In Miami tonight – 7:30pm, Sportsnet One. The Raptors are six point underdogs and there are many NBA picks and parlays to choose from.
SIMMONS: NBA’s Stern did it his way, and it worked very well | Toronto Sun
As commissioner of the NBA, Stern was like the membership chairman of an upscale country club. If you wanted to be part of his exclusive league, you had to do it on his terms, his way, his rules.
In the beginning, all Tanenbaum wanted was an NBA team for Toronto. At the time, it wasn’t something in great demand. Yet he wound up butting heads aggressively with the remarkable commissioner, who passed away on New Year’s Day at the age of 77.
Tanenbaum tried to buy the Denver Nuggets in 1991 and move them to Toronto. That didn’t work or go over well with Stern. He didn’t want to lose the franchise in Denver, where it remains to this day.
He told Tanenbaum the New Jersey Nets were for sale. That didn’t seem to work out either.
In the meantime, Tanenbaum pulled an end run of sorts on Stern. He tried to buy the San Antonio Spurs. He didn’t inform the commissioner of his actions. When he met in New York with Stern in 1992, to discuss the possible purchase, Tanenbaum didn’t realize he was walking into a storm.“He was beside himself with anger,” Tanenbaum said years later. Stern was used to have troubled franchises in his league. He had problems in Cleveland, San Antonio, San Diego, Denver, Utah, Indiana, and Kansas City in his early years on the job. San Diego, the former Buffalo almost Toronto franchise, moved to Los Angeles. Kansas City wound up in Sacramento. Over time, the Spurs became one of the signature franchises of the NBA.
And after Tanenbaum and others knocked on the door of a number of NBA opportunities, including the Indiana Pacers, Stern decided it was time to expand to Canada. He awarded franchises to Vancouver and Toronto. But again, he did it his way.He wouldn’t allow Pro-Line gambling on NBA games and made that an issue of acceptance. And when it seemed obvious that Tanenbaum would be awarded the franchise — at least that was the conventional thinking at the time — Stern passed on Tanenbaum and partners in favour of John Bitove Jr.
The message at the time was rather clear: You do business our way or you don’t do business with us at all.
David Stern ran a phenomenal league in a phenomenal and occasionally singular way. There has been no one else like him in professional sport. The NBA was paddling in circles, going nowhere, when he took over as commissioner in 1984 and over the next 30 years he built the most popular sporting entity in the world.
Raptors will tinker with lineup thanks to injury woes | Toronto Sun
It appears that Raptors head coach Nick Nurse’s New Year’s resolution for 2020 is to get back to his old tinkering ways.
“You guys know, I like to mix it up a little bit, haven’t been doing it all that much this year,” Nurse said after the Raptors closed out 2019 with a 117-97 win over Cleveland. Nurse had opted to remove OG Anunoby from the starting lineup for the first time this season, replacing him with Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, who made his first start since February while with Brooklyn.
The alteration worked, with both forwards faring quite well, particularly in the first half when Toronto took control of the game and never let the visitors back into it.
“I thought maybe get both of them going, both Rondae and OG. (Kevin) Love with the big matchup, maybe a little bit more of a banging type guy for Rondae to start on,” Nurse said. “Seemed like it worked out OK, they both played really well tonight I liked the energy from both of them.”
Nurse said the purpose of the move wasn’t to send Anunoby any kind of message, even though he’d been slumping. He also hoped that getting Anunoby back to small forward, where he has been most successful over his first few seasons, factored into the reasoning.
“I think that’s an interesting part of it. Out of position sometimes is out of position and getting him back there getting him more comfortable. Again, I thought both of them were more focussed, way more energetic, they were down and guarding, they were rebounding,” Nurse said. “When you’re like that, other good things, like your shooting and making strong moves seems to follow.”
Raptors Blog: Thompson pegs Lowry as a Hall of Famer | Toronto Sun
Sticking with the Cavs, Brampton’s Tristan Thompson finished the decade fourth in the NBA in offensive rebounding. Not bad. Thompson also had some high praise for Kyle Lowry post-game:
“Kyle Lowry is a Hall of Famer. He’s a (five)-time All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, an NBA champ. He’s their backbone,” Thompson said. The big man also couldn’t help, when running through Lowry’s history with the Raptors, mention Cleveland’s one-sided playoff dominance of the Raptors. “So he’s been through, just like myself, highs and lows, for him he keeps this ship running. He’s playing at a high level. Kyle is a bulldog. He competes every night. That’s why his teammates love him – because you can count on the guy every night.” – For what it’s worth, Basketball-reference.com lists Lowry’s Hall-of-Fame probability at a solid 68.3%. Is that good enough? The two players just in front of him in probability, Dick McGuire and Mitch Richmond, both got in. There are plenty of players with lower probabilities that are in the hall already and Lowry is on track for a sixth all-star appearance, which would only strengthen his case. The secret society that makes the selections might also be more likely to look at advanced metrics, which absolutely love Lowry, by the time he is eligible than they probably do today. As we mentioned here last week, Lowry’s was one of the 15 best players in the NBA in the 2010s as measured by several metrics.
The Raptors are looking forward to a healthier new year | The Star
“We’ve practised less, I think, than any year I’ve been here, without question,” Nurse said before the Raptors closed out 2019 with an easy win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night. “So I’m hoping that we can get back into a little bit, get some of these guys back and get just kinda some polish on some of the foundational things.”
And it truly is just rudimentary work, so the Raptors who rarely play together can figure out what the others can do.
“The basic shell drills or the basic shot-contest drills or the basic turn-and-block out drills,” the coach said, “things that you like to keep just a little bit. Even if you’re not doing them 100 miles an hour, just doing them to keep them in rhythm and in the mind and stuff like that.
“In saying that, though, we’ve got a lot more reps out of a lot of other things in games — with a lot of guys that we probably didn’t think would get a lot of reps — and we’ve got a look at a lot of different defences and stuff. So it’s been give and take, good and bad.”
The unique aspect to this odd season for injuries is that the Raptors are losing multiple players at one time. It’s easy — not great, but easier — to plug one hole for a stretch of games. Missing half of the top six players in the rotation, as they are now, makes things far trickier.
Toronto Raptors farewell to a championship 2019 – Raptors HQ
Back in February, the day my Dad went in to the hospital for that surgery was the day of DeMar DeRozan’s homecoming game. I knew a couple weeks in advance, but, he was staying overnight there either way, so if all was well, I though I might still be able to get to the game (at that point in the season, there was no home game I wanted to go to more). Because of those complications I mentioned, he didn’t get out of surgery until about 5:30 p.m. and out of the recovery room until about 11:30. So I missed the game completely, and only caught up when I got home at 1:30 in the morning.
Hell of a game to miss, and to be linked to the start of such a rough summer for my Dad.
Speaking of missing games, I didn’t get to take my Dad to a playoff game for the first time in three years. He just wasn’t up to it at that point. (Unfortunately the last game we attended together was Game 1 against the Cavs in 2018. Yikes.)
The last time I spoke to my Dad — and it’s 2019, so by “speaking” I mean texting — was October 22, opening night. My wife Kathy and I were at the game, and we’d just arrived in our seats (mega early to catch the festivities); he texted me, telling us to have a good time. I texted a “thanks” back and said I’d text him about getting together on the weekend.
On Thursday afternoon, I texted him suggesting we get together Saturday night, have dinner at the pub and then watch the Raptors-Bulls game. He was leaving for his cruise on Monday, so I wanted to see him before he left. I didn’t hear back from him, and after repeated text and calls on Friday, I figured I’d better head over after work. Thankfully, Kathy came with me, so I wasn’t alone when we found him. He’d been gone for some time.
Air Jordan 2 Raptors CT6244-600 Release Date – Sneaker Bar Detroit
The Air Jordan 2 “Raptors” will be Jordan Brand’s latest Air Jordan model to receive the popular Toronto Raptors color blocking.
Dressed in a University Red, Black, and Court Purple color scheme. No leaked photos have surfaced, but this Air Jordan 2 is expected to feature a Red upper paired with Purple contrasting accents and Black detailing throughout.
Patrick McCaw, More This/Less That
Raptors fans were treated to the full Patrick McCaw experience this week and then some. The plethora of injuries to this Raptors squad has given Nick Nurse the excuse he’s been looking for to insert McCaw into the starting lineup and it has lead, predictably, to an incredibly unpredictable ride. After ghosting his way to a team worst -22 on Christmas Day against the Celtics, McCaw responded with a career high 43 minutes, 18 point, 8 assist and 7 rebound effort that can easily be marked as the best game of his short championship laden time in the NBA. Naturally, McCaw was a team worst in the plus/minus category against the Thunder in the following game and posted a solid-ish game against the Cavs (but who doesn’t).So what might Pat McCaw’s new year’s resolution look like? With Nick Nurse playing McCaw as the lead point guard in the offense (a performance that Kyle Lowry has lauded McCaw for), a perfect resolution would be to dedicate himself to the film room and soak up as much pick and roll knowledge as he possibly can. McCaw has acquitted himself admirably thus far, but he’s young and still extremely green when it comes to running an offense. Film will help lead to positive reps which will be the key in keeping McCaw on the floor.
