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.