Honest Question: Why did we sign Baston?

[teamLeiweke]

Depth, back up,m insurance.. but then MOOOOOOOOOOOON bursted on the stages, and now there is ABSOLUTELY no role for Baston with Moon getting soem PF minutes too... even Joey has been playing quality minutes in the small amoutn of time he gets... then theres still Hump, Nesterovic.... were "deep".

[xAIRNESSx]

It's not like we broke the bank on this signing. Lets be reasonable here people.

[Mascot]

Baston is there to keep AP company, as much as I liked Sow's hustle Humphries is the better version of Sow.

From what i understand even though we thought Sow was a great guy, his personality away from the cameras was one that belonged on the Jail Blazers back in the day.

BC didnt want any part of that.

Slokar was useless he had no potential, he was just a nice guy.

Im sure there was a better big man to spend 2 mill a season on but u had to look at who wanted to play here, what their personality would be and how unhappy they would be with riding the pine all season.

Baston was the right choice for that.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Jamario wasn't on the team, Hump was still uncertain, and we weren't sure what to expect from Joey.

And then Jamario made the team and became our athletic guy who Sam uses as a PF as times (since he's easily as long and almost as tall as Baston, and plays bigger, better and more skilled), Hump proved himself in the early going, and then of late Joey has reasserted himself as a banging short PF when we need him (usually due to foul trouble or general listless play for a stretch).

So to this point he's basically been insurance that we haven't used much at all. As long as your insurance isn't complaining or expensive, then its all good.

I dunno, doc. That's certainly one way to frame the situation. I think a more accurate description of the situation is that the Raptors actually thought he was a better player than he was.

So far this season Garbajosa has had season-ending surgery, Rasho has lost minutes due to being ineffective in even more situations than he was last season and Bargnani has played his way out of minutes. Humphries has certainly proven himself but he remains pretty inconsistent and Sam still has a pretty short leash on him. Bigman minutes have been there for the taking for a while now and Baston hasn't been able to grab them. The team tried out Baston as a starter and gave him a few minutes and he was terrible. I've seen stretches with Moon, Graham, Delfino and Kapono at PF for a few minutes and they've all done a better job there than Baston this season.

I don't think the Raptors would have given him the BAE if they weren't hoping he was good enough to play a few minutes here and there when the team was down to only Bosh as a bigman who was earning consistent minutes. The good news is that it didn't cost the team very much in the grand scheme of things and now they've got a marginally expensive practice dummy. It isn't like BAE players have been lighting up the league lately. Baston is pretty par for the course and I'm hoping Gherardini learned something from the process.

[GWgw]

It's not our money. Who cares if we pay some guy $2 mill instead of 500k? This isn't going to affect our free agent signings in any way, shape or form. Baston showed some flashes of promise last year in Indiana as an energetic rebounder so we took a flier on him. It didn't work out but if he helps get our guys working hard in practice than it is probably worth it.

[chuckerz]

Baston has more experience playing basketball. He's a veteran that played in europe and he played on the same team as AP. This would make for good team chemistry since he is familiar to AP. Not to mention AP can ease his transition to the Raptor syetem and life in Toronto if they hang out with each other off the court.

Maybe he can help Andrea develop his big man game and act as a second tutor aside from Rasho. But I don't think that's helped.

[zong]

i liked seeing him play during that game vs indiana at home, i think he produced at just the right level

[The_Hater]

Not trying to troll or anything but I am not sure how this guy fits into our plans?

Was the AP Tel Aviv connection enough to waste a roster spot on him?

Big man depth without adding a guy that would stir the pot when he's not playing much.

Every team has 3 guys that don't dress for every game and when you start combing the waiver wire for your 14th and 15th guys, especially at the PG and C/PF spots, you're generally going to find slim pickings.

[RomaniaLuvTR]

Baston is there to keep AP company, as much as I liked Sow's hustle Humphries is the better version of Sow.

From what i understand even though we thought Sow was a great guy, his personality away from the cameras was one that belonged on the Jail Blazers back in the day.

BC didnt want any part of that.

Slokar was useless he had no potential, he was just a nice guy.

Im sure there was a better big man to spend 2 mill a season on but u had to look at who wanted to play here, what their personality would be and how unhappy they would be with riding the pine all season.

Baston was the right choice for that.

where did u heard that about sow?

[Mr. Perfect]

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where did u heard that about sow?

Yeah, I'm wondering about that too. I don't recall any bad reports ever about Sow's off-court behaviours.

[Cassius]

If Pape hadn't broke his neck he'd still be a Raptor.

[The_Hater]

Yeah, I'm wondering about that too. I don't recall any bad reports ever about Sow's off-court behaviours

Apparantly he once hit on messiah's girlfriend....

[BoBBo!]

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Yeah, I'm wondering about that too. I don't recall any bad reports ever about Sow's off-court behaviours.

When Pape arrived in TO my hats mysteriously went missing...

[PopAGat]

Because we had a 2 empty chairs on the bench, and we needed to fill it..so we signed Baston knowing he'd take up both chairs.

[Mr. Perfect]

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Apparantly he once hit on messiah's girlfriend....

Speaking of which, Messiah's trashing this forum like crazy, on the RealGM Facebook group.

[bill russell]

I agree Baston was never intended to be a starter or anything, but I'm still surprised he hasn't got more burn. He doesn't even get garbage time. Two million for two years you think he'd at least get garbage time. I mean, he hasn't even been in a game for the last month, has he? We've had a lot of nights were Rasho, Bargs and Hump have had a half dozen rebounds between them. You think Sam would give him a chance. He seemed to do okay when Sam threw him into that pre-christmas game when Boston blew us out by several hundred points.

[omeloon]

No matter how you look at it... bad move to add a second year. We could have re-signed him next season if we wanted to. Now we'll have to make a trade if we want to add a decent free agent for the MLE (assuming we bring in Ukic and a draft pick while keeping Calderon and Delfino.