Should Bryan Colangelo be Fired

[Yosemite Dan]

Even if we finish 10-72, BC is not going anywhere unfortunately. At the very least he will retain his president status and hand the GM duties to Stefanski under the guise of a fresh new start for the team under Stefanski. But we all know the team will retain the "vision" of BC and decisions will still need to be made with his approval.

There's a simple reason for this. MLSE is faceless, there's nobody on the board that has a clue how to do a proper search for a new president/GM. BC was hired in the 1st place because rumour had it BC wanted out of Phoenix and Stern and the league held MLSE and Peddie's hands to make it happen.

Since no other team will show any interest in hiring BC, he has no reason to go elsewhere. This is the risk you take when you make a known name around the league both president and GM. The Leafs made the same mistake with Burke but he may not have as much security because Leaf fans will complain louder and their interests are served better by MLSE since they are the cash cow for MLSE. But Burke can easily keep his president post and make Nonis the GM if things continue to go south just to make himself bullet proof.

The Jays did it right by hiring Beeston who has no desire to be the defacto GM and will do what's best for the team.

[Scase]

Amir yes but not Jose; his contract will have expired

Yeah was pretty much just stating the players that would qualify for it in general.

[El Bow]

Amir yes but not Jose; his contract will have expired

Yeah was pretty much just stating the players that would qualify for it in general.

Jose no longer qualifies to be amnestied since his contract will end prior to the summer

[Scase]

Amir yes but not Jose; his contract will have expired

Yeah was pretty much just stating the players that would qualify for it in general.

Jose no longer qualifies to be amnestied since his contract will end prior to the summer

Thus the reason I stated in general. As in since the amnesty clause came into effect those were the only players on our roster that were eligible at all.

[El Bow]

Thus the reason I stated in general. As in since the amnesty clause came into effect those were the only players on our roster that were eligible at all.

Hero asked:

So that means that Klieza is our only option really for it at this point?

Stating in general doesn't answer his question.

[Scase]

Thus the reason I stated in general. As in since the amnesty clause came into effect those were the only players on our roster that were eligible at all.

Hero asked:

So that means that Klieza is our only option really for it at this point?

Stating in general doesn't answer his question.

Missed that it seems.

[Just Win Baby]

Obviously this season is and should be the final judge for whether we keep BC on board or fire him. IMO we don't have to make the playoffs but we have to either come close or show signs of significant AND consistent progress moving forward. Also if he somehow makes a trade that significantly improves this team, then it may warrant keeping him around. Fire him if we end up failing and giving up a high draft pick to the Rockets.

[Too Late Crew]

Yes Yes a thousand times yes.

You have an item GM in Stafanski that can keep the chair warm and can be put in a straight jacket by MLSE to basically sit there and not eff anything up for the future while they search for someone to take us through if not the trade deadline at least by end of the year to prepare for the draft.

At this point you simply can't risk giving him a chance to make any "save my job" moves like the Nash fiasco. I consider him essentially a lame duck at this point. Lame ducks don't do anyone any good. Either announce an extension now (please lord no) can his azz and move on. We won't learn anything new in the next few moths we have not learned in the last 6 plus years.

[Edumacated]

^^ Agree. Ed Stefanski can be the interim GM while MLSE looks for a new GM.

[22haytham22]

^^ Agree. Ed Stefanski can be the interim GM while MLSE looks for a new GM.

agree with that as well

[WigginsNation]

To me it all depends on what trades he makes. If he fleeces the other team, and uses his salesman approach of selling Bargnani, Jose and our other assets at a high price, i would consider extending him. Whether you all like it or not, he is a well respected basketball guy around the league.

And I just dont totally trust MLSE to make the right hire for a GM; and hence would rather have BC if he can redeem himself at or before the trade deadline.

[FluLikeSymptoms]

To me it all depends on what trades he makes.

BC's out of these, for me. You've got to be good at more than one of drafting, trading and FA signing- don't you? None of our GMs has ever been good at more than one, so probably yes.

Even if he scores on a trade, you fire BC before he can extend whoever he gets for the max or blows any more picks.

[WigginsNation]

To me it all depends on what trades he makes.

BC's out of these, for me. You've got to be good at more than one of drafting, trading and FA signing- don't you? None of our GMs has ever been good at more than one, so probably yes.

Even if he scores on a trade, you fire BC before he can extend whoever he gets for the max or blows any more picks.

BC is good at two of those, trading and drafting! The offseason signings is where he blows.

Im very confident in BCs abilities to make solid trades, and im quite confident in his drafting too. Ross is proving to be a decent player and not a bad pick afterall. Ross has solid potential. BCs drafting is one of his strenghts imo, and we'll get more insight into his trading abilities after something goes down this year. Which is why i said extending him or not will depend heavily on the upcoming trade he makes.

[suntzuballin]

66 colangelo yes man lol

[hillbilly hare]

To me it all depends on what trades he makes.

BC's out of these, for me. You've got to be good at more than one of drafting, trading and FA signing- don't you? None of our GMs has ever been good at more than one, so probably yes.

Even if he scores on a trade, you fire BC before he can extend whoever he gets for the max or blows any more picks.

BC is good at two of those, trading and drafting! The offseason signings is where he blows.

Im very confident in BCs abilities to make solid trades, and im quite confident in his drafting too. Ross is proving to be a decent player and not a bad pick afterall. Ross has solid potential. BCs drafting is one of his strenghts imo, and we'll get more insight into his trading abilities after something goes down this year. Which is why i said extending him or not will depend heavily on the upcoming trade he makes.

Disagree, in part. He was a great drafter in Phoenix, but here he's been pretty meh.

The Demar, Davis and Jonas picks were the right ones and he picked guys who dropped beyond where they were expected to go. Good BPA drafting to be sure, which his predecessor refused to do and rightly got canned. In Clownangelo's case he "avoided making a draft mistake", i.e. drafting anyone (realistically) considered the BPA at those draft slots would've been a mistake.

He did not draft BPA with either Andrea or Ross. No complaints re. those guys. Andrea is okay, though now more of a 6th man a la Ryan Anderson. Not a great pick, but not terrible. Problem was Colangelo didn't draft BPA or for fit, which would've been Rudy Gay on both fronts. Same with Ross. He was picked for fit and need. He was not BPA, which was Drummond. Like Andrea, the Ross pick will probably go down as a fairly "mediocre" pick.

He has also failed with his non-lotto picks, i.e. his 2nd rounders and the additional late first-round and 2nd round picks he didn't acquire. He drafted very well late first and 2nd in Phoenix, so it's too bad, especially considering a team like TO needs to hit at least ground rule doubles at those draft spots in order to lock a good prospect up for cheap for five years.

Obviously Clownangelo has been horrendous and putrid in terms of free agent signings. No need to rub salt and sulphuric acid in the wounds there.

I don't get the love re. his trading though. Seriously?

If it were remotely possible, his Jermaine trade battles the Vince trade for putridity. Personally I think it's worse in terms of the damage it did to a mid-level team, i.e. it gutted that team. It downgraded the team at 2 positions, which is hard for any GM to do in a single trade. We are still feeling the effects 4 years after the trade. Devastating.

At least the Vince trade, in all its horror, netted a pair of draft picks, one of which could've/should've landed us Danny Granger. A move that Babcock in true Babcockian fashion passed on, and cost him his job. That 15 or 30 seconds during the 05 draft, when apparently Rob was deciding between Granger and The Joey, was a bit of a watershed moment. And naturally he blew it.

Other trades of any significance?

CV for TJ was definitely a win. Incidentally, it also shows what drafting for talent and not for need can do for you. We certainly didn't "need" Andrea in the 06 draft, but picking him made CV expendable. Pity Bryan didn't do the same with Drummond, who might fetch a pretty nice player in a trade now or in the future.
*the pluses of the TJ trade were obviously negated by the putrid Jermaine trade.

The Lowry trade obviously landed us an upgrade at PG. Tough to assess the impact right now, though, as that future first in itself might not be a bad move, but the secondary aspect is that it blocks us from offering picks in any trades. For pure fantasy value, e.g. a James Harden trade earlier on.

**I would also put the Bosh NON-TRADE on the list as an enormous failure on Colangelo's part. Seeing as how other good GMs have done by being proactive in trading their stars who wouldn't extend, Colangelo has to be judged on this disaster too.

All the minor trades cannot seriously be considered anything of much value or loss.

So the final tally is 1 solid trade (TJ), 1 good trade (Lowry), 1 putrid trade (Jermaine) and 1 debilitating non-trade (Bosh). Add 'em up and Clownangelo is deep in the red on the trade front.

Overall, solid if unspectacular drafting, poor trading, putrid free agent signings. That's a net fail in my books.

[Harry Palmer]

The Lowry trade was terrible, and I say that stipulating 2 points;

1) I like Lowry. He's our best player.
2) On paper, it might be close to value for value if the pick ends up middling.

But it's another in a long string of what I've termed BC's win-the-battle-lose-the-war moves, dating back to Rasho.

Its like getting a great deal on central air conditioning at the North Pole. The value is semantic if it doesn't fit the situation, and this doesn't fit ours.

He's never rebuilt, because a rebuild takes commitment and commitment isn't his game, excepting when it inexplicably becomes his mantra re: Bargs. We keep spinning our wheels, going nowhere, serving only to take the money from our patrons while providing the better teams with wins and the lesser teams with lottery balls.

For the record, BC going is much more important than Bargs going. Bargs is just the supergalactic sized symptom of the greater problem. A new GM, assuming it isn't just a continuance of of the old regime under different slogans, will be able to assess how best to deal with him. Remove the organizational need to contextualize any and all things in terms of how they affect Andrea Bargnani, and he becomes an overpaid, underworked one- dimensional player, period. Not good, but not the systemic cluster**** he's been to us as things stand.

IMO Val is the only guy I'd commit to at this point. I'd be looking to take on empty contracts, move anyone else, and accumulate draft picks. And buckle our seats for a few seasons of real, actual rebuilding.

Or we can keep never-rebuilding-while-constantly-complaining-about-rebuilding-under-the-assumption-that-incompetence-means-rebuilding cycle which has worked so well for us, I'd almost be nostalgic at its passing.

[UnderdogRaptors]

To me it all depends on what trades he makes. If he fleeces the other team, and uses his salesman approach of selling Bargnani, Jose and our other assets at a high price, i would consider extending him. Whether you all like it or not, he is a well respected basketball guy around the league.

And I just dont totally trust MLSE to make the right hire for a GM; and hence would rather have BC if he can redeem himself at or before the trade deadline.

He isn't respected around the league, ur mistaking him for his father

[C_Money]

Whether you all like it or not, he is a well respected basketball guy around the league.

First of all, no he is not.

Second of all, what is that going to do for us? Are teams going to give us a starting SF because BC is a "respected basketball guy" who hasn't had a winning record since 06/07?

[hillbilly hare]

The Lowry trade was terrible, and I say that stipulating 2 points;

1) I like Lowry. He's our best player.
2) On paper, it might be close to value for value if the pick ends up middling.

But it's another in a long string of what I've termed BC's win-the-battle-lose-the-war moves, dating back to Rasho.

Its like getting a great deal on central air conditioning at the North Pole. The value is semantic if it doesn't fit the situation, and this doesn't fit ours.

He's never rebuilt, because a rebuild takes commitment and commitment isn't his game, excepting when it inexplicably becomes his mantra re: Bargs. We keep spinning our wheels, going nowhere, serving only to take the money from our patrons while providing the better teams with wins and the lesser teams with lottery balls.

For the record, BC going is much more important than Bargs going. Bargs is just the supergalactic sized symptom of the greater problem. A new GM, assuming it isn't just a continuance of of the old regime under different slogans, will be able to assess how best to deal with him. Remove the organizational need to contextualize any and all things in terms of how they affect Andrea Bargnani, and he becomes an overpaid, underworked one- dimensional player, period. Not good, but not the systemic cluster**** he's been to us as things stand.

IMO Val is the only guy I'd commit to at this point. I'd be looking to take on empty contracts, move anyone else, and accumulate draft picks. And buckle our seats for a few seasons of real, actual rebuilding.

Or we can keep never-rebuilding-while-constantly-complaining-about-rebuilding-under-the-assumption-that-incompetence-means-rebuilding cycle which has worked so well for us, I'd almost be nostalgic at its passing.

I get what you're saying, and I agree for the most part. Lowry is our best player. Period. He's our best since Bosh and one of the few potential impact players we've had on the team in the last 10 years. Which is about as damning an assessment of the Raptors and their GMs as you can make.

Rosy-glasses view of the Lowry signing: Clownangelo had other deals in the works in his foolish "win now" strategy.

Turd-colored glasses view: Clownangelo made a desperation move after the Putrid Fields signing and the Embarrassing Nash chase.

The off-season was a disaster and if there were any BC supporters left at the end of last season, then I hope the off-season tipped them to the other side.

I agree that BC going is the first order of business. People complain about Andrea, but as Ryan Anderson has shown in NOH you can be an effective 6th man at PF/C, too. It isn't only for wings. That should be Andrea's present and future.

The other point is the frequent analysis here that we are a "treadmill" team or a team "spinning its wheels" under Colangelo. In the usual meaning of those terms, they don't really apply to us. The more appropriate teams are Milwaukee and Houston, to name two. Up and down a few slots in the standings year after year, they slip into the playoffs one year, then finish 10th or 11th the next, maybe due to an injury or two.

We on the other hand have been spinning our wheels in the muck at the bottom of the barrel. They are two very different things. If you take a step back and look at our team the last couple of years, you can get a better view of just how terrible the team has been. We've had nothing to build on whatsoever. That is just unbelievable for a team run by someone who used to be as good as BC. We not only didn't have an All-star, we didn't really even have a borderline All-star, or a guy you could really call an impact player. Andrea on offense, maybe, though only at times. And his defense negated much of his offensive production anyway.

Just look at last season. Our starting lineup was Andrea, Demar, Jose, James Johnson (!) and Aaron Gray (!!!). That is barely above D-league level. Barkley (?) or whoever it was rightly said we might not be able to beat Kentucky.

We had a shot to improve this off-season but it all went wrong fast. Ross over Drummond (if only for his trade value), Fields, no Nash, Lowry. And then everything ground to a halt. That is a putrid off-season with all the resources we had. No guys like Scola via the amnesty for 4.5M a year. No real players via free agency, like Mayo (with Demar at SF) or Ilyasova (who's off to a bad start, but is basically the efficient, rebounding version of Andrea), no Dragic, who's Lowry's equal and less injury-prone, and wouldn't have cost us a future pick.

But all that to say that, right or wrong, we could've had a solid win-now team this year. I don't disagree with the concept of winning now, but the way that our incompetent ridiculous GM did it has doomed the team for the short-term.

[WigginsNation]

Theres no doubt about it BC has made a lot of mistakes and miscalculations. But at the time of his moves, we all could see the justification behind it, and those same people calling for his head now, were saying "BC is God" then. Remember? But this offseason is what really made me jump off the cliff and lose a lot of respect for him. It was the most crucial offseason, and definitely his worst in his tenure with the raps.

Not trading Bosh set us back big time. It was a huge mistake, but I think many of us were fooled into thinking he would resign, including BC. Which is why i can kinda excuse and forgive him for it. Him signing with Miami came outta nowhere!

Also gambling on JO was another mistake, but again, the thinking behind it was something most of us liked and were on board with. A possible healthy JO with a prime Bosh would've terrorized opposing frontcourts. Unfortunately we all know how that turned out.

The Hedo signing was obviously another major mistake, but again the thinking was that Hedo who just months earlier played like a STAR in the NBA Finals, would be a difference maker for the Raps. Many of you were onboard with the signing too, but very easily switched positions when he played like shhit. Again that move backfired on us.

My point is, if any of BC's ideas above panned out for us, we probably wouldnt be in our current position. He screwed up, no doubt about it, but he's still pretty young and im sure he's learned from his mistakes. He's a basketball mind with a basketball pedigree, and despite his mistakes, i'd still take the wait and see approach with him. I'd see what trades he makes before the deadline, before i decide whether to extend or release him.