A gathering Storm and new electronic frontiers

Hey, you saw the Storm win the WNBA title, right?

Swept Atlanta in another great game and I don’t care what you’re impressions are of women’s basketball, the three games in this final – all decided by three points or fewer – were dramatic and intense and as good as anything you’ll see on any court.

No, there weren’t highlight reel dunks or brilliant isolation moves but there was competition at the highest level, great plays, drama and emotion.

What more do you want?

Now, one last point on this because I really think it sets the women apart from the men.

They’ve just gone through a tough season, an emotionally draining playoff final – win or lose – and you’d think some down time would be called for, right? Nope.

By my count, Sue Bird, Swin Cash and Lauren Jackson of the Storm and Atlanta’s Angel McCoughtry are all off any second to play for their countries in the world championships that start next week in Czech Republic.

That’s pretty impressive to me. I can’t imagine the boys doing it.

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Was that the balance of power I felt shifting? Ronald Dupree? In Toronto? The shuddering in South Beach was palpable.

No?

No.

Anyway, the breathless news that the Raptors have signed the summer league veteran should be taken for what it is. Not much.

He’s a guy with a one-year, non-guaranteed contract coming to camp with a team that has 15 guys (maximum allowable) with guaranteed deals already.

I guess there is precedent for the Raptors paying someone to go away while they keep someone unheralded (goodbye, Luke Jackson; hello, Jamario Moon) but there’s no indication they like Dupree as much as they liked Moon.

And, I’m told, there are no plans right now to bring anyone else in to round out the camp roster.

Makes entire sense to me, too. I could never figure out the need for 18 or 19 or even 20 guys in camp, especially when the roster is virtually set. Extra bodies take time away from the coaches working with the guys they need to work with, the deny regular groups at least some repetitions in drills and scrimmages and they always end up being waived anyway.

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Yes, that was a tweet from me yesterday, all self-generated unlike the ones that go out when this drivel gets posted every morning.

I have no real idea what I’m doing, I was kind of dragged kicking and screaming into it by a friend (Hi, Marissa!!!!) but we’ll figure it out as we go.

It’s @smithraps, I’m told, and I promise not to give you the minutia of my life and relatively boring existence although who knows if I’ll be able to avoid it. I figure it’s for tipping you off quickly to stuff that’s coming, little innocuous observations at such things like practices or training camp and stuff like that.

I’m kind of a slave to this machine at it is so this tweeting stuff isn’t going to consume more of my life, I hope. But if it makes the job we do here better and more thorough, I guess I have to.

Now, I’m told this is Follow Friday or something? So, get following, I appreciate it and I’ll try to make it worth your while.

One thing we’re not going to do, I don’t imagine, is change the way we do games. I know some folks out there in my business use twitter to put up snarky or funny comments during a game and even though that sounds right up my alley, the way we do things now with the in-game bloggy thingy is much more interactive and I’m not about to give that up.

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So, I’m watching the Storm do its thing and the one enduring memory will be Fish in a Snicker’s commercial.

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Let’s get one from the mail, which seems to be down a pint these days.

If you want to help, here’s your last chance. I’ll take missives, hellos and questions here.

Q: I admit that I'm a Delfino fan. Given his impressive world tourney, how would you rate the Delfino for Johnson/Weems trade? Would the Raptors do that trade today?

J L, Oakville

A: Carlos for one presumptive starter who’s younger, bigger and has some potential and a relatively dirt-cheap backup with some athleticism and promise? In a second.

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This is, for all of us, Must See TV.

It’s Sunday night, on TSN2 and it’s the broadcast debut of Steve Nash’s documentary on Terry Fox, Into The Wind.

I haven’t seen it, I did see that it got raves at its theatrical debut at the Toronto International Film Festival and even more than a day-long Seinfeld retrospective or something like that, it’s TV I don’t want to miss.

I don’t imagine you should ever.

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List time, sort of.

This was also in the mail and gives you an idea of where I’d go on something like this:

 

Q: Doug, What would your starting lineup be if you had to win one game using any player to wear a Raptor Jersey in an NBA game. What would be your 2nd team, not using any of the 1st team. Now, if these 2 teams played each other which would you expect to win? Ross K, Burllngton

A: All right, I’m going to go on the premise that it is the career work of the players concerned and not just their time with Toronto, okay? I hope that’s what you meant.

My first team would be:

Damon Stoudamire, Chauncey Billups, Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, Chris Bosh and Hakeem Olajuwon and I imagine it would easily win a seven-game series against Alvin Williams, Damon Stoudemire, Doug Christie, Morris Peterson, Charles Oakley and Kevin Willis although if you’d let me, I’d use Antonio Davis over Willis.

You know what? Upon further review, I put Marcus Camby as my second-team centre.

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Comments

[Marko]

Since you said "career work" rather than "Raptors' tenure" of the players (and underscored this by having Hakeem as your first team centre) - wouldn't you rather have Chauncy as your first team PG?

I would...

MM

Blogger's note: Yes, that's a good point.

[Lawrence]

The career works of Chauncey and Mark Jackson vs Mighty Mouse and Alvin. Discuss.

[John]

"What more do you want?"

I want... "highlight reel dunks or brilliant isolation moves "

Can't and never could get into WBNA.

[Lawrence]

Let's throw Rod Strickland into the PG discussion also.

[WSG]

Hi Doug - You’ve heard, no doubt, that Ed Davis ‘tweaked’ his knee a couple nights ago. So ... as you’re the man with the bat-phone number, what’s going on?

[Victor]

I'd have to have Rod Strickland on that first team at PG. One of the most over-looked PGs of his generation. Mark Jackson would also have to get some heavy consideration being that he is Top 5 all time in assists.

[Lawrence]

...and the other Alvin too; the quad-dub man himself...he should be one of those teams..sorry Mo...ok that's it

[Chris]

Doug! What about Alvin Robertson? Teach these young kids about how good he was!

[Matty-Pix]

Your all-time Raptors squad doesn't have Lonnie Baxter?
Shame shame ...

Blogger's note: Third-team front court with Mengke Bateer

[Geoff Read]

Mighty Mouse over Jose eh? A. Williams over Jose too... I guess that's fair. I keep hoping Jose will prove himself worthy of being part of that conversation... maybe this is the year he returns to the form of three seasons ago.

I hate twitter with a passion. In the age of over-stimulation and self-absorption, it is the medium of the stupid and the vain (see Chris Bosh, spring 2010).

[Lorie]

Hi Doug,
...And he doesn't appear to have lost any of the delightfully lugubrious demeanour we saw during his days in the 12th Precinct! Terrific commercial, and a terrific night for The Storm - a hugely entertaining game in a great series. Hope lots of basketball fans tuned in for all or at least, a part of it. Now, with 11 sleeps until training camp, the thoughts turn to the Raptors...any word from The Retreat? (and if not golf, what's Jay's choice of recreational athletic pursuit would you think?)

[Matt M]

Hopefully Pops and JYD made your third team too :)

[Mark]

I'm going with Keon Clark, Keon Clark, Keon Clark, Popeye Jones, and Keon Clark

[Mike D.]

The Man Who Rhymes With Horsey for the third team. Or at worst the practice squad.

Will you be dispensing with vowels in your tweets to allow you to distill more wisdom into 140 characters or less?

Blogger's note: Gr8t id??, er, idea.

[Johnn19]

Regarding Raptors 15 guaranteed contracts, salary web sites are quoting both Dorsey and Weems as being non-guaranteed for 10/11. Can you confirm that Colangelo has now guaranteed both for the season.

Blogger's note: Dorsey not fully; Weems yes

[Zombywoof]

WNBA = cure for insomnia

Twitter = aptly named

Blogger's note: Yet both are significant enough to compel you to comment. Odd.

[Bill]

Funny how your teams do not have any of our current players. Speaks to our good our team is this year.

[Kevin from Vaughan]

Thanks for continuing to feed our ridiculous thirst for raps news even though there isnt anything of substance to report. I've been a reader from day one and one of the regulars from the old "nuthin but Inter-Net" days. We appreciate the effort.

[D-Mac Ottawa]

Dear Mr. Media,
If you're being dragged kicking and screaming into the Twitter-sphere, I guess you'll be dragging a whole lot of us along with you, kicking and screaming as well, for all the good that will do...
So what is it that we – the old and uninformed, Luddite-oriented cranky types – might need to know about how to go about finding your little golden grunt-tweets, which I'd gather you'll be offering whenever and wherever they happen to bubble up to the surface, likely at oddball times of the day and night, kind of like gas only different?
Cheers! And they call this progress?! Good luck to us all.

[Ken]

Shawn Marion & Jermaine O'Neal should be in consideration right?

[CC]

is jay on the hot seat this year?

[Scott]

What about Zo for the 2nd team center?

[John Culligan]

I would have thought with those Curry pom-poms you would have put him in team #2.

I know Christie had the D, but Dell could hit lights out from anywhere on the planet. Drop Mo, and fit Curry in somehow. Is he really not in the top two?

[Lorie]

@D-Mac Ottawa:
Gas bubbles? Grunt-tweets? Be still my heart...and my twitter finger.

[Kelsey]

I cant lie I found my self checking into the WNBA finals. I must say the women can straight Ball.. Wow impressive. To be honest I found it more entertaining then the slow baseball games that were on TV.

Congratulations Seattle..

1st Team. Marc Jackson, Vince Carter, Tmac Bosh Antonio Davis