I Learned I'll Be Late

Yet another early morning out here, yet another early flight.

And that's going to delay the usual morning after diatribe for a few hours. Maybe it'll give me a chance to try and make sense of it all.

Nah, I doubt it.

Anywho, talk to you from Sac-town sometime.

Comments

[Jacques]

Doug,

Take all the time in the world. We shouldn't even talk about their performance last night. What a disgrace. Chris Bosh's face said it all.

[Tree Q]

Well Doug, after last night's performance I think you can leave this one as is. The title was good for a laugh, not unlike the Raps these days!

[Ryan Knaus]

Doug-- I think you do a terrific job covering the Raptors, and I love your commitment to responding to all of your mail. I read your content regularly, but have to say that this sentence/paragraph nearly made me choke on my oatmeal.

"In one of the darkest nights in the team's history last night, the Raptors set records for defensive ineptitude in a capitulation of outrageous proportions that will etch this version of the franchise in the record book for dubious achievements."

WAY too much...let's leave the grandiose verbosity to novelists.

[Adam Glatt]

I came late to the Lakers game. I left in the first quarter of the Warriors game (but came back in the second). I left in the first quarter of the Nuggets game.

Why? Because I care about this team, and those games were too painful to watch. But that's only half of it. I also thought they were a good NBA basketball team.

It was an optimistic conclusion from the rest of the season. Brilliant, exciting, impressive wings against the Spurs, Celtics, and good-Blazers led me to it. How ridiculous it was to dare think it.

I should have been more objective. Domination every other time they faced a good NBA basketball team this season was the indictment. Horrendously played losses against many terrible teams was conclusive proof.

Today, after a long string of blow out losses, I'm rendering my verdict. The 07/08 Raptors are a bad NBA basketball team.

But hey, I'm not a totally hopeless fan. Just look at what the Rockets are doing with so little.

That team is an average team. Go through their roster, they have no clear advantages over the Raptors, or a dozen other mid-standing teams in the league.

I watched them play earlier this season, and they looked bad. They looked like any other average roster team, or even worse.

But watching a few games during this win streak, it has been plain to see why they are winning: an average bunch of players is playing like a bunch of All-Stars.

It's remarkable. It leaves an impression on this fan. Raptors, that's your path to being a good NBA basketball team. Until it happens, it's delusional thinking on my part to expect any success or impressive games from you.

Sorry.
-Adam

[bballer]

hey adam. noticed that houston has an allstar, no a superstar at the wing position. they had an allstar centre. they have a defensive specialist in battier and an olympic gold medal winner in scola. scola was always one of the best players and leaders of the argentinian team. houston has great rebounders in hayes and landry. plus they have mutombo who knows his role as a rebounder, shot blocker and defensive presence. now look at the raps.

they have a guy they pulled off the scrap heap at small forward, a guy who never got off the bench in detroit as a back up sg and a guy who benefitted from spacing created by wade and shaq as a 3 point specialist. if bosh was still playing then you can compare slightly the raps with the rockets. but in fairness, the raps is inferior in talent compared to other teams. kind of like the leafs in the nhl. mlse has deceived us thinking the team is better. just like they are going to do with toronto fc. until the wing play gets better and we get a better big, toronto will just hover above th .500 line.

wait, haven't we been saying that since the babcock days? colangelo, do better in toronto than you did in phx. phx never had a defensive centre to play alongside stoudemire and after joe johnson left, they didn't have a starting 2/3 that could create his own shots. sound familiar doesn't it.

[Adam Glatt]

bballer, interesting take on the raptors and the rockets. Do you post on any forums? Frankly, it's impossible to find opinions like yours in the media. It's all "TJ will be out for two weeks" (he was out for like two months, and every week it was "two more weeks"), "Kapono is choosing better shots," "Jose is in a slump," "Bargnani is in a slump." There's a consistent and deceiving optimistic slant on everything the Toronto media is bringing us. I'd look to the big sports writers for accurate opinions, but they don't give care about the Raptors.

[Zack]

damn these lie-spewing sports journalists with alterior motives. If only we knew what they were planning....

Blogger's note: Don't tell anyone, but it's global domination we're after

[T Knight, Toronto]

Hi Doug,

Long time reader, first time writer. I have a question about your view on the MVP race. I believe that you've said that your vote would be Kobe Bryant and as it stands it looks to me like he's going to win.

This is a guy who, this year alone, publicly bad mouthed his GM, coach and centre. So, while he as is always argued, might be the best player in the league, based on his undermining of different people within his organization, I don't even think you could count the guy as the most valuable player on his own team, let alone the league. Your thoughts?

Blogger's note: My thoughts, often-stated, are he's the best player and greatest talent in the league. Don't you think that perhaps all that "bad-mouthing" made all those people get to work improving things?