Chemistry lessons without test tubes

I know. A bit late. Blame the Mighty Yankees Coaching Staff Off-Season Planning Session.

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It was kind of interesting to chat with Chris Bosh yesterday about the whole concept of “team chemistry” and how a group of very disparate personalities gets together.

Quite aside from shooting down the perception there was some Euro-North American rift (the “The Atlantic didn’t have anything to do with it” line was pretty good) he raised this point:

“If you don’t like the guy, you’re not going to pay attention to the message, you’re going to pay attention to how it’s delivered. It takes time for that.”

And I think that’s precisely what we’re seeing with this team.

It wasn’t that they didn’t like each other or that there were separate factions, it was that they hadn’t quite figured out what buttons to push or how to interact with one another.

It happens everywhere, I think.

Look at your work or school or whatever.

Put together 15 or 20 people from all walks of life, tell them to spend hours and hours together at the job, knowing that if one of them screws up slightly, the whole organization breaks down.

It’s not going to be a seamless process, is it? The whole dynamic of “team,” whether it’s in an office or a locker room, takes some time to unfold.

It took more time than many had hoped for or expected for this basketball team to figure it out but it seems like they finally have.

It doesn’t mean everything will be all sweetness and light from now until the end of the season, there are sure to be blips and losing streaks and other issues to deal with.

But it does seem like they’ve figured out who each other is and that’s a good step. After all, as Bosh pointed out:

“I think it’s very important to like guys. We spend a lot of time together, more time than we spend with our families.”

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Oh, can I just say I find it insulting or something that there’s a hockey rink at Fenway?

Seriously. Do it at Wrigley or Dodger Stadium or some other ball park.

The Fens?

Bad. Very bad.

I may have to stop by there on Saturday afternoon to lodge a personal protest.

Or just go to a restaurant and sit around.

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I don’t know much about 12 Step programs but one of them is admitting you’ve got a problem, right?

Well, Marco Belinelli seems on the way to recovery. Or at least he’s giving it a shot.

He was the last guy on the floor doing serious shooting drills after practice on Monday, working with Dave Hopla on catching and shooting.

And it was working on the same old stuff we’d seen for months.

“Maybe sometimes my balance is bad. Especially when I go off the screen or double (screen) action or something like that. I shoot too fast, I can take maybe more time to get my balance. It’s my shot and I have to be patient.”

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So Charlotte kills Milwaukee last night and here’s how Rick wrote it up.

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It’s been 45 minutes or so that I’ve been sitting at this machine and in that time no one’s suggest a Jose trade or that the Raptors go get the disgruntled, surgically-repaired Tracy McGrady.

Wait!!!!

Jose for Tracy in some package deal!!!

There you go. Kills two birds with one stone.

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You know last week, when it was pointed out it’d take 73 days for the Heroes Of The Hardcourt to play their next 30 games after playing their first in 53?

Remember when I said it sounded great and relaxing but that there’d be days when I’d welcome off-day story ideas?

Well, that point has arrived and we’re like a week into that stretch.

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As I’m sitting on a stool next to Marco after practice yesterday – and after he’d had that little shooting session under the auspices of Dave Hopla and Eric Hughes – the conversation got around to Sunday’s game.

And it was pointed out to him that it was the first time in his NBA career that he’d fouled out of a game.

True player that he is, he had an explanation.

“Really? I make six fouls but, really, I made three.”

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This is odd and I should remember it when I read the stories in April about the soaring cost of a season of snow removal and how my taxes may have to go up to pay for it.

A huge snow plow just came around the crescent for no other reason than the guy wanted to go for a drive, I think. The one-zillionth of a centimetre we got over night hardly calls for a plowing.

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A word of caution from Chris Bosh about all this great – and by great I mean passable – defence of the last couple of games:

“To be quite honest, against Detroit, they don’t shoot the ball well from the outside … and we gave up a lot of second chance points to them on both games so we probably got lucky on that one.”

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Comments

[Dave]

Doug, if I have it write... er, right (sorry, bad grammer.. er, grammar), the teams which are under the tax get a kick-back from the league at the end of the year from the teams which are over the tax. Do you have any idea how much this figures to be (is there an average amount, were all the other GMs and owners salivating the year the Knicks had a payroll of something like $120M)?

The reason I ask is it may be a very quick axe to the McGrady trade speculation. If we take back $3M salary then we're over the tax, not only does this cost us $6M, but it costs us $6M + lost kick-back from the league. I doubt MLSE would be happy paying an extra ~10 mil for an expiring contract.. even the biggest one in the league.

Blogger's note: You're right. Impossible to know the precise numbers but finances are another part of the reason it's ridiculous to even think about for a minute

[Thane]

Re expiring conracts. . .

Correct me if I'm mistaken Doug, but given where the Raps are wrt the cap (ie, over it) even with McGrady's conract, we wouldn't have that 20mil to spend next year, would we?

I know we'd be able to spend it if we were to use it to re-sign McGrady, but if we were to renounce him, wouldn't we only be able to spend up to the cap (+MLE) on a new free-agent? Surely not peanuts, but not max level money, no? (of course, this assumed we re-sign Bosh, which I think we will).

The only other possibility would be to sign and trade T-Mac. . . but who would want him at that price?

Blogger's note: It is indeed another part of the reason it's ridiculous even to think about for a second

[Don W.]

Doug:
One thing I have noticed about Bosh during his days in Toronto is that he has very "hard hands" which result in quite a few extra turnovers. This situation is also evident in other sports--football and baseball---with certain players and is something coaches spend a great deal of time working on. Do you know if this is something that the Raps coaches are working on with him?

Blogger's note: He works on catching every day