How would you rate the hiring of Ed Stefanski: good, bad or meh?

Arsenalist: Good. An experienced mind in the front-office can only help, unless of course Colangelo and Stefanksi end up constantly butting heads. That’s unlikely to occur, though, as Colangelo would’ve taken that into careful account before making the hire. The Raptors haven’t had a fresh set of eyes for a while, and Stefanksi does provide that. A guy you can bounce ideas off, maybe if he was around two or three years ago, the thoughts of signing guys like Hedo Turkoglu and Jermaine O’Neal would’ve been cut short.

Unlike Colangelo, Stefanksi’s played the game at a relatively high level (got drafted in the 10th round too), so he definitely brings a blend of both executive experience, and a first-hand knowledge of the game. His recent picks are Evan Turner, Jrue Holiday, and Marreese Speights, and I expect him to be very beneficial to the Raptors when it comes to the draft.

Avid readers of RR will note that he did select the great Rodney Carney.

AltRaps: Meh. We already had a second in command in Embry that has gone untapped and/or ignored over the past few years. Not many in the league demand the respect that Embry has and his track record here is pretty damn good. I don’t need to remind you (I hope) of the gifts he provided to Colangelo upon his arrival by clearing space and setting us up for a pretty good rebuild. I also don’t need to remind you that Colangelo pissed it all away like he had been drinking Carlsberg by the keg.

Sam: Meh. Another guy batting .500 is brought in, and given more power than a guy whose been here longer, and hasn’t done worse than a double on any hit. Landing Pritchard would have been the move; that’s just me though.

How much authority will Stefanski have to make the moves HE wants to make?

Arsenalist: He has zero authority to “make” the moves, he can suggest them to Colangelo as much as he pleases, but in the end it’s Colangelo’s decision. He knows that entering into this job. I’m sure not having full authority isn’t ideal, but then again there are only 30 NBA GM jobs in the world. You take what you can get.

AltRaps: About as much authority as I have to go to Arsenalist and demand we change our logo every week. Nil. BC has gone for the quick save and brought a fellow GM in and razzle dazzled the MLSE Board in thinking that 2 heads are better than one. I’m sure there were some lovely graphs and charts showing how more is indeed more and we should pay some money to get a proven piece in to help this organization out in a spot that we needed filled. See Hedo. I’m convinced Ed is working in a cubicle beside JYD and that both have as much pull as each other.

Sam: Does puppet-master come to mind? Trying not to be pesimististic about this, and the guy has made some good moves, but BC isn’t the kind of guy to concede giving his stamp of approval on moves. This is how I see things going down:

1. Ed working the phone, putting together a deal that makes sense
2. Puts together his fancy pitch-deck using Keynote
3. Takes it too Colangelo who gets hung up on the background colors of the slides
4. BC tells Ed to leave it to him….and he does…
5. Calderon gets a 3yr/$21m extension

What will/should his first official act be?

Arsenalist: Deal with the power-forward glut: Ed Davis, Andrea Bargnani, Amir Johnson and Linas Kleiza. If Bargnani is option #1 there, we don’t need Davis and Johnson to vie for 25 minutes a game, it’s better to just hand them over to one of the two and cash in on the other in the trade market. Basically, one of the three has to go.

AltRaps: to increase the budget for halftime entertainment. His first official act won’t matter. You best believe Bryan has a list of guys he wants once free agency opens and nobody is going to change his mind. Stefanski I think will try, but it will be a lost cause. Once that passes, though, I’d hope he sits down with Steve Fruitman (the genius behind some of the good moves in the Colangelo reign) and they do a deep dive in the new CBA. Beyond that, we need someone that will be a solid back up to Jonas. This will surprise you but I’m not sold on the kid. It will be Andrea-like the first few years, so need a piece to bridge that time.

Sam: Seems to me a lot of time and effort will need to go into understanding, and really getting, the new CBA after something gets agreed too. Last summer was a disaster for the Raptors in this regard. Otherwise, any move that can improve the Raptors short term, with the future in mind will do. Just pick any position and make a move.

It wasn’t the game that Arsenalist was looking for (Joey vs Moon), in fact, both were small bit players in what was Wade vs Bosh. Not a head-to-head match-up, but we saw potential future teammates battle it out like titans. Normally I am extremely hard on Bosh, I expect a lot out of him, but he played one of his best games of the year in a tight loss to the Heat Wade.

Interesting team these Heat are, remove Wade from the picture, and you have yourself a D-League team. I fully expected this team to be at the bottom of the East of this season. The mistake I made was to discount Wade. I mean obviously he is an elite player in the league, but so is Bosh. If you switch Wade and Bosh right now, Miami is a 20 win team right now (not hating on Bosh, just saying).

Normally there are 5-12 reasons why the Raptors lose any given game, but last night it was Wade, and his ability to do whatever he wanted on the court. Parker actually did a great job on Wade IMHO. I mean, you aren’t going to stop Wade, ever. You hope he settles for the jumper, and only dunks on you a few times, but last night, he dropped bomb after bomb. What was Parker/Triano/BC to do on this specific night?

Wade has made his living off getting to the rack, he is second in the league in points in the paint, but it was his stellar shooting that killed us last night He only got t o the line 7 times, which is about 3 less then then his norm. Bosh on the other hand had a great all around showing. He scored in the lane, from the perimeter, with his back to the basket, from the line and even dropped a trey. In fact, he even had a lot of support on this night:

• Parker 16pts 9ast
• Bargnani 23pts
• POPS 4pts 10rebs a la Rodman
• Kapono 10pts 4rebs

You can see that stupid smile from here.

From a defensive perspective, everyone but Wade was kept in check: Beasley was second in points with 12. Like I said, this is a D-League team with Wade, the guy has them a half game out of 4th in the East – he’s that good great, no real analysis or break-down is necessary, my notes all had “Wade bla bla bla” or bla bla bla Wade”.

Of more interest to me was the return of O’Neal and Moon to the ACC since the trade a month ago. A voice in all our heads had us worried they would kill us in a novel irony, but the game started and we remembered Moon sucks and O’Neal is still getting his feel/touch back after a couple years on the shelf. Admit it, how happy were you when Moon faked that three pointer, then shot it and clanked it off the front of the rim, twice?? lol How about when Parker and Marion posterized him (both pictured above)? Made me happy. I am happy the guy is playing ball and has a career in the league, but it was just great to see his lazy play against us for a change.

O’Neal on the other hand is a sadder story for me. I was against the trade from the get go, but when he had his press-conference, he said a lot of things that got me excited, but it was a marriage doomed before it began. Not his fault that our idiot GM doesn’t have daddy holding his hand-encouraging him on any more.

Wouldn’t be right to wrap things up without mentioning Pops. 4pts 10rebs +6 in 15 minutes. He wont be doing that every night, but we might just have ourselves someone who can be useful. Gotta admit, I didn’t think this would amount to anything, but it seems BC has a good pick up this season. All on his own too (or did Embry help with that one????).

One more thing, if anyone has seen Calderon, please let us know. The guy isn’t the best point guard in the world, but 3pts 6ast in 31 minutes, seriously?

Grab the Feed.

Follow us on Twitter.

Free Ukic.

Don’t let Pops wither away on the bench.