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True, true.
Well, this game reinforced my gut feeling that the east is going to belong to the Pistons and Nets this season.
True, true.
you judge that on one pre-season game? and the NETS? THE NETS? they will be lucky to win one round. Reailty is they are garbage. Pistons will be good but as always will play like crap when it matters and lose when they aren't suppose to.
The Nets.
IMO, no other eastern playoff team addressed their offseason needs as well as the Nets. They still could use some outside shooting, but they are pretty good on paper. It's all conjecture at this point anyway. It never takes all that much to win the east, and this season will be no exception.
The only reason the Raptors lost to the Nets is because NJ has more playoff experience.
Raptors rotations are not set and I still think they will change. I still do not like Andrea and Jason starting together-- one or the other, but not both. The starting line up is too much offense and not enough defense and the bench is too much defense and not enough offense. I thought the team looked the best overall-- and definitely defensively-- in the latter part of the third quarter when Rasho and Delfino played with the three set starters.
I will post this here as most people that would be interested in it read this topic. Not worthy of a thread.
An article about Boki:
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qst...FlZUVFeXk2
Crappy defense from both teams, i didn't like the newcomers much. The offense of raptors is 3 pointers and long jumpers and that's it. Pretty sad actually. Garnett was abusing andrea.
btw, the game was on sportklub.
If this is true, they are on a collision course to be eliminated from the playoffs by NJ again.
They wont have succes without a decent low post scorer. Yeah Bosh is good and all... but we seen how he was stopped in the playoffs. At times he was just disabled offensively.
Chris Bosh is much like TD. Minus great defence, minus low post scoring. Wait... im describing Nowitzki now.
I wish I had seen the game.
Too bad our guys lost.
I'm confident the team will get it together. Next win is ours.
Like I said after this season, I'd be impressed if the Raptors get the 7th/8th seed this year. I not really fond of the team's composition and they have no salary cap wiggle room. We'll see how things play out over the few months.
I think they will have a good regular season.
(good motivation, good chemistry etc.)
Betwen 1 to 5th seed.
But coming playoff time... i see 3 or 4 teams being better than them when everyone plays 100%.
I expect this team to exceed all the success of last year's squad.
To the second round and beyond we go.
Can someone tell how Erazem Lorbek played?
Any chance of making it to the NBA?
(he was drafted by Pacers few years ago)
so, so
Doubtfull, but stranger things have happened.
Raptors win, Rasho DNP.
Erazem has a nice shooting stroke. Rasho got the day off.
Raptors with some final sight-seeing and a tour of the Vatican, then it's off to Spain!
Do the Nets still own the rights to Christian Drejer? Looks like he had a pretty good line.
Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends in Canada.
Yea- the Raps won!
Some pictures from Spain:
Few recent stories:
Bosh has sore knee
Bosh's kneeToronto Raptors all-star forward Chris Bosh missed practice in Madrid yesterday and will likely sit out tomorrow's exhibition game against Real Madrid because of unspecified soreness and a slight swelling on his left knee.
He apparently tweaked it during a practice in Treviso, Italy, last week. He played both of the Raptors' exhibition games in Rome on the weekend, though he was wearing a knee brace. Last December, Bosh missed 12 games because of problems with his right knee...
Delfino quiet but productive
Delfino quietCarlos Delfino goes through life with an unassuming calm; he isn't going to scream and yell, wave his arms and gesticulate and his eyes won't bug out with enthusiasm.
It's taken Sam Mitc a couple of weeks to figure that out about his new small forward and that's been the biggest and most difficult obstacle to overcome between coach and player.
"It's just taken me time learning Carlos's personality," Mitc said yesterday. "He's a laid-back guy, and I like more of (fire). But that's just me. I don't want him to change who he is. He goes out on the floor and he's productive.
"The most difficult thing for any coach is just figuring out everybody's personality and making sure I don't make the wrong judgment on a guy because his demeanour may be one way and his play is another way. That's the thing I have to make sure of."
Delfino is laid-back like no other Raptor, like few other pro athletes, in fact. His facial expression seldom changes, his voice is barely more audible than a whisper. It is who he is and he can't – and won't – change.
"I am a quiet guy," he said. "Sometimes I look like I'm out, but I'm in, that's my personality, that's how I do things. (But) I feel good, I feel good with (Mitc ) and I think we're comfortable working with each other. That's very positive. It's good to know that after two weeks you are able to understand each other and it's time to go on."
Garbajosa, Calderon share special bond
Garbajosa & Calderon..."We met when I was 13 years old," Calderon says. "I signed for Tau [Spanish powerhouse club Tau Vittoria]. He signed the year before. He was 16 or 17 at that time. We were in the same situation, without our parents in another city, and I'm like 700 kilometres from home and he's from Madrid, 400 kilometres from home, and we have to live with other guys the same age.
"There were seven or eight guys like us and we kind of went together everywhere," he says.
Calderon was a member of that talented group of Spanish players, a group that signalled the country's international triumphs with age-group successes all the way through. Garbajosa was the big brother; a tradesman in a group of basketball artists.
That they bonded is proof that being the same isn't the same as being friends.
At 6 foot 9 inches and 245 pounds, with his standard stubble ("I shave once a month, if it's necessary or not") and shaggy hair, Garbajosa affects a craggy, immovable wall. He's playing this season on a leg that's technically still broken. He's been advised by doctors to have surgery, but has advised the doctors that there will be no surgery. His pain threshold is legendary.
At 6 foot 3 and 200 pounds, with his neatly trimmed hair, fine features and ritualistic and energetic encouragement of teammates, fans, coaches, referees and everything else on the basketball court, Calderon, 26, resembles a friendly, earnest, puppy. A veritable poet compared with Garbajosa, 29, the stoic.
But Garbajosa says, without qualification or irony, that Calderon is his "basketball soulmate."...
Last night, Calderon was the host of a team dinner to introduce all of his friends to the wonders of Spanish cuisine, with Garbajosa riding shotgun.
They've already shown their teammates much, much more.
Last edited by ploto; 10-10-2007 at 08:14 PM.
Awesome! hvala Ploto.
Raptors one big happy family
one happy family..."Why do you all find it so difficult (to accept) that there are people who play professional sports who can set aside their ego for the betterment of each other, and the team, and not worry about it?" he said. "You guys are always trying to (invent) a rivalry between my point guards (T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon). Well, we went out for dinner (Tuesday) night and two guys who are sitting together are T.J. and Jose. And we didn't have a seating chart. They sat together because they like each other.
"Why would you believe different?" he continued. "These guys get along great. And it's not fake, it's not manufactured, it's not nothing we try to set up. These guys organize outings on their own. I stay out of it."
There have long been suggestions that the Raptors are a close-knit group, particularly by NBA standards, where individuality off the court seems to be the way to go. In fact, two-time NBA all-star Chris Bosh said this is the closest team he has been on.
"By far," he said. "It's a funny thing. I don't know when this started. It just sort of happened. It's like, you have dinner one time, you hang out one time, and it's fun, and you want to do it again."
The Raptors are likely the most diverse team in the NBA, with 11 Americans, two Spaniards, an Italian, an Argentine and a Slovenian, not to mention an almost all-Canadian support staff.
But, for whatever reason, it has worked.
The dinner Mitc alluded to was organized by Calderon and, according to reliable sources, a good time was had by all. The players all tried Spanish food and nobody cut out early. One attendee said that, all evening, the players waved their napkins in the air, and chanted "Jose, Jose, Jose, Jose..." You know the one.
"These guys genuinely like being around each other," said Mitc , adding that he has done very little in the way of forcing his players to bond.
"You try to do that as a coach if it feels like the guys are trying to disconnect from each other," Mitc said. "But we don't have guys who get on the bus with headphones on and, soon as everybody gets on the bus, they pull out their cell phone.
"We rise together, we fall together," he said. "That's the only way I know. I believe it in the deepest part of my soul, and I'll always feel that way." ...
Euraptour
EuraptourAfter watching them swarm the Toronto players a day earlier, crowding them a bit too much, Raptors officials got Calderon to stand behind a lectern for yesterday's session.
"El Presidente is at the podium," Darrick Martin announced to all before Calderon addressed the group...
After a typical game-day routine – morning shootaround, a meal and perhaps an afternoon nap before taking on Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid – the Raptors will get ready to make their way home.
There will be a team meal following tonight's game against Real Madrid but no official functions. The team's aircraft leaves Spain for Toronto just after noon local time tomorrow.
Bosh to Sit
Bosh to SitChris Bosh will not play in the Toronto Raptors' exhibition game against Real Madrid tonight. The all-star missed his second successive day of practice with an unspecified problem with his left knee.
"I'm sitting out right now until I heal 100 per cent and make sure I'm right for the season," Bosh said.
Bosh said his knee has been bothering him for about a week...
Kapono investment not so smart?
ROME -- Welcome to the NBA, where a $24-million US player isn't necessarily expected to be a starter.
Which is what the Raptors may have in Jason Kapono.
Raptors coach Sam Mitc went on the defensive yesterday when asked if he would be disappointed if Kapono, the club's most expensive, most heralded, off-season signing, did not turn out to be a regular starter at the small forward position -- the lone starting spot still up for grabs.
Mitc has said the last couple of days that Kapono may not be his starter at the three spot, that the job may go to another newcomer, Carlos Delfino, or the wildly inconsistent Joey Graham, or even to Jorge Garbajosa, whom Mitc would prefer to play at power forward.
To the uninitiated, dropping close to $24 million (in mid-level exception money) over four years on a player who may not crack the starting lineup on a consistent basis would seem to be a disappointment, perhaps even a miscalculation.
But Mitc , who started Delfino against Virtus Roma at PalaLottomatica last night after starting Kapono the night before against the Boston Celtics, insisted that isn't necessarily so.
"What? Is the mid-level that much money?" the coach said. "Guys, getting a paycheque in this league all depends on when you become a free agent. Period.
"It has nothing to do ... there's guys sitting on a bench (in the NBA) who don't know how to play, who make a lot of money.
"What are you going to say about Theo Ratliff, who's been making $11, $12, $13 million the last three to four years, sitting behind the bench in a suit?" the coach continued. "That's just how it is. It has nothing to do with anything but timing.
"When it's your time and you have a good year, you get compensated."
That's certainly the case with Kapono, who was awarded his contract after averaging a career-high 10.9 points while leading the NBA in three-point shooting percentage (51%) for the Miami Heat.
Mitc waved aside suggestions that Kapono, a 31st pick overall in 2003, has been a disappointment in camp. Kapono played 31 minutes off the bench last night and scored 15 points, shooting 4-for-11 from the field.
"We know that Jason is going to help us in a lot of other ways, whether he starts or comes off the bench," Mitc continued. "There's no pressure for us to feel like we have to start (him)."
That pressure may come later.
In the meantime, given that the four other starters (Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani, T.J. Ford and Anthony Parker) provide ample offence, Mitc said he expects whomever starts at small forward to contribute much more than just points, and that may play into hands of Delfino or the athletic Graham.
"Defence, rebounding, energy, give us a little toughness. That's what we're looking for," Mitc said.
At the start of the Raptors' training camp in Treviso, Italy last week, Mitc suggested that there were two starting spots open -- small forward and centre.
But that appears no longer the deal. Sop re Bargnani will be the starting centre come , high water, or injury, and the veteran Rasho Nesterovic, who started 73 games last year, will be the backup.
Bargnani replaced the ineffective Nesterovic late in the first-round playoff series against the New Jersey Nets last season and that gave the young Italian the inside track to start this year.
A solid training camp, despite numerous distractions being in his home country, has pretty well sealed the deal.
Mitc started Bargnani for the second consecutive game last night.
Still, Mitc said that he will continue to tinker over the next five pre-season games.
"That (three spot) was the biggest question mark and we'll take the entire pre-season, all seven games, to decide who gets it," he said.
And if it isn't Kapono?
Well, what's $24 million?
He fails to mention that one of the reasons that Jason will probably come off the bench is that they need the SF to off-set the weaknesses in Bargnani's game- Delfino is a better defender and a good rebounder for his position. As long as Andrea starts, it makes more sense to start Delfino and bring Kapono off the bench to play with Rasho. Raptor fans have been saying as much all summer.
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