Fan Duel Toronto Raptors

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Five Things I Dig and Don’t Dig about the Toronto Raptors

This week on Five Things we delve into Precious passes, Hot [hot] Gary, Freddy All-Star, Nick Nurse...the actor, and Dr***.

*All data is pre-February 4th games

I just wrote a biggie on the Toronto Raptors and their progressing penchant for post-play. So, this one’s going to be a bit more on the superficial side of the observations spectrum. I trust it to be entertaining all the same.

Let’s roll.

     1. Fuck Drake

Hot start, I know.

Am I taking liberties with this platform to vent about my personal contempt for a billion-dollar “R&B” mogul?

You bet your silver dollar I am.

Drake’s a leech. Sucking on the veins and arteries of all that is authentic and inherently and uniquely good in this world. If it’s shiny, he wants a piece.

Exhibit 9013: Against Miami the other night in Toronto, stupid Drake got to think all the attention was on him (it wasn’t):

Guess who’s looking at the camera and guess who isn’t? You know he’s tracking all 28 of those lenses the entire game.

I also hate this for an infinite number of additional reasons.

For one, it ruins the beauty of this iconic image:

For another, why feed the bottomless narcissistic ego of this posing megalomaniac?

Am I the only miserable son-of-a-B that sees him for what he really is?

I hear all the time, “We should be so lucky,” “He made the Raptors popular!”

Not so fast. He became the Toronto Raptors Global Ambassador in 2013, the year Masai signed. The year we played the Brooklyn Nets in the first round and lost, but not without WE THE NORTH poppin’ off and Masai telling Brooklyn to fuck itself (in so many words) and 4 more years of dominating the Eastern Conference regular season.

None of that was Drake. OVO had little to do with anything except maybe jersey/clothing sales. His rise to fame obviously boosted Toronto’s, but did we need it? Nah. Where’s it gotten us?

We’re still nobody’s favourite team outside of Canada. There’s a league’s worth of dummy fans who keep putting OG and FVV in trade machines because they’ve literally watched a grand total of 2 Raptors games their entire lives and somehow think Ben Simmons and Matisse Thybulle are second comings of Scottie Pippen. Superstars still don’t care to come here. Free Agency’s like recruiting soldiers for year 7 of the Vietnam War (I joke, that war is fucking tragedy). I repeat my query: WHERE HAS DRAKE GOTTEN US!?

Toronto’s popularity is thanks to a winning culture created by DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry, Masai Ujiri, Dwayne Casey, and the crew.

NOT DRAKE.

In fact, he’s the guy that helped Kawhi Leonard leavvveeee – literally in his plane – Toronto.

And where the Hell is this schmuck anyway?

He never shows up to games unless someone on the other team matters to him or is famous or he knows that it’s on National TV.

You don’t have to excuse him for being busy. Across the league, “superfans”/”ambassadors” are at the majority of the games. Nav Bhatia is ours. Spike Lee, Jack Nicholson, Billy Chrystal, and I’m sure many many more attend a majority of the games.

Drake, I contend, is devoid of a single ounce of actual “fandom”. He’s a scenester. Period.

This year, he’s showed up to two games (I’m assuming this tweet below is true, but even if not I’ve seen him at like none):

(Update: Drake came to the game against the Bulls, I suppose because Freddy would be getting too much individual attention with the whole All-Star selection [more on that below], I bet, in some way, Drake thinks he deserves to go to Cleveland too).

How, in just his second appearance, does he deserve a seat beside Masai? I can think of 100 others [me, hire me, Masai, I’m really good at brand building and have such positive energy…] more deserving than that schmo.

YO DRAKE. Remember how you’re the Raptors’ representative?

I did a quick scan of your Twitter account: ZERO retweets for any Toronto Raptor for All-Star.

We have an unaffiliated K-Pop star supporting Golden State Warriors All-Star selection bids and OUR OWN GLOBAL AMBASSADOR, with a following of 39 million people, can’t do it once?

Not. Once.

PATHETIC.

Guess who did tweet votes – even when voting period was over – and deserves to be our Global Ambassador.

In fact, if anyone wants to start a campaign to remove Drake and replace him with Simu Liu, tweet me @AdonMoss; let’s get a hashtag going and oust the bum. How about #nomoreDrake? Or #DrakeGlobalAss? Or #Simu4RaptorAmbassador, that’s probably more diplomatic.

His allegiance is to whoever makes him feel/look/think he’s cool. And while our infallible leader is incorruptible, I hate seeing that greaseball anywhere near Masai, using the Toronto Raptors to validate his own puny inferiority complex.

By the way, I’m not the only one to think this:

….And scene.

Annual Drake rant complete.

Next.

     2. FREDDY FUCKING ALL-STAR

He did it.

Freddy freaking did it.

They really knew how to stress test Raptor fans’ hearts. Leaving Freddy’s selection to the very last one of the show…wooooo boyyy was my butthole curled up tight.

He deserves this so, so, so much. In spirit, in statistics, in analytics, in merit.

He’s an algorithm wonderboy: 3rd in FiveThirtyEight’s overall RAPTOR, 10th in dunksandthrees’ estimated plus-minus, and 9th in Basketball Reference’s VORP. A floor general. A defensive menace. A leader. And a beautiful story.

That’s actually nuts. The percentage of draft picks that stick in the NBA is a coin flip. For an undrafted to have a career is like winning the lottery. To be a top-25 player!!!??

Thing is, Freddy never doubted it. Not for a second.

We fans crave these stories. It’s kinda what made Michael Jordan’s so mythological. A high school squirt suddenly blossoming into a Demi-God. Freddy’s isn’t so drastic a contrast, but it’s pretty damn close. He overcame near-impossible odds.

It’s relatable, it’s proletariat, it’s inspiring, and it’s heart-warming (I got spine tingles when his name was announced). I’m just so happy for him. We all are.

Back to the outrage: WTF is Kris Middleton doing as a reserve? If Pascal’s not going to be there, fine. But at least let that happen because someone just as deserving made it over him.

Middleton:

41 games played / 19.6 points / 5.2 rebounds / 5.2 assists / 3 turnovers / 1.2 steals / 4.9 Net Rating / 58% true shooting / 25.7 USG%

Siakam:

37 games played / 21. 1 points / 8.6 rebounds / 5.2 assists / 2.7 turnovers / 1.4 steals / 4.9 Net Rating / 54% ture shooting / 25 USG% /

Okay, very, very close. Milwaukee is 3.5 games up on Toronto. They also have an MVP and a DPOY candidate in their starting 5 and Kris has been the least of those 3 this year. Pascal, on the other hand, is Toronto’s numero uno.

It is what it is, but I don’t like that it is.

Let’s see what happens with KD out.

     3. Precious Passes

Precious has been getting a lot of love, lately, and deservedly so. Samson just pumped out another splendid writeup, this time on Precious’ very excellent D.

I mean, we all know his faults. I’ve certainly outlined them in previous Ten/Five Things (his inability to finish a lob (#9) and his isolation “decisions” (#3). He’s improving; it’s all we need r’now.

His passes have caught my eye recently. There’s not many. He’s only had 6 assists in his last 9 games (lol). That’s kinda a good thing, we don’t want Precious overdoing stuff, now, do we?

A few of the passes I’ve seen do give me that eye-brow lifting hmm, that was nice vibes. Nicely timed and decently placed.

 

I mean, they’re not all that complicated, I’ll admit. But look, incremental growth is good news. Precious’ basketball awareness is quite low. That’s okay, no judgment here. I’m just saying you want to know and see that those brain pathways are coming to life. These kinds of decisions are the indicators.

     4. Gary Trent Jr., The Man, The Legend

I’d be remiss not mentioning Gary’s volcanic tear (how he didn’t win NBA Player of the Week is beyond me, oh wait, it’s Toronto, forgot) this past week.

Prior to the Bulls game on Thursday, Gary went on a historic 5-game run:

42 minutes / 32.2 points / 65% true shooting / 27% usage

Hot hot hot hot hot hot.

Fittingly, his streak ended against DeMar DeRozan with whom he was tied for most 30-point games in a row with Toronto.

Do you think Gary gives a shit about the streak? Nope. This dude’s so cool a coroner might declare him legally dead.

Watch this interaction:

Ice cold.

     5. NN the Actor

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.

We all know Nick Nurse to be a unique character.

I’m not all that surprised that he would want to get into film. BUT THIS. THIS IS SOMETHING ELSE.

I feel like popularity alone could get Nick into, like, an ABC or CBS sitcom. Like some eccentric suburban neighbourino with a line or two or a corpse in Law & Order: Traffic Tickets or Lone Star: Wisconsin or whatever rendition of a crime drama is on cable TV these days. I wouldn’t have been as surprised with that.

Instead, he took a much more wholesome, cute, endearing, HILARIOUS role.

Nick plays himself as a janitor in the past who was a coach in the future…I think…in a cameo for CBC Gem’s Murdoch Mysteries. I dunno, you watch for yourself:

He’s got a magical, elfish, twinkly energy to him that is both cognitively dissonant to who we know him to be on the sidelines, but also very fitting to his meek, soft-spoken, wise self at press conferences.

Like, this is not the all-wise, composed coach that Murdoch’s version of Nick Nurse claims to be:

Honourable Mention:

OG Crowning Jimmy

This just didn’t get enough love. Let’s all watch this together a few more times.

Ish doing GOOD!

That is one genuine, shining smile. He played 20 minutes and scored 10 points shooting 4/8. Woo!