The Star Player and the Raptors

I was thinking over something my brother and I were talking about over the weekend. I am sure plenty of people have talked it over with their friends.

It was about star power in Toronto, and why the stars always flee.

You could say that it’s because of Toronto and Canada and all the tax stuff (which I don’t buy completely). But although we seem to strike out with the American audience, Toronto has one of the largest markets in professional sports. So the fans are there.

But seeing as how most of the major talent in the NBA is American, maybe a stay north of the border isn’t in the dreams of the up and coming stars of professional basketball. Maybe that’s the problem.

On the other hand, maybe it’s because the Raptors haven’t won anything. Toronto has suffered several major setbacks in its history due to the loss of a key player looking to move to a major American market.

But the Raptors aren’t the only team with that problem. We certainly don’t have a tougher time than, say, Minnesota. In fact, lots of teams have trouble keeping players, and maybe it’s because they haven’t done anything yet.

Who knows? There could be a lot of reason. Let’s pretend like it’s the first issue though.

Let us pretend the major American players simply have no interest in playing in Canada. This is what my conversation with my brother was about, and our ideas were not new. They inevitably came to the concept of Toronto “the super world team” Raptors.

This is based on the assumption that only non-American stars would be willing to spend their entire career in a Raptors' uniform.

To be honest, it’s hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t think there is any reason to believe that superstars outside of the US are any more likely to play here than people who called the states their home.

So, what our discussion turned into was more along the idea of having a European style team—one that emphasized all-around team play rather than the star player concept a lot of NBA teams adopt.

Perhaps Toronto was never meant to hold onto its stars in the NBA. Maybe the team should be modeled after Euroleague teams like Olympiacos, Barcelona and CSKA Moscow, all of which operate with a sharing style offense where the scoring load is split between three or four players equally.

Another thing those team's have in common? They all stand at the top of the standings every year.

Of course, the Euroleague isn’t the NBA, and team-first squads have existed before in the league.

The Raptors are not the Pistons of 2003-04, but maybe before they go and hand Andrea Bargnani a heap load of pressure and ask DeMar DeRozan to do much more than he’s capable of they should tweak the philosophy a bit.

Right now they have a team with no superstars, but there is no reason they can't win a few games.

And that is fine with me. I would rather see a winning team than a Raptors jersey at the All-Star game.

Raptors Re-tool and Rebuild.

I am an optimist when it comes to the home town team. You have to be an optimist when Toronto is the sports city you live for.

My optimism allows me to look at the (in the works) trade for Tyson Chandler, Boris Diaw and Leandro Barbosa and say “I can dig it.”

A franchise could crumble when it loses the player of focus. However, in Toronto that happens every six or seven years.

It will happen again.

Chris Bosh leaving was no surprise. Everyone saw it coming. It was anti-climatic in the end.

You can thank LeBron James for easing the trauma by giving us a look at a full fledged kick in the nuts. Compared to “The Decision,” Bosh’s exit was tame. We can move on.

With Bosh gone, something needed to happen. The Raptors had two choices. Rebuild or re-tool.

Mr. Colangelo is coming to the end of his own contract. He decided to re-tool.

Assuming the proposed transactions go through, these are the players departed and acquired.

Departed:

Hedo Turkoglu

Jose Calderon

Reggie Evans

Acquired:

Tyson Chandler

Boris Diaw

Leandro Barbosa



The remarkable thing with this deal with is that the Raptors have freed up a considerable amount of money for the future. Take the extra cash and the two first round pick we got for the sign-and-trade with the Heat, and all of a sudden the future isn’t looking so bad.

Although the Raptors are re-tooling to compete next season, they are doing so with big expiring contracts that allow the team to rebuild much sooner than they could have with Calderon and Hedo’s heavy contracts on the books for the next half decade.

This is a great consolation prize if the Raps eventually end up missing the playoffs again (which has a good chance of happening, I’m not that much of an optimist).

I don’t really have the patience to do the number crunching.

Getting a legit center to play beside Andrea and a proven (if not streaky) forward to replace Turkoglu for the cost of an overpaid PG in Calderon, beloved as he is, was a good deal.

If Chandler leaves after this season, so what? His contract goes with him.

Chandler and Diaw won’t hinder the developments of Ed Davis and Solomon Alabi, not with Evans and Turk leaving.

Andrea can move to the five whenever they need him to and Davis will get his minutes.

As for Alabi, he will be wearing a suit until someone goes down. Alabi has potential but he is just too raw to see considerable time next season.

No one needs to talk about the Turkoglu trade. He had to go.

Barbosa gets paid a little too much as a spark off the bench. His contract only has two years left and is still less than Hedo’s. I like it.

Call me crazy. I like the new line up.

Bosh left. I thought I would care more. I don’t.

This team could win 40 or more games and there are still moves to be made.

These moves will keep the team competitive without compromising the future. This team is going to be young and have a high ceiling next year with the fresh talent coming in.

If nothing else, at least we won’t have the worst defense in the NBA anymore.