Morning Coffee – Fri, Apr 10

Is there a prettier phrase in our language than "the long weekend"?

Is there a prettier phrase in our language than “the long weekend”?

Toronto Raptors centre Serge Ibaka speaks on impending free agency: ‘Why leave?’ | NBA.com Canada | The official site of the NBA

Serge Ibaka has made his priorities in free agency clear.

Set to be an unrestricted free agent this offseason, Ibaka said during an interview on Wednesday that he’s “going to stay” when asked what his plans are when his contract expires at the end of the season.

“I’m going to stay, bro,” Ibaka said. “This place is beautiful. Have you been to Toronto before? It’s a beautiful city. Beautiful city, beautiful people here and we have one of the best teams. Why leave, bro?”

2020 NBA Mock Draft: Knicks move up in trade with Golden State to select LaMelo Ball at No. 1 – CBSSports.com

Toronto Raptors, Round 1 – Pick 28

Jaden McDaniels F
WASHINGTON • FR • 6’9″ / 200 LBS

Inconsistency plagued McDaniels’ freshman season at Washington, but the 6-9 frame, the shooting and the skill is impossible to ignore. If he puts it together consistently at the next level he can be an All-Star. There’s no better-equipped team to invest in a project like McDaniels than Toronto, widely regarded as having one of the best developmental staffs in the league.

This is how coronavirus is affecting sports | World Economic Forum

To begin, the basics. In the simplest terms, there are three main income streams for sports leagues: broadcasting (sales of media rights), commercial (sponsorship and advertising partnerships) and match day revenue (ticketing and hospitality).

Professional sports leagues are analogous to entertainment companies, where each team in a league is like a different channel. The teams have their own identities, employees and fan bases, but the overall ‘programming schedule’ (the rules of the game and the fixture list) are set by the leagues. This comparison may not please the purists, but the reality in both sports and entertainment is that the more eyeballs on the product, the more valuable it is.

The major sports are all reliant on broadcasting income, as demonstrated by revenue data from the biggest leagues over the last five years. The global value of sports media rights is around $50bn – but 60% of that is accounted for by just 10 sports leagues.

Each sport monetizes differently, but the general principle is that the organizing body distributes its total income between its participating clubs. This is usually structured as minimum guaranteed payment with performance- and/or competition-related bonuses on top. Individual clubs are of course able to generate their own income, by competing in other tournaments, signing their own sponsorship agreements or developing their own direct-to-consumer (D2C) media subscriptions. But fundamentally, the financial success of any individual club relies on its involvement in an overarching league.

The collective power of these leagues to sell media rights is incredible. The NBA’s current TV deal is worth $24 billion over nine years. The English Premier League agreed a new contract with broadcasters last year equivalent to $12 billion over three years. Major League Baseball has a seven-year media arrangement worth over $5 billion.

Some have questioned the sustainability of these deals, considering the acceleration in “cord-cutting” as media consumption increasingly moves online. But they underline the importance of sports rights as a “linchpin” holding many traditional television bundles together.

Anything longer than a temporary shutdown would see the leagues unable to meet their commitments to broadcasters, limiting their ability to distribute income back to the clubs. The impact on the industry would be dramatic: no games mean no TV deals and no matchday income; no income means no clubs.

It’s a lost goodbye for Vince Carter and the Raptors | The Star

“I don’t know what it’s going to be like but I know it’s going to be emotional,” Carter said earlier this season while talking about his final game in Toronto. “Weird, probably.”

We’ll never know.

The Raptors had planned to expand their typical video tribute to returning players to offer a retrospective of Carter’s entire career, which started in Toronto and ended in Atlanta with myriad stops in between. It would have been more elaborate than the Raptors-specific video shown earlier this season but those plans were scuttled when the NBA suspended its season March 11. So it’s back to the drawing board for any ceremonies in the future.

Friday’s plans would have been poignant given that the 43-year-old Carter’s 22-year NBA career was going to end next week. The game would have been a nice bow on a Toronto career that began in 1999 and included Carter scoring the first basket in the Raptors’ home arena that season.

“All those years, first basket in the arena, all the memories … I don’t know. It’s going to be special,” he said in January.

The bigger picture that Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment has to come to grips with is how it will permanently honour the mainstays of the franchise over the first quarter-century of its existence. Raptors president Masai Ujiri has hinted at plans to memorialize the franchise’s great players — Carter and DeMar DeRozan specifically — but nothing has been announced. Carter should be the first to be permanently honoured.

The thought of retiring numbers seems intriguing but the first four numbers that come to mind — Damon Stoudamire’s No. 20, DeRozan’s No. 10, Kyle Lowry’s No. 7 and Carter’s iconic No. 15 — have been worn by multiple players.

A hall of fame of some type is worth considering. The Maple Leafs have already taken the statue route with a Legends Row on the southwest end of the plaza outside the arena, and the Raptors could do something similar on the northwest end. But, like retiring numbers, that would hardly be unique.

Five questions for new Bulls chief basketball executive Arturas Karnisovas – The Athletic

After ruffling minority executives around the league for their lack of inclusivity in their “wide-ranging” search, the Bulls, according to Yahoo Sports, are expected to fill the general manager job with a person of color. Beyond any feelings of such a direction being token in nature, it would seem to immediately castrate Karnisovas from bringing in his own people. Maybe his preferred choice is a person of color. But if it’s simply a mandate by the Bulls to save face, this new era is quickly off to a bad start.

Karnisovas inherits other sharp minds such as associate general manager Brian Hagen and assistant general manager Steve Weinman. Both can be valuable resources in transitioning and moving forward given their scouting and salary cap strengths.

One immediate expectation of Karnisovas, based on his words, track record and reputation, is that he will implement a clear and aligned organizational pecking order. He thrived in Denver working in unison with president Josh Kroenke and president of basketball operations Tim Connelly. Together, they drafted Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Gary Harris and Jusuf Nurkic, turning Denver into a Western Conference heavyweight. The Bulls are banking on Karnisovas bringing the same structure and draft success to Chicago.

The Toronto Basketball Powerhouse Nobody’s Ever Heard Of | The Local

It was basketball night in Lawrence Heights and the kids from the Toronto Basketball Academy (TBA) were here to defend their home court against the visiting team from London Basketball Academy. Fans and parents from London sat on one side of the fold-down bleachers, screaming at the referees after every perceived missed call; kids from John Polanyi lounged on the other side, wearing hoodies and headscarves, watching the game with typical teenage aloofness.

Yusuf Ali ran his team through their warm-ups. The first-year head coach was perhaps the smallest person on the floor—a former point guard who earned the nickname Rhino for his habit of putting his head down and driving into his defender. A few years ago, Yusuf was the MVP of a college team that won the national championship. Now the 26-year-old was back where he grew up, hoping to bring his kids a win tonight and then, hopefully, bring them much, much further.

In the last decade, the idea of a kid journeying from the John Polanyi gymnasium to the NBA has suddenly become within the realm of possibility. The number of Canadian preparatory schools devoted to turning teenage hoopers into collegiate and even NBA stars has exploded. An entire infrastructure of scouts and local boosters has sprung up, making mixtapes for YouTube and covering high-school games on Twitter, all for the eyes of influential scouts. Top American college coaches now make their way to Ontario gyms, hopping on planes and braving the Canadian winter to take a look at a sixteen-year-old who might be the next Jamal Murray.

The Toronto Basketball Academy is one of the oldest of these programs, but it’s also an outlier. Most of the prep teams TBA plays against are based out of private schools—shiny institutions in the suburbs with top-of-the-line training equipment, big sponsors, and gleaming new facilities. Playing out of a public school in a community that struggles with poverty and gun violence, TBA has none of those advantages. The kids don’t get free Nike sneakers. The team has to haggle with the school for gym time. Coaches are unpaid, juggling jobs at Shopper’s Drug Mart or as engineers.

Coronavirus: Here’s what’s happening in the sports world on Thursday | CBC Sports

There will be basketball to watch this weekend
The NBA, the National Basketball Players Association and ESPN will stream a H-O-R-S-E tournament on ESPN’s app.

The NBA HORSE Challenge will have eight participants in a pre-taped event. The quarter-finals are to be shown Sunday and the semifinals and final on April 16.

The quarter-final matchups are Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks against former NBA player and ESPN analyst Chauncey Billups; WNBA great and 2020 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Tamika Catchings against Mike Conley Jr. of the Utah Jazz; Zach LaVine of the Chicago Bulls against NBA retiree and ESPN analyst Paul Pierce; and Chris Paul of the Oklahoma City Thunder against Allie Quigley of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky.

Players must call their shots before the attempt and dunking is not allowed. The players will be isolated and competing on separate home courts.

Premier League Players and Clubs Fight Over Who Pays for Coronavirus Crisis – The New York Times

The Premier League initially suggested that all of its players take a 15 percent salary cut for the rest of the year; it claimed its clubs needed to save 280 million pounds, or $347 million, in order to make up for lost revenue. The union said it would be able to make a decision only if it saw each team’s financial forecast.

They cycled through various suggestions — a 25 percent cut and a 15 percent deferral, suggested by the league; no cuts, but a series of deferrals, proposed by the union. Then they focused on a combination of cuts and deferrals that amounted to a figure of 30 percent, for a year, that could be reduced depending on how much of their losses the clubs could claw back.

That seemed to form the outline of an eventual agreement. But on March 31, Tottenham Hotspur followed Newcastle United’s lead and placed most of its non-playing staff on furlough, effectively asking the British government, in accordance with public welfare laws, to pay 80 percent of their salaries for the next three months. The remainder would simply go unpaid. A few days later, Liverpool made the same announcement, before being forced to backtrack.

Tottenham’s move was greeted with derision and anger — not just from fans, but from players, too. It was the moment a commercial negotiation suddenly morphed into something far larger and far more damaging to all sides: a conversation, in essence, about soccer’s role and responsibilities in public life.

A group of athletes, led by the Liverpool captain, Jordan Henderson, had already been discussing setting up a charitable fund to help the National Health Service. Others, including the Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford, had started private initiatives to help provide meals to underprivileged children.

But now, through some trick of the light, what they gave back to society became firmly enmeshed with what they were prepared to give back to their clubs.

Many of the players felt that Tottenham’s decision was an attempt to back them into a corner, forcing them to take a pay cut or risk appearing greedy, aloof and out of touch during the pandemic. To some extent, it worked: Two days later, the country’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, urged players to “play their part” by taking a pay cut.

Julian Knight, a Conservative Party lawmaker, linked players’ pay to health care workers, saying that “the first thing Premier League footballers can do is make a contribution, take a pay cut, and play their part,” given the “sacrifices” being made by front-line workers in the health service.

2020 NBA predictions: What we said back in 2016 – Sports Illustrated

Did the Process Work?

What we said then: “The Sixers are a rising Eastern Conference playoff team…Ben Simmons is a stud, forming a 1-2 punch ascending into true title contention as the franchise essentially waited out LeBron’s prime. The Process has worked and Sam Hinkie has earned begrudging respect, even from many former critics. He is overseeing a new rebuilding project, and the Sixers even swap him a second round pick for old times’ sake.”

Verdict: Unclear. Rising is a very relative term in this situation. They are certainly a staple of the Eastern Conference postseason and could (maybe should) be a true title contender. But they aren’t exactly at the top of the East either. The team did wait out LeBron’s prime—or at least his prime in the Eastern Conference—and could bring in a new head coach heading into next season if it underperforms in the postseason (if we have one).

We were correct to predict that Hinkie would earn begrudging respect for his team-building process.

Which Toronto Raptors would make good NBA general managers? – Raptors HQ

The Ruthless Guys
OG Anunoby, Fred VanVleet, Kyle Lowry
It is perhaps not surprising that the Raptors’ two point guards, VanVleet and Lowry, would be at the type of this particular heap. Both have shown again and again how they are indeed the smartest players around in Toronto. More importantly, they’re intuitive, knowing which way to go in various situations depending on what’s called for in the moment. That’s leadership, but it’s also shrewd.

Now sure, Lowry can be manic at times, but that’s sometimes done for effect. He knows when to pick up the pace or when to slow it down, when to get angry or when to play the part of the stone-cold killer. Likewise, sometimes VanVleet can seem a touch passive, but that too is part of his canny ability of knowing just when to attack. Both carry themselves in such a way to keep opponents on their toes at all times. Nevertheless, on top of all these considerations, VanVleet and (especially) Lowry are well-liked in the league, which will open doors for them down the line. It’s not hard at all to imagine a future scenario where one of these two is given the keys to a franchise.

As for Anunoby, consider this: yes, he’s technically a bit unproven, and maybe a bit nice. But he’s also extremely confident and with a streak of silent ruthlessness that puts others to shame. To put it another way: can you imagine trying to negotiate with OG? It’d be like trying to cut a deal with the Terminator. To that, all I can add is: good luck.

Fred VanVleet’s 2019 NBA Finals performance has catapulted him towards stardom | NBA.com Canada | The official site of the NBA

The shot was especially impactful considering the back-and-forth nature of this Game 6 and the fact that Raptors looked to do what was seemingly impossible: win a third game in The Bay to avoid a decisive Game 7.

Down two entering the final frame, the Raptors led for just 16 seconds in the fourth quarter prior to VanVleet’s clutch jumper. Ironically, that lead was also courtesy of a triple VanVleet hit with 7:08 remaining in the game to put his team up 94-93.

His triple with 3:46 on the clock would put Toronto up for good, serving as a breaking point in both a figurative and literal sense.

Not only would this be a defining moment for VanVleet, but it would also become an iconic moment in Raptors franchise history, immortalized by one photograph.