Ben Simmons desperate to get ass kicked.
When Brissett was going through the recruitment process for both sports, scholarship offers from NCAA Division I programs were coming for football compared to Division II and III for basketball. As such, his focus shifted from the court to the field.
“The academic prestige of Richmond won me over,” Brissett said. “I thought about life after football and I felt like the University of Richmond business program would set me up where I wanted to be. I majored in business and it was a good choice.”
While staying on top of school work, Brissett earned a starting role for the Spiders at receiver. He exploded in 2017 with a team-leading 63 receptions for 896 yards and seven touchdowns in 11 games. That brought Colonial Athletic Association first-team honours.
“It went from zero to 100,” Brissett said.
Three games into his senior season at Richmond, a Jones fracture — a break between the base and middle part of the fifth metatarsal of the foot — ended Brissett’s year prematurely. The medical redshirt rule allowed Brissett one more season of NCAA eligibility.
Brissett entered the transfer portal looking for a Power Five program and the University of Virginia came calling. However, the screw had to be taken out of his previously injured foot and caused another recovery period. The season wasn’t what Brissett had planned, but he did play in the 2019 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship game against Clemson University.
“We played in the Carolina Panthers stadium, Bank of America. We packed an NFL stadium for a college game — it was crazy,” Brissett said. “You gotta be locked in or else you’ll jump offside.”
The UVA pro day was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped scouts from salivating at the chance to select Brissett in the CFL draft while NFL personnel men have checked in for interviews. At six-foot-two, 195 pounds the Mississauga native is a smooth route runner and moves with ease.“That kid can run and he’s rising up our draft rankings and others around the league. There’s a strong argument he’s the best receiver in the draft and could come off the board in round one,” one CFL talent evaluator said.
Raptors news: Best Toronto Raptors coaches of all-time, ranked
2. Sam Mitchell
Mitchell coached the Raptors for five seasons and won a total of 156 games, giving him the second-most as head coach in franchise history.
Toronto, though, was only able to make the playoffs twice under Mitchell’s guidance. The Raptors went 3-8 in the postseason with Mitchell leading the charge.
Mitchell did win the 2006-07 Coach of the Year Award after the Raptors won 47 games.
1. Dwane Casey
For seven seasons, Casey was the voice and face of the Raptors. He won 320 games in the regular season and 21 in the playoffs. He’s tops in both categories in Toronto franchise history.
If it wasn’t for LeBron James, Casey and the Raptors may have won a few Eastern Conference championships. No matter how good Toronto was in the regular season, Casey and the Raptors were never able to get past James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Raptors fired Casey after the 2017-18 season. The 2018 NBA Awards were a little awkward since Casey won the 2017-18 Coach of the Year Award. He had to accept the award at the awards show despite already being fired from Toronto.
Nurse has a chance to break pretty much all of Casey’s records with the Raptors. However, Toronto fans will never forget everything that Casey did for the organization. Whenever Casey and the Detroit Pistons come to Canada, the Raptors fans always give their former coach a standing ovation.
After all, odds are Casey would have had a good shot of winning a title with Leonard by his side. It’s too bad Masai Ujiri made the bold move to trade DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi after firing Casey.
Glen Grunwald on the hit Canada Basketball is taking from COVID-19
The President & CEO of Canada Basketball discusses how the pandemic affected his organisation (along with their Olympic qualifying hopes), its possible impact on Canadian university athletics (in light of the University of Lethbridge ending their hockey programs earlier this week), if the G league’s s professional pathway program may impact roster construction for the national team, and the Chicago Bulls dynasty under Michael Jordan.
Former Aggie Pascal Siakam and his biggest little fan
Despite his growing fame, a newly-inked max contract and an NBA title, some things still haven’t changed for Pascal Siakam.
The star player is as humble as they come, and one person who helps keep him grounded stands pretty close to the ground. Her name is Reanna Ramos, an 8-year-old Las Cruces native who met Siakam in 2015 before the start of his sophomore season at New Mexico State.
The team held its annual youth basketball camp, and Aggie fan Samuel Ramos enrolled his two daughters. Six-year-old Riley immediately began socializing once they arrived, but 4-year-old Reanna was a bit more shy.
That’s when Siakam walked up to her, and the friendly giant struck up a conversation.
“(Siakam) kind of laid down on the floor because she was sitting down next to me,” Samuel said. “The next thing I know, they were kicking the ball because she was playing soccer at the time… Then he started teaching her how to dribble.”
The two continued to talk throughout the rest of the camp as Reanna grew more and more comfortable with her new friend.
Interactions like that between the two became routine for the remainder of Siakam’s time at New Mexico State. Reanna always looked for him during pregame warmups, and he always made time for a quick chat.
“He’s a nice person,” Reanna said. “We just talk about how we met and how it’s good to see him again.”
Just like his friendship with Reanna, Siakam also blossomed on the court.
The 6-foot-7 forward earned a larger role that season and led the WAC in both points per game (20.3) and rebounds per game (11.6).
Coming off that first elusive championship still soaked in champagne from an unforgettable ride to a ring, Big Spain entered the season with the Raptors somewhat in limbo given his contract status and the overall direction of the franchise.
In the final year of a contract paying him over $25 million on a team which just lost Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green in free agency, Gasol – along with Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka – could have easily been flipped for future assets if President Masai Ujiri opted for a rebuild. Ultimately, a strong start took the rebuild off the table.
After an emphatic road win over the Utah Jazz on December 1 which put the Raptors at 15-4 overall, there was truly no other option than a legitimate title run at a title defense. At that point in time, the only teams with better records were the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers.
Five months later, those are still the only two teams with superior records.
Those glowing report cards previously mentioned? Well deserved!
This is a team after all that’s missed more games due to injury than any of the 16 projected playoff teams. And it’s not inflated by one season-long injury either, but rather a constant revolving door leading from the floor to the infirmary and back again.
It’s impossible to evaluate Gasol and not start with the injuries. After appearing in the team’s first 27 games, he’s been in the lineup for just eight of their last 37 games thanks mostly due to a nagging hamstring injury. Originally injured against the Pistons back in December which caused him to miss 12 games, Gasol re-aggravated that same hamstring against the Atlanta Hawks eight games into his return. He’s played in one game since, logging 16 minutes off the bench against the Sacramento Kings on March 8 in what was the Raptors’ second-to-last game prior to the season being suspended.
When healthy, Gasol exhibited some obvious signs of decline on the offensive end where he was shooting a career-worst 41.9 percent and scoring just 10.0 points per 36 minutes, significantly down from 15.8 last season.
Fit Ben Simmons “dying” for NBA return | 7NEWS.com.au
ESPN reported on Tuesday the back impingement that forced the Australian to miss games after February’s All-Star game has all but dissipated and he is “dying to get out there” and play.
ESPN reported Simmons had undergone water rehab, training on a weightless treadmill and was participating in a shooting and a regulated weight-training program.
He also ordered a basketball hoop online for the driveway of his new New Jersey home and has been getting up shots.
“He’s feeling strong,” a member of Simmons’ camp said.
“The original restrictions were very limiting, but all of them have been removed.
“He would probably need another scan, so the doctors could officially clear him, but there’s been no setbacks.
“He’s dying to get out there.”
“If the season resumes we’re expecting to have him,” a team source said.
Bucks’ George Hill, Marvin Williams not sweating possible loss of chance at NBA title run | NBA.com
With stakes as high as the level of prevailing uncertainty, you might expect a veteran such as guard George Hill to be worried about the Bucks’ chances of resuming their drive to the Finals. Hill, in his 12th year, is a veteran of 107 games in 10 postseasons, still in search of a ring. He wants it, the Bucks want it, fans in the city of Milwaukee want it — and right now, there’s nothing any of them can do about it.
So Hill’s frustration must be growing, right?
“The world is bigger than just NBA fans,” Hill said Tuesday afternoon in a media conference call arranged by the Bucks. He was joined on the call by teammate Marvin Williams, a 15-year veteran who has yet to reach a conference finals.
“To our fans,” Hill said, “it will be exciting to get the season back, to get up and going and get something to watch on TV. But if this is the cost for safety and health, what we have to ask is, ‘Is it worth it? Is it worth putting yourself on the line, putting your family and kids on the line to make a couple more dollars?’ For me, personally, no.”
Some of Hill’s response is about treading lightly at a time when sports has dropped on so many folks’ priority lists. Some of it is expected, too, from his long-established, low-key, calm nature.
But some of it is perspective based on the virus crisis hitting awfully close to home.
As Hill tells it, his wife Samantha’s 85-year-old grandmother contracted the coronavirus recently. The in-laws live in Brownsville, Texas, four hours away from the Hills’ home in San Antonio.
“[She] had the chills, fever of 106 I think, really high, didn’t eat for a while, lost her smell, her taste,” Hill said, “and ended up beating it. Her grandmother is one of those hard-nosed, don’t-want-to-take-medicine, let-God-heal-me [types].”
NBA: Nuggets’ Michael Malone preparing for all contingencies
Even if Silver wants more definitive data on the rate of infections, access to testing kits and a vaccine, Malone is among several NBA coaches that have braced for likely contingencies.
One, Malone conceded, “is a real possibility that there isn’t going to be a season.” But Malone believes “it’s more than likely” the NBA will resume its season with games played behind closed doors.
“It’s going to be a really strange experience for everybody,” Malone said. “When there is a big play made, a blocked shot or a dunk or a 3-point shot, the crowd goes crazy. We feed off of that. We’re emotional beings. If you take that element out, it’s going to take a lot of time to get used to that. But if that allows us to play basketball once again and keep everybody safe, then obviously we have to accept that new reality.”
Malone believes the NBA will give teams adequate time for players to train at team facilities before resuming play. Malone expressed hope the Nuggets can first host individual workouts while adhering to social distancing rules for about two weeks. Then, Malone envisioned the team hosting practices in a group setting for team drills and full-court scrimmaging.
“Paul Millsap on the call this morning made a great point: ‘Everybody is in the same boat. No one has a real advantage right now,’ ” Malone said. “Hopefully we’re doing enough to stay in shape so when we do get back and hold the facilities for that ramp-up, we can hit the ground running.”
Knicks, Leon Rose near deal with Cavaliers capologist Brock Aller
Brock Aller, a longtime fixture for Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, is close to joining president Leon Rose in the Knicks front office as vice president of strategy, according to an NBA source.
Aller was financial planner/capologist with Cleveland, but a source said he’ll be “more than a capologist’’ under Rose. However, Aller is not the GM — a basketball-intensive position that remains up in the air.
Another person familiar with the situation said Aller would be regarded as sort of a “chief of staff’’ who would aid Rose in future hirings such as GM and in running finances.
It is unclear how the revenue losses stemming from the season’s suspension and possible cancellation will affect the front-office maneuverings. One source said hiring could be impacted and some contracts will not be renewed.
Aller has been with Gilbert for 12 years as a right-hand man, but only since 2014 in basketball operations. He was part of the management team that helped the Cavaliers end their championship jinx in 2016.
Aller was promoted to Cavs capologist in 2017 and is considered a Gilbert favorite.
“He’s probably one of the finer capologists in the league,” Gilbert said in 2017. “He knows more about the cap than probably PricewaterhouseCoopers knows about the IRS code. He lives with the cap, with the collective bargaining agreement. He comes up with ideas on things that the league has never heard of, they have to go into their committees to check if it’s OK or not. He’s sort of a savant with this.”
Coronavirus Prompts Budget Cut for U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee – WSJ
Facing a one-year delay to the Summer Olympics and an economy devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee plans to cut its budget 10-20% through 2024, CEO Sarah Hirshland said.
Since the USOPC’s current four-year budget tops $1 billion, those reductions could translate into up to $200 million or more in cuts by 2024.
Hirshland told USOPC employees of the plan in a virtual all-staff meeting late Tuesday morning Mountain time. The committee is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Hirshland said no layoffs or furloughs were planned for Tuesday but that they were possibilities over time. She said decisions on cuts would come in a few weeks. The projected cuts do not account for the possibility that the situation could worsen by, for example, the Tokyo Olympics being canceled entirely.
“This will be very hard,” Hirshland said. “It will impact programs that we feel terrific about.”
Payments to national governing bodies, like USA Swimming and U.S. Ski & Snowboard, would remain intact for this year, as would direct payments to athletes, Hirshland said. Those two items together were projected to cost $90 million, but don’t include a range of other support such as training-center access and health insurance.
The 2021-24 budget isn’t built yet, so Hirshland said she wasn’t sure where future cuts would come, “except to say, our goal is to focus on investing in the athletes and the organizations that support them. And our partnerships with NGBs are very focused on that.”
The International Olympic Committee and Tokyo Organizing Committee last month announced the postponement of the Tokyo Games, which were scheduled to begin in July, until July 2021 due to the rising death toll of the pandemic.
Behind Nigeria’s bid to land Brooklyn Nets’ Spencer Dinwiddie for the Olympics
The Nigerian basketball community was as stunned as the rest of the world when news broke that Brooklyn Nets point guard Spencer Dinwiddie was in the process of acquiring a Nigerian passport, which could see him represent the African nation at the next Olympics.
It comes barely two months after the Nigerians announced Golden State Warriors associate head coach Mike Brown as the man who will guide them to the Olympic Games, which were then still set to be played in July in Tokyo.
As moves go, the Dinwiddie bid is as clutch as it gets, as it not only fills a position where D’Tigers have had some trouble recently, but also sends a message — like the Brown hire — that Nigeria are going all in for broke in Tokyo and beyond.
An NBBF official told ESPN that conversations had been going on for at least a year about the Nets star, who doesn’t have any obvious connection to the country.
“His name has been under consideration since last year,” the official said. “We started talking about two years ago because we had some areas where we have weaknesses and the point guard area was a major one.
“We have a lot of depth in our forwards and centers. It is that playmaker that was the issue. And to compete at that level we need to be able to match up with the best. We hadn’t found a dependable point guard until now.
“And to be honest, at the level we were competing before, like the AfroBasket, we didn’t really need it. But the World Cup and Olympics are a different level.
“At that level, we need a very dependable point guard and Dinwiddie will be very useful to us in that position but he is top on the list for now, even though Ben Uzoh has been dependable for a long time.”
Magic star Aaron Gordon using quarantine to build rap career – Sports Illustrated
The Magic forward and dunk contest best man (never the groom) released his first rap single earlier this month. The song, Pull Up, features Moe and has Gordon throwing down one fairly entertaining verse. (“80 m’s in the bag, that’s a bargain,” Gordon raps about his Orlando contract.) The accompanying music video has the two artists goofing around on golf carts, with Gordon rocking his jersey from Uncle Drew as well as a Hawks Vince Carter vintage.
“I’ve been tapping into my creative side,” Gordon told Sports Illustrated about what he’s been up to since NBA play was suspended. “I’ve really been able to sit down and spend time with my inner artist. It’s been really fun.”
According to Gordon, his first song is more of a tease of what’s to come, and his hope is to have a project done by September, if the pandemic allows. The budding artist also plans to collaborate with several other athletes-turned-rappers on a mixtape called Born Winner. Earlier this month, SI caught up with Gordon to discuss his new song, his future in music, and more.
Rohan Nadkarni: Is rapping something you’ve always wanted to do?
Aaron Gordon: I’ve always had an affinity for words and poetry. MCs are just kind of modern-day philosophers and modern-day poets. It’s just fun. It’s a great way to express myself. It’s like therapy, being able to see and psychoanalyze myself from different perspectives and put it into a catchy tune. The poetry is where it started from.
RN: Is it easy for someone like you to produce a song? Or do even you have to jump through a lot of hoops?
AG: I got some of the best people in my corner, man. We have a great team at Level Up Music. Ayo, Austin Owens, a Grammy-award winning producer, he has like a couple of viral songs going on right now. We don’t let each other lose, we’re looking out for each other. We got in the studio, we did that song in about 45 minutes. Ayo cooked the beat up from scratch, Moe laid down the chorus, and then I laid down my verse.
Mitchell the frontrunner to coach G League select team
Former NBA coach Sam Mitchell is the leading candidate to become the coach of the new G League select team that will feature prep star Jalen Green, reports Emiliano Carchia of Sportando.
The team will be based in Southern California.
Mitchell coached the Toronto Raptors from 2004-08, and the Minnesota Timberwolves during the 2015-16 season. He has compiled a 185-242 record overall.
Green is considered the top high school prospect in the country. He is bypassing college to join the G League as part of the NBA’s professional pathway program. Isaiah Todd, another top 15 prospect, will be joining Green.
Mitchell also was a forward with the Timberwolves as a player and currently serves as an analyst for NBA TV and NBA radio on SiriusXM. He also coached Green’s AAU squad.
Former NBA coaches David Fizdale (New York, Memphis) and Brian Shaw (Denver) also under consideration, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.
