Yahoo! Sports: Raptors Team Report - Feb.11/09

[Lucky27]

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=teamreports-2009-nba-tor&prov=sportsxchange&type=team_report

Jermaine O’Neal has been around long enough to know how good NBA teams rely on mental toughness as much as physical ability to win.


He’s with a team now that he knows could be far better mentally, especially when it comes to putting the hammer down on weakened opponents and things like losing to a New Orleans team without Chris Paul or a Memphis team without Rudy Gay irks him.


“The natural thought process is that the team isn’t going to be as good,” he said. “That’s what I talked about the other day. This league is really 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical. Teams that are really good in this league are very, very tough mentally, they know what they’re going to do on a nightly basis, they know what their job is and it doesn’t matter who’s on the court, they go out and do their jobs and pile up the wins.

[tradedmascot_14]

I get the impression that Jermaine tries to get the boys pumped up, but he just gets blank stares. I'll give the guy credit, he's tough as nails and a good leader, but I don't think one guy can change the mindsets of the other 11 (or 10, or 9, or whatever we are down to these days). This teams personality will change only when it's roster does.

[underdog33]

I think when Jermaine decided to come to TO, he figured this team already had a "winning (tough)" attitude already, and that he could be a catalyst and spark them to the next level. What ended up happening was that the team soon revealed that they were soft as jello and he practically had to bring the toughness tenfold to make up for the lack of it.

/shakes head

[evanson24]

lol how can you fire up a team full of non-speaking euros and scrubby brainless wingplayers? (minus AP)

the only one who has showed signs of actually being fired is up joey, but thats because he looks at his muscles in the mirror before each game.

[sl64]

When your team is build around a core of three really soft players... what do you expect?