A new legacy: overpayment
The enthusiasm for basketball, and life in general, was quite high following the summer of the Raptors’ foray into the second round. Major free-agents included Antonio Davis, Kendra Davis, Jerome Williams, Alvin Williams, and Vince Carter’s mom. According to sources “close to the situation”, Glen Grunwald was one of those chaps that winked a lot during negotiation. Reports state that when Jerome Williams demanded $6M a year, Grunwald flat out said, “No”, but then inexplicably winked. This miscommunication wasn’t limited to Williams’ contract, as agents of every player took Grunwald’s “No” as meaning, “Of course!”. Unfortunately, since nobody in the ownership could quite read, this seemingly harmless wink ended up costing the Raptors millions. It was later revealed that Grunwald had a “serious eye infection”.
The fashionable trend of overpaying for players who otherwise would be struggling to find three meals a day caught on like wildfire. Critics and analysts attributed this gross negligence of fiscal resources to the GM wanting to “make up for playing in Canada”, and the ownership being none the wiser. Beneficiaries of this new found generosity included: Michael Stewart, Jerome Williams, Antonio Davis, Rafer Alston, Kris Humphries, Jason Kapono, T.J Ford, Jose Calderon and most recently, certified douchebag, Hedo Turkoglu.
Unintended effects of overpayment
Overpaying for players did not make the Raptors look like a great and wealthy organization, but one that can be fooled into giving a talentless fraud like Jason Kapono the full mid-level exception at the stroke of midnight, as if he had another offer. At a party thrown by NBA failure and small-handed criminal, Kwame Brown, Kapono’s agent was overheard as saying that when the Raptors offer came in, Kapono had already booked a ticket to Russia to play with Lokomotiv Kuban, who had offered “a hot meal and a change of clothes every three weeks”.
Giving no-talent players big contracts also inflated the fans’ opinion of these players and the player’s opinion of themselves. For example, and most famously, expectations of Kris Humphries rocketed to the point where fans used phrases like “rotation player” in the same paragraph as “Kris Humphries”. When confronted with these allegations outside a shady joint near Queen and Sherbourne, Humphries confidently nodded his giant head and responded, “I can average 25/10 no sweat”. As the reporter tried to ask the follow-up question of what on earth made him think that, Humphries had already driven away with a half-clad friend in his Ford Focus.
There was an unexplainable impact on shot-selection as well. Kris Humphries was often, much to the shock of the ACC crowd, seen taking a jumper outside of 5 feet. In an even more bizarre turn of events, Jason Kapono dribbled the ball. Although not overpaid, an unfortunate looking Jamario Moon managed to inflate his ego to think that he was a three-point shooter. On January 20th 2009, down one with 35 seconds left in Atlanta, Moon hoisted a 26-foot three-pointer which took everyone including the Hawks by surprise. When asked in the post-game interview why he took such an ill-advised shot, Moon responded by giving his trademark sh*t-faced grin.
Pound-for-pound, the biggest overpayment ever made had to be that of Glen Grunwald to Michael “Yogi” Stewart. It was a classic case of a GM trying to “buy low”, except that the strategy backfired as Yogi’s stock always stayed low. In fact, it fell to the point where Yogi was only known around the league for having a ridiculous contract and nothing more. It became commonplace for opposing players to nail a three near the Raptors bench and taunt Yogi, who was busy buttering a bagel and reading a newspaper.
A forgettable era
The 2001-02 campaign saw Vince Carter spend more time on a stretcher than on his feet. Carter became the most injury prone player in the league, often hurling himself to the ground despite nobody being within 10 feet of him. On one extraordinary occasion against the Magic, senile referee Dick Bavetta brandished a yellow card to Carter for “diving”. When Bavetta was reminded that he had gotten his sports mixed up, he ordered to stop the fight and called pass interference on Lenny Wilkens. The season was a typical sh*t one for the Raptors, and as Carter shamefully went down late in the season, any hopes of reaching the playoffs seemed to go with it.
“Back in 2002”
Usually when faced with adversity, the Raptors have folded. Except in 2002, when Morris Peterson and Antonio Davis rallied the Raptors to win 12 of their final 14 games and make the playoffs. This stretch of games is often referred to as “Back in 2002”, and the phrase has been invoked every year since when it’s late in the season and the Raptors are close to being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Annoying pest of a commentator, Leo Rautins is usually heard saying, “Can the Raptors go on a run like they did back in 2002?”. While being blown out at home, token Irishman, Jack Armstrong ends a long and drawn out review of the ABA by coming back to the evenings proceedings and saying, “The Raptors need to find the spirit they did back in 2002”. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the spirit shown “back in 2002” has never been seen or heard from since. It is presumed to be dead with Chris Childs as the prime suspect.
Chris Childs forgets the score
Chris Childs was one of those players that got really fat really fast. Usually players who get fat are great because you can make fun of them quite easily (see Shawn Kemp, Eddy Curry), but it’s a different story when that player is your starting point guard. Then it’s more sad than funny. Childs’ weight would have been overlooked if he had managed to pay closer attention to the score in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference first round playoffs. After a tremendously hard fought series, the Raptors found themselves in the deciding game with possession, down only three points and 10 seconds left after predator look-alike, Jerry Stackhouse, missed a key free throw. Everybody in the arena except Chris Childs knew the score, this would have been totally fine if Chris Childs was sitting on the bench knitting a sweater, but he happened to be on the floor with the ball in his hands. Childs leaned in and attempted a two-point field goal which, even if it had gone in, would not have helped matters unless he was trying to cover the spread.
After the game when puzzled reporters asked a distraught Childs why he had behaved as he did. Instead of lying and saying that he was trying to draw a foul and tie the game at the line, for the first time in his life he spoke truthfully: “I forgot the score”, said Childs as Alvin Williams launched another expletive-filled tirade at him.
Kevin O’Neill causes stress
Kevin O’Neill coached the Raptors in 2003-04 and was famous for:
- Making Vince Carter play defense for two consecutive plays.
- Producing a brand of basketball that cured insomnia.
- Being an unpaid spokesperson for Canada Dry.
- Looking like he hadn’t slept in five years.
- Ordering marijuana enthusiast and lazy bastard, Chris Jefferies, to make a “Canada Dry run” midway through the fourth quarter of a meaningless game against the Clippers.
If you liked defense, you liked O’Neill. He guided the Raptors to the 7th best defense in the league, unfortunately, he also guided them to the second-worst offense in the entire NBA. O’Neill was the first coach in Raptors history to speak the truth about the franchise when he said that the “focus is not on winning all the time”. This kind of honesty could not be tolerated in Toronto and O’Neill was promptly fired after a 33 win season. The basketball gods smiled on O’Neill when the Raptors notched 33 and 27 wins the following two seasons.
Mike James Syndrome
The Mike James Syndrome is named after fledgling NBA guard, Mike James (born June 23, 1975 in Amityville, New York). Common symptoms of the syndrome include a sense of entitlement to take any shot at any point in the game, and to not feel bad about it. Even if the shot is missed, sufferers of the Mike James Syndrome will take another shot as soon as the ball is passed to them, regardless of score, position on the court, or time on the clock. Other symptoms include not giving a sh*t about winning, padding your stats, thinking that you’re the best player in the league, and not passing the ball despite being triple-teamed on the baseline.
The Raptors were lucky enough to acquire the man who the syndrome was named after on October 4th, 2005, when General Manager Rob Babcock, in a desperate attempt to win back fans after blowing the Vince Carter trade, traded away assist-shy point guard, Rafer Alston for James. James played and started 79 games for the Raptors and his tenure with the team is best remembered by a game in Milwaukee when he took every shot for the first three quarters, making only two. When head coach Sam Mitchell finally caught on to the trend, he ordered James to the bench, but once he realized he had to put Darrick Martin in, he let James finish the game.
Other Raptors players infected by the syndrome include: Walt Williams, Voshon Lenard, T.J Ford, Roger Mason Jr., Milt Palacio, Jason Kapono, and Will Solomon.
Mike James Syndrome causes Raptors to miss out on LeBron James
On a late October evening, Glen Grunwald had a list of remaining free-agents in his hand and was desperately looking to round out the 15-man roster. So he did what he usually does when he’s got a decision to make: he put the list on a dart board and threw a dart at it. The dart landed on Voshon Lenard, who got the call as he was filling out a Blockbuster application. This is widely believed to be Grunwald’s biggest mistake, mostly because he didn’t realize that Lenard was a chronic sufferer of the Mike James Syndrome.
Every NBA analyst had picked the Raptors to finish dead last in the 2003-04 season, there was talk of a 5-win season and no TV station was willing to carry this tripe in the name of primetime programming. Fat man and casual racist, Charles Barkley, described the Raptors as a “trbl, trbl teem that codnt beet a hi-skool jayvee skwad”. The season was going as planned with the Raptors having 10 wins on the morning of January 26th, 2003, and on pace to win 16 games, one less than what the Cleveland Cavaliers ended up with.
That Sunday in late January is when Voshon Lenard woke up and felt a cool motivational breeze hit his face as he paid off his company for the night before. He came to the arena and dropped 13 key points off the bench in a win over the Kings. Lenard was instrumental in the Raptors winning 10 games over the next month and a half, thus doubling their total and killing any chance they had at landing LeBron James. Lenard went on to sign with the Nuggets; Grunwald was fired after the season. The Raptors ended up finishing with 24 wins and were forced to sign weak-minded narcissist, Chris Bosh, and so began another dark period in Raptors history.
Rob Babcock hired and soon fired
The first time anybody heard of Rob Babcock was when the Raptors hired him. The last time anybody ever heard from Rob Babcock was when the Raptors fired him.
Laughable team promotion
The funniest and saddest part of the Raptors under Babcock was the advertising campaign they chose to run when Babcock was hired. With the franchise in disarray and Vince Carter a hated public figure, the team had nobody to promote in their ads, so they went an “alternate” route. Through a sheer stroke of genius, the Raptors marketing team concluded that what would get people to come to the games would be giant posters of Rob Babcock and Wayne Embry’s faces making philosophical expressions, plastered across Union Station and the Air Canada Centre. When questioned about this marketing decision, a spokesman for the Raptors stated that the campaign was designed to “instill the confidence in fans that the franchise was in good hands”.
The campaign neither brought fans to the game, nor instilled any sort of confidence. What it did do was serve as a great ad for anti-aging creams.
Unbelievably bad draft record
Rob Babcock passed on Andre Iguodala and selected Rafael Araujo with the 8th pick in the 2004 draft. This is unforgivable for a few reasons:
- Nobody had heard of Rafael Araujo.
- Rafael Araujo was fat.
- Rafael Araujo could not shoot, dribble, or pass.
- Andre Iguodala was still on the board.
- Rafael Araujo played half his college career in a community college and the other half at BYU.
Deranged NBA loudmouth, Stephen A. Smith was struck by the occasion: “This is a disgrace to the sanctity of the game”, he said as he stuffed another bag of Cheetos in his mouth. Hoffa was best remembered for his various cock-ups, including being rejected by the rim. These days he can be seen in the Brazillian leagues begging for the ball by waving his arms wildly to no effect. The latest development in the Brazillian’s sad “career” has been the adoption of a new nickname – “Baby”, chosen because every time he shoots, a baby cries.
Rob Babcock is also famous for passing on future All-Star Danny Granger twice in the same draft, once at #7 and then again at #17. At #7 he chose to draft Charlie Villanueva, a player so allergic to playing defense that the first time he tried it he lost all his hair. At #17, he chose Joey Graham, who despite being built like a bull had also the brain of one.
Historic f**k-up
Early in 2004, it was well known that Vince Carter would soon be traded. Fans were excited in anticipation and forums were buzzing with threads such as “Kobe Bryant for Vince Carter?” and “Is Duncan fair return for VC?”. The news about the Vince Carter trade was broken by Headline Sports in their ticker. The ticker read:
…Raptors trade Vince Carter for Eric Williams, Aaron Williams, Alonzo Mourning and two first-round picks…
The phone at Headline Sports starting ringing non-stop, informing them that there was something wrong with their ticker, and that they weren’t reporting the trade correctly since neither Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, or Jason Kidd were mentioned in the deal.
As if the Carter deal wasn’t enough of a slap across the fans’ faces, Alonzo Mourning declared that he would rather retire than play for the Raptors. The audacity of a man with one kidney rejecting the Raptors was too much to bear and the forums saw threads titled, “Let Mourning rot!”, and “We should sit him on the bench for 82 games. LOL”. However, Babcock denied the fan even that pleasure by offering Mourning a buyout at close to 100%. The forums were flooded with threads titled, “Babcock = Hitler?” and “Why is Babcock doing this to us?”.
One good thing
The only good thing Babcock did was sign Jose Calderon, the Spanish point guard who went from being a great substitute to an incompetent starter.
But that is the beginning of a new story, the story of the gradual renewal of a franchise, the story of its regeneration, of passing from one world into another, of its initiation into a new unknown life. That will be the subject of a new story, but our present story, has ended.
