Sources: NBA players were informed today that the Toronto Raptors will be the lone NBA team that will travel to Florida for training camp in Phase 1.https://t.co/a8IHGfnUHt
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 16, 2020
A tiered ranking of the 100 free agent signings in Toronto Raptors history – The Athletic
Would you believe me that Rob Babcock had the most success in terms of maximizing free-agent spending? That Calderon deal is doing a lot of heavy lifting, sure, but the worst contracts he gave out were also Bateer and Sow, in pure value terms (and likely Milt Palacio based on public opinion).
What I think people will find more notable than Babcock’s small-sample success is that Ujiri has overpaid in pure dollar-per-win terms by about 14 percent on the open market. That’s to be expected, though. Not only has he been operating the team during a competitive window with one deep-tax championship season, but we’d also expect most executives to overpay a bit in free agency, or at least unrestricted free agency. It’s no secret that the highest-value deals in basketball tend to be rookie contracts that hit and max contracts for elite stars, and the nature of the market is that it’s a little less efficient, on average.
All of that is to say, it’s a pretty good strategy to build talent identification and player development as pillars of your program, and it’s never too early to be examining the draft.
Host William Lou is joined by Toronto Raptors broadcaster Jack Armstrong to reflect on the championship and to look ahead to the NBA’s plans to restart.
- 1-year anniversary of the parade
- How the NBA’s restart will impact broadcasters
- How Nick Nurse gives the Raptors an advantage
- OG Anunoby and Norman Powell taking a step forward
- Why Matt Thomas and Terence Davis have succeeded as rookies
- The story of how Jack Armstrong almost joined the Raptors front office
‘He just walked by us. Go ask him’: Inside the beat, 2007-08 Raptors – The Athletic
Beyond the intimidating Mitchell, this was not the perfect team on which to cut your journalistic teeth. We were quickly learning that Andrea Bargnani was not particularly disposed to expounding upon his job. Meanwhile, new acquisition Carlos Definio spoke so softly that I often felt like I had to put my recorder just a few inches away from his mouth. I genuinely worried about the possibility of dropping that recorder, and it falling directly into his mouth.
The hope built on the previous season quickly dissipated. Cracks in the never-strong relationship between Mitchell and Colangelo were clear — Mitchell was nearly not retained in the offseason, despite his coach of the year award — and Bargnani’s progress, which was a large part of the equation that was going to help the Raptors grow, never really came. Meanwhile, I learned important beat writer lessons, from always remembering your hotel room number (I use sports jersey number combinations) to the crucial value of Marriott points. In that season, I saw a beat writer charge a bill from the hotel lobby bar to a room number that did not exist, but also leverage the failure of Orlando hotel employees to inform him of a message regarding the impending sale of his Toronto home into a massive quantity of Marriott points — we all contain multitudes. Eleven years later, I was able to convert my work travel into six paid-for evenings at a hotel in Berlin. Lesson learned.
As for the playoffs, that five-game series has to be the least memorable playoff series in Raptors history, right? On the last day of the regular season, the Raptors’ first-round opponent was down to Orlando or Detroit. While I was pulling for the warmer locale given the winter that had just hit us, most of my colleagues, to my surprise, were pulling for Detroit — or, Auburn Hills, Mich., rather. They wanted to avoid the lose-lose lottery of air travel, with the four-hour drive through Sarnia preferred. Both the Raptors and the 76ers lost on the last day of the year, meaning the Raptors finished one game ahead of Philadelphia and drew Orlando instead of Detroit.
Of course, the series was disastrous for the Raptors. It was closer than you might remember — the Raptors were in every game save for Game 1, naturally — but even the ill-advised Colangelo-influenced decision of starting big, with Bargnani, Bosh and Nesterovic across the front line, could not keep Dwight Howard from dominating. Howard averaged 22.6 points and 18.2 rebounds per game in the series. The Raptors were far more competitive once they returned Moon to the starting lineup, in Nesterovic’s place. Alas. In addition, Howard’s domination inside was a major part of the Raptors attempting to fortify themselves inside by trading for Jermaine O’Neal in the following off-season. As I said: disastrous.
Report: Raptors only NBA team to begin training outside home city – Sportsnet.ca
As part of Phase 1, players will begin reporting to their home facilities for individual workouts. The Raptors will instead report to directly to Florida due to “quarantine and travel issues in Canada” according to Charania, who obtained an NBPA document titled ‘Life inside the Bubble.’
Charania reports the Raptors will train at Alico Arena at Florida Gulf Coast University in Naples, Fla., but a statement from the team provided to Sportsnet’s Steven Loung reads “That is one option we’re looking at — that plan is not fully confirmed yet.”
Phase 2, which begins June 23 with mandatory testing for all players and staff, will see players continue to train on their own in team facilities, while Phase 3 will add coaches to those individual workouts.
All teams will then travel to Orlando between July 7 and 9 for Phase 4. Once in Florida, all players and staff will be required to self-isolate for 24 hours and have two negative tests before participating in the second part of Phase 4, which includes full-team workouts.
Phase 5 from June 22-29 will feature each team playing three scrimmages against other teams. Phase 6 will be the resuming of regular season play, beginning on July 30 with each team playing eight more games to determine playoff seeding. The NBA champion is expected to be crowned in early October.
Q&A: Matt Devlin looks back on the Raptors’ championship parade – Sportsnet.ca
SN: You mention the iconic Leonard laugh at the end of the rally — in your interactions with him did you know he had that kind of lighthearted personality and humour in him before?
Devlin: I think we learned that early on from Day 1, right when he was at the podium and his initial press conference with the Toronto Raptors. But there were certainly moments along the way where you just knew that there was a great deal of depth there to him.
I think back to when he made the Game 7 game-winner [versus the Philadelphia 76ers] when he said in the post-game press conference, “I typically like to act like I’ve done it before, but that was the first time that I had ever made that shot. So I allowed myself to show emotion.”
Mind you, that was the first time that that shot had ever been made in NBA history, right? So his timing was sensational and I think they’re great lead-ups to that when we saw on social media with Kawhi and Serge [Ibaka] in the back seat of a car and Kawhi saying, “What it do, baby,” and just all those things.
And I remember speaking to Kawhi as the players were all gathering to go in and speak and be introduced and I ask him, “OK, have you heard about the ‘Kawhactus?’” And he goes, “Yeah, you know I’ve heard about it.”
He was on top of all that stuff. And I just thought the way he punctuated that day was brilliant.
Toronto Raptors Parade Memories: Inside Nathan Philips Square one year ago – Raptors HQ
Finally, at 3:30, the team began to take the stage. This was, by far, the best moment of the day, as we got to hear Strizzzy call our champs’ names one last time, and see them come out to the loudest cheers and adulation possible.
Of course, it was immediately followed by the worst moment of the day.
I didn’t hear any noise that would indicate a gunshot or any trouble. Just, suddenly, a swell of noise from the crowd to my right, and then a second later, I was swept off my feet as the crowd — hundreds? thousands? of people — surged away from Bay Street, towards the western side of NPS. I couldn’t move, and yet, I was moving. It was, I have to say, terrifying, to feel so helpless and so in danger at the same time; I knew I could be trampled or that I could trample on someone else, and there was literally nothing I could do about it.
When the surge stopped, I was no longer behind the last “O” in Toronto; I was behind the first “O”. Under no volition of my own I was displaced about 60 feet, or about two-thirds of a basketball court. Amazingly, it seemed that no one had fallen underfoot, which I think probably tells you just how packed we all were in there.
Sometime around here, Matt Devlin took the mic and calmly told us about a security situation, so at least I had some idea of what had happened, although I didn’t know it was a shooting until later (again, no Internet).
If there was any “bright side” to this moment, it’s that people started to leave. As the players resumed speaking, there was space around me. I was able to move to the rear of the square, towards the overhead walkway; I couldn’t see as well from here, but I felt safer, knowing I could get out if something else happened. Hearing Kyle Lowry speak, and then Kawhi Leonard mock his own laugh, were both amazing moments, and brought me back a little bit of joy and as Drake took the mic, I called it a day. This selfie was taken at 4:01.
Raptors prepare to hold training camp in Florida before season resumes at Disney | The Star
According to reports Tuesday, the team will hold a training camp in Florida before becoming one of 22 teams inside an NBA bubble on the Disney grounds just outside Orlando, where a champion will be determined in October.
The decision, while not official as the Raptors work through various logistical hurdles, makes the most sense and has ever since the league decided to resume its season in one central location.
With more than half the team already in the United States and government-imposed quarantines to deal with, having the Raptors set up camp in Florida before joining other teams in the league’s enclave takes away a handful of problems.
The Athletic reports that the Raptors will train on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University in Naples starting next week. That camp, which includes preliminary testing for COVID-19 and a possible quarantine, will go until July 7, when teams are to begin arriving at the Disney/ESPN facility near Orlando.
For the Raptors, not having use of their OVO Training Centre will be an inconvenience, and they will have to set up their own safe sanctuary for their first full training sessions since the NBA season was suspended on March 11.
