Promotions aplenty! Everybody who is anybody got a promotion at MLSE yesterday. It’s quite a no-brainer when you think about it, a 5-game playoff exit merits knighthood let alone a measly bump in the old pay scale. Chuck Swirsky should’ve stuck around, he was in line to get the mascot position but missed out. Half-ass jokes aside, this is a great day for MLSE as they’ve found a way to distribute the money the 17% ticket hike in the last two years has generated. Rest assured that money is being well spent.
Let’s jump to Doug Smith’s insightful posting about the Raptors “plan” for the rest of the off-season:
The plan still is to sign a minimum-salary combo guard who will sit on the bench and play in emergencies or if foul trouble hits both Jose and Roko in the same game.
Oh brother, my palms are sweating with excitement and I might not be able to contain the joy of potentially signing Jaycee Carroll who might potentially be as good as Juan Dixon. This off-season is bearing some very nice fruits, who this “minimum-salary combo guard” might be the deciding factor between finishing 41-41 and 42-40. Fingers crossed! It looks more and more like one of Jamario Moon or Joey Graham will be our starting small forward next year and this observer thinks that that is simply unacceptable. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what Moon brings to the table but the guy can’t shoot. I can already see teams dropping off against him like last year leaving him open for the 18-23 footer which he’ll gladly take without being reprimanded by Mitchell.
Nothing we can do about it either, who are we going to throw the money at? The only player from that list I’d want on this team is Michael Finley. We could use some veteran leadership on this team along with a somewhat consistent jumper at the 3 and Finley could provide both. Sure he’s liable to go through offensive funks but even then he’s still better Moon, Graham or Adams. This team needs another “smart” player that can move without the ball and make the defense pay for doubling Bosh/JO and Finley fits the bill. Most recently he’s made his money by leeching off of Tim Duncan double teams and he should fit right in.
Atlantic Division Will Definitely Be More Competitive is the title for this post which stinks of summertime boredom. That statement is about as obvious as “Katie Price (NSFW) has fake tits”. The article goes on to say that Sam Mitchell is on the “hot seat”. No, he’s not. After the pains Colangelo went through to stay under the cap in his three moves this summer, you think he’s going to eat Mitchell’s salary? I think not, it would be admitting the mistake of signing him to a long term contract last summer and Colangelo’s not going to swallow that pill.
Celtics Blog is rating the All-Time Great Raptors (haha), he’s got my quote in there too. I am humbled.
