Sources: Turkoglu headed to Toronto

[Spurs/BroncoSojia]

Free agent forward Hedo Turkoglu changed his mind Friday, deciding not to join the Portland Trail Blazers, opting instead to accept an offer from the Toronto Raptors, sources told ESPN.com.

The Raptors last-minute bid will give Turkoglu all of the salary-cap space they will get by renouncing their rights to Shawn Marion, Anthony Parker and Carlos Delfino. The Raptors expect to have about $10.1 million in cap space to give to Turkoglu for his first-year salary; he would get an eight percent annual raise over the next four seasons of the deal, a source told ESPN.com.

The Raptors have until July 7 to renounce Marion, Delfino and Parker, so it remains a possibility and that a sign-and-trade deal could take shape. But as of now, it is straight up deal between Turkoglu and Toronto.

Turkoglu's decision to go to the Raptors sent shock waves throughout the NBA as he apparently became the first player to renege on an agreement in principal since Carlos Boozer left Cleveland for Utah in 2004.

Earlier Friday, ESPN.com's Henry Abbott reported that Turkoglu had agreed in principle to a deal with the Trail Blazers, citing sources. The report, which said the deal couldn't be formally signed until the NBA salary cap is set next Wednesday, followed a Wednesday night dinner in Orlando between Turkoglu and Blazers head coach Nate McMillan, followed by two days of negotiations.

Friday afternoon, Bucher reported that the Turkish star remained in Portland, where he and the team were working on a deal.

After ESPN.com reported the agreement in principle, several news organizations confirmed it, using sources. Late Friday afternoon, the Oregonian reported that Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard and Turkoglu's agent, Lon Babby, had not confirmed the deal, but that talks were continuing.

Turkoglu, a 6-foot-10 forward from Turkey who played a prominent role in the Orlando Magic's recent trip to the NBA Finals, had been looking for a five-year deal in the neighborhood of $50 million. Turkoglu is a nine-year NBA veteran. He played for Sacramento and San Antonio before signing with Orlando as a free agent in 2004.

This season he often ran Orlando's offense and created matchup problems for the Celtics and Cavaliers in the playoffs. Against the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers in the finals, Turkoglu averaged 18 points.

The Blazers are looking to bolster a team that won 54 games last season and advanced to the playoffs for the first time since 2003.

Anchored by All-Star guard Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge, the Blazers were the second-youngest team in the NBA.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4305310

[iggypop123]

Ibtl

[KSeal]

Raptors will be the forth best team in the East next year.

[CubanMustGo]

LOL the Craptors

Turkeyglue won't ever come close to sniffing a championship again. And apparently he doesn't care, it's all about the Benjamins (or perhaps I should say the Sir Robert Bordens).

[Ghazi]

It IS all about the benjamins.

[Kobe™]

http://i44.tinypic.com/ztbwgm.jpg

[bdictjames]

Bosh 6'10
Bargnani 7'0
Hedo 6'11

Same freaking situation in Orlando?

[GooberNuts]

Is just sad how players go after the money. It just seems so much more logical to go to the better up-and-coming team in Portland for less money. You're still making millions anyway...

[Findog]

Is just sad how players go after the money. It just seems so much more logical to go to the better up-and-coming team in Portland for less money. You're still making millions anyway...

Lifestyle/culture thing. His wife wanted him to go to Toronto.

[Spursfan092120]

His wife wanted him to go to Toronto.
This is the most important thing right here...Wife probably called him on his cellie...

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, HEDO?!"
"Um..I'm signing my contract, angel."
"WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?!"
"Nate"
"BOY...IF YOU DON'T PUT THAT PEN DOWN RIGHT NOW AND GET YOUR ASS TO PORTLAND....."

[Ghazi]

Is just sad how players go after the money. It just seems so much more logical to go to the better up-and-coming team in Portland for less money. You're still making millions anyway...

From an economists point of view forgoing money is irrational human behavior ;).

[JamStone]

Technically, I don't think Benjamin Franklin is on any Canadian dollar.

[Bob Lanier]

Technically, Raptors players aren't paid in Canadian dollars, even if they are for some reason paid in cash.

[lefty]

Ah, money

[Jacob1983]

Don't hate on tube-of-glue. He said that his wife wanted to be an European type city. Besides, he will probably make more of an impact on the Craptors than he would on the Blazers.

[KidCongo]

How much does this help them retain Bosh?

[montgod]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/basketball/raptors-reach-deal-for-turkoglu/article1206439/

Another link for Turk signing with the Raptors

[BRHornet45]

sons why haven't the Utah Jazz shown interest in him? I guess he isn't white enough.

[Medvedenko]

Good move for the Raps is this goes down.

[Medvedenko]

Turk is better overall than Ariza and can do more on the court. He'll like living in Toronto and he'll be the second option easy on that team.

[CubanMustGo]

Technically, I don't think Benjamin Franklin is on any Canadian dollar.


LOL the Craptors

Turkeyglue won't ever come close to sniffing a championship again. And apparently he doesn't care, it's all about the Benjamins (or perhaps I should say the Sir Robert Bordens).

[sook]

sons why haven't the Utah Jazz shown interest in him? I guess he isn't white enough.

:lol

[angel_luv]

I liked rooting for the Raptors when Sho was there. Will be easy for me to resume rooting for them now that they've added Hedo. :)

[redzero]

Enjoy your very on Peja, Canadians.

[lefty]

Enjoy your very on Peja, Canadians.
Bitter?

Just yesterday you wanted Hedo to join New Orleans :lol

[redzero]

Bitter?

Just yesterday you wanted Hedo to join New Orleans :lol

I'm saying that it's the same situation with both Turkoglu and Stojakovic. I would love to have Hedo, but not at that price. The dude is old.

[ploto]

Funny story:


by: Michael Grange

I’m sure at one point the story of how Hedo Turkoglu became the latest member of the United Nations of the NBA will come out, but for now the details are being closely held as the deal works its way to being official...


What I do know is that this deal came together fast and hard. As of 5:30 p.m. I had a Raptors insider text me saying, basically, to ‘enjoy the weekend, there is nothing going on’. Five hours later Turkoglu has a tentative deal in Toronto and I’m standing outside a bar trying to confirm and write a news story on my Blackberry while under the influence. Given that Turkoglu was in Portland and all indications were that he had agreed to a five-year, $50-million offer from the Trail Blazers, that’s a pretty major reversal...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/from-deep/colangelo-works-fast-and-hard-to-get-turkoglu/article1206744/

[NewJerSpur]

I think Toronto will at some point become 100% European regarding their roster....not that there's anything wrong with that.

[angel_luv]

I think Toronto will at some point become 100% European regarding their roster....not that there's anything wrong with that.

They need to be sure to draft eligible bachelors as well as great basketball players then.
Foreign guys are so cute!

[NewJerSpur]

They need to be sure to draft eligible bachelors as well as great basketball players then.
Foreign guys are so cute!

:lol

I'm not in a position to speak on that last part, but they've got some decent pieces in "Euro-League" Canada and I heard the large Turkish community was a lure for Hedo and his family....the extra few million never hurts either, LOL.

[so0k]

how I wish Turk would come to the rockettes... only in dreams, right guys!?!?

[NewJerSpur]

I'm just glad he stayed clear the hell away from Portland....didn't like the sound of a backcourt/perimeter with him and Brandon Roy.

[kamikazi_player]

I think he shoulda stayed as a Magic, that team would be scary next year. Oh well, they probably start Mickael Petris now.

[angel_luv]

:lol

I'm not in a position to speak on that last part, but they've got some decent pieces in "Euro-League" Canada and I heard the large Turkish community was a lure for Hedo and his family....the extra few million never hurts either, LOL.

True that! :)

[Austin_Toros]

reminiscent of Maggette?

seems as though player will run to money regardless of a teams chances of winning

[ploto]

seems as though player will run to money regardless of a teams chances of winning

It really has more to do with the city- with the taxes the players have to pay in Canada and the cost of living in Toronto.

[carrao45]

LOL Tshlong

[ploto]

'Toronto factor' seals the deal for new Raptor

To the mercenary professional athletes who ply their trades here, Toronto's cozy ethnic neighbourhoods may as well be on Mars and "living" in the city means going from condo to arena to airport to an off-season home.

To the newest Raptor, the city's charm is the attraction.

Hedo Turkoglu and his wife, Banu, who grew up high school sweethearts in their native Istanbul, should arrive here this week to officially sign a five-year contract worth about $53 million (U.S.) and – in a departure from the norm – it wasn't the money that attracted them.

It was the city and what it had to offer.

According to sources, Banu Turkoglu, who gave birth to the couple's first daughter earlier this year, is wildly enthusiastic about the significant Turkish population here. The couple appreciates the European flavour of the city and decided lifestyle concerns were enough to opt for the move.

"It's a uniquely cosmopolitan and international community and it suits him and his family best," Turkoglu's agent, Lon Babby, said in a conference call last night. "The comfort level was just best in Toronto."

Toronto has been a haven for international NBA players dating back to 1995, when one of the starters on the original Raptors team was Zan Tabak of Croatia.

But Turkoglu is the first significant free agent – able to sell his services to any team in the league – who actually chose to come to Toronto.

The Portland Trail Blazers originally thought they were going to get Turkoglu on a five-year, $50 million contract, but the couple reconsidered the offer overnight Thursday and turned it down late Friday.

It came as a shock to some basketball observers, who see the young and talented Portland team as a much more enviable destination for a player of Turkoglu's talents than Toronto, where the Raptors missed the playoffs last season after posting a 33-49 record.

"Toronto's offer was better (financially) than Portland's was but that wasn't the driver here," said Babby.

The deal cannot be publicly discussed by the Raptors until Wednesday under rules of the NBA's collective bargaining agreement. League accountants are poring over the books of each of the 30 teams this week to determine next season's salary cap and until they come up with a number and teams know precisely how to spend, clubs can only negotiate with free agents such as Turkoglu.

"We'll be available when (Raptors president and general manager Bryan Colangelo) is ready," said Babby. "We're hopeful it's Wednesday but if it pushes over to Thursday, so be it."

The addition of Turkoglu, 30, gives the Raptors another foreign-born player on the roster and while they were all added for their playing abilities, it is no secret around the league that the ability to acclimatize to Toronto is far greater than in a large number of other league cities.

Point guard Jose Calderon was born in Spain and his backup, Roko Ukic, is a native of Croatia. The team's starting centre is Andrea Bargnani, who was born and raised in Italy, and backup centre Nate Jawai is a native of Australia. Anthony Parker, who will likely be cut adrift to make room for Turkoglu, cut his basketball teeth playing in Israel.

Toronto has had great success in the past with other foreign-born players, including Spain's Jorge Garbajosa and Rasho Nesterovic of Slovenia.

But Turkoglu is the first of all of them to pick Toronto specifically when he had other options.

"It's uniquely suited for him," said the agent. "That's his background. He's looking forward to joining the Turkish community there."

Turkoglu has played basketball all over the globe. He played four seasons with the iconic Efes Pilsen team in the Turkish league and was drafted 16th overall by the NBA's Sacramento Kings in 2000. He spent four seasons with Sacramento, was traded to San Antonio where he played for one season. He spent five seasons with the Magic, culminating in a trip to the NBA championship series last month when Orlando lost to the Los Angeles Lakers.
http://www.thestar.com/sports/nba/article/661093

[ffadicted]

I'd be funny if he got paid in canadian dollars and the portland contract ended up actually being larger

[ploto]

I'd be funny if he got paid in canadian dollars and the portland contract ended up actually being larger

They get paid in US $$ but the taxes are really high so the net may be less. That is why I said before it is about the city and not more money.

[ploto]

Welcome to Toronto

http://www.nba.com/raptors//hedo_splash.html

[lefty]

I'm saying that it's the same situation with both Turkoglu and Stojakovic. I would love to have Hedo, but not at that price. The dude is old.
Didn't look old to me in the playoffs

[Bob Lanier]

the taxes are really high
No, not really.

[ploto]

Fruitman plants seed that leads to Raptors' harvest

It was only a few years ago, when the Raptors were an NBA laughingstock and Richard Peddie induced cringing every time he spoke for the team, that Peddie made repeated vows to increase the "basketball IQ" of the Raptors brain trust. They brought in Bryan Colangelo and a small army of Colangelo's sidemen, all of them toting impressive resumés and high intellects and immaculate fashion sense.

And yet for all that grey hair and grey matter, as the brain trust pondered its roster on Wednesday morning, everybody in the room had to agree that the outlook wasn't brilliant. Yes, the club was poised to sign coveted free agent Hedo Turkoglu to a five-year deal. But thanks to the NBA's often-oppressive salary cap rules, the Raptors were facing the possibility of rounding out their lineup with a bunch of minimum-salary scrubs. And nobody in Raptorland was seeing a way around that not-so-ideal fate.

Nobody, that is, except for Steve Fruitman, the team's director of basketball administration. Fruitman, a 37-year-old chartered accountant from North York, has been working for the team for six years in an administrative role – he's best known to the players as the man in charge of making sure everybody gets their millions on time. But he is also the club's unofficial salary cap expert. While discussion of the rules and regulations of the NBA's cap can be a room clearer for even hardcore fans, Fruitman is passionate about its minutiae.

Yesterday, as the Raptors celebrated one of the most unexpectedly joyous moments in the franchise's sordid history, Colangelo credited Fruitman with proposing the cap-friendly strategy that allowed the Raptors to acquire Turkoglu while retaining the financial flexibility to bring aboard a handful of credible players to round out the team. Antoine Wright and Devean George are already on the roster via Dallas. At least a couple of more decent pieces, possibly Carlos Delfino and Rasho Nesterovic, will be joining soon.

Exactly nobody saw it coming, especially the modest Fruitman, who estimated Colangelo worked "eight phones" simultaneously to broker the four-team swap, and who figured the league's nitpicking lawyers would nix the transaction.

"After (the league) said yes ... I said, `I'm stunned. This is the first time any of my crazy ideas have ever passed muster with you guys,'" said Fruitman. "I've had a lot of them over the years, `Can we possibly do this, this and this?' And (the lawyers will) eventually find something to stop it. When they actually said yes, I was very surprised."

That was the beauty of yesterday's big announcement – its unexpectedness. As a manager of a basketball roster, after all, Colangelo clearly knows his way around the NBA maze. But as a manager of expectations, he often loses his way. Last season's team, before it won 33 games, was the "best" he'd had in Toronto. Last month's draft pick, 19-year-old DeMar DeRozan, had Colangelo invoking comparisons to Vince Carter.

Colangelo's assessments sounded more and more like delusional optimism, and fans seemed to be tuning them out. Indeed, in the days before yesterday's announcement, word around the franchise was that season-ticket renewals were going frighteningly slowly.

This should speed them up, which is not to say the Raptors are suddenly contenders, or that Chris Bosh, who helped recruit Turkoglu, is sold on sticking around. Colangelo was uncharacteristically reserved in summing up his team's chances yesterday, speaking about a work in progress, and rightly so. Chemistry, the unknowable, will be key. Roko Ukic is still the backup point guard. And even if Delfino and Nesterovic arrive, a bruiser named Reggie Evans is going to have to play a lot of minutes to overcome the club's weaknesses in defence and rebounding and toughness. But these gents, all the good ones, can shoot some jump shots. And if you were committed to watching all 82 games next year, thank Fruitman for popping the kernel of an idea that promises to make them a lot more interesting than even the tallest of foreheads could have otherwise expected.

"My idea is usually, like, how we might save some money in the budget. This one has a pretty profound impact on what our team could look like," said Fruitman. "But again, it was just the idea to start the ball rolling ... Bryan worked his tail off. I'm happy I could be a part of it."

http://www.thestar.com/Article/663863

[ploto]

Hedo in Toronto

http://www.thestar.com/videozone/663631