Took a break from blogging, will ease back in now.
The Raptors announced their initial summer league roster on Monday and the only guy on there that makes you shake your head go tsk tsk is Joey Graham. After three years of NBA ball the need for summer camp still exists for Joey and it speaks of a player who is on the very fringe of the NBA, barely holding on to a spot in this prized league. You can’t help but root for this guy, on one end you see his physical ability and expect some defense and slash out of him but on the other, you see him trying to make plays that would make special olympians blush.
The other notable on the list is Joel Bosh, younger brother of Chris Bosh. I can already smell some nepotism here but hardly care. Roko Ukic isn’t on there since he’ll be in Beijing for the Olympics. My outside pick to make the team is Duke guard Daniel Ewing who could take on the role of Darrick Martin as a third string point guard.
No Jamario Moon on the roster and Doug Smith says its because insiders have told him Moon needs to start work on his technical skills and that pointless games won’t do him much good. I tend to agree but he needs to put those technical skills in practice somewhere and I sure hope training camp isn’t the first time he’s going to practice a drive to the rim. Maybe he’ll surface up later, you never know.
| Player | Pos. | Ht. | Wt. | Birth Date | School/Country |
| Hassan Adams | F | 6-4 | 220 | 06/20/84 | Arizona |
| Deji Akindele | C | 6-10 | 240 | 04/03/83 | Chicago State |
| Sean Banks | F | 6-8 | 210 | 01/20/85 | Memphis |
| Rod Benson | C | 6-10 | 235 | 10/10/84 | California |
| Joel Bosh | F | 6-7 | 185 | 03/11/86 | Alabama State |
| Coleman Collins | F | 6-9 | 236 | 06/22/86 | Virginia Tech |
| Daniel Ewing | G | 6-3 | 185 | 03/26/83 | Duke |
| Thomas Gardner | F | 6-5 | 213 | 02/08/85 | Missouri |
| C.J. Giles | C | 6-11 | 240 | 09/25/85 | Oregon State |
| Joey Graham | F | 6-7 | 225 | 6/11/82 | Oklahoma State |
| John Lucas | G | 5-11 | 165 | 11/21/82 | Oklahoma State |
Skipping along to other NBA happenings, Darius Miles is impressing the Suns and Celtics. If only a team could get this guy to play hard and with a minimal amount of common sense, he’d be a valuable component of any team given his athleticism. I do like how the Celtics reach for untapped reserves though, they picked up PJ Brown out of nowhere and arguably without him they don’t win the title, I wouldn’t be shocked if playing for a title contender might spark Miles. After all this is the first time he’ll play for a team not destined for the lottery.
Ronny Turiaf is a restricted free agent and the Lakers are in a holding pattern. If it hadn’t been for O’Neal, we’d all want what Turiaf brings to the table. But with our big frontline the only reason we even look at him is for injury insurance. Once again the Bargnani factor will loom even larger if any one of O’Neal or Bosh get injured for an extended period of time. Big year for Bargnani.
Round 1 of Beasley vs. Rose goes to Beasley. Quite easily too.
