SIGNING: Kleiza To Raptors (Update: Pg. 23/Post #183)

[Lark Benson]

At this point Turkoglu should be considered sunk cost. If we have the #1 pick next year, and Harrison Baines remains the top talent, then be assured that Turk + Kleiza will do nothing to our picking or development of Baines.

And Randolph... you and every team in the league. =P

Agree wholeheartedly that they'd still take him, but the 15 million being paid to his backups in that situation would be money that could be used down the ling to resign our own players, add better complimentary players, etc. Again, my point is that you're handcuffing yourself financially in advance of finding a franchise player and therefore limiting the moves you could make to surround that franchise player with appropriate talent when the time comes.

[Lark Benson]

That was last season. The biggest and most predictable part of our offense is gone, we won't be dumping it into Bargs like we did for Bosh.

At least I hope not.



So you want to get extremely lucky and get a superstar and gamechanger like Dwight Howard. Good luck with that. I mean I'd love for that to happen but just getting a high pick in the draft guarantees absolutely nothing.

a) Offense was never the problem. Won't be next year either.
b) Look at the playoff teams in either conference, nearly all of them feature franchise players that were drafted by said franchises. Like it or not, NBA success is often predicated on drafting solid talent and then surrounding that talent with complementary players.

[Quixotic]

"Why can't the "Euro" observation be made without it being considered racist?"

The reason it's considered Racist is because people are using the term Euro to mean bad defence, soft, and second rate. If they did the same for African americans than it would be considered racist.

And by the by, Kleiza is a really gritty defender. He's strong and he gets in your grill...two things the Raptors are going to need at the small forward position.

Yup, it's weird that people feel the need to even use the Euro term. If they simply said "oh no, not another soft, perimeter player," it would be a legit argument (though probably wrong in this case). It's no different from saying "yuck, my neighborhood is full of blacks" instead of "yuck, my neighborhood is full of criminals," though of course if the judgement that they are criminals stems from their skin color, that would be racism yet again. =P

The Euro argument... where racism and laziness meet.

The problem with Kleiza is not his grit. He is strong and gritty, and is the kind of player Torontonians would love (if not for all the unfounded Euro hate). The problem will be his giving up of open looks or his inability to stay in front of his man. If he doesn't give his man room to shoot, next season we will be talking about Kleiza being blown by like a revolving door. That said, if we manage good defense at the other positions, it wouldn't be as much of an issue.

[Raptor4Ever]

You are quickly wearing out your welcome.

LOOOLL, Ask me if I care about your welcome ??
You need to know your place before saying statements like this

As far as the rest of your post and your Boy Amir, I will let the season speak for itself. It will not be till end of November when his constant fouling out boil the blood of the true Raptor fans and they ask for his head. By then, you can show them all those numbers as you want but the game will speak for itself.

Mark my word PAL

[blaze89]

Relax guys .... insight meant nothing by it. Anyhow, I hope you don't mind insight but I edited the title.

Anyhow, this is a solid signing with Kleiza. He's a gritty player, solid defender who has a nice outside touch too. I like this move alot.

i dont know why everybody is shady about this signing werent ALOT of teams including us interested in him before he signed with olympiakos? i didnt hear anybody complaining then when we were trying to sign him then i like this signing alot

[Quixotic]

Agree wholeheartedly that they'd still take him, but the 15 million being paid to his backups in that situation would be money that could be used down the ling to resign our own players, add better complimentary players, etc. Again, my point is that you're handcuffing yourself financially in advance of finding a franchise player and therefore limiting the moves you could make to surround that franchise player with appropriate talent when the time comes.

Except that we don't actually have any backups to re-sign (unless you mean Wright). Neither DeRozan nor Weems are ideal at the 3. RIght now, our biggest financial commitments will be to Turkoglu, Bargnani and Calderon. It'd be a mistake to let those 3 handicap us in the addition of talent. I'm not saying to spend money like crazy, and I obviously can't predict how Kleiza will be in a couple years, but if you focus on signing valuable assets, you don't need to wait 'til you have a franchise player established before making moves (which could take forever -- see Clippers). If your players are valuable, you can always trade them later for players that fit better, and if they're not valuable... well, you should never sign those regardless.

There's one additional point I neglected in mentioning. As above, sometimes you will end up waiting a very, very long time for that true franchise player to build around, especially when you (not you you, but Raptors fans as a whole) don't even consider Bosh to be a franchise cornerstone. Garnett went 5th overall in 1995. Kobe went 13th in 1996. Duncan went 1st overall in 1997. LBJ went 1st overall in 2003. Wade went 5th overall in 2003. Paul went 4th overall in 2005. Howard went 1st overall in 2004. Durant went 2nd overall in 2007. Insert player of your choice as the remaining top 9 franchise cornerstone of the past 15 years (2010 draft not included), and each lottery team had a 1 in ~23.33 chance per draft of landing someone great to build around.

If you expand that to all first round picks, then the chance is even lower, but the point remains that in a perfectly distributed world, you could be waiting 23 lottery-bound years before landing that franchise player. Meanwhile, the young talent you've been drafting and developing and who haven't resulted in a top-10 talent, their rookie scale contracts will eventually end, and if they're decent at all, they will get significant raises. Heck, even the top lottery picks get high salaries from the get-go.

Basically, what I'm saying is, unless you are lucky like OKC or Orlando (both teams did not have to wait long to land a franchise player), you cannot maintain cap flexibility forever without 1) giving raises that affect your cap flexibility, or 2) potentially losing your talent because players tend to leave losing teams eventually. So unless you know you will land that franchise player by 201X year, whether via draft or FA (e.g. when Durant's new contract expires), you may as well obtain and develop as much talent as you can.

[LBF]

Relax guys .... insight meant nothing by it. Anyhow, I hope you don't mind insight but I edited the title.

Anyhow, this is a solid signing with Kleiza. He's a gritty player, solid defender who has a nice outside touch too. I like this move alot.

i agree we were looking at him last year we couldn't get him he's continued to improve and we've snatched him up he's almost like delfino except a bit better solid defender.

this is a good move he is a piece on a championship contender.one of the reasons why denver went so far in the playoffs two years ago.

[Tim W.]

Agree wholeheartedly that they'd still take him, but the 15 million being paid to his backups in that situation would be money that could be used down the ling to resign our own players, add better complimentary players, etc. Again, my point is that you're handcuffing yourself financially in advance of finding a franchise player and therefore limiting the moves you could make to surround that franchise player with appropriate talent when the time comes.

You have to look at WHEN the Raptors will be re-signing their own players. DeRozan will be the first one, and he's 3 to 4 years away from getting a raise. Ed Davis is 4-5 years away. Kleiza's contract would be for only four years. Turkoglu's expires in four years. Calderon's in 3. Same with Jack. And who knows what the roster is ever going to look like in 3 or 4 years. Turkoglu, Calderon and Bargnani might be long gone by then.

And Kleiza is the type of player who would be a great compliment on just about any team. I can see him fitting in with any of the contenders. Besides, his contract is fair enough that he can easily be used as a trading piece down the road if he truly doesn't fit in.

[Hassan]

another euro lol good to see BC isn't changing for anyone

[Rouge]

Euro

another euro lol good to see BC isn't changing for anyone

Euro vs North America systems. No race issue here at all. The issue is the adopted system of playing. see example below:

1) Euro Hockey players vs North American Hockey Players - dont say they are the same -
Most top goal scorers in the NHL are EURO and the style of game in NHL has changed over the years to produce more goals

2) Euro Bball vs North American BBALL - again, different systems. North American is SuperStar first system as its $$. WHile Euro is team first approach.

Same can be said for Soccer i assume..

Thus its not the issue of RACE... its the issue of SYSTEM that RAPTORS are trying to go for... in addition, Europeons find it easier to play in this market then the Americans due. THE MULTICULTURAL CITY is attractive to them.

[`Dre]

I'm not totally against this signing of Kleiza, nor do I support this move.

But, am I the only one who remembers MATT BARNES is still a free agent???
We could of used the MLE on him instead, right?

[Quixotic]

I'm not totally against this signing of Kleiza, nor do I support this move.

But, am I the only one who remembers MATT BARNES is still a free agent???
We could of used the MLE on him instead, right?

Again, it takes two to tango. Just as I don't know that he doesn't want to come to Toronto, why do you think he'd want to come? Just to go from a good team back to a bad one?

[Nick]

I'm not totally against this signing of Kleiza, nor do I support this move.

But, am I the only one who remembers MATT BARNES is still a free agent???
We could of used the MLE on him instead, right?

Barnes is really inconsistent. But, I think if he were to be given the role of one of the captains or the captain, he would take a different approach.

[Quixotic]

Euro vs North America systems. No race issue here at all. The issue is the adopted system of playing. see example below:

[...]

Thus its not the issue of RACE... its the issue of SYSTEM that RAPTORS are trying to go for... in addition, Europeons find it easier to play in this market then the Americans due. THE MULTICULTURAL CITY is attractive to them.

Except Kleiza would not be a "Euro" based on where he played basketball. He played high school and college ball in the US, and was drafted straight from college, so it's not like he was trained by a Euro system anymore than Kevin Durant or anyone who played for Missouri.

So really, race IS the issue here, because you people can't seem to look past his name and/or skin color.

[LBF]

ya,so because brandon jennings played in italy but he's american he's a euro, am i wrong?