Rapcast #151: Kobe Amnesty – Yeah, We Go There

by Steve Gennaro April 16, 2013

This week on The Doctor is In with Phdsteve, a moment of silence for those in Boston who were at the Marathon and a word or two on how that changes our ability to watch live sporting events moving forward. Most of the talk today is about the Lakers and what they will do now moving forward in light of Kobe’s achilles (regardless of whether or not they make the playoffs). For the Raptors, if LA amnesties Kobe there could be several moves to follow that could help the Raptors in their rebuild, retool, growth as franchise. I speculate that this probably allows for the Lakers and Raptors to re-open the Gasol//Bargnani discussion and I argue that moving forward it may be the best way for both teams to improve for 2013-2014.

Grab the iTunes feed or the plain old feed. You can also download the file (24:23, 22 MB). Or just listen below:

truuth

ways for raptors to be nationally televised:

1) become a good, entertaining team.

2) have a nation suffer a tragic terrorist attack.

sadly number 2 happened first.
Milesboyer

Colangelo should have gone all in for Dwight Howard (before Kobe’s injury)? No way in hell Howard would come to Toronto – Raptors are probably behind the Bobcats in his choice of teams. Nash and Howard are a better duo than 80-90 percent other duos? Are Dwayne Wade and Lebron a duo? KD and Westbrook? or are you only talking PG and big man which even then I would highly disagree. Nash is washed up and he won’t be getting any better next year.

My final observation, the one that made me turn off the podcast, was the suggestion of trading Derozan and Bargnani for Gasol. Bargs and filler yes but adding Derozan is a joke. Gasol will be a 33 yr. old, 20 mil power forward with declining skills on the last year of his contract. He won’t make the Raptors any better next year if you swap him out for Derozan. If you’re not going to improve the team you don’t trade DD just for the sake of it and you don’t give him away for free.
ScarBoro416

New CBA says that teams over the salary cap can not participate in sign and trades so their goes that idea
ScarBoro416

Antwan Jameson makes 1.3 million not sure how that contract in comparable to Barg or Demar
http://www.wearingfilm.com/picketfence/ Tim W.

Another good podcast, and some more comments from me…

- Between his back and his ego, I really don’t think Dwight’s is worth the trouble. I think Kupchak is going to regret building around Howard. I think the Lakers can certainly compete with him, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to win a title with him. I think he’s too emotionally insecure.

- A coach shouldn’t force the offense on the players, the players should dictate the offense. Pat Riley went from showtime with the Lakers to a grind-it-out offense with the Knicks because he had different personnel. D’Antoni doesn’t seem to get that, but then neither did Mike Brown.

- You think Gay is a top 10-20 player? Really? I think he’s barely top 50. Taking a glance at the players with the top PER (just as a quick way to look), I count more than 30 who I think are better players. And that doesn’t even take into consideration his contract. Gay certainly has the ABILITY to be a top 20 player, but as Raptor fans are acutely aware, having the ability and actually doing it consistently are two very different things.

- Trying to copy another team is a bad idea, because you just end up with a poor copy. Bargnani and Casey were as close to Dallas as Gay and DeRozan will be to Miami.

- Trading for Gasol MAY get the Raptors to 50 wins, although like all of Colangelo’s moves, it is dependant on basically everything going right. The big problem I have with the deal, like most of Colangelo’s moves, is it’s so short term. Adding a player so obviously on the decline to a young team that should be thinking long term doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, especially since adding that veteran isn’t going to make the team a contender, by any means.

I do agree the move has Colangelo written all over it, though. Especially the fact that it will give the Raptors cap room, which he loves and has misused during his tenure in Toronto.
Mediumcore

Hey Steve, nice podcast. Not sure of the best avenue to bounce ideas off you but was hoping you could maybe talk about acquiring more of a bruising PF to place along side JV. I really felt like OKC’s strength in their playoff series against the Laker’s last year was Perkins and Ibaka completely shutting down Gasoline and Bynum. How about something similar in Toronto? Dominate the paint and let Gay and DeRozan do their thing.
pran

well if you say it, it must be true. It is more logical to trade derozan over ross because he cannnot shoot, cannot defend, hasn’t proven to be an efficient scorer against better defenders, I wouldn’t trade derozan for gasol, but stop making pompous statements like derozan being traded before ross, without any reasoning other than “book it”.
raptors phdsteve

ok, so Ill deal with Jkwasia and this comment a little later and not in a public forum- but for those of you who are regular readers/listeners- dont worry- comments like this wont be tolerated.
Jkwasia

And Ross has proven what exactly?! Ross hasn’t shown he can do any of the things you just stated about DD on a consistent basis…the fact he is only a 1 yr younger than dd but looks lost on the court most of the time …. Bc isn’t trading DD not after he has invested all that time and money and is finally starting to see some growth #clown 0.O
Jkwasia

LOL why did you guys delete my msg?!! don’t like it when people tell it like it is huh?……oh by the way DD just dropped 30 in 3 qtrs and was 3/5 from three …#clown o.0
raptors phdsteve

i was going to email you talk about it offline but if you would prefer to hear it publicly thats fine too. Your post was deleted not because you tell it like it is, but instead because of the language you used. It was offensive and inappropriate. People are free to agree or disagree in the comments section but rudeness and personal attacks will not be tolerated. I know you havent been doing this very long, but this is a consistent rule for every podcast or article I do. sorry.
raptors phdsteve

also, if you actually listened to the podcast you would have heard my discussion towards the end about comments and the comments section. Instead, you decided to just be flat out insulting and rude- and thats your choice as a commenter. But I deleted your post since it added nothing to the discussion and brought the overall quality of the site down several notches- and thats my prerogative as the moderator.
raptors phdsteve

ps- Ill leave you last comment up- but if you insult me as a person again or call me any names (even just clown)- I will blacklist you from posting future comments on the site. Now, lets get back to talking basketball. thanks.
DumbassKicker

It’s long overdue that some moderation was exercised here. I hope some others pick up on it.