lets NOT pretend we will be getting injured. if bargs plays PF...are you telling me bargs gets a measily 13 minutes a game for the next 2 years?? is this the 1st overall pick we envisioned?? lets pretend it is and we WANTED to wait till 2010 for him...are we really going to want to sign bargs over bosh?? can't see this happening. regardless i don't think the plan when drafting him was to wait till bosh's contract was up, thats absurd at best.

and quit harping on miller i'm just throwing names out there lol! the point is OPTIONS. maybe its richard jefferson isntead of Maggette. altho really i dont see whats so bad about maggette, his defense is barely worse than parkers. parker is vastly overated man on man. either way swingman will still burn our players on the perimiter right?

so my point is we'd have flexibility to get a big who's really not too far off of what JO is imo for a fraction of the cost. Camby is a possibility whos off the books at the same time. This of course would have to assume denver is in rebuild mode. Chandler's another guy, altho I cannot see them wanting to trade him even if they're out of playoff contention.

maybe there's not too many options at the Centre position. and we would be taking a gamble these guys would be available. so maybe this would be a better move who knows. i'm hoping it works out, i just dont see this team right now winning anything special.

Where Bargs fits in was never the point, I for one would also have made another selection also but that also isnt the point, you gave the impression that getting JO is a bad move and Maggette and some other C is the better. Options for what, you still have to acquire those options, and if you cant realistically get them its a wasted thought. I am trying to look at what we have now and the positives this trades brings us, it solves our most glaring needs; Defensive presence/Rebounder/Scorer. You were proposing to over spend on a slasher and sign some 2nd tier C to make us a solid defensive team, with scoring punch, more than likely Dwight Or Perkins will still bully whoever you suggest, Maggette can score all he wants, but Bosh and Rasho or whoever will be sitting on the bench fouled out or watchin someone pull down the boards. Getting JO is the best possible solution for what we gave up, we got a 6 time All-star. Instead of being a critic (not just you, its most fans, Im just frustrated with this) let's see what this bring us instead of hypothetical solutions, and grade the deal properly during the season. It was a risk but a very good one, and the best availible.

Suggesting Jefferson, why stop there? There's 10....15 other guys. I thought you were sold on overpaying for Maggette. Camby is 34 and 40 pounds lighter, and also 'injury prone'. Will never get Chandler with these assets.

When you're frustrated and have an injury, but playing for nothing, no playoffs, ownership just traded away all your boy's from the team that you stood up for, media beating you up, could you mentally go 100% all the time, these guys are human. He shut it down. What if he comes back rejuvinated and this helps him like sheed going to Detroit? What if he has a positive effect on our locker room and creates spacing? What if he helps get Bargs confidence back? Whats the price on that?

Now obviously youve realized toward the end of this post that maybe this deal isnt so bad, but Raptor fans need to just need to take a real deeper look at this move, and see BC is tryin to improve this team step by step. The sg/slasher will come, by him making this trade its evident to me that he knows what our needs are and in what order to go about getting them.

long story short, if BC traded bargs/filler for a nice veteran swingman who can create a little/score i would be THRILLED about the JO trade. absolutely thrilled and excited and loving BC. but the reality is it *seems* like BC is finished. and i'm really not sold on this team for the next 2 years. sure we might even finally get out the 1st round, cuz no doubt its a better team. but will it ultimately help us reach our goal of 3rd/4th rounds?? imo it will not. it is just a bandaid over our problems and a stopgap until 2010 comes where we rebuild now again.

-and you actually think JO can cover Dwight?? you're mistaken. JO is arguably a power forward and will also get manbeasted by Dwight.

-i was never "sold" on maggette...which is funny ppl are attacking me for that. I am SOLD on that plan of not shelling all of our assets, and going after a scoring wing with jose, keeping TJ as i feel he's no more injury prone than JO, drafting number 17 (there have been some great players picked at 17 in the past few years)...and using the assets we didn't waste on JO (ie Rasho) to net us another piece, maybe along with bargs to get a centre. and lol @ knocking camby...he has only 2 years left on his contract and he would be a dream to come over here if we were able to get a nice swing AND him with the assets. the guy gets like 4+ blocks a game and a gazillion boards, even at his "old" age.

but whatever, obv i'm a diehard raps fan and i'm only upset cuz i think we would have had a better future my way..i'm not gonna stop cheering for us or something stupid. i'm excited as anyone about JO and Bosh together as i'm praying he stays healthy. but i'm also not some robot who accepts ANYthing my GM does as perfect. i watch much basketball and can formulate my own opinions. if you disagree with me thats fine. just differing opinions to get to the same ultimate goal...some ppl need to relax trying to be 'smarta*sses' and not post if they feel so upset about a different opinion.

[whysoserious]

Whose philosphies were abondoned?

BC's?

I would say it was D'Antoni's. BC built a team for him.

Who was the happiest guy on the podium yesterday?

Mitchell. Because he got a big who could play defence and rebound, as well as get touches in the mid-to-low post and also kept a PG that he is very happy with moving forward. TJ was brought in at a time when we had no legit number #1 PG. And that asset has now been flipped to acquire somehting else we didn't have, a defensive presence. And that was done by the GM.

So I'm not sure which philosphy of BC's you are talking about that has been thrown out with the bath water. And I'm not sure why jumpshooting is such a bad thing. If you can't shoot, you aren't going to win. Eventually you need to outscore your opponent, and if you are forced looking to grind things out in the half court, you are going to have to hit some shots. And guess what acquiring another mid post guy is going to generate? Even more space for our jump shooters to be effective.

Now do we still need to do a better jump getting to the line and manufacturing points in that manner? I'd say yes, we do. But the thing with the scoring wing is that it's fairly difficult to find one that is efficient offensively, gets to the line, and can play defence.

But we can swing a deal using rasho/bargs/parker ala lakers and get a 4th piece along with some nice youngins.

So if we have those four pieces are we not in win now mode?

BC's philosophies. If you haven't noticed, but in Phoenix, and Toronto, both philosohies he wanted to bring to the team have been abandoned. The run n gun all offense philosophies. Phoenix finally realized they'd had enough of it, and got Shaq to clog the middle (which would have NEVER been done in BC era where he wanted shots shots shots up and down up and down etc). Same goes here. He wanted that type of offense to begin with if you remember. This is also came into play with the Bargnani draft pick. Did you forget so soon? He was salivating at a big who could play in this offence he had fantasies about. Well we've all seen that come crashing down. The team has transitioned from that run n gun team that stemmed the Bargnani pick, to a slow halfcourt team with throwing the ball into Bosh and JO.

and i don't understand you're last comment. Yes we'd be in a win now mode with my propisition, except we'd be much deeper and have a good wing player along with a 17th pick being groomed. The difference being this 'win-now' team is not a complete win now team with gaping holes in the starting lineup.

Have we every been a run and gun team since BC got here? BC looks for talented skilled players, that's it. The phiosophy of scoring in less than seven second is more a D'Antoni philosophy than a BC philosophy. BC's track record suggests he values offense over defense, atleast until this move. But there is nothing that suggests he's only about the run and gun.

[SHootaR]

^^no we actually tried the run n gun here in toronto for the first part of the season after the bargs draftpick. it failed miserably. and yes thats a huge problem too...valuing offense over defense. and jumpshooting over banging in the paint getting free throws.

[whysoserious]

you dont understand what i'm saying b/c most toronto fans wouldnt lol. you've been brainwashed by toronto GMs everywhere.

it's entirely possibly for a playoff team to have less chances than a non-playoff team to win a championship in the future. not sure if u ever followed the leafs...but this is the definition of their team pre-lockout...buying enough pieces to keep us competitive and in the playoffs. but anyone with a shred of knowledge could see we would never win a cup without retooling or dismantling the team. we had no defence and cup champions need a good blueline. there might be a young team that just missed the playoffs with lots of cap room in the offseason that has all the tools or blueprint to win a cup down the road, just needs some internal development and a couple pieces.

the 76ers are a decent example...they had a worse record than us and probably were an inferior team but their blueprint was better...they have a legit defending centre, a couple up and coming nice athletic swingmen, some cap space etc etc.

think outside the box.

Your comparison to the Leafs is completely flawed. They were a top team before the cap. Maybe not the best but they did what they could by spending money in the old system. Their problem was they couldn't draft well, whether it be early or late. Look at the Wings, they would be comparable to the Spurs and Datsyuk and Zetterberg aren't even top picks. The Wings are just a good drafting team with a good eye for talent. The Leafs have never been so tearing it down and starting over wouldn't do much. Do I agree that they need to rebuild absolutely but that's a different discussion.

You said you want them to be bad to get good but there's no guarantee that works either just like this move could blow up in Colangelo's face. There is no set way on how to build an organization. The fact is Colangelo has slowly improved the talent on this team, year in and year out. When we go from having Bonner and Mike James and Mopete and Jose and Charlie and CB4 to having Jose, CB4, JO, Andrea, Moon, Parker Hump, and so on, it's just continuous trend of adding more and more talent slowly while hopefully building towards that championship. So we gave up a 17th pick this year, was there anyone outside the top two that was instantly going to be a game changer, not really if any, but JO does exactly that for us.

[whysoserious]

whysoserious you seemed to misinterpret my entire msg lol. that sucks. i didn't suggest we would even miss the playoffs, in actuality we wouldnt with the addition of a nice wing. i just said i wouldnt care even if we DID miss the playoffs, if we were in a better direction with more options than being stuck with this team for the next 2 years when we wont win anything special and will have to redbuild again in 2 years. whereas with the new swing we have locked up, and the 17th pick...AND the player we get for rasho/filler at deadline..we have 4 or 5 pieces to build around starting THIS season...bosh, jose OR TJ, swing (maggette? jefferson?), 17th pick, rasho/filler trade.

I didin't miss the message at all, because you are of the belief that the only way to get assets is to go to the draft. Missing the playoffs for a season with this supposed wing player you want to get puts us in no better position than we are with JO, other than to lock ourselves up with a slightly smaller contract but for far more years. So how does that necessarily make us better and you keep assuming we'd keep all these other assets as if we were going to magically get this wing for nothing but money, were we under the cap? I didn't think so.

[whysoserious]

^^no we actually tried the run n gun here in toronto for the first part of the season after the bargs draftpick. it failed miserably. and yes thats a huge problem too...valuing offense over defense. and jumpshooting over banging in the paint getting free throws.

First of all, valuing offense over defense doesn't necessarily mean jumpshooting so you need to undersand that. And you value banging in the paint and getting FT's, isn't that something JO addresses? Maybe not at the position you wish but nonetheless he addresses it.

You see, you seem to think BC is done, when is any GM ever done? There job continues forever. Even after winning it all, they still keep working and making moves.

This is one piece along the way, not simply that's it, we're done, we're not making another move again and live and die with this group.

[SHootaR]

whysoserious you seemed to misinterpret my entire msg lol. that sucks. i didn't suggest we would even miss the playoffs, in actuality we wouldnt with the addition of a nice wing. i just said i wouldnt care even if we DID miss the playoffs, if we were in a better direction with more options than being stuck with this team for the next 2 years when we wont win anything special and will have to redbuild again in 2 years. whereas with the new swing we have locked up, and the 17th pick...AND the player we get for rasho/filler at deadline..we have 4 or 5 pieces to build around starting THIS season...bosh, jose OR TJ, swing (maggette? jefferson?), 17th pick, rasho/filler trade.

I didin't miss the message at all, because you are of the belief that the only way to get assets is to go to the draft. Missing the playoffs for a season with this supposed wing player you want to get puts us in no better position than we are with JO, other than to lock ourselves up with a slightly smaller contract but for far more years. So how does that necessarily make us better and you keep assuming we'd keep all these other assets as if we were going to magically get this wing for nothing but money, were we under the cap? I didn't think so.

ok i'm finished talking with you. you continually misread my quotes and i'm wasting time here. go reread the post again i even said we'd obviously still make the playoffs. and you're making things up with me assuming the draft is the only way to get wings. also with ur 2nd post i NEVER said offense over defense is the same as jumpshooting...but i said BC did value jumpshooting over getting to the rim, hence chuckfino, hence kapono, hence parker, hence rasho, etc etc etc. and your JO example is NOW...thus not proving me wrong saying he made big mistakes and now hes finally changing his mindset on team blueprint. geez man, i'm sorry, but you really need to spend more time reading ppl's points and not put words in ppl's mouths if you want to have discussions.

[cchrome]

Im interested to see who you think can D Dwight better than him right now, postionally and strength wise, and then ask yourself if we can get that guy (Position, weight counts for alot). Camby beside Bosh does not look more attractive than having JO. He does not have the strength and is arguable more injury prone than JO at 34, plus, and big plus, cant give you 20 a night, also plays outside more than in the post, maybe another block, maybe. If JO gets manbeasted what happens to Camby? You think if Denver played Orlando Camby would D Dwight and not Martin or Nene. Camby is an amaing weakside like Bosh.

And this isnt a stop gap, Tjs style doesnt work in the playoffs, we traded him for a very good championship piece, way easier to get that wing with what we have left. Kapono may break out this year with JO on the block.

[Uros Slowcar]

Bryan Colangelo had to make a "desperation move" like this because Bosh was going to crack. Going into next season with Nesterovic/Bargnani at C is a disaster waiting to happen, and was not going to cut it. Whether O'Neal is an illusion more than reality is yet to be determined. But 2 years is worth the gamble because of the type of player O'neal is. Bringing in a Corey Maggette and others of similar ilk for the longer term is a classic treadmill move. Not a good idea. The young talent of this team currently stinks (Bargs, Hump, Graham) and may not be worth developing. Keeping the 17th pick and going the "youth development" route, while Bosh bails in 2010 is not a good idea either. Im sure Bryan considered all the alternatives when deciding to make the trade.