Brandon Roy

[Tim W.]

What is the basis for stating Barbosa will most likely be traded or is it just opinion?

BC said last year he was his favourite player and, outside of NBA journalists/rumour-spreaders, I've never heard a mention of him being traded.

Mostly my opinion. It just makes sense to me. I figured he'd be traded last year, but because he was never really healthy, it didn't make sense. He's in a contract year and Colangelo should try and get something for him while he can. And keeping him will just take away minutes from the younger players that need the minutes, especially in crunch time.

As for Colangelo, he's never been one to telegraph his moves, so I wouldn't go by him.

[mcHAPPY]

It's not delusion. It's called common sense. If we essentially have the same roster as last year, why would you expect magnificent improvement this year? It makes no sense.

Especially when considering many of the other bottom feeders appear to have got better.

Cleveland another year under a good coach, Varejo back, improved wing in Casspi, Irving, Baron Davis.

Minnesota with Adelman.

Sacramento has made moves which appear to help plus Tyreke should be healthy and Cousins another year along.

Washington with a healthy Lewis for a full year and Wall another year along with McGee in a contract year.

New Jersey with Deron Williams for the year.



The only team, at this point (i.e. roster is not complete, free agency not started), I feel will push for the absolute bottom besides Toronto is Charlotte.

[Tim W.]

The only team, at this point (i.e. roster is not complete, free agency not started), I feel will push for the absolute bottom besides Toronto is Charlotte.

Goddam Jordan. He just LOVES screwing Toronto, doesn't he?

[planetmars]

Goddam Jordan. He just LOVES screwing Toronto, doesn't he?

It's okay.. if Charlotte wins the lottery, he may screw up and go after Kwame Brown v2.0. We could still end up with the consensus #1.

[Tim W.]

It's okay.. if Charlotte wins the lottery, he may screw up and go after Kwame Brown v2.0. We could still end up with the consensus #1.

Good point. Actually, I'm guessing he'd go after Harrison Barnes because he's from North Carolina. I like Barnes, but I like Davis more.

[Hugmenot]

Expiring contract at deadline is probably the reason.

We saw how attractive a huge expiring contact can be at the trade dealine with Peja.

We currently have no strong indicator to believe teams will be after expiring contracts at the trade deadline. Nor that it won't happen.

I would not based any strategy upon an expiring contract having value at the trade deadline if I was BryCo.

[Nilanka]

We saw how attractive a huge expiring contact can be at the trade dealine with Peja.

We currently have no strong indicator to believe teams will be after expiring contracts at the trade deadline. Nor that it won't happen.

I would not based any strategy upon an expiring contract having value at the trade deadline if I was BryCo.

Worst case scenario, Barbosa plays out his contract, and comes off the books at season's end.

[mcHAPPY]

Goddam Jordan. He just LOVES screwing Toronto, doesn't he?

lol

[SCP0389]

Roy's not going through a slump or a funk. His knees are shot. A change of scenery isn't going to regrow cartilage in his knees. And I'm EXTREMELY aware of Roy's problem because, as you may have read me say, I have the same problem. There's NOTHING that can be done. If I move to Calgary, my cartilage isn't going to magically grow back.



I mostly answered this on the other thread, but with elite players, you can generally see the potential even after one year. I say this after watching 30 years of elite players blossom in the NBA. You can almost always see something there. And I don't see it in either DeRozan or Davis. I think DeRozan has the potential to be an All-Star, and I REALLY like Davis, but neither of them simply display any elite skill that makes me think they can become an elite player. As for Valanciunas, I simply don't know. I haven't watch him play in the NBA, so it's a lot harder to tell. I have watched him play in probably 7 or 8 full games, so I think I've gotten a pretty good feel for him. But he's still so young and raw, it's difficult to gauge. He could become an elite player, but I just don't know. Most likely, I see, as I said, a borderline All-Star, at a similar level to a Joakim Noah



Well, I've been following the NBA VERY closely for 30 years. I've studied players and teams and been fascinated with how to build a Championship team. And I'm not suggesting giving up. I'm suggesting trying to do everything they can to draft an elite player, because, like it or not, it's pretty much a prerequisite to winning a Championship.

There are others, though. Having an elite player is not a guarantee, but it doesn't mean you can win without it. It's like saying that people have lost Wimbledon while using tennis rackets so obviously it's not a guarantee. No, but not using one is probably not the best strategy if you do want to win.

Miami lost last year because they couldn't defend the middle, had poor PG play and not enough of a supporting cast. What they do have is the elite players, and the rest is a lot easier to get. And they're a favourite to win it this season.

Phoenix had the elite player, but were simply not a very good defensive team and they had a big man who wasn't a good defensive player. Trying winning a Championship with a poor defensive big man (Dirk is actually a pretty good team defender). Unless you have a team of elite defenders, it's impossible because that big man's weak defense will always be exploited. It's why I've always been adamant about trading away Bargnani.



Teams only go as far as their best player can take them. It's why Atlanta's ceiling is the second round. Joe Johnson is a good player, but he's not an elite player. It's why Toronto couldn't get out of the first round with Bosh. You could try the "remain competitive" route, restocking your team with free agents, trades and mid-first round picks, but you are going to remain perennially mediocre if you go that approach. That is unless you're an attractive destination that can attract the best talent. EVERY team needs to rebuild, whether they like it or not. Boston has, even the Lakers have. When Tim Duncan retires, the Spurs will have to as well.

As for how good the Raptors will do this year, I'm pretty confident they are not going to be a middle of the pack team. In order to do that they'd need to win what would amount to 20 more wins (in a full season). There have been very few teams that have made that big improvements, and the majority of them did so because they added an elite player. I have to say I'm shocked at some of the predictions some fans are making, but the same thing happened last year. Some fans were talking about playoffs and how the team might actually be better without Chris Bosh. Then they won 22 games, which was actually 4 fewer than my prediction. Simply put, there is little reason to believe this team will be much better, if at all, than last year.

I see now both of us will not change our opinions. ill explain my reasoning and its all good if you don’t agree. I haven’t been watching the NBA for 30 years so I haven’t been able to anaylze championship runs but there is one Difference between all those championship winning organizations and the Raptors and that’s being across another boarder. Raptors are in a unique situation compared to any other NBA team, so you can’t exactly depend on certain things to work for this organization that you may have seen done in others. What I do understand is that Toronto, even though being one of the best cities in the world in my opinion, is still not fully understood by players from the the other side of the boarder for what ever that reason may be. So now Ill be the sceptic and say history shows that we CAN`T hold our franchise players who we have drafted in the past. 3 of them have left one of them being an Elite player at the time so history shows it and frankly im sick and tired of waiting and waiting for this Elite talent to come around for what soo he can leave when we cant surround him with 2 more All stars fuzz that. Another reason is ownership NEVER AND I MEAN NEVER have I seen the MSLE go anywhere above and beyond for this team and unless we change ownership, and sue me if im wrong were going to keep losing our franchise players only to keep being under pressure to rebuild for another 5 years, Rinse & Repeat. Success a lot of the time ends up being a case of preparation meeting opportunity and with this rare & unusual situation, only the 4th lockout if I’m not mistaken raptors do have an opportunity here all it takes is one crazy run in the playoffs to capture the hearts of American media and boom Toronto can start its momentum towards relevancy and sure maybe it wont produce a championship right away, but it might be enough to start to lure more free agents/(foreign owners lol my dream) or keep our high draft picks. Sure we wont have elite talent but why can`t we build a team with many allstar type talent and catch some of these superteams weaknesses like Miami’s inability to defend in the middle. Look at Memphis we need to try and make one of those runs because Raptors are in a little bit of a bigger hole then some other teams. Sure it depends on a lot of if’s like derozan improving to a all star calibre type player while adding key defensive talent and so forth. I just don’t have faith that traditional ways will work for this organization in till they gain some notoriety and that wont get accomplished automatically by waiting for an elite player through the draft because in till a franchise player stays I will not have any examples to draw from and hope. For the case of Roy you said you are fully aware of hes injury while this may not be an official document I think it’s an interesting read (http://www.blazersedge.com/2010/11/1...knee-arthritis ) I have faith that Roy can regain enough to be able to assist this team for the better I to have had major knee surgery I tore my ACL/PCL/MCL & destroyed most of my cartilage, then 9 months later tore all those ligament for a second time and a different doctor patched me up this time with far better results unfortunately now my ligaments are made up of mostly my hamstring witch is significantly weaker then natural ligaments. With a proper fitted knee brace I can run a forty yard dash in at a 4.48 my last recorded measurement and if was able to plant or cut to save my life lol I would still be playing competitive football. If you read the article you too will see some things. When I said a change of scenarios could do him some good I meant with regards to a medical staff who may be more equipped to manage he’s injury then Portland’s, as they did have a history of rushing players back and allowing players to do certain things they weren’t suppose to do. Like anything else not all medical staffs are equals some organizations are better then others. Therefore if roy is training right now that means its not as bad as the public seems to think it is and with a short season combined with an improved roster you never know like you said before sports is not a science all it takes is a young team to build confidence go on a few hot streaks in a short season and things can happen, obviously the roster is not even close to complete and we don’t know how improved the young guys are on this team but don’t tell me with some good GM work we can’t make some sort of run allowing Toronto to be a little more relevant to our neighbours to the south nobody said we have to win a championship in the next 5 years we don’t have any pressure on us cause we have never done ANYHING! Yet.

[Tim W.]

We saw how attractive a huge expiring contact can be at the trade dealine with Peja.

We currently have no strong indicator to believe teams will be after expiring contracts at the trade deadline. Nor that it won't happen.

I would not based any strategy upon an expiring contract having value at the trade deadline if I was BryCo.

Peja was a massive contract for a player who simply was well beyond his prime. Barbosa has value beyond the expiring contract.

[NoPropsneeded]

Jesus i got dizzy just lookin at that

[mcHAPPY]

Peja was a massive contract for a player who simply was well beyond his prime. Barbosa has value beyond the expiring contract.

The only thing I would want to add with a Barbosa trade would be another expiring contract and a draft pick. I would like the Raptors to have as much cap space as possible next year.

[SCP0389]

take your time

[RaptorsFan4Life]

Why does this even exist? Raptors are a young team rebuilding, Roy is literally on his last legs and has a huge contract. It makes 0 sense for the Raps to go after him. Saying we can use our Amnesty on him doesn't make sense, we have guys like Calderon we could better use it on...

[Tim W.]

The only thing I would want to add with a Barbosa trade would be another expiring contract and a draft pick. I would like the Raptors to have as much cap space as possible next year.

I agree. Although if you agree to take back a slightly longer contract, maybe not as much as Barbosa per year, then you might be able to get a low first round pick out of it. You could also use him in a package deal for a higher pick or a young prospect.