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I've been in communication with a number of teams, doing the normal course of activity in terms of making and receiving phone calls and talking about improving our basketball team," said Colangelo, adding that acquiring a point guard is a priority.

Some point guards mentioned as possibly being available include former Raptor Damon Stoudamire of the Memphis Grizzles, Jason Williams of the Miami Heat and Luke Ridnour of the Seattle SuperSonics.

T.J. knows how he needs to play and wants to play. If he can't be T.J., he don't want to play," said Mitchell. "And so, when he comes back, he has to get his mind right and get confidence to where he can be T.J. Ford, or it's not worth it for him to play.

"You can't half-ass your way through life in anything you do," Mitchell continued. "The people who do it, their life is unfulfilled."

"I think it would help his cause if our record (18-17) was better, but I think he definitely deserves consideration," Mitchell said yesterday following the Raptors practice. "Jose is proof that if you work on your game, you can get better, and none of us thought Jose could be this type of player. We all knew he had talent, but a lot of guys have talent that don't get it done."

KEYS TO THE GAME

Starting centre Andrea Bargnani has take some rebounding pressure off of power forward Chris Bosh. Once in a while, Marbury turns in a big game so Jose Calderon has to do a good job containing him. The Toronto bench, which has struggled of late, has to outplay New York's.

"It takes a while," Bosh said of Bargnani's lack of rebounding. "He has to be super aggressive. He just has to want to rebound and sometimes he's still stuck in that mentality that he'll be close, but he just won't take that extra step to go get it."

First there was Chris Bosh, with his home-made "vote-for-me" video on YouTube. Now the Utah Jazz are weighing in as the season for NBA all-star voting nears conclusion, offering free hot dogs to fans in exchange for home-team votes.

"We were 15-20 at this point last year. With our injuries, you've got to be thankful we're above .500 in a conference where we were seventh yesterday, won one game and now we're fifth. And it's going to be like that the rest of the way,'' said Mitchell, who is fine with the record "because it could be a lot worse."

"Everybody wishes things were better, more money in your bank account, little bigger house, nicer car. But when you're riding down the street in your car and you see people by the side of the road and it's below zero, you're kind of thankful for what you've got.''

"If something is coming like that, it's going to be unbelieveable. It's a dream. But I don't think about it. Whatever happens from now to February is going to happen, but it's not my priority right now. I'm not thinking of that and I don't know what's going to happen,'' the Raptors' point guard said.

He said the best talk he has heard lately is that No. 1 point guard T.J. Ford is starting to work on his return to the lineup.

"It's the best news we could have. He's one of our best players. We've lost some games because we needed T.J., the way he plays and the way he is in the locker room,'' Calderon said, brushing off suggestions his own playing time would suffer. "I want T.J. back. We're going to get back to the same same situation (with Ford starting). I know my role, I know what I'm doing."

The unassuming 26-year-old has shone since stepping into the starting lineup for injured guard T.J. Ford. He leads the league in assists to turnovers with a 6.15 ratio