Omnishambles Interrupted

I stopped blogging about the Raptors because the endless negativity was getting too depressing. But since then, something amazing happened—the Raptors stopped stinking. And by an amazing coincidence, that change occurred just as Andrea Bargnani stopped playing.

The Raptors have now won three in a row and are six games out of the eighth playoff spot. But, more importantly, they've been fun to watch. Without the lazy, selfish chucker that is Bargnani pooping all over the place, the rest of the team competes, shares the ball, and plays team defense. No idea if they can keep it up or what the ceiling on this bunch is (they're definitely not cursed with too much talent), but at least they are watchable and competitive.

Amir battling hard, as usual. Kind of like Andrea Bargnani, but the exact opposite.

Even Jose Calderon, a terrible defensive hole, has been okay—his offense has been excellent, and without Bargnani around destroying the team's interior defense, they rest of the team has been able to cover for him fairly well. Plus Alan Anderson has been stepping up, Landry Fields is coming back (potentially with his game fixed) ... all in all, I am cautiously optimistic.

To sum up:

• End the omnishambles - check
• Trade Bargnani - half-check. At least he's out of action
• Fire Colangelo -  looks like he's being to make it until the end of the season. But dear lord I hope his contract doesn't get renewed. He's still a terrible GM, even if the Raptors are no longer sucking hole of horrid at the moment.

Minus 7.5

With the loss to Portland last night, Toronto is now 4-18 and the proud owners of the worst point differential in the league — an average of 7.5 points per game less than their opponents. That's worse than even the 2-15 Washington Wizards. 

This is just way too much negativity for me. I cannot spend the next seven months (or more) railing on this terrible team. I'm signing off. 

End the omnishambles! Ditch Bargnani! Fire Colangelo!

Sigh.

Welcome to the Omnishambles Resistance

Well, here's a website just might make Omnishambles moot: FireBC.com.  So eloquent and to the point. He's also on Twitter @BadShahThoughts.

But I suppose every bit of fan outrage helps push MLSE toward taking some action. And, if we get really lucky (and defy all precedents of Raptor history), maybe positive action.

Anyhow, here's my favorite pic on this page of Colangelo sayings:

Unacceptable, Splitting Apart Omnishambles: Raptors 99 - Jazz 131

For a brief moment in the first quarter, it was looking like dueling omnishambles, as both the Jazz and the Raptors played some truly terrible basketball. It was like both sides were trying to lose. But then the Jazz got their act together and the Raptors stepped up their omnishambles to new heights, leading to a pretty thorough blowout.

We got stomped.

The tone was set from the first possession, when Bargnani and Pietrus stood around the 3-point arc awkwardly before Piétrus gave away the ball. The rest of the game was that kind of shambling ugliness. Bargnani drifting about pointlessly on "defense". No ball movement. Toronto lost on the boards and rotated terribly on defense, leading to open shots for Utah.

Someone out there in Internet land quoted Tracy McGrady's famous quote from Toronto's disastrous third season, when everything fell apart and the team finished 16-66: "The ship be sinking."

That's what I fear we are on the verge of here. Less than a quarter of the way into the season, there have been too many tough losses, late-game choke jobs, and ugly omnishambles. Sometimes a team reaches a point where it just breaks. I fear the Raptors are reaching that point. Lowry is too much of a competitor to handle this losing. Other players just don't care. Too many pieces don't fit together. This team is a mess, and unless something changes things are going to get a lot uglier before they get better.

Eric Koreen Joins Omnishamble Movement

Great to see the National Post's Eric Koreen join the calls to get rid of Andrea Bargnani, surely one of the cornerstones of the Omnishamble movement (along with ditching GM Colangelo ... and getting some actual, you know, talent). Here is his latest column:

Bargnani truly does not fit the culture that Casey is trying to establish. He has been the subject of locker-room discontent this season, and that comes when one player’s ethos does not mesh with the team’s. He is a highly skilled player who has not succeeded as a focal point in Toronto. In his seventh season, it is increasingly safe to say he never will. The pro-Bargnani and anti-Bargnani camps have been making the same arguments for years, and all that is left are the results. 

So wonderful to hear people not making excuses anymore, or politely tiptoeing around the ugly truth. And Koreen is totally right — the fans have turned on Bargnani and, rightly or wrongly made him the focus of their anger (well, rightly). Very soon the boo birds are going to come out, and they are going to sing their ugly song as loud as the Air Canada Centre has heard since the bad, last days of the Vince Carter era.

But does Koreen does more than just call for dumping Bargnani:

It just feels as if trading Bargnani is the only course of action at this point. For one thing, if the Raptors come back to Toronto following this five-game road trip in an approximation of their current shambolic state, Bargnani could very well become a target of the fans’ vocal derision.

Nice! My emphasis, of course, but how great it is to see "shamble" used in all its neological glory. Has he heard the fans' cries?

Anyhow, we need to get rid of Bargnani asap. And Colangelo. And all the omnishambles.

'Worst-Case Scenario': Now Tim Chisholm Turns on Colangelo

It's always a good morning here in Omnishambles Nation when we wake up and find another journalist who has decided not to put up with any more of Bryan Colangelo's crap. This morning, TSN's Tim Chisholm has seen the light, posting a reasonable and measured article that condemns our GMs for his failures.

While not calling for Colangelo to be fired now — he says it would paralyze the organization when moves need to be made before the trade deadline — Chisholm clearly thinks that Colangelo will be on the umemployment line if he can't turn things around this year. One choice nugget:

Here's the situation facing Colangelo: he knows that if this season continues down the path it's on, his contract will be allowed to expire this offseason and he'll hit the unemployment line significantly tarnished. He sold the higher-ups at MLSE on his rebuilding plan that involved punting two seasons (after missing the playoffs in the two seasons before that), so that he could assemble a new roster the 'right way'. This year was supposed to show the early promise of that plan, and so far, the team has performed worse than they did at the start of either of their two rebuilding seasons.

Or, to put it more succinctly:

What's gone wrong? Basically everything.

So. There we are. A terrible season coming after two deliberately terrible seasons and before that two accidentally terrible seasons. By the time BC will be able to make a trade, this season will be pretty much gone.

Chisholm thinks a "fire Colangelo" meme is a non-starter. But I say where would we be if we didn't try? You've got to try. (Unless you are Bargnani on defense). So, in the spirit of our team's most prolific chucker, I keep throwing up hopeless shots:

End the Omnishambles! Fire Colangelo!

The Slow and the Scurrilous: Bargnani Drift

An great outing by Kyle Lowry — along with impressive performances by Ed Davis and Mickael Pietrus — was wasted last night in Sacramento, as Toronto lost to the Kings 107-100. But what stinks for them is great for the Omnishambles, as the latest season of suck rolls on.

The 2nd and 3rd quarters had some of the best/worst omnishambles of the game, featuring plenty of one-and-done non-offense, weak interior defense, and general ineptitude. Among the highlights:

• LoCal getting early burn, starting just a couple of minutes into the 2nd quarter. And not just LoCal, but LoCal with Bargnani. 
• Speaking of a clueless one, 3-14 and 3 rebounds was another classic performance. There's nothing like seeing bodies on the floor, diving and scrapping after the ball, and there's Andrea, bending over at the waist, poking vaguely at the ball. Throughout the game, plenty of Bargnani drifting about on defense, vaguely around but rarely engaged. 
• DeRozan driving (slowly) into traffic and complaining about not getting calls. 
• A classic omnishamble ending. Tied with 2 minutes left, Tyreke Evans (shooting 0.308 from the 3 this season) sinks two long bombs, while DeRozan misses a 2, then a 3, and Bargnani misses a 3, too.   
• Jonas Valanciunas getting beaten up badly. Now, I love Valanciunas: I love the enthusiasm with which he plays and I love the potential he exudes. However, I have not been loving his results of late. Honestly, he looks out of gas much of the time. He gets pushed around and out-hustled to way too many balls. Val is wonderful and should mature into a special player, but he's not there yet. And for now, he is a big part of the Raptors' omnishambles. It might be time to demote him and restrict his minutes for a while, let him build up his game and his confidence. 

On the other hand, a few tantalizing positives: 

• Amir Johnson and Ed Davis played some solid defense. Johnson did not have a good game on offense, but he was active
• Davis was wonderful, throughout his limited playing time. 
• Lowry was amazing, with 34 points (on 20 shots), 11 assists, and 5 rebounds. Just a scrappy, great performance.
• I think DeRozan plays better defense when he's on the floor with good defenders. I could be imagining things, but I swear when he is with Lowry, Davis, and Amir, he tries a lot harder. Hopefully I can find some evidence proving this in the future.

Ten games out of first now. Yeah! Nice going, Colangelo.

A different sort of "10". 

UPDATE: Wonderful words from Ryan Wolstat at the Toronto Sun. Welcome to the Operation Clambake for Raptor fans. Preach it, brother:

Bargnani is by no means the only problem but he is by far the biggest problem. He is killing the team when he is out there. When he hits shots at a good clip he makes up for most of his failings. When he is mediocre, or worse, he handicaps the Raptors.

9 1/2 Wrecks

I'm trying to think of a pithy and amusing way to depict the miasma that is Bryan Colangelo's Raptors (because they sure aren't my Toronto Raptors). I would like to pick a number, something that I can update as the season goes along to make the Raptors' omnishamblic awfulness plain to see. Some of the options are:

• 9 1/2. The obvious choice, the number of games we are out of first place. 
• 1. The number of games we are out of the other first — as in the top draft position. As in worst.
• 0.222. Our winning percentage. 
• 3.92. The cost of each Raptor win, in millions of dollars.*

Feel free to make other suggestions. 

# # #

* At $3.92 million per win, firing Colangelo and his $5 million/year looks downright cost effective, doesn't it? 

Raptors 110 - Nuggest 113: Mile-High Shambles

Last night's game was almost an anti-omnishamble — miserable for much of the game, but coming together in the last quarter and putting up a fight. Kind of like Voltron. But, like Voltron, the Raptors can only assemble for a limited time before falling apart, and in the end they lost again.

Voltron, like the Raptors, could only assemble for a short time. The vehicle Voltron, not the lion Votron. The lion Voltron could stay a robot as long as its pilots wanted (and was much cooler than the vehicle Volton). There was also a gladiator Voltron, but that cartoon never aired in North America. Oh, never mind...

Anyhow, the Raptors presented a whole bunch of omnishamblistic fun last night, including:

• LuCal - the deadly, two-guard force of Calderon and John Lucas. For those times when LoCal, Lowry-Calderon, is just too effective and you want to dial things back.
• 23 points on 20 shots. Four rebounds. 2-8 from 3pt land. No assists. No steals. 2 FTAs. Any guesses who? DeRozan? Good guess, but no, it was Bargnani.
• The glorious site of the Raptors big men pinned under the basket as the small Nuggets grabbed rebound after rebound. 53-37 rebound edge for the Nuggets on the night.
• 3 points (on 1-5 shooting), 0 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 blocks from Toronto's starting SF, Pietrus. 
• Tough night for Valanciunas - 7 points, 4 rebounds, 4 fouls in just 20 minutes. Although he did get 3 blocks. but Val was looking slow and gassed for much of the night. 
• Corey Brewer looking like an all-star in the first half, running the Raptors into the ground.
• Toronto outscored on the fast break 19-2.

'So, uh, when's tip off? Qu-est-ce que c'est? What's started already?'

Were there any positives? I'm glad you asked:

• Another good night for Ed Davis in limited minutes - 6 points, 9 rebounds, 1 block in 17 minutes, including a good chunk in the 4th when the Raptors made their comeback.
• Decent night for Terrence Ross - 12 points (on 4-8 shooting, 2-2 FTs and 2-5 from 3), 6 rebounds, and in general a lot of hustle.
• 11 points, including a 3-pointer, for Amir Johnson. Lots of energy in the 2nd half, too.

Where does that leave the Raptors? At 4-14, we are tied with Cleveland for 2nd-worst record in the league, so there is a decent chance we could keep our pick this year — although I'm sure the Raptors can shamble their way to a 6th-place finish or so by the end of the year, just to infuriate their fans some more. After all, by point differential, we are "just" the 6th-worst team in the league.

Fyi, Toronto's record for the seven years before Bryan Colangelo: 0.437.
Toronto's record in the seven years of Colangelo: 0.425

End the omnishambles! Fire Colangelo!

Nate Silver Hates Colangelo (Most Likely)

Stats demi-god Nate Silver was on Bill Simmon's Grantland podcast a couple of days ago, talking about all manner of stats in sports and politics. All very interesting stuff, of course (yay Nate).

Maybe 30% of the podcast is about basketball, and of course they don't mention the Raptors at all (we are pretty irrelevant at the moment). But they do talk a bit about salary, stars, and contracts in a way that absolutely crushes GM Bryan Colangelo and his "philosophy" of team-building.

Starting around the 36-minute mark:

Silver: "It's always the mid-tier deals that kill you."

Simmons: "I would never sign a guy for like $8, 9, 10 million. Those are like the death contracts. ... You don't give $10 million a year to a role player. You save that for the big guys."

That right there is a complete and total indictment of the Toronto Raptors — a team full of mid-tier players, signed from $6 million to $10 million (we have no one earning over $10.5 million this year), including three mid-tier guys signed for three more years.

Thanks, Bryan, for tying down those "assets." Thanks a lot.

Raptors 101 - Phoenix 97: Not So Shambly

Sorry this write-up is late, but the personal life kept me away from kvetching at the computer yesterday. Besides, the Raptors got the win and were much less shambly than normal, so the angst levels were lower than usual.

 Despite the win, the game did show a few signs how horrid our GM is. Most notably, Mickael Pietrus going for over 31 minutes in his Raptor debut. Yes, a SF who was unemployed until a couple of days ago, is already the best SF on the Raptors -- a 30-year-old, 10-year veteran who has never had a PER over 15 (and has had a double-digit PER only once in the last five years), who hasn't had a ORat better than his DRat in five years, is the best SF on the Raptors. And it took us a month into the season to sign him.

That said, I think I'm just about the most optimistic person on most of the Raptor boards when it comes to Landry Fields. I really think, once he's rehabbed that elbow, that he'll be a half-decent player again, able to pull in something resembling his rookie-year numbers. Optimistic -- or maybe just chimeric.