Fan Duel Toronto Raptors

Raptors “Meet and Greet”

Thursday night at a Raptors season ticket holder meet and greet at the Air Canada Centre, Tom Liston and Phdsteve had a chance to talk with Raptors brass Richard Peddie, Bryan Colangelo, and head coach Jay Triano. During their conversations, some things were revealed.

Thursday night at a Raptors season ticket holder meet and greet at the Air Canada Centre, Tom Liston and Phdsteve had a chance to talk with the Raptors brass of Richard Peddie, Bryan Colangelo and Jay Triano. During their conversations, Richard Peddie revealed that Colangelo had come to the MLSE board for approval to go over the luxury tax and was given the approval to spend whatever is necessary. When asked about the validity of Richard Peddie’s statements, Bryan confirmed that just resigning Bosh, Amir, and all of the teams own free agents plus a mid-level guy in the off-season would make them a tax team already but that if the possibility arose to make this team more competitive, he had the approval of the board to spend not just above the cap but above the tax as well.

It should be a fun summer.

Kudos to MLSE for putting on a solid event for season ticket holders. The meet and greet was held in the new atrium where STHs had access to Peddie, Colangelo, Triano, and Matt Devlin as well as Antoine Wright and Reggie Evans. The events this year were vastly improved – in previous seasons they were held before the game – thus everyone was a bit rushed and not as relaxed. Throw in a few MGDs on a non-game night and the atmosphere was much improved over years past.

They noted the candour from the participants was encouraging. No hard question was avoided. While Tom has always respected Devlin and Triano, he notes there is whole other level of knowledge that many fans don’t hear day to day. All those questions that fans have been asking “Why is player x playing x min etc” largely have good answers. They know the issues that we see. Dealing with these issues is often much more complicated in practice.

Check back Wednesday when phdsteve on his weekly podcast shares more about the night talking X’s and O’s with Jay Triano about Calderon’s D, how to stop Paul Pierce, favorable playoff matchups, DeRozan’s minutes and on the UCLA history lesson received by the Doctor/Bruin alum from Matt Devlin who might be one of the brightest minds at MLSE.