Of developing assets and dangerous days

With the Smelly Ford Focus all gassed up for a post-practice trek down the highways to Auburn Hills, let’s get this stuff out of the way.

And that afternoon journey’s likely to keep me away from this infernal machine for a few hours so if the comments are slow getting posted, there’s your reason.

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There is no doubt that Marcus Banks, an admirable fill-in at point guard in the absence of Jose Calderon, has opened a few eyes of late.

And in the cold, cruel world of professional sports, he might be just playing well enough to be traded.

I know that’s a bit harsh, all the guy has done is be professional and stay ready and give them what they need, but it’s the way the world works.

Now, there are 29 teams who have seen him play recently and seen him do a pretty good job. And if someone wants a backup point guard, he’s got to be in the mix, at least whenever Jose gets back in action.

I’m not suggesting there’s a deal in the mix but I know there are people in the organization who are thinking what I am: That Banks has become a far more attractive “asset” in the last week than he was at the beginning of the season.

And it’s never a bad thing to have assets.

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How about this?

Not only is Toronto going to play in Detroit on Wednesday after two days off, they get another schedule break.

The Pistons are in Charlotte on Tuesday night and the Raps will be sitting in their ritzy hotel waiting. Pretty sure that schedule quirk hasn’t happened at all this year.

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Of course, negating that advantage might be the fact it’s the game before the holidays start and that’s always a dangerous one, as Jay pointed out at practice:

“They always say there are four games – the game right before Christmas, the game after, the game before the all-star break and the game after – where you really have to stay focused on it. There’s no use looking at the schedule at the end of the year and saying ‘we’ve got three games left, we need to win two’ when you can take care of business around Christmas and all-star time. The teams that stay focused are the teams that get a chance to steal a couple of games.”

And how do you do that?

“Solid game play, not changing the ritual, not getting caught up in all the other stuff that’s going on at this time of year.”

Cool, does that mean I can drop this one at home:

“Sorry, Super Wife, I can’t get caught up in the all the other stuff that’s going on, have to stay focused.”

Think that works?

Oh, and why is there a turkey in our fridge?

Jay’s right, of course. Players do tend to let their minds wander at times in a season and thinking about flights home tomorrow and the like could make the game in Detroit quite sloppy.

It’s not like this is a group of mentally tough guys at the best of times, is it?

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Catching up to an old Alvin Williams story from Sunday that I kind of forgot to use Monday morning.

(I need to send myself more notes to remind me of stuff. Remind me of that, will you?).

Anyway, apparently the Villanova Wildcats won the NCAA Division 1 football championship last week, beating Montana or somesuch.

Division 1, if I’ve got this right, is for the all the schools that aren’t, you know, good or have real football programs.

Anyway, mention to Al that I hear this news and wonder if they were able to beat The Sisters Of The Poor or the Hawthorn Hawks to cop such a coveted honour. He says:

“It’s like winning CFL.”

Ouch.

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Today’s the day.

Pops Day.

Apparently, Dec. 22 is the day that the contract of Pops Mensah-Bonsu becomes fully guaranteed and I haven’t had a whisper of which way the Raptors are leaning, actually.

The monetary savings are huge – about $400,000 maybe – but the roster spot might come in handy as they move towards the trade deadline.

I guess they could guarantee the deal and eat any financial losses if they have to, or use that money as cap ballast in some future transaction.

It’s not a huge deal but when there’s an absolute dearth of news around these lads, it’s at least something worth checking into.

And I shall later on when we gather yet again for practice.

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I’m just pointing this out for no other reason than I thought of it just now scanning last night’s headlines.

The Chicago Bulls blew a 35-point lead – A THIRTY-FIVE POINT LEAD AT HOME – and lost to Sacramento on Monday night, booed off the floor as K.C. points out here.

They go to New York to play tonight, dragging the weight of that collapse with them.

The point of this whole thing?

On Dec. 24, 2001, Tim Floyd was ousted as the Bulls coach.

On Dec. 24, 2007, Scott Skiles was fired as the Bulls coach.

Thursday, I believe, is Dec. 24.

Cue the scary music.

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All right, I’m confused here, as is the norm at this time of year.

Today’s Tuesday, right? And Christmas Eve is Thursday (or, as it’s known around here The Day Dad Does All His Christmas Shopping) and the next day’s the big day?

Guess you’ll all be busy and I might be, too, so here’s an early call for mail for the weekend mailbag.

And if you come up with stuff as good as last week, you can expect a little something extra in your stockings. That is, of course, if the mall’s aren’t too busy and I’m not facing some Shopping Rage charge after spending time in them.

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Comments

[Anthony]

@Ren

Sounds like a plan, maybe they should also get Whoopi Goldberg to coach and Lil' Bow Wow to faceoff against Chris Bosh at halftime with a spot on the team at stake (I keed, I keed)

[John]

A quote from your column yesterday:

"Because of the focus on defence, the Raptors succeeded in doing what few teams can – bottle up all-star Hornets guard Paul."

Doug does this mean it is your opinion that this team does NOT usually focus on defence? Certainly this is the perception they give, i.e. that they only get interested on offence and regard defence as the "rest" period between offensive sets. However you have repeatedly given the opinion that this is a player-related issue, not a coaching issue. So please Doug does the coaching staff have an appropriate "focus on defence"?

Blogger's note: Yes

[GM]

Ah, the fickle Raptor Truthers! Fun stuff. Yeah, Banks is giving them what they need as a backup to the backup, but it's an extremely small sample size and I would not want to go the rest of the year with him as the primary backup. But I think there's potentially room for three PGs, especially given that Calderjack plays the 2 lots. The third PG wouldn't play every game, but he'd be there in case of injury, foul-outs, and to give Calderjack a rest when they're handling both backcourt positions.

[scottptbo]

hmm maybe i'll serve some calderjack over christmas instead of melted brie...sounds delicious!