I’m sure Michael Grange thinks highly of Hakeem Olajuwon but unless you have a probing sense of humor you wouldn’t know it by reading the first sentence of his latest entry. Hakeem was sent to the Hall of Fame and I’m positive that the game winner he hit against Atlanta (you know what I’m talking about) had little bearing on the voters. Truth be told, he had very little left when Glen Grunwald knocked on his Houston door with a contract, a pen and a gun. Even though his tank was near empty when he joined the Raptors he still couldn’t play his worth because of injury and in the end it was more sad than anything else. He did have a very nice impact on the Muslim community in Toronto and helped out financially wherever possible. Nice guy.
I’m not sure what the mental issues with the Raptors are but they sound very confused. Chris Bosh is admitting that he doesn’t trust his teammates while his teammates admit that they’re not hitting shots. Sam Mitchell doesn’t want the players to put too much pressure on themselves and believes the team has “accomplished a lot”. Huh? Nobody’s talking about the individual play stepping up, instead every thing’s being washed away using the word “team” and the blame spread out evenly. The accountability on the Raptors seems to be lacking. The words I was looking to hear from Chris Bosh were something like this: “I need to step up in the fourth quarter, once I do that my teammates will follow”. Just a wish.
Let’s hope they air their dirty laundry before the Milwaukee game because I don’t want to have to wait to face Miami before registering another win. And you know it’s going to be by 48 points. Linton Johnson was waived and somewhere somebody shed a tear. Thanks for coming out Linton, maybe if you had helped us complete that Hornets comeback you would’ve made the team. A pointless signing by Bryan Colangelo, if he wanted to apply a bandaid fix to something, maybe start with some rebounding, the last thing we needed is another useless three. BTW, what’s Primoz’ playing time been like of late? At least Juan Dixon got a steal or two every couple games.
Coming out of the Monday practice they’re throwing around words like effort, intensity and execution – three things that have trouble showing up on a consistent basis. Chris Bosh saw some good things in practice and feels confident about the playoffs:
“Effort and intensity and execution. We did a much better executing on defence and offence, we got a lot easier shots, we didn’t let any easy plays go. That’s how you have to play in the playoffs, you have to have that effort and intensity, and you’ve got to start practicing for that now.”
To quote the great Allen Iverson, practice? Seriously though, the Raptors have hit rock bottom and need to find positives anywhere they can. If Joey Graham manages to pee straight into a giant urinal somebody should give him a high five. And such. Really seriously though, Sam Mitchell’s wondering what happened to the earlier success this team was having when they were winning games by 20+ points. I can answer that one for you Sam: The games have started to count and the Raptors have pulled a disappearing act, it’s much easier to play in meaningless early season games against unmotivated opponents who are in neutral than to play against hungry opposition who are fighting for playoff positioning. The Raptors have failed to shift to the next gear while others have. And don’t let 20+ point wins against the likes of the Bulls fool you, even earlier in the year we were getting killed by the legit teams.
The Raptors will have trouble scoring in the clutch unless two things happen: 1) We get a SG or SF who can create their own shot or 2) Chris Bosh develops a post-up game. Option 1 involves Bryan Colangelo to sign or trade for something so I’m not going to bank on it but Option 2 is something that can be developed in-house. Bosh’s lack of a back to the basket game is keeping him from being considered one of the NBA’s elite. His dependency on the officials to help him out in crunch time is unreliable because let’s face it, the game is called differently with less than 2 minutes. The refs will swallow their whistles and make you score, that’s when Bosh ends up throwing up a low-percentage chuck or unleashes that dreaded jump shot which he has so much confidence in.
It’s hard to criticize Bosh because without him we win 20 games a year but if you’re constantly referring to yourself as the franchise player, you have to start playing like one too. It’s harsh but it comes with the territory.
What’s Sam Mitchell’s future with the Raptors? Has he done the best he can with this flawed bunch or has he failed to bring out the potential of this team? If you ask Bryan Colangelo, it’s going to be the latter because there wasn’t any indication of Colangelo expecting a regression this year. The off-season signings were supposed to fix problems, not create new ones and although it’s the players’ responsibility to produce, the axe usually falls on the coach. Mitchell’s future might just be decided by the length of the playoff run, which if it lasts more than one round, will be seen as reasonable progression from last season. Sam Mitchell’s coaching for a job next year and stands to lose the most if the Raptors continue their poor play….What’s Butch Carter doing these days?
