The Raptors just signed Joey Dorsey for the remainder of the season. The first thing that came to mind was if I’m going to explain Joey Dorsey to the Raptors fans who aren’t familiar with him, it’s going to feel like one of those overly friendly, happy and annoying training videos you have to watch when you start working retail in a clothing store or some kind of restaurant. Here goes:

Hey, there! So you’ve decided to sign Joey Dorsey to be a part of your professional basketball team; that’s awesome! Joey’s a monster of a man and he’s sure to kill it on the boards. You should be super-psyched to have him as a part of your organization. He’s a huge guy – 6’8” and around 270 pounds (sorry but like most Americans, your metric system confuses me and I can’t do the math to tell you how many meters and grams he is).

Just how big is 6’8” and 270 pounds? That’s big enough to fit three and a half Earl Boykins inside and still have room for a reading lamp. Joey Dorsey has been somewhat of a D-league champion, getting groomed for the smaller stage with competition that he can learn against. But you’re probably asking yourself, “Just what is Joey Dorsey going to bring to MY Raptors?”

Super question and thanks for asking!

Here’s what you need to know about Joey Dorsey:

• He’s already your second best post defender behind Reggie Evans. He’s a big, quick and agile big man who can’t be bullied inside.
• He’s a very apt rebounder. He won’t ever play big minutes for your team nor should he. But when he’s in, you’re unlikely to lose the rebounding battle for those few minutes. He rebounded around 12 per 36 minutes with the Kings. Before that he was close to 17 per 36 minutes with the Rockets.
• He’s a very likable person. He’ll talk to you and be quite engaging. He just seems to like to have a good time.

But here are some things to remember with Joey that you’ll want to put in the back of your brain in case it ever comes up.

• Don’t ever let him make a basketball decision outside of rebound and outlet pass.
• Make sure the clocks in his apartment and vehicles are set to the correct time. The Kings released him with just a couple of weeks left in the season because they were worried about his character. It’s not that he’s a bad guy at all. But apparently, rumors are that he didn’t show up to some practices and workouts on time. The Kings were worried about this kind of laissez-faire attitude rubbing off on the young Kings core so they decided to release him. I’m guessing a non-playoff team releasing a young, defensive-minded big man with not much time remaining in the regular season when it isn’t an attempt to save money or open up a roster spot can be a little alarming for some people.
• Because of this issue with not taking things seriously (like showing up on time), you probably shouldn’t let him near guys like Sonny Weems or DeMar DeRozan.
• He’s going to foul and foul a lot. If you thought Greg Oden had fouling issues, just wait until you get a hold of Joey Dorsey.
• Be sure not to feed him after midnight.

And that’s about it! Now you should be armed with the knowledge and tools for rooting for Joey Dorsey. You’re going to love the way he jokes around with guys on the bench. If you have any further questions or concerns about this or any of your team rooting needs, please feel free to ask your local general manager.

I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer but I know this scene all too well.

As a Wolves fan, I’ve been through my fair share of this stuff. The situations were pretty similar too.

You’ve got this ridiculously talented power forward. I mean this guy is FREAKING GOOD. He doesn’t walk on water necessarily but he’s pretty much crab walking across that piece whenever you’re looking. And you just can’t surround him with the right talent. It should be easy too.

He’s not a selfish guy at all. He wants to lead the team and he wants to do it the right way but he’d never put himself before the team. You can never seem to find the right point guard to put around him. The centers you put out there and the wing players that come through a turnstile to play along side him are never quite right. You’d love to give him a post presence to take the pressure off inside and allow him to play his mid-range style that he so loves. But nobody ever fits just right.

As the years go by and the playoff success isn’t plentiful, the frustration in his post-game comments, interviews about the future and overall declining disposition are worn on his face and sleeves. He’s tired of not having success. He’s considering greener pastures and he so badly wants a competent coach alongside a strong supporting cast. I watched it for a decade and can see the similarities with this Raptors team.

Growing up with Kevin Garnett as the best player on your favorite team is a blessing and a curse. You constantly pine for the next step to be taken. You deal with playoff failure after playoff failure and make as many excuses as you can for why things don’t go your way. You end up hating the architect of your team for not being able to put a proper posse around this man on the court. You may have a different view of him now but when Kevin Garnett was repping ‘Sota and dying with every loss, he was an awe-inspiring ball of energy and determination. You wanted him to be successful just because it meant so much to him. He was strapped with the failure tag because he was saddled with dead weight that couldn’t be moved or shaped into a winning program.

I see a similar situation with Chris Bosh in Toronto.

The guy is uber-talented and you can definitely have an argument that he’s the best power forward in the game. Maybe you can’t prove he’s better than Dirk Nowitzki (just like you couldn’t prove Kevin Garnett was better than Tim Duncan) but the conversation can be had without you looking like a completely biased zealot.

But the problem is the guy has never and may never have the proper talent around him. You can talk yourself into Jose Calderon and Jarrett Jack in the same way I talked myself into Terrell Brandon and Troy Hudson (well, not so much with Huddy) but there are some inherent problems with all of the parties here. Calderon can’t defend well enough to justify his distributorship and Jarrett Jack is never going to be a starting point guard on a legit playoff contender. I’m sure you’ve had the same reaction to Hedo Turkoglu and his enormous contract with the realization I eventually had with Wally Szczerbiak – “seriously, KG/Bosh has to share the ball with THIS GUY?!?”

Go ahead and blame Bryan Colangelo for this (which I know MANY of you do). Rob Babcock also deserves some of the blame too. It seems incomprehensible that you can’t put the right talent around Chris Bosh. Lord knows I still curse the name of Kevin McHale on a daily basis whenever I see anything reminding me of the Big Ticket in a Wolves jersey. How hard can it be? Add a steady hand at the point guard position that isn’t a saloon door on defense. Put a couple of perimeter dead-eyes that will stretch the defense and make the double team think twice before swarming your guy. Give him a couple of tough inside players that can get you a bucket in the post on occasion. All of this allows your phenom of a power forward to flourish against incapable single coverage and confused defensive rotations. It should produce absurd statistical seasons that start getting you to prematurely evaluate your guy on a historical plane of comparisons.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

And yet, you can’t seem to get that simple formula from your organization. Now you have to worry about him leaving when a losing streak runs a little longer than seems reasonable or when your team can’t stop anybody when they need to.

The Raptors are going to go into this post-season without a clue of how things can go. Most likely, they’ll be out in the first round. They’re a combined 3-10 against the top four teams in the East. They don’t have enough talent, defense or resources to win four out of seven games against the Cavaliers or the Magic. The Hawks might not be ready and the Celtics might not be young enough to keep a hot Raptors offensive attack from stealing a game on the road while protecting their home court.

However, you still hold out hope that things fall in the right places. It’s been rare in which a Chris Bosh team has been favored going into the first round of the playoffs and this year will be no exception. You don’t want the label of “playoff failure” or “incapable of leading a team to playoff success” dropped on your guy. It’s frustrating because you know it to be false. But maybe things can fall into place, the balls can bounce the right way and justice can prevail for the underdog.

I saw it happen once in 2004. Maybe the Raptors can see it happen in 2010.

Ultimately, the thousand words you read here won’t provide any answers or any real insight into a situation you’re already living in. You love your guy. You want him to succeed properly and you want him to do it in your uniform. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. I can’t provide the light at the end of the tunnel for you to hang your hat on.

I just wanted to tell you that I get it. I know the frustrations. I know the paranoia. Even if you don’t necessarily get answers, sometimes it’s just cathartic to hash this stuff out with someone who has been through it.

The recipe of a comeback has to have a couple of essential parts in no particular order. You usually need:

- A little bit of luck

- Multiple defensive stops

- Some offensive execution

- A fortunate occurrence

- Some late-game heroics

Go back in the history of every comeback in the NBA and you’ll see this same recipe. Actually, don’t go back and check on that. It doesn’t always happen. But it does happen often and it certainly happened for the Raptors on Wednesday night. Let’s check out what happened.

The first part of the comeback happened with about 1:15 left in the game with the Hawks up 105-101. Here’s how the recipe played out from here:

Little Bit of Luck Ingredient

So how was this lucky? Looks like a fine defensive stop, right? Wrong. Jamal Crawford is the all-time leader in four-point plays in NBA history. And while I don’t believe that Sonny Weems touched him and it was just a fine acting job by Crawford, the fact that a guy who gets that call all the time didn’t get that call is a lot of luck. The play was actually well executed by the Hawks. It was a soft pick-and-pop play between Crawford and Horford that Crawford adjusted nicely to. Once, Horford didn’t really have anywhere to go, Crawford ran back to the corner where Horford’s presence created a screen and enough space on the hand-off that Jamal got a great look at the three.

Mix in Some Offensive Execution

This was one of the moments of offensive execution by the Raptors here. Once Hedo gets the ball at the top, he runs a quick pick-and-roll with Chris Bosh in which the main design is to get the defenders to switch. They do and now you have Josh Smith covering Bosh when Horford had been doing an All-Star worthy job on him all game long. This allows Bosh to take Smith into the post.

The big mistake here by the Hawks was that Mike Bibby didn’t come over and help Smith with Bosh once he made his move to the middle. Bibby was guarding Sonny Weems and even though you don’t want to leave a guy open, you’d probably rather live with Weems taking a 15-footer with someone closing out than letting Bosh operate one-on-one in the paint against anybody. Bosh uses his length to get the half-hook over Smith’s length and the lead is cut to 105-103 with 45 seconds remaining.

A Dash of Defensive Stop

The Raptors defense is actually all over the place in good then bad then good ways. First, Weems does a great job of funneling Jamal Crawford to the baseline with Hedo Turkoglu coming over in solid help. But once the pass goes to Bibby on the right wing, the Raptors defense begins to break down quite a bit. Jose Calderon and Andrea Bargnani both scramble to Bibby while Hedo and Weems are slow to make up their mind on where to recover defensively.

This leaves Marvin Williams open in the corner and Josh Smith open at the top. Weems closes out on Williams when Bibby passes him the ball. When Williams drives towards the middle, Hedo is left in the low block guarding nobody while Josh Smith cuts through the lane. When Williams shovels the pass to the cutting Smith, Bosh steps up, gets his hands high in the air and causes Smith to throw up an errant layup attempt. The loose ball scrapes off of Josh Smith’s fingers before landing out of bounds and the Raptors have officially had a defensive stand.

A Pinch More of Offensive Execution

With 22 seconds left, Toronto gets the ball to Hedo at the top. He drives to the right wing while Jarrett Jack vacates that area to essentially switch spots with Hedo. Jack runs extremely fast to the top of the key, which forces the Hawks to have no choice but to switch defensively. This leaves Jamal Crawford on Hedo and Hedo with his eyes on scoring. Turk drives to the middle and gets Crawford to reach in, putting Hedo at the line with a chance to tie the game.

But Hedo doesn’t tie the game. He makes the first free throw, misses the second and all hell breaks loose with the Raptors down one:

Whisk Together While Adding A Fortunate Occurrence

Okay, all hell didn’t really break loose but the Hawks royally screwed up the rebound there. You know what the key to this play was? Chris Bosh had five fouls. The Raptors couldn’t afford the chance of Hedo missing the free throw and the Hawks getting the rebound near Bosh, which would have forced him to foul out of the game. Instead, Jay Triano brought in Amir Johnson instead. Amir crashed into the rebounding space, the ball went flying and Marvin Williams touched the ball while standing out of bounds. If Bosh is in, he probably doesn’t crash the board like that because of the foul trouble. You can’t risk losing the best player on the floor there.

Now You Add the Late-Game Heroics

I really don’t know how the Hawks could have defended this differently. Once they isolated Bosh on the right side, the entire Raptors team got the hell out of the way. If the Hawks bring someone over to double, the spacing is so good that it leaves open a cutting lane or a wide-open shot. Instead, Chris has room to operate against Horford. Once Bosh creates the space with the jab step, I’m sure he knew the shot wasn’t really going to be challenged. As good as a defender as Horford is and as well as he played Bosh defensively last night, Bosh got the separation he needed almost instantly. That step-back jumper is impossible to guard. You just have to hope you can close the gap as quickly as possible, get a hand up and pray the ball doesn’t rip through the net.

But the game isn’t over here. There are still just over two seconds remaining with a big shot maker in Jamal Crawford on the court.

A Sprinkle of Defensive Stop And a Garnish of Parsely for Presentation

Crawford initially gets a good look at a last second shot but Sonny Weems does a fantastic job of tipping it. The final result is a Raptors win against one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. If the Raps get their stuff together in the final 16 games, they can work their way up to the fifth or sixth seed and match up against the Hawks in the first round (which would be the best-case scenario for this team).

While the late game execution on offense and defense were nearly flawless for the Raptors, they can’t forget what got them in this position to win the game. Chris Bosh had a terrible game until the final minutes and yet the Raptors were still in a position to win this game. They didn’t turn the ball over, they got to the free throw line, and they got solid contributions from three players (Hedo, Bargs, DeRozan) to keep everything in line for Chris Bosh to be the hero at the end.

And once you get down to the close game, you just have to follow the recipe for a comeback in order to win.

Bon Appétit.

But before I get into that, I want to talk about the most tragic character that I see in the Kill Bill movies. In the movie, Michael Madsen (from Reservoir Dogs and of course, the Free Willy movies) plays Bill’s brother, Budd. Budd used to be a part of the deadliest team of assassins in the world. It was comprised of Bill, his brother and four deadly ladies that were all inexplicably named after deadly snakes. Now, I guess it’s not all that inexplicable because I get why you’d name them after deadly snakes. I mean, personally, I’d name my team of deadly assassins after the Teletubbies or characters from The Jeffersons.

(I can picture sending Weezy to Shanghai in order to kill the family members of a crime boss.)

Anyway, Budd is no longer a part of a team of worldly assassins in the second volume of Kill Bill. He’s a shell of the shell of his former self. Instead of being a rich, unique killer he’s nothing more now than a white trash guy living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. He works at a strip club that nobody goes to. Not only does he work at an empty strip club but his boss hates him and makes his life a living hell. He calls him names and degrades him in front of everybody. He has to resort to begging to keep his crappy job and clean out clogs in the toilet.

This is definitely not where anyone would guess Budd would end up -in a pitiful existence full of failure, disappointment and general suckitude. When they cut to the older shots of Budd in the movies, he’s dressed in a nice black suit with his hair well kempt and his body lean like a killing machine should be. He’s often brandishing a rare samurai sword that very few people could ever possess. When we see the current version of him, he’s overweight, not sharp looking at all and just trying to transition from the good point in his life to his death without having to go through a whole hell of a lot.

While I was watching the scenes with Budd play out on the screen, I couldn’t help but think of Hedo Turkoglu. Raptors fans don’t really know the Hedo I’m familiar with. When the Kings drafted Hedo Turkoglu, it was a complete shock to the fanbase. This was long before European players were being touted as the highest draft prospects in their class. They were an unknown and unheard of commodity. When the 2000 NBA Draft was taking place, Kings fans were hoping for a guy like Desmond Mason to fall to the 16th pick so the team could have an athletic swing man, capable of growing in the Kings up-tempo style of play.

When David Stern announced and mispronounced Hidayet Turkoglu, Kings fans couldn’t have been more confused. They had never heard of this guy. He looked nothing like Desmond Mason. His name sounded more like “hideous superglue” rather than anything the fans had ever heard, so there were no expectations of what he could do or where he might fit in.

As a rookie, he didn’t do much in the regular season. He average five points per game and primarily played during garbage time. When the playoffs came around, he got the same treatment in the first round against the Suns. Even though the Kings won their first playoff series in a very long time, this enigmatic rookie had very little to do with the success.

Then came the series against the Lakers in the second round and even though the Kings were swept, Hedo showed incredible promise. He was one of the few players that seemed to show no fear on the court. He didn’t care that Shaq and Kobe were out there. The presence of Rick Fox or the veteran leadership of Robert Horry didn’t intimidate him. He went out on the court and averaged 13 points per game. He finished the sweep against his team with a 22-point effort in which the Lakers squeaked by with a six-point series closeout. It was his coming out party and he wasn’t shy at all.

Over the next two seasons with the Kings, he was a gunslinger in nearly every sense of the word. He wasn’t afraid to shoot the ball. In fact, there was even a joke amongst my friends and me that if he got the ball, he wasn’t going to pass; the shot was going up no matter what. His percentages weren’t great so his playing time was limited because of it but he showed an innate playmaking ability. He was completely capable of affecting a game in a multitude of ways.

When the Kings finally traded him, they received Brad Miller who completed their big man triumvirate to battle Shaquille O’Neal. They were giving up on a future talent for more immediate success. It wasn’t a surprise to see him blossom in Orlando, especially when they turned him into a point forward type of weapon. He always had the ability and the mindset to be dangerous to his opponents.

So when I saw him return Wednesday night, I couldn’t help but see the broken down version of him. He can’t move well enough to really get by anybody. You can run him in the pick-and-roll and his playmaking will be able to create some scoring opportunities for him and his teammates. His jumper isn’t anything you fear anymore. His defense is as atrocious as ever and he just looks like a liability out there.

I recognize that he’s coming back from an injury and that could be a reason he didn’t move well, but this is something you could see developing over the past year. In Orlando, he had three shooters and an athletic god playing around him so it was hard to truly notice his increasing decline. But in Toronto’s system that doesn’t necessarily maximize his remaining abilities, he sticks out like a sore thumb.

Seeing him in person just reaffirms everything you think you’re seeing on television. He has slow feet and he can’t really jump anymore. He seems ready to go into fun-loving veteran mode instead of trying to fight it out one more valiant time mode. It’s hard to believe he has nearly $44 million (U.S.) and four years left on his contract. His signing was a desperate attempt to put some named players around Chris Bosh to show the upcoming free agent that they’re willing to make moves to keep him on a winner.

You hope that Hedo isn’t the strip club-bouncing version of Budd during the rest of his time in Toronto. You don’t want him relegated to being chastised by his bosses for not being worth much anymore. You don’t want him living some crappy existence in which he seems so alone. You hope that he’ll be able to find his Hattori Hanzo sword and still cut through his opposition on occasion.

Any glimmer of the old assassin Kings fans saw come through Arco Arena would be a welcome site over the clog-clearing shell that I saw on Wednesday.

If any of you are familiar with my work on Hardwood Paroxysm, first let me start out by thanking you profusely. Secondly, you hopefully remember the things I’ve written about the junior varsity high school basketball team that I help coach. I began coaching last summer and have been hooked ever since.

What I’ve learned from coaching is that the biggest assets to your success can often come from places you don’t expect. Maybe it’s a play you have your team run that didn’t go well when you ran it in practice. Maybe it’s a light bulb that goes off in your players’ heads where they finally get into the defensive help line that you’ve been pleading them to straddle for months. Maybe it’s your team manager telling a stupid joke to guys on the bench that totally relaxes everybody and gets them to just go out and have fun. Whatever it is, it can often come from the most surprising places.

Basketball is all about athletic ability, beating a guy to an area using that ability and imposing your will on the person in front of you. At least, it is for the majority of those blessed enough to be a superior athlete. For the rest of us, it’s about honing basketball skill, knowing how to play the game and a little bit of luck sometimes down the court.

On the team I coached this year, we had one of those kids that just found ways to make things happen. He wasn’t the best athlete on the court – ever. He was an undersized power forward who should have been far too slow and physically ungifted to play against wing players. He did a nice job of sliding his naturally slow feet. He was a decent dribbler but not someone who could create his own shot. He was a deadeye shooter as long as he had five seconds to get the shot off (not the easiest thing to do in basketball).

But for some reason, he was our most steady force on the basketball court throughout the year. We were a really good team. We finished the year 18-5 and 9-1 in league to win our first JV league title in years. We have a couple of guys who will play college ball and one of them is going to play at a big-time school. And yet, this un-athletic kid with good but not great skills ended up being the guy who made the most things happen for us.

He came up with huge offensive rebounds against guys he shouldn’t out-rebound. He made steals in our full court press that he shouldn’t have gotten to. He scored and scored and scored when we needed it most. He was by far our best player on the court in terms of outright production. And by looking at him, you would have never guessed he could do the things he did.

So what does any of this have to do with your Toronto Raptors?

Sometimes trying to find the guy that means the most to your success can come out of the places you wouldn’t expect. Obviously, Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani are the two most important pieces to the current and future success of this franchise. Jose Calderon and Jarrett Jack are needed to run the show. DeMar DeRozan needs to Develop into a DeDamn good player in order for the DeRaptors to Dekick some tail.

However, the key to good runs the Raptors go on could be much more subtle. In my opinion, a guy like Sonny Weems can make all the difference. I’m a little biased because I’ve been a Sonny Weems fan since he was at Arkansas. His high-flying act of bravery and utter absurdity is so eye-catching that it makes all of the deficiencies in his game melt away from your consciousness.

I mean just look at it!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPMmlokBuoQ]

It’s glorious!

But it goes far beyond what basic stats can show you. Hell, it kind of goes beyond what most advanced stats can show you too. Whenever I watch the Raptors, I feel like Sonny Weems is a part of good things going on with the team. His 5.8 points per game scoring average and his 1/11 three-point shooting on the year don’t show it. His 10.7 PER and 98 to 113 offensive to defensive ratings don’t show it either.

Even though it’s not a perfect stat and it’s hard to quantify just how much it says about the basketball world, the +/- stat shows some real value in what Sonny Weems brings to the team. He’s not first or second or even third on the team in +/-, according to NBA.com. He’s actually sixth on the team in this oddity of a statistic. But if you take out a couple of bad garbage time performances by he and his teammates (i.e. – blowout losses to the Bobs, Hawks, Bucks, Pacers and Rockets), his positive +/- performances have been extremely valuable.

When he scores a double-digit +/- the Toronto Raptors are 6-1. Of the Raptors top 13 lineups this season, Sonny Weems is in seven of them. He’s also in four of the top six lineups for the Raptors this season.

Maybe that’s not shocking to you but I found that astounding. The Raptors are just a better team when he’s on the court. Can you really explain it either? No. He’s not THAT skilled of a basketball player. He can’t shoot outside. According to HoopData.com, Sonny is an above 60% scorer from inside 10 feet and 37% shooter from 10 feet and beyond. He’s not a very strong dribbler and his passing isn’t great. He’s a decent defender but he’s not exactly locking guys down.

However, he does bring one skill that is hard to measure. His excitement factor can energize a team, arena and entire basketball game. Just watch that video above again. If he gets the ball and has a chance to get to the rim, he’s going to put on a show. When a guy dunks in a game, gives it a little extra mustard and seemingly does it out of nowhere it can galvanize a team and help spark a run. It can start and punctuate great stretches of basketball. And that’s what Sonny Weems is capable of doing.

Should he be a starter by any means? Definitely not. Is he better in small doses? Probably yes. But one thing for certain is Sonny Weems helps this team win basketball games more often than he hurts them when he’s on the court.

It’s a fact of the Raptors that comes out of nowhere but sometimes that’s the best place to find exactly what your team needs.