Should Bryan Colangelo be Fired

[Raptors Aiya]

The succession is already in place for Stephanski. If the time arrives.

That's not good enough, but this is MLSE we are talking about. You cannot expect them to make the right decision. Ever.

The front office needs to be stripped. Bring in new people with fresh ideas. Stefanski is a retread. They need to being in a fresh young mind from a winning organization, preferably one from a small-market team so they are familiar with the constraints that such such a market brings.

Dennis Lindsay would have been ideal, but he was recently hired by the Jazz to be their new GM.

Troy Weaver seems like an ideal candidate.



Comes from a winning organization? Check.
Is familiar with small-market constraints? Check.
Has worked under a respectable GM? Check.
Comes from an organization that values the draft and on effective/efficient cap management? Check.

We need a GM who understands the realities of being a small market team. Small market do not get high end talent from free agency. So that means you're either getting talent via trade or from the draft. If your team is devoid of talent, how can you expect to pull off a trade where you are upgrading the talent level? At that point you're relying on your GM to be able to pull off a "rip off" trade which hardly ever, ever happens. So you're left with the draft. I really don't know much about Weaver, but he seems like a good fit for our team.

You realize BC comes from the EXACT same background right?

lets go through the list again:

Comes from a winning organization? Check. BC came from the Suns/Nash/D'Antoni ERA

Is familiar with small-market constraints? Check. Toronto is not a Small Market team and Phoenix (Like OKC) is in the bottom half of the NBA in terms of Market size

Has worked under a respectable GM? Check. Bryan worked under the guidance of his father Jerry Colangelo, who I believe had a say in all of BCs moves in Phoenix. Take him out of the equation and you get the disaster we are in right now

Comes from an organization that values the draft and on effective/efficient cap management? Check. Drafted Amare Stoudemire, Drafted Shawn Marion, Traded for Joe Johnson

[SDM]

You realize BC comes from the EXACT same background right?

lets go through the list again:

Comes from a winning organization? Check. BC came from the Suns/Nash/D'Antoni ERA
Is familiar with small-market constraints? Check. Toronto is not a Small Market team and Phoenix (Like OKC) is in the bottom half of the NBA in terms of Market size
Has worked under a respectable GM? Check. Bryan worked under the guidance of his father Jerry Colangelo, who I believe had a say in all of BCs moves in Phoenix. Take him out of the equation and you get the disaster we are in right now
Comes from an organization that values the draft and on effective/efficient cap management? Check. Drafted Amare Stoudemire, Drafted Shawn Marion, Traded for Joe Johnson

I don't think anyone would disagree that,

a) Colangelo has one hell of a resume and everyone was excited about him coming here
b) he crapped the bed running the Raptors

They're not the same thing.

[Alfred]

The succession is already in place for Stephanski. If the time arrives.

That's not good enough, but this is MLSE we are talking about. You cannot expect them to make the right decision. Ever.

The front office needs to be stripped. Bring in new people with fresh ideas. Stefanski is a retread. They need to being in a fresh young mind from a winning organization, preferably one from a small-market team so they are familiar with the constraints that such such a market brings.

Dennis Lindsay would have been ideal, but he was recently hired by the Jazz to be their new GM.

Troy Weaver seems like an ideal candidate.



Comes from a winning organization? Check.
Is familiar with small-market constraints? Check.
Has worked under a respectable GM? Check.
Comes from an organization that values the draft and on effective/efficient cap management? Check.

We need a GM who understands the realities of being a small market team. Small market do not get high end talent from free agency. So that means you're either getting talent via trade or from the draft. If your team is devoid of talent, how can you expect to pull off a trade where you are upgrading the talent level? At that point you're relying on your GM to be able to pull off a "rip off" trade which hardly ever, ever happens. So you're left with the draft. I really don't know much about Weaver, but he seems like a good fit for our team.

You realize BC comes from the EXACT same background right?

lets go through the list again:

Comes from a winning organization? Check. BC came from the Suns/Nash/D'Antoni ERA

Is familiar with small-market constraints? Check. Toronto is not a Small Market team and Phoenix (Like OKC) is in the bottom half of the NBA in terms of Market size

Has worked under a respectable GM? Check. Bryan worked under the guidance of his father Jerry Colangelo, who I believe had a say in all of BCs moves in Phoenix. Take him out of the equation and you get the disaster we are in right now

Comes from an organization that values the draft and on effective/efficient cap management? Check. Drafted Amare Stoudemire, Drafted Shawn Marion, Traded for Joe Johnson

So what are you saying? That hiring a guy with good credentials is a bad idea? Or are you saying that we should ignore Bryan Colangelo's last 6 years with the Raptors because he did a good job in Phoenix?

[ATLTimekeeper]

There would always be good candidates, although I'm sure MLSE would scare off some with their desire to win immediately. A lot of fresh execs would want to take some time curtailing the roster, and with four possibly five straight years out of the playoffs I don't think their would be much patience. Rich Cho wouldn't even come back to basketball if Charlotte didn't let him submarine their chances of competing. He was just going to teach tennis. Dennis Lindsey waited until a spot came open in the second best run organization in the league. So, imagine someone with any kind of vision looking at the cap situation, lack of lottery pick, and ownership that's sitting on FOUR embarrassing sports teams and try and think about whether they'd wait for something better to come along.

[TheDunc]

I say give bc 20 games, if this team is playing bad fire bc trade bargnani and package ross or davis with him and get us a talented player to put with lowry,derozan and jonas.

If we dont fix this team soon enough then we could really risk losing lowry and if lose him this franchise will be done unless we somehow get wiggins

[Komodo]

There would always be good candidates, although I'm sure MLSE would scare off some with their desire to win immediately. A lot of fresh execs would want to take some time curtailing the roster, and with four possibly five straight years out of the playoffs I don't think their would be much patience. Rich Cho wouldn't even come back to basketball if Charlotte didn't let him submarine their chances of competing. He was just going to teach tennis. Dennis Lindsey waited until a spot came open in the second best run organization in the league. So, imagine someone with any kind of vision looking at the cap situation, lack of lottery pick, and ownership that's sitting on FOUR embarrassing sports teams and try and think about whether they'd wait for something better to come along.

Exactly. Our problems go deeper than simply BC. It's an underlying issue with our ownership. It is a business so you can't really blame them, I mean we don't live in an ideal world. But there has to be some common ground.

If this season does indeed go in the toilet and BC is eventually canned, does anyone actually think that ownership will be OK with bringing in a new GM and allowing him to tear this team down and rebuild it from the bottom-up via high picks in the draft? I seriously doubt that. If BC is canned, I fully expect MLSE to simply let him go, name Stefanski the new GM and retain everyone else in the front office. In other words nothing will change and fans will be fed the same crap over and over again. That's what we should expect MLSE to do because they are utterly incompetent and have not proven they would do otherwise.

[OhMyBosh]

To be honest, there won't be a quick fix in the next 10 years at the earliest.

Colangelo will not be here forever, but his consistent failure to put out a good competitive team will force pressure on the next guy to build it faster. Management and fans will not have patience for yet another rebuild (although that's exactly what is needed). Right now we're "accelerating" to our eventual realization that this team is horrid. That will take roughly 3 years of fringe playoff status. By then, Colangelo might hopefully be removed at the helm. The next guy however, will inherit a mess of a franchise, with a rabid fanbase and city that is yearning for any type of competitiveness. Because of this, there will always be pressure on him to get it done, but get it done quickly. Thus, he'll be set up to fail just like Colangelo has done.

OKC had the benefit of moving to a new city during their rebuild. They did a completely rebuild (traded away their star for only a pick + cap relief) and sucked in their first two years after drafting Durant - and sucked hard. That's what helped them gather so many key pieces without ever a need to "accelerate" their construction.

Durant - 2nd pick
Jeff Green - 5th pick
Russell Westbrook - 4th pick
James Harden - 3rd pick

That's in 3 consecutive drafts too. Us, on the other hand, drafted Andrea and tried to make an immediate push for the playoffs. That train ran out of gas, so we eventually came back to the draft for ONE year to get Jonas. Every other year has been mid-late lottery picks (DeMar, Ed Davis, Ross) that we hope will patch the holes in our team.

Just to be clear, I don't think the fanbase is to blame for wanting a competitive team. Fans can see when the team is headed in the right direction, and when it's not. If Colangelo decided on an actual rebuild and not his fairytale fantasies of building around Bargnani, fans can appreciate a stockpile of high picks because there's actual value and promise in those. Colangelo's words of hope can only take us so far each year.

[whysoserious]

I honestly don't care if they go in to Win Now mode and go all-in with a new GM or go full rebuild (that's my preference) as long as it's not BC's vision because we've seen him long enough and he's been a failure.

[Komodo]

I don't think it's feasible to expect the team to bottom out every single year until they get star talent in the draft. But even when potential star talent was staring us in the face (Drummond) BC says, "Nah, I'm going with the roleplayer." That was an opportunity lost. A major one because BC abandoned the rebuild so this team likely won't have a chance at a player like that again anytime soon.

[dacrusha]

if this team isnt .500 by all star break, the writing will be on the wall; for sure he isnt going to be here.

short term - if raps are like 1-9 by 10 game mark, casey is gone for sure. as BC will try to salvage the situation and save his job.

No way that Casey is gone. He's a damn fine coach who has been given a **** roster to work with. He's universally respected in the league and he's just the coach this franchise needs to instil some pride and work effort.

Time to stop the coaching carousel and aim for the higher ups who've been navigating this ship into the ground.

[T-Ross the Boss]

How is Casey is a damn fine coach? His rotations are abysmal. His uses of timeouts are horrible and his out-of-timeout plays are lackluster at best. The team under him has regressed defensively this year DESPITE being even LESS talented than last year's team, even though you say we still have no talent (which is simply not true). Our random offense is actually a bad thing for this team, and through it we'll have more nights where scrubs like AA try to shoulder the burden and get injured.

Provide me actual proof of him being a good head coach.

[lucky777s]

Is Lenny the only experienced Head Coach we have had in TOR?

Brendan Malone was experienced, but not as a HC I believe - seemed like good coach
Darrel Walker - worst - may have lost us TMac
Butch Carter - best, but personality issues
Lenny Wilkens - only experienced guy, most successful, but lazy and not creative
KO - any worse than Casey? wrong personality
Smitch - had potential, but another strange personality
JayT - good development guy, good offensive mind, poor talent to work with, furious quite often
Casey - latest in long line of rookie/limited experience head coaches

That is a pretty sad list overall.

[OhMyBosh]

How is Casey is a damn fine coach? His rotations are abysmal. His uses of timeouts are horrible and his out-of-timeout plays are lackluster at best. The team under him has regressed defensively this year DESPITE being even LESS talented than last year's team, even though you say we still have no talent (which is simply not true). Our random offense is actually a bad thing for this team, and through it we'll have more nights where scrubs like AA try to shoulder the burden and get injured.

Provide me actual proof of him being a good head coach.

Well, the defense has taken a step back because:

1) Bargnani is back. We were only a good defensive team last year when he wasn't playing.
2) James Johnson is replaced with Landry Fields.
3) Our starting C is a 20 year old rookie. This was Aaron Gray and Amir last year, both of them are betting defenders at this point in time.

[T-Ross the Boss]

Correction: In my post I meant to say MORE talented than last year's team.

I see your point 1 but I contest 2 and 3. Fields is supposed to be a good defender and so is Andersons, there shouldn't be a defensive hole at 3. Fields might be abysmal on offense so far but on defense I think he's been adequate. For #3, if that's the case then Casey should not start Jonas, he should start the better defender and work in a rotation at 5 that maximize our defense, that's all on him.

[JN]

One thing that complicates the hiring of a GM for this franchise is that BC appears to have more operational responsibility than many GM.

Some organizations are structured such that the GM is only really looking after player personnel.

This is not a save BC post. But MLSE will need to restructure its management if the candidate is lacking outside player personnel

[The_Hater]

He's made bad moves repeatedly the latest being the Fields acquisition. He's held on to his golden boy and coddled him where on any other team he'd been gone now. We've not been in the playoffs since the 2006 season!
Who thinks we should stay the course with him or is it time for a change.

He should have been fired 2-3 years ago. Instead, he's left the team in even further ruins with more bad contracts for whoever replaces him.

I'll give him this, he's one hell of a salesman. To buy himself 7 unproductive years before getting a majority of the fanbase to finally turn on him is no easy feat.

[greatkhal]

Yes, and Casey should go too.I like Casey, but he is not that good, and we don't have superstars...We should try to get Nate McMillan...

[The_Hater]

Yes, and Casey should go too.I like Casey, but he is not that good, and we don't have superstars...We should try to get Nate McMillan...

Considering how middling the talent level has been the past 2 seasons and that the 'centerpiece' the GM handed his coach doesn't defend, rebound or generally play hard, I think that Casey has done a pretty good job. No need to kind ourselves that there is a coach on the planet that could turn this group of mediocrity into a top half playoff team let alone a contender. There's a very reason that the Phil Jackson's of the world don't take a job like this.

[The Infamous1]

Hes bad, but You guys make it seem like he's isiah with the knicks

[SDM]

Hes bad, but You guys make it seem like he's isiah with the knicks

At a certain point, bad is just bad. There's no use in comparing Hitler to Stalin. Both terrible.