This is a long piece but for those craving national US media attention it doesn't get much bigger than this on a Monday.
http://www.nba.com/2014/news/feature...lis/index.html
Tidbits:
http://www.nba.com/2014/news/feature...lis/index.html
Tidbits:
Winning stretch raises an NBA quandary (of sorts) for Raptors
Posted Jan 6, 2014 10:30 AM
There's a phrase used in sports: "Fool's Gold." I prefer to think of it as The Ledell Eackles Quandary.
Back in the late 1980s and early '90s, the (then-) Washington Bullets had a guard named Ledell Eackles. He was 6-foot-5, about 220-225 when he was in shape (he was listed at 231), and could basically do anything on offense. (For Eackles, not unlike many other players, defense was merely the interval that had to be endured before he got the ball again.)
Eackles could shoot 3-pointers with ease. He could get to the cup effortlessly in two dribbles and finish through contact. He could post up most two guards, and he could rebound his position. The problem for the Bullets was, he didn't do these things consistently. Part of the problem was it usually took him about three months to finally get in NBA shape, by which time the Bullets were often hopelessly out of the playoff race.
But in March and April, there wasn't a better two guard in the league.
In one three-game stretch in March of 1990, Eackles replaced an injured Jeff Malone in the Bullets' starting lineup. He scored 31 on Michael Jordan and the Bulls, a career-high 40 on the Nets and 33 against Philly and the always-solid Hersey Hawkins. The following season, he averaged almost 18 a game over the Bullets' final 20 games of the season. And it wasn't a fluke.
But it didn't mean anything in the big picture. The Bullets were awful, and Eackles didn't do much to change when he could have made a difference. Yet for several seasons, Washington wondered if the March-April Eackles would ever show in November and December. That's Fool's Gold.
This is the dilemma the Toronto Raptors face this morning.
Posted Jan 6, 2014 10:30 AM
There's a phrase used in sports: "Fool's Gold." I prefer to think of it as The Ledell Eackles Quandary.
Back in the late 1980s and early '90s, the (then-) Washington Bullets had a guard named Ledell Eackles. He was 6-foot-5, about 220-225 when he was in shape (he was listed at 231), and could basically do anything on offense. (For Eackles, not unlike many other players, defense was merely the interval that had to be endured before he got the ball again.)
Eackles could shoot 3-pointers with ease. He could get to the cup effortlessly in two dribbles and finish through contact. He could post up most two guards, and he could rebound his position. The problem for the Bullets was, he didn't do these things consistently. Part of the problem was it usually took him about three months to finally get in NBA shape, by which time the Bullets were often hopelessly out of the playoff race.
But in March and April, there wasn't a better two guard in the league.
In one three-game stretch in March of 1990, Eackles replaced an injured Jeff Malone in the Bullets' starting lineup. He scored 31 on Michael Jordan and the Bulls, a career-high 40 on the Nets and 33 against Philly and the always-solid Hersey Hawkins. The following season, he averaged almost 18 a game over the Bullets' final 20 games of the season. And it wasn't a fluke.
But it didn't mean anything in the big picture. The Bullets were awful, and Eackles didn't do much to change when he could have made a difference. Yet for several seasons, Washington wondered if the March-April Eackles would ever show in November and December. That's Fool's Gold.
This is the dilemma the Toronto Raptors face this morning.
But few teams in recent memory have been as much on the knife's edge as Toronto is today. The franchise has to answer a series of questions: How good is its core of center Jonas Valanciunas, guard Terrence Ross and DeRozan? Can you build a contending team around it?
What to do with point guard Kyle Lowry? He's been on the trading block the past few weeks, but he's also been playing his best basketball in Toronto during that span. If you keep him, what do you pay him? (He's a free agent at season's end.) And if you trade him, with whom do you replace him?
What to do with Casey, in his third season with the Raps since coming from Rick Carlisle's staff in Dallas, and whose contract is up at season's end?
And, to the point, should Toronto keep this team together and see how far it can go, or start selling off as many parts as possible to give the Raptors both maximum cap flexibility next summer and the best chance to pick a potential franchise player in the Draft -- maybe a certain college freshman who happens to be Canadian and whom everyone in the nation (not following the Maple Leafs, Canucks, Jets, Canadiens or Flames) desperately wants to play for the country's only NBA team?
What to do with point guard Kyle Lowry? He's been on the trading block the past few weeks, but he's also been playing his best basketball in Toronto during that span. If you keep him, what do you pay him? (He's a free agent at season's end.) And if you trade him, with whom do you replace him?
What to do with Casey, in his third season with the Raps since coming from Rick Carlisle's staff in Dallas, and whose contract is up at season's end?
And, to the point, should Toronto keep this team together and see how far it can go, or start selling off as many parts as possible to give the Raptors both maximum cap flexibility next summer and the best chance to pick a potential franchise player in the Draft -- maybe a certain college freshman who happens to be Canadian and whom everyone in the nation (not following the Maple Leafs, Canucks, Jets, Canadiens or Flames) desperately wants to play for the country's only NBA team?
The long-suffering and understandably cynical Canadian fan base isn't sure whether to believe, lest its faith be crushed again, or go all in. The team has already made its decision.
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