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.

I'm Tired. So Tired.

I think I'm done with the Raptors.

I'm still thinking about this, but I love the game of basketball. I loved basketball before the Raptors came into existence. So I don't need them; in fact, they need me far more than I need them.

But I've had enough of this. I cannot keep up with a team that simply cannot compete for as long as I have. It's just...exhausting, and I'm at my wits end.

Every year, I look at the NCAA tournament as manna from heaven. It's basketball played the way it's supposed to be played. I can deal with less talent, less skill and less athleticism; the game is played purely, and that is eminently more enjoyable than what the Raptors have subjected me to.

I've had good friends encourage me to go back to NCAA basketball; my initial reaction was negative, just due to the lack of broadcasting up here. But now that I think about it, I'm going to have to go that route.

I'm hungry to see the game of basketball played properly. I'm happy to cheer for a team that doesn't necessarily win championships, but that accomplishes absolutely everything it possibly can. Can I say that that's the Toronto Raptors? No, honestly, I can't.

I've spent years supporting and investing myself in this team, to the point of watching every possession and charting its outcome statistically. I can do so no longer. I will turn away from the Raptors and start turning towards the NCAA.

North Carolina has been my team since I was 10 years old, since I first started watching basketball. They'll always be my primary team, but I think I'm going to enjoy starting to follow the University of Pittburgh. They're a team with great coaching, hard play, they've made the NCAA tournament often and I have family in the area. And, they're reasonably close.

It takes a special kind of incompetence to lose the kind of fan I've been, but the Raptors have found a way to do that. They couldn't win a game if their lives depended upon it, but they can lose fans as well as anybody out there.

Another Columnist Turning on Colangelo's Omnishambles

UPDATE: Hey, great to see TSN's Gareth Wheeler really lambasting Colangelo for his failures (HT: Mango Kid). At last, someone holding the GM responsible and not accepting lame excuses.

Colangelo, Gheradini, Embry, and Co. have done nothing to make this a winning org. Yet have cushy jobs. Joke. @dinonationblog @wolstatsun
— Gareth Wheeler (@WheelerTSN) November 28, 2012

Colangelo should not be the guy. Record is terrible. Combined 85 games under .500 last 4+ seasons. Unacceptable. @yyzsportsmedia
— Gareth Wheeler (@WheelerTSN) November 28, 2012

Bar set so low I was asked who would do a better job than Colangelo. 85 gms below .500 in 4+ years. Question is who could do worse. #Raptors
— Gareth Wheeler (@WheelerTSN) November 28, 2012

ORIGINAL: The Toronto Star's Brian Cox isn't exactly calling for Bryan Colangelo to be fired in his latest column, but he's coming close. At the very least, he thinks the GM should be getting more heat for producing so much ineptitude over seven seasons.

Baby steps, Mr. Cox, baby steps. First Andy Phillips at the CBC, now Cox. Slowly the media is coming around to the idea that Colangelo needs to be held accountable for his repeated omnishamble monstrosities.

My favorite non-argument against firing Colangelo: "Who else could replace him?" Yeah, kind of like those Wall Street bankers who complained about their huge salaries, saying without earning those ungodly sums, the big financial houses could not hire the best and the brightest. The thing is, the "best and brightest" of Wall Street devastated the world economy and melted down the financial industry. If that's what the best and brightest can do, I'll gladly take my chances with the mediocre and dim.

I mean, the Raptors are already a mess. What's the worst that a no-name replacement is going to do? Sign mediocre players for huge contracts? Give away valuable draft picks? Oh yeah, Colangelo is already doing that.

Fire Colangelo! End the Omnishambles!

Grizzlies 103 - Raptors 82: 3rd Quarter Omnishambles

No Bargnani today? Dare I dream? Davis playing in his stead? Kleiza starting at SF?

It was an intriguing way to begin last night's game against the Grizzlies. And for the first half, Toronto held tight. But during halftime, the Grizzlies apparently woke up, and in the 3rd quarter, the beatdown was thorough and unrelenting.

But it was glorious to see what Toronto might be like in a Bargnani-less world. After the Grizzlies went on an early 8-0 run, the Raptors responded with a 9-0 run of their own, and for the whole first half it was a pretty close game. Sure, Ross missed a bunch of bad 3-pointers, but each time he missed, he responded with some great defense going the other way and got a block or a steal.

In the middle of the 2nd quarter, there was some Kleiza-Gray two-man-team stuff going on. Let's hope we never see that again. But overall, Kleiza pulled his weight. And, of course, Amir Johnson fouled his man 21-feet away from the basket for no discernible reason™.  We were even blessed with almost no LoCal, save for the last 22 seconds of the 2nd quarter.

In the 3rd quarter, though, the Grizzlies woke up, and their big men decided to run a camp on how to pound the paint, and the omnishambles began. Memphis' bigs were just too big and too good, and Toronto had no answers. The Grizz were in the bonus less than three minutes into the quarter. Amir went down with a sprained ankle. And, even worse than LoCal, we were exposed to several minutes of LuCal (John Lucas and Calderon on the court together ... yikes!).

In the end, Toronto lost badly -- but it was not one of those humiliating, infuriating losses. There were a few signs of hope, especially what a Bargnani-less team might look like. Clearly, our frontcourt is still a couple of years and a couple of stone away from resembling Gasol-Randolph (understatement), but they did okay in the first half. Even when Ross cannot shoot, he looks good on the court and can play defense. Not a lot of angst on this one -- just an old-fashioned beatdown by a great team.

Of course, if it is true that Kyle Lowry's ankle is still bad and he should not be playing, then expect a lot more omnishambles:

@wolstatsun Ross had two nice dunks and forced some bad shots in the third. D was very rookie. Lowry is hurt, shouldn't be playing.
— Michael Grange (@michaelgrange) November 28, 2012