It’s funny, I keep saying that at this point, with the season over, all I want to see are exciting games. Well, they’ve had three of those in the past week but thanks to TSNFU, I haven’t been able to see them! Such a ridiculous situation.

Sounds like it was a great game last night, with the raps clawing back in regulation, and again in OT, before falling short. No surprise there, but nice to see then hang with a team that usually kills them, to give the home crowd a show.

Sounds like Calderon finally started going to the whole last night. Where’s that been all year? Looks like PMB had another solid game, marred by a youngster mistake on the final play. That’s tough, but no one else on the team would have made that play so I’ll forgive it.

Bargnani only played a few minutes thanks to the flu bug; that’s a shame, he’d been playing so well lately. Calderon set the franchise assist record, congrats to him - too bad it couldn’t come in a winning season.

Well, now the so-called easy stretch begins. Can they finish up 8-8? 10-6? 12-4?? Hey, a guy cab dream…

Tags: Detroit Pistons, Toronto Raptors, TSN2

Another day, another game the city of Toronto misses because it’s on TSN2. Sigh. Lucky for me, however, I’ll be at this one. I wonder, next year, do you think they can do a “TSN2″ ticket package where you can buy tickets to all the TSN2 games? That’d be nice.

Either way, I’ve been looking forward to seeing Derrick Rose play, so I’m glad I’ll get the chance to see him live and in person.

Chicago’s a funny team. Two years ago, the same season the Raps won 47, the Bulls won 49. Last year, with great expecations, they lost 49, and didn’t even make the playoffs.

This year, the expectations were minimum and they’ve started off slow again - 16-22. Their team is a little different - they traded away Ben Wallace, for one thing - and they’ve handed the reins to Rose. Plus they replaced head coach Scott Skiles with rookie Vinnie Del Negro. They’ve still got a lot of talent left over from that 49-win team, though. Loul Deng, Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Andres Nocioni… they’ve got young guys in Tyrus Thomas and Jaokim Noah, not to mention Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden… you might say they’re a lot like the Raptors in that their roster should have produced a better record thus far. Plus, like the Raptors, they also lost to the Thunder! Couple of regular overachievers here, eh? Sigh.

Deng and Hinrich have both missed time due to injury, but both played in the Bulls’ last game (off the bench) so we should see them tonight. The Bulls come in off a five-game home stand in which they went 2-3; in fact they’ve lost 7 of 10. Before getting schedule-fucked (seriously, back-to-back games against the Champs?) the Raps had won 4 of 5, so as I said yesterday, the big test is going to be seeing how they bounce back from the Boston beatings. Will they get right back on track, or have those two games completely thrown them off the rails?

Rose has been impressive, averaging 16 points, 6 assists and 3 boards, starting in all 38 games. He’s also shooting 46% from the floor, not bad for a rook. Yeah, he’s got almost three turnovers a game but that’s to be expected from a rookie PG.

If our two back-up PGs can give the same solid play they gave against Boston on Monday (combined: 11-18, 4-5 3FG, 5 boards, 8 assists, only 2 turnovers and 26 points) then we should be able to hold our own in the PG battle, especially if Hinrich is still rusty (they also have Lindsey Hunter, who isn’t scaring anyone). If Jose plays, well, he’d better be at 100 per cent because we can’t afford to let Rose get into the paint at will.

At the off-guard, the Bulls trot out super-scorer Ben Gordon who can light it up in a hurry. But, I believe he can also be taken out of a game with some aggressive D, which is what Anthony Parker will have to bring. I hope he’s up to it because if Gordon goes off, the Raps don’t have a chance in this one.

The Bulls have started Deng, Hughes and Thabo Sefolosha at times at SF this year; plus, they’ve also got Andres Nocioni who can play there. Deng, obviously, is the biggest threat (when healthy) but Hughes can still score too. Moon just has to stick to his defensive principles - keep in front, stay down - and he can be effective. Of course, we all know how likely it is that’ll happen, so expect one of them to go off tonight.

Up front, the Raps should - SHOULD - have a big advantage. But, Drew Gooden always manages to have good games against us, so I expect he can effectively neutralize Bosh (unless Gooden is injured - apparently he rolled an ankle in the Bulls’ last game). That means Bargnani’s gonna need another big game, something he shouldn’t have any problem doing with Thomas or Noah guarding him. They’re athletic young guys, but haven’t yet proven they have the basketball smarts to hang with a versatile big like Bargnani. Although I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of Nocioni guarding the big Italian - he’s a decent defender with good footspeed who should be able to stay with AB.

Of course, there is the question of Jermaine O’Neal, who is rumoured to be ready to play in this one. I’d be happy just to see him in person, you know, to see if he still exists (anyone notice Kendrick Perkins on the bench for Boston the other night, even though he’s hurt? Funny how that works. Sigh). No word at this point if he plays (or if Jose plays, though that seems more unlikely) and certainly no word on if he starts or comes off the bench… but I can’t imagine him not starting. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

One other thing to note, Chuck Swirsky, former voice of the Raptors and current Bulls radio play-by-play man, will be back in the house for the first time since leaving last summer.

I always liked Chuck. Yes, he was too over the top and an unbelievably biased homer. And he should have retired the “salami and cheese” bit long ago. But he was a good play-by-play guy, and he had an undeniable passion for the team, the sport of basketball, and most notably the city and Canada in general. I know he’s a team employee, but that only makes it his job to be a homer. He went above and beyond the call of duty in his effort to integrate basketball as a sport, and himself as a person, into Toronto and Canada. He didn’t have to do that, but he did, and I’ll always respect him for that.

And he was memorable, you can’t deny that. He was a personality, a true character. Watch one Raptors game with him doing the play-by-play and you couldn’t forget him. I wished he would have stayed because I love the idea of having a “voice” for the team, you know? Guys like that, the Chick Hearn, the Jack Buck, heck, even the Tom Cheek… they are a dying breed and I hoped Chuck would have a legacy like that. And if you’re gonna have a “voice of the team” it should definitely be someone unique and memorable. He did every game for what, nine years? There’s no doubt some Raptors fans who had never heard a game called by anyone else until Devlin stepped in.

Don’t get me wrong, Devlin’s done a fine job, but, well, let’s just say he’s no Swirsky, eh? I’ll always miss Chuck.

As for the game, well, I really want to believe the Raps can take this one. But their bad habit of blowing games after tough losses doesn’t give me much confidence. I’m afraid their mental makeup is still shaky and they’ll come out flat and uninspired… and that means the Bulls will take it, by 9.

Tags: Chicago Bulls, Chuck Swirsky, Toronto Raptors, TSN2

Back from the west coast, but still playing western teams, Toronto hosts the Denver tonight, a chance for the Raptors to avenge that embarrassing loss the Nuggets handed them almost a month ago. You may remember that one… it cost Sam Mitchell his job.

With most teams, especially pro basketball teams where pride and respect is valued very highly, you can count on them to come out fired up and intense and well-prepared to avenge such a loss. Unfortunately, the Raptors are the most mentally weak team I’ve ever seen - they’ve responded incredibly poorly in every “pride” game they’ve played this year. (Examples - after The Worst Loss in Raptors History to Vince and the Nets, they didn’t bother to show up against Boston in the next game and got booed off the home court. After getting Mitchell fired in Denver, they didn’t bother to show up in Utah (even with Carlos Boozer sidelined). After losing to a stunning Steve Blake 3, the got blown out in Cleveland. And on and on…)

Aside from that aspect of it, Denver clearly proved that they are a tough matchup for the Raptors. Like the Warriors, the like to push and shoot - but they’ve got more muscle and an experienced point guard to guide them when in the halfcourt. They’re aggressive and intimidating, things the Raptors don’t respond well too - especially if Jermaine O’Neal doesn’t play (he’s still suffering from the flu and an apparent knee bruise he suffered the other night).

I just don’t see how the Raptors can compete with the Nuggets, short of several Nuggets having bad games. It’ll be another Raptors loss, though hopefully, not a blowout… let’s say Denver by 10.

Meanwhile, it seems the protest went down at Rogers yesterday, about 10 Raps fans strong. Disappointing turnout, but not surprising considering that it was very cold, and it was a workday for most. Still, they got some coverage in the Globe and Mail and that can only be a good thing.

I still don’t fully understand why they’re protesting Rogers and not MLSE, but hopefully they’ll get around to the real villains.

I really don’t see what Rogers has done wrong here. I think it’s because people just don’t like Rogers as a company; after all, they’ve had a bad rep for years thanks to gouging people for cable fees, forcing people to take “packages” of 27 channels just to get the one they want, exorbitant cell phone plans and fees, long-term contracts, Internet bandwidth throttling, and so on… not to mention terrible customer service and incredibly annoying and pervasive ads… so it’s easy to hate them. I get that.

But how are they to blame for this mess? What obligation are they under to carry EVERY channel, especially ANOTHER all-around sports channel when they already carry three (plus about a dozen other specialized sports channels)? It wasn’t their decision to air the games on this station!

That decision belongs to TSN and they’re to blame for that. If they are The Sports Network and they want to bring sports, especially sports with a Canadian angle, to Canadians, then they should be showing Canada’s one and only NBA team on its main network.

But still, they paid their money, probably a lot, for the rights to air them on whatever channel they wanted - that’s their right for the money they paid. That’s the way such a transaction is supposed to work.

The folks really to blame are the ones that enabled it in the first place, the greedy bloodsuckers at MLSE. It’s pretty clear now that what happened is TSN said “we’llback up the money truck and you let us put the games on the channels we want,” and MLSE, seeing only the dollar signs, decided it didn’t matter that Raptors fans wouldn’t be able to watch. I mean, fans don’t matter, only the bottom line, right? So what if TSN only paid that cash to try and force Rogers to pick up their ridiculously excessive and unnecessary channel? What do we care where the games air, we got paid!

At the very least MLSE should have included some clause in the contract that said “If Rogers doesn’t have TSN2 by X date then the games get moved to TSN, or we can air the games on RapsTV,” or something to that effect. Since they did nothing like that, and are allowing this to happen, means they just didn’t care enough about the fans, and only cared about the money.

So at this point, honestly, I don’t want Rogers to pick up TSN2. Yes, I want to see the games - and of course I’ll be happy if they do end up picking it up (and even happier if they issue a press release that says “we’re sorry it took so long, but it’s clear The Raptors don’t care about their fans, so someone had to take the bullet”) - but I really feel like Rogers is being unfairly blamed here for something they had no part in. They are the ones being bullied here, and that’s not right, is it? OK, maybe turnaround is fair play - after all, they’ve been bullying customers with their cable monopoly for over 20 years - but two wrongs don’t make a right. They shouldn’t have to be forced into paying for something they don’t want.

And quite frankly, I don’t want another sports channel! I’ve got enough sports channels and besides, you know TSN isn’t asking for chump change from Rogers here (otherwise the deal would already be done) - so how do you think Rogers is gonna pay for it? By raising cable fees! No thanks, I pay them enough.

Finally, I particularly don’t want to have Raptors games on yet another channel. I mean, 82 games spread across five channels… are you kidding me? Ideally every single game should be on one channel, shouldn’t it? I know that won’t happen, but I don’t think two is unreasonable - majority on The Score (being the only network that cares about ball) with the Sunday afternoon games on CBC (maybe try and start a tradition there, and CBC is in the most homes and lots of people sitting around on Sunday afternoons might stop in to check it out).

But five is too much. Enough is enough. The madness must end. I think we can all agree this season is lost regardless, so you know what, TSN2, you can have your games and I hope at the next meeting Rogers extends a big middle Raptor claw at you and says “you paid for nothing, ‘cause you ain’t gettin’ on Rogers.”

And maybe by the time next season’s negotiations roll around, MLSE will have smartened up enough to not let something like this happen again and will get the games on a smaller number of channels.

In the meantime, enjoy your dwindling viewership and ad revenue, you greedy motherfuckers. You deserve it.

Tags: Denver Nuggets, MLSE, Rogers, Toronto Raptors, TSN2

You know, it’s hard to get too upset about a loss to a good team like the Trail Blazers. They’re stacked, and in fact, I feel like they’re better than their record - even though it’s pretty good at 19-12 after beating the Raptors.

Unfortunately, it is frustrating, because once again, the Raps had a big lead - 11 points before a miracle three a the halftime buzzer by Travis Outlaw cut it to eight. It’s also frustrating to think that, heading into the season, our expectations were set high enough to make us think we were in the same class as the Blazers.

But, in the past two months reality has set in and we’ve come to expect that the Raptors don’t have much of a chance against good teams, because, well, they’re not a good team themselves. And although you can clearly say there’ve been improvements - three weeks ago the Raptors were getting blown out of games completely, now at least they’re in them in the first half - it’s not enough to get them back into the race.

So we’re stuck with another middling team in another mediocre season. In other words, it’s hard to get excited or upset about anything at all - they only beat teams worse than them and never beat teams better than them, so where’s the drama?

Of course, we all know the most frustrating thing about the loss was seeing Brandon Roy dominate the fourth quarter like that. 18 points, and most of them very difficult jump shots, the kind of “give me the ball and let me create something from nothing” mindset that none of the Raptors have. And he could have been a Raptor. Sigh. That one play, where he drove left, stumbled, lost the ball, got on his feet, recovered it, and hit a fade-away? No one on the Raptors even has the balls to take that shot. Sigh. That one mistake is haunting us every time we play the Blazers.

(A bit of a tradition for me is watching Lord of the Rings; you know how Boromir and the men of Gondor call the one ring “Isildur’s Bane?” I think I’m going to start calling Bargnani “Colangelo’s Bane.”)

Actually Andrea had his best game in recent memory last night. Slump buster? I’m not holding my breath, but at least he hit some jump shots.

Oh well. The Raps roll into San Fran tonight to take on the Warriors and they’ve got a chance to finish up 3-3 on the trip. That’d be nice since I expected a 1-5 trip. Of course, I expected that “1″ to be against the “Thunder” and losing to them still hurts. A lot. They could have already guaranteed a 3-3 trip by beating the worst team in the league. Alas.

However, I don’t really think 3-3 is going to happen. I’m sure you’ve all noticed, Golden State is virtually impossible to defend - they just run up and shoot. Given the Raptors are one of the worst transition defensive teams I’ve every actually seen play professional basketball, that can be trouble. I mean on most nights you can be assured the Warriors won’t hit a high enough percentage to win, but they’ll get enough layups and open looks tonight to outscore the Raptors.

And even if they don’t shoot that well, the Raptors’ offense isn’t good enough to keep up. I know Golden State is a terrible defensive team but if you’ve seen the Raptors struggle to even get open shots, let alone hit them, then you have to fear that that will continue tonight.

Of course, it is completely possible the Warriors will stink. You never know with this Golden State team. But I don’t believe the Raps have it in them to really step up, and play aggressively enough to take the Warriors out of what they want to do. I just think Golden State will simply run them off the floor and will take it by 19.

Now, one last thing, it’s been brought to my attention in the comments that there will be a protest at Rogers headquarters regarding the TSN2 issue tomorrow, December 30. Now, it’s planned to last all day, which seems a little extreme in this weather, but if you can make it down there and support the guys who’ve put it together, that would be great. Anything to bring some sort of attention to this ridiculous impasse.

I do hope that there is a future protest planned for those morons at MLSE since this is more their fault than anyone else’s (what team signs a television contract where the games are shown on a station that’s not available on cable in their home market?).

Anyway, hopefully tomorrow goes well for these guys, they get some support and maybe some attention. It’s probably a good time to do it, you know this is usually a pretty slow news week so a station like CityTV would likely be able to send a camera crew over. Anything to get some attention and pressure on the parties involved can only help.

Here’s the details:
Tuesday December 30th, 2008
Rogers Building
333 Bloor St. East, Toronto
8 am to 5 pm

There’s a dedicated Facebook group and if you need any more info, you can email Drew at spuddaz@yahoo.com. Good luck to everyone heading down there.

Tags: Golden State Warriors, MLSE, Portland Trailblazers, Rogers Cable TV, Toronto Raptors, TSN2

Tonight, the Raptors welcome the Dallas Mavericks to town. You may note the Mavs have won 7 of their last 10; meanwhile the Raps have lost 7 of their last 10, and they boast a stellar 1-5 record against Western Conference teams.

Oh, wait, one more stat: Mavs are second in the league in rebounding. Raptors are second last.

Let’s just say: I’d take the road team tonight if I were you.

I’m curious to see this Mavericks team. Nowitzki has apparently been playing great of late, they’ve got a promising youngster in Jose Barea, Jason Terry’s playing solid, and I really want to see if Kidd looks more comfortable than he did last season.

Oh, wait, I don’t get to watch this game? It’s not on TV? Right, I forgot, the Toronto Raptors don’t show all their games IN TORONTO. Have I mentioned what kind of morons they have working at MLSE? That’s right, fucking morons. That’s the kind.

Anyway, I’m not going to waste too much time on this one. If one thing is clear this season, it’s that the Raptors can’t beat teams that are “better” than them, and I don’t think anyone is disputing the Mavs are better. In fact, the Raps don’t even usually show up against teams that are better than them. So it’ll be a Raptors loss, probably by about 23 points or so.

On much more interesting topics, how about those trade rumours? Good times, huh? As if Shawn Marion is the answer this team needs… give me a break. Oh, how about the Antoine Walker rumour? The guy lost his game about three years ago, for God’s sake! And he wasn’t that great to begin with! How, in what conceivable way, would Antoine Walker help this team!?

Marion, you could at least make an argument for. He rebounds, which we need, he defends, and he runs the floor, which we’re trying to do. I just don’t know if he fits in, or if he’ll ever get back to the level he was in Phoenix - Nash makes a lot of guys look better than they are. Still, what do the Raps have that the Heat want? I don’t think I’m ready to give up on Jermaine O’Neal, and outside of him, the Raps would have to give up half their roster (which I’m not opposed to, by the way, but our roster is pretty thin as it is) to match salaries with Marion. I don’t see that one happening.

I anticipated a trade would happen this week, and I’m a little disappointed it hasn’t. I guess it still could, but I assumed it would happen on the 15th or 16th. As I said before, I didn’t think anything major was going down, but I thought SOMETHING was gonna happen. Oh well. As long as it isn’t signing Antoine Walker…!

Tags: Dallas Mavericks, MLSE, Toronto Raptors, TSN2

25 games. TWENTY-FIVE.

UN-BE-LEIVE-ABLE.

I am so angry about this I don’t even have the words. A full 30 percent of TORONTO Raptors games cannot be seen in cable TV in Toronto.

http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/521892

I cannot fathom what sort of IDIOT at MLSE allowed this to happen. I cannot believe that TSN thinks it’s acceptable to relegate the only professional basketball team in Canada to a secondary network. I can’t believe Rogers isn’t making an effort to make as many channels as possible available to its subscribers.

I think what pisses me off even more is how the Raptors completely glossed over this fact in their announcement of the schedule.

Two quotes from the press release:

“82 regular-season contests being broadcast in High Definition (HD) and televised nationally for a third consecutive season.”

- A very misleading statement, bordering on fallacy, since A) TSN2 is not available “nationally;” according to my research, it is currently available on 19 of the 45 cable providers in Canada. That’s less than half, by my math.

- In addition, only six - SIX! - of those carry TSN2 in HD. Also some cable providers do not carry Raptors NBA TV in HD either. So, while you can tell us every game is broadcast in HD, who the hell cares if HD service is not available to the viewer?

“This also marks the seventh straight campaign that the entire regular season schedule will be aired locally.”

- An outright lie! “Locally?” I’m assuming by locally, they mean Toronto. Yet Toronto isn’t getting the entire regular season! We’re missing 30 per cent! How can they make such a statement? (And I can even play the semantics here and argue use of the word “aired,” since most of the games are only available via cable or digital cable - if you get the channels! - you can’t say it’s being “aired” locally. The only over the air broadcasts are on CBC.)

Tom Anselmi, MLSE’s executive VP and COO, is quoted in the release as saying, “”We’re excited to have the CBC, Raptors NBA TV, The Score and TSN as part of the broadcast line-up” - note how he doesn’t mention TSN2 - and “The promotional power of these four networks supports growing basketball across Canada.”

Again, he doesn’t seem clued in that the games are actually on FIVE networks, one of which is NOT available “across Canada” and more importantly, in the team’s own home market.

To top it all off, there’s no mention of TSN2 fall to the 11th paragraph of the press release! Even then, no breakdown is given - you have to read the attached schedule to see that there are 25 games blacked out in Toronto. Maybe they thought no one would notice? Apparently they think Raptors fans are too ignorant, stupid, or mindless to actually read that far.

You insulted us all by not acknowledging this situation, expecting us not to notice, and trying to tell us that all games are available to everyone.

Nice spin job, guys. Really. But all you did with that press release was confirm, once again, that you don’t care about your fanbase.

I try not to curse on this blog, and that’s a good thing because the profanities that are streaming through my head right now, directed at MLSE, Rogers and TSN, would probably get this site blocked by Google’s safe search.

I thought it was bad when they forced people to cough up the $$ for Raptors TV for, what was it, 24 games two years ago? Now it’s 25 and even if I wanted to pay for them, I don’t even have the choice. Screw you all, MLSE, Rogers and TSN.

SCREW. YOU.

Tags: MLSE, Rogers Cable TV, Toronto Raptors TV Schedule, TSN, TSN2

So it seems the early word is that a number of Raps games (possibly as many as 23, though no confirmations yet) will be on the new “TSN2″ sports channel.

This channel can is currently only available on about half the cable providers in Canada, and only if you have a digital box.

I’m not going to go into a rant here - because I already ranted about this with the Raps games on Raptors TV two years ago. The same points stand - when you are building a market, you need to make your product available to as many people as possible and anything less is unacceptable. Actually this may be worse since I think most, if not all, cable networks could potentially get Raptors TV - although again you needed a digital box - and while it didn’t help in building the brand, it didn’t hurt the existing fans, most of whom would shell out for Raptors TV.

In this case, it doesn’t matter whether or not you are willing to shell out the extra dough for TSN2, if your cable provider doesn’t carry it, you’re outta luck.

And the worst thing of all - is that the station isn’t available on Rogers, the ONLY cable provider (unless you want satellite) in Toronto. Meaning the TORONTO Raptors have made the brilliant decision to suddenly remove games from the TV schedule in their own home town.

No, I’m not kidding. You’d think it was a joke, it’s such a boneheaded thing to do… but it’s not.

Just who the heck is making these decisions over there? Yikes.

Word is they’re working on getting it on Rogers, but why would Rogers care? The relatively small number of Raptors fans isn’t a blip to them. And even if they do, I doubt they’ll carry the HD version of the channel.

It’s an absolute disgrace that A) Rogers would not carry this channel; B) TSN would relegate the only NBA team in the entire country to some second-tier channel; and C) that MLSE would allow this to actually happen. I’m sorry, you don’t have some sort of power or words in the contract stating that the games can’t be relegated like this? You DEMAND that the games be shown nationally, ignoring whether or not most of the nation actually GETS the channel the games are on? Shame on all of you. You all suck, and I extend not one, but two, middle fingers at you all. And a nasty look. So there.

On TJ Ford
This originally started as a much longer piece but then it went on too long when a writer is getting bored writing something, you know it’s probably not very good. The point was I hope the crowd doesn’t boo TJ Ford when the Pacers come to town (Dec. 11 for those who want to know).

No, I didn’t like the way Ford handled things last year, and yes, I agree that Calderon is the better PG For this team.

But the thing is, Ford lost his job due to injury, when the unwritten sports rule is that you don’t lose your job to injury. He handled it poorly, sulking until he got his job back, although he never quit and always played hard (he just didn’t play the right way).

And then he was traded and it looks like both the Pacers and Raptors are (or at least should be) better for it.

So what is there to boo about? That he sulked for a half-dozen games? Come on. I don’t know about you, but I try not to lose sight of the fact that these guys are human beings too, and like all human beings, their emotions sometimes get the better of them. I don’t honestly think it would have made an ounce of difference either way in the final results of last season. Maybe they’d have won that game in March - was it against Orlando? - where he forced something like 8 shots in 11 possessions… but they still would have lost in round one. The problems with last year’s team ran much deeper than the Calderon/Ford debate.

Anyway, my point is, I think Ford is a good guy and a good player, and he’s worked his way back through a couple of serious injuries, was a major part of the second-most successful Raptors season ever (2006-2007) and he deservers better than boos. Not a standing O or anything, but at least the polite applause you give any respected opponent. So please don’t boo him.

PS Please still boo Vince Carter. And don’t ever stop.

On the election, or, “How to Waste $300 million in 60 days”
So, nothing changes except Stephane Dion is probably going to lose the Liberal leadership. Did we really need this election to tell us that? Heck, all we needed were the debates - where he could barely hold his own - to tell us he’d be a terrible leader. What was the point?

We have got to change the willy-nilly way we call elections here in Canada. Why can’t we stick to a regular schedule? At a time when the economy is struggling we just threw $300 million dollars away.

What a colossal waste.

On BC and Andrea Bargnani
I love how some people are ripping Bryan Colangelo for defending Andrea Bargnani, as if he’s got some blind devotion to him because he was Colangelo’s #1 pick, “Bryan’s guy.”

Because, apparently, it’s acceptable for a GM to rip his players in public.

Seriously. Do you ever, in a million years, think Colangelo is going to say “Yep, made a mistake with that Bargnani pick!” Of course not! He’s not an idiot - it’s clear, in hindsight, to anyone with eyes that Brandon Roy would have been perfect for this team and that LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Gay will likely have better careers than Bargnani. But BC isn’t going to admit that - he’d never throw one of his own players under the bus.

And it’s not because Bargnani is “Bryan’s guy.” It’s just because that’s the way a good GM operates.

It also doesn’t mean “Bryan won’t trade him because he’s Bryan’s guy.” Really, you think BC slagging Bargnani is going to make Bargnani valuable trade bait? All that does is decrease his value!

And hey, you know what, TJ Ford was a “Bryan’s guy” too - remember, he brought Ford in with the idea that this would be a Bosh-Ford-Bargnani triumvirate. Well that didn’t work so he swapped Ford for O’Neal and it’s now clearly a Bosh-Calderon-O’Neal triumvirate. If he was willing to trade Ford, he’ll be willing to trade Bargnani if the right deal comes along.

Colangelo has a brilliant basketball mind, and he knows more about basketball than me and every single Raptors fan out there. He’s smarter than all of us and if the opportunity arises, he’s pretty adept at turning negatives into positives.

On Stephon Marbury
He has a tattoo of his sneaker logo on his head. ‘Nuff said.

On the Wizards
Man, the Wiz caught a break that Antawn Jamison’s knee is OK. Imagine if they lost Gilbert Arenas, Brendon Haywood and Jamison? As it is, I think they’re in trouble - they could be in a big hole by January, when Arenas comes back, and even then, Haywood isn’t expected back for six months.

But let’s not forget that they were missing Arenas most of last year and still leapfrogged the Raps in the standings at the end - because Jamison is always solid and Caron Butler is really freakin’ good. You can never completely count a team out, no matter how many injuries they’ve got.

On the Tampa Bay Rays

Kudos to this good young team for making it to the big show. They’ve got a solid line-up that’s played well all season; they deserve it. But kudos also to the Sox for at least making it interesting! I checked the score Thursday night and it was 7-0. Turned off the TV and started reading.

Little while later I checked Sportacular on my iPhone. 7-4 now. Hmm.

Few minutes later, I check again. 7-6 in the bottom of eight! And since Sportacular is awesome enough to give me up-to-the minute details including count, I can see Coco Crisp is batting, with a runner on second, with a 3-2 count and two outs.

I could not turn the TV on fast enough! What a finish. It’s rare that I actually care about baseball but that finish, as well as game 6, were great. Game seven was a little less exciting - not enough scoring, too many runners stranded - but nevertheless, it was a good series.

I think Tampa’s got enough to win it - in six games.

Tags: Andrea Bargnani, MLSE, TJ Ford, Toronto Raptors, TSN2