The end of that championship season!

Oh, how I wish Bryan would make a trade or something so we’d have some hard news to digest over here but it looks like a nice, calm couple of days are ahead. Which will be quite welcome, as a matter of fact.

So, in the absence of hard news, we give you …

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Let’s get the digression out of the way right off the bat.

Yankees win! Yankees win! Yankees win!

Yes, folks, finally a championship comes to Super Son and his buddies, the Complete

Mechanical (Hi, Randy!) Yankees are the playoff winners in the Mississauga North Baseball Association peewee house league.

A 9-5 win over the Dodgers did the deed last night and there was all kinds of celebrating going on. And justifiably so.

I don’t know how many of you are involved in kids house league sports – we’ve got 11- to 13-year-olds with widely varying degrees of skill and interest – but watching kids have fun playing a game for nothing more than the sport of it is really cool.

They were better ball players at the end of the season than they were at the start, they had fun all season, they made new friends and watching a gaggle of urchins become buddies and teammates over the summer was as much a hoot as watching them dog pile on each other at the mound when the game ended.

(Not to mention the coaches got to hang with a cool bunch of parents and new friends in various backyards and saloons).

Anyway, just wanted to catch you up now that it’s over.

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Canada got off to a less-than-stellar start to the Marchand Cup down in Puerto Rico but, remember, it’s not that big a deal.

The key is to get see some improvement over these three games – they go again tonight and tomorrow – before the kick off the worlds qualifier on the 26th.

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While we’ve been taking it easy and then dealing with another transaction, I guess nothing of substance has been happening around the league.

Thankfully, now that these guys have 15 men on the roster we’re not going to field any more zany suggestions on how great a fit Allen Iverson would be and judging by the utter lack of buzz about him around the league, there’s a huge suspicion that his career may be over.

Not sure how I feel about that, I really liked watching the guy play but I can see why GMs would be reluctant to extend his career for another year or two. There are a lot of miles on that body and you can never be sure it won’t break down rapidly and his inability – and then refusal – to deal with a backup role did nothing to enhance his chances of sticking around.

Maybe there’s a desperate team out there that takes a shot but it’s looking less and less likely.

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This is absolutely hilarious.

Two comments and three e-mails overnight from people wondering if Mo Pete was coming back simply because of one of those inane tweets people send out, this one saying something like, ‘No. 24 is back.’

Forget for a minute that these guys have no interest in repatriating Mo, who is a great guy with declining skills and a hefty contract.

Do people think he was speaking only – and directly, personally -- to those people in Toronto who read that stuff?

Seriously.

That’s a pretty high opinion of your place in Mo’s world to think he speaks only to those folks in his former adopted home town.

Classic.

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Speaking of guys without gigs, remember when free agency started and there was all kinds of buzz about the future of New York’s Nate Robinson and David Lee, a couple of restricted free agents people thought would get rich?

Not so much.

Neither has a deal here in the middle of August, and it looks entirely like both will play on one-year qualifying offers, making them unrestricted free agents along with about a zillion other, better, players next summer.

Why?

Well, it goes to the heart of what the Knicks are trying to do, and the financial restraint being shown by teams around the league.

No way New York is taking on money past this year – even for two of their own – because they want to spend it chasing big-name free agents in the summer of 2010, although another 33-win season or something like that is hardly going to make the Knicks a destination of choice.

But it also goes to the heart of what every team in the league is doing, too.

That no one would even give one of those guys an offer sheet for a two-year contract is, to me, kind of surprising. I don’t know if general managers are all saving money for some big spending explosion next summer or if they’re saving money because their owners are looking at the balance sheet and demanding it but the sense I get is there’s some kind of sea change going on around here.

And with a new collective bargaining agreement on the horizon – this one expires in 2011, they’re already holding preliminary talks on a new one – I can see teams doing very spending so they don’t box themselves in.

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Oh yeah, one more thing.

There always seems to be an inordinate amount of interest in whether or not the Raptors will hold full-on news conferences for every new guy they get in some kind of transaction.

Well, I don’t think there’s going to be anything formal for Amir Johnson, although they may get him on a conference call with some of us in the next day or two, and the first time we’ll see Sonny Weems, or hear from him, is when he arrives in town for some informal workouts sometime next month.

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Comments

[Woody]

Hi Doug,

Congrats to your son, although I hate hearing Yankees win, lets call them the Complete Maniacle's (oops)and provide a sponsor with another plug.

Yesterday you absolutley send the faithful into a tizzy by mentioning the potential to deal Banks. Off to the websites we go to decipher every two bit bench sitter out there. Today its 15, roster is full no changes. No beating us up like that, its truly not fair.

Everyone knows Charlotte and New Orleaans are looking to reduce salary and Clippers are looking to get rid of a big man. It appears to be areal buyers market. So who would you take N Mohammed, D. Diop, J Posey, M. Pete or at a real stretch M. Camby?

Also wondering will Johnson challenge Rasho for the backup 5? they say he is up to @250 lbs,he's 6-11, would have quicker feet, decent defense other than a penchant for fouling ( however this will come in handy in ORL and CLE)?

Make me wonder if I really liked the signing of Rasho, we could have used the 2 mill potentially on Mohammad or Diop, not sure if they are worth their contracts though.

Cheers

Blogger's note: Diop's might be the worst contracts in the NBA; Mohammad's only marginally better

[Jeff]

OK, no comments about Shaq's new reality show? I watched it and thought it was hilarious. It should be pretty funny to see him playing beach volley ball next week. Also interesting to see how the guy who was evaluating new recruits said he never saw someone of that size move so fast. Looking forward to next week's episode.

Blogger's note: Didn't see it; had baseball to occupy the time

[Woody]

Addition, how about Radmanovich, might have to include something more than Banks however the shooter they are looking for may be the serbian, EuroRaptors live on. Should we take him?

Cheers

[brent]

Doug,
Congratulations on recognizing the sponsor. Without them there would be no leagues. Lots of people say, "oh, its tax writeoff", without understanding that for small businesses the tax benefit is really minimal. This is real money, hard-earned, being paid out of their own pockets, and they deserve to be recognized.

[Gary M. Mugford]

Doug,

Congrats to the Super Son and to you and your fellow coaches. I started coached kids' softball when I was 14 (with the Longine Witnauer squirt boys and concluded after the Chinguacousy girls represented Canada at 81 World Youth Softball Championships a dozen years later. During all of that time, I couldn't understand why more folks wouldn't want to coach. That goofy great feeling you get when you are teaching something to one of the youngsters and you actually see the little light go on in the back of their eyes is pure bliss. Better than drugs.

At any rate, back to Raptor Fantasy League stuff. What kind of team does Colangelo get a chance to assemble if Otis Smith decides not to get involve in the trade? The very deep Raptor team of today might have been reduced a little. Say to a starting five and two-three recogniable NBA names off the bench, no? And if I'm right and Colangelo does win Exec of the Year, does he give Smith a tiny little replica of his trophy? What are the odds Smith never uses the exception and just lets it lapse, having strengthened the Raptors?

GM

Blogger's note: Given the economics of the world and the NBA, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Orlando lets that exception expire; or at least some of it