You people have done it again.
Here I was thinking there wasn’t all that much mail as I futzed around on it and all of sudden there’s 3,500 words or so here and probably this many questions still to get to.
No way I expect you to sit and look at it all in one fell swoop so have this now and I’ll get the rest out tonight.
(Besides, I don’t have them all answered and I could this afternoon to finish).
Have fun.
Happy shopping.
If you see in me a mall, direct me to a stool; I’ll need it.
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Q: Hey Doug. I know we are all giddy with excitement with the changes that AA has wrought with the TOD. I'm excited as well and looking forward to the next few years. However I'm wondering how different this is from the Heat and the big 3 from a couple of years ago and how we all felt about that? Yes, there was a trade involved along with some free agent signings but regardless of how it happened, the TOD is now seen as a stacked team. Are the Jays now the Heat of baseball and how do we feel now that the shoe is on our foot?
Another question if you don't mind. Landry Fields appears to be on the way back. Big if, but what if his nerve problem was what led to his poor second year in the league, could we now expect him to be more like the player he was when he first came into the league? If so, with the emergence of Anderson, how is he going to get into the rotation?
All the best to you and Super Family for the holidays?
Dave M, Puslinch
A: I don’t see any correlation between the Jays and Heat; all the Toronto moves were trades orchestrated by a general manager who had obtained enough desireable assets to make them possible and there was no collusion among players to all descend on one franchise.
I have no clue what Fields will be like if and when he cracks the current rotation. And I don’t even know when that will be, Dwane said Friday morning that he’s not about to disrupt what’s going so well. But I do know that, if he plays, Fields will play more freely without having to worry about the oddity that the hand “twitch” was before the surgery and we all know how much confidence can do to boost a player’s production.
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Q: Hey Doug. My 8-year-old is really into basketball (I know, go figure!). He wasn't around when the Grizzlies were here but he knows of them. I told him I was sure I had some TV games of them playing the Raptors and he was excited to see them. So I went down and rooted through the old VHFs and found one. It was from the 1999-2000 season, a game in Toronto the mighty Grizzlies won. In my memory, the Grizzlies were horrible always, and yes, their record that year was 22-60, while the Raptors were 45-37.
But check out their rosters. Both teams seem better (on paper, anyway) than many teams today. The Grizzlies had Shareef, Bibby, Antoine Carr, Michael Dickerson, Grant Long, Dennis Scott, Milt Palacio, Country, Doug West, Brent Price, and Felipe Lopez among others. And the Raptors were positively stacked with Vince, Oakley, Antonio Davis, Alvin Williams, Muggsy Bogues, Dee Brown, Doug Christie, Dell Curry, Tracy McGrady, Kevin Willis, Yogi Stewart and Haywoode Workman, among others.
Do you think either of those teams' records would be much improved if they were playing in today's league? It just seems like there are more crap teams now, roster-wise. Or am I glorifying the past?
G M, Vancouver
A: Even knowing that my default position is to glorify the past, I agree with you. And there are more crap teams now, I think, because the disparity in the talent deployment. It’s my opinion, solely, that there are more far better teams now which means there are more far worse teams, if you know what I mean.
I’m not sure what went on with that Grizzlies team but it sure strikes me as one with more than 22-win talent.
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Q: Doug, just wondering as a writer how many hours a week do you tend to work? Do you get normal vacation - I can't remember the last time you didn’t write something in a given week.
George B, Kitchener
A: How many hours are there? I keed, actually. Yeah, I work a lot but it’s not “real” work if I’m sitting on the couch watching TV and working on mail or if I’m on a stool chatting with the barkeeps and doing mail or if I’m laying on the couch watching an episode of Criminal Minds for the fourth time while every now and then checking blog comments.
Besides, I have no life and on those rare occasions where I have things to do, I do them.
And, no, I haven’t shut things down for a week in a while; I’m figuring with all the vacation I’m saving I can retire about … HEY, I CAN RETIRE ABOUT NOW!!!!!
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Q: Last night on the Pistons broadcast, their colour man said, "What do TJ Ford, Jarrod Jack, Bayless, and Lowry have in common? They all came here to take this man's (Jose Calderon) job and couldn't.
Why is Jose consistently underrated and undervalued? Jose with Kobe and Howard on the Lakers would be an all-star.
I think Calderon is one of the best veteran point guards in the league with the likes of Kidd and Nash.
Why not lock up Calderon and have him here as the team continues to add young players? He seems like just the kind of unselfish experienced point guard you'd want for a rebuilding team.
Oliver N Toronto
A: I’m going to take this as representative of the dozens of Jose Calderon questions I got this week because it will allow me to hit on all the salient points.
First, the only place Jose Calderon is “consistently underrated and undervalued” is – as I’ve said too many times to count over the years – among the team’s fans.
He has a stellar reputation as a man and a player among teammates, coaches, opponents and opposing team’s coaches and management. I’ve said that so many times, I’m almost done hitting my head against a proverbial wall put up by disgruntled Raptors fans. It’s tiring, actually.
The dude has been on teams that have won two Olympic silver medals and a world championship gold, he can play and everyone involved in the game closely knows this.
As for locking up? I think they will – and I think they unquestionably should – do everything in their power this coming summer to re-sign him. They should not trade him this year, they should look to keep him as a valuable veteran on a team that’s starved for “old heads” and as someone who has never spoken a disparaging word about the franchise or the city and someone who considers Toronto a second home.
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Q: Hi Doug. A winning streak is always fun, but I wonder if this is due to the quality of the opponents or the improvements of HOTH. Will we see an apparent reversion to old habits when facing better teams?
Colin K, Ann Arbor
A: I can’t really say except anecdotal evidence would suggest they will play hard and well. And I would also suggest that Dallas and Houston are not chopped liver and could be seen as “quality” opponents.
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Q: Hi Doug. James Johnson was traded to Sacramento for a second round draft pick for 2013. Yet, when I look at the draft sites, Sac still is listed for the pick. Could you please clarify?
Thanks,
Frank B, Toronto
A: It’s because there is a “protection” on the draft pick depending on where it falls. I believe it’s protected into the 50s so until we see the final standings and where it lands, it will remain, technically, Sacramento’s.
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Q: So the world didn't end (or at least hasn't yet, as of this writing), but imagine you're composing your final grunt meal. The dishes or chefs will be flown in at no expense to you. What will you cobble together, some gumbo from the Big Easy, Texas barbecue, or some pasta from that place down a back alley in Italy? Feel free to add as many refreshments as you like.
Jonathan M, Toronto
A: The thing with me is that it’s often about the company as much as the food but since you asked …
I’m pretty sure I’d have a nice well-marbled ribeye from The Palm in Philly, I really like the Gator bites as this little dump called the Cajun Cabin in New Orleans, that might be a nice appetizer. The fish dish would absolutely come from that place just off the Vatican Wall in Rome and I will never remember the name of the joint but there’s a tapas place just up the road from the Westin Prince in Madrid that had the best thinly sliced ham and sausage I’ve ever had.
Oh, and the ribs at Blues City Café in Memphis, I like them a bit more than Rendezvous, to tell you the truth.
But as long as it’s a big table with good friends, some spirits and fun stories, the food is almost secondary.
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Q: Hi Doug. What do players think of the Christmas day games? It seems to be the same teams every year with a few additions/subtractions depending on "rivals.”
Does the league approach teams to see who is interested in playing on Christmas or is it just another game on the schedule and teams have no say?
I don't believe the Raptors have ever played on Christmas day.
Thanks Doug!
Martin H, Kingston
A: I’ll probably get into this a bit more Monday but I think there are too many games on Christmas; five seems to me to be ridiculous. I can understand one as a way to give people who don’t celebrate the holiday – and even those who do – a distraction but they’ve overdone it, as all leagues and teams do.
There are no “invites” per se, teams get the schedule from the league and have very little say; they could ask to host but it might not be a wish granted. I do like the tradition of the previous year’s finalists meeting, though, and think that should probably be the only game.
As for the Raptors, they have played once, on Dec. 25, 2001, in New York. They got drilled and it was one of the worst games ever, no life, no enthusiasm, just a flat afternoon all around.
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Q: Doug. I infer that questions of firing and trades increase as the team does poorly. Personally, when the Raptor's struggle I tend to read less about them. I was wondering whether the blog and your articles' readership/hits tend to fluctuate in a similar manner (and if so - hope hits are off the charts riding a 4, hoping for 5 game winning streak). To add a question to this - do they fluctuate with the teams fortunes?
Geoff H, Toronto
A: It actually doesn’t, it tends to hold pretty much to average however the team is doing. In fact, we saw a little spike this year when things were at their worst, likely because the doomsayers wanted to have a place to vent at a guy who had the temerity to suggest calm at one point early in the season.
Now, as I recall, we get a bit more traffic if things are going very, very well, but we haven’t been there in a while.
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