Built Ford Tough

Barnes with a nice crossover bringing the ball up in transition. Guy was pressing him from three quarter court got to half and set him up nicely for the crossover which led to a floater in the lane that rimmed out. He also had a nice layup where he went up, hung in the air and abosrbed contact. He has 12 of the Tar Heels 16 points as he just drained another 3 with a hand in his face. The Heels need somebody else to step up, though. Barnes is the only guy doing anything on offense and they are down 25-16 (18 now). Seems almost identical to yesterdays game. Terrence Jones and Brandon Knight are struggling tos tart of UK's game. Jones has 2 points and nothing else, while Knight has 0 points on 0-4 shooting (does have 2 boards and 2 assists, though). EDIT: Barnes with a very impressive finish on the ally oop. The pass was thrown way too high, but he managed to use his length to get a hand on it and still finish it by sheer luck more than anything. The ball basically slipped out of his hands and still managed to go through.

Why shooting guard? Shooting guard and power forward are about the only positions that the Raptors shouldn't look at in the draft (unless the player is undoubtedly the BPA, but this draft is such a toss up that probably won't happen). The Raptors definitely need to look for either a PG, SF or C. Since this draft is basically a one trick pony when it comes to point guard (Kyrie Irving) and it is highly unlikely that they will be able to draft him, they should probably look to either a small forward or a center, which this draft has a fair amount of.

Yet he didn't have a problem with Collison jacking up a 3 with 1 second left and the Pacers up by double digits in the previous meeting between these two...

Updated the first post with their latest mock.

Some updates from today as some top prospects had some very nice games in their respective tournaments. Harrison Barnes put up: 18 points 5 rebounds 2 assists 7-13 shooting 4-10 from three in UNC's 61-59 win over Miami (Fla.) UNC were down by 15 at one point, so it was a nice comeback win for the team. Barnes basically kept them in the game during the first half where he scored 16 of the teams first 28 points and then his teammates stepped it up in the 2nd half. (John Henson had 10/14/4 blocks as well, but he isn't really on the Raptors radar, I would imagine). Jared Sulling had: 20 points 18 rebounds 2-12 shooting 16-18 free throw shootin in OSU's 67-61 OT win over Northwestern (These numbers are from CBSSports, so if they are a bit off, as they have been from time to time, I apologize) Kentucky, Texas, UCONN and Kansas all play later today, so if anybody has nothing to do and want to catch some college ball to see some solid prospects (such as Knight, Walker, T. Jones, Selby, Morris, Hamilton etc...) and Canadian content (CoJo and Thompson) it should be a good day for you. Duke also plays, but I'm pretty sure most of you are like me in not giving a damn about them since Irving went down. EDIT: Also, here is an interesting piece on Perry Jones: (found this on RealGM and couldn't find a link) EDIT: DX also updated their, mock. I posted about it in the Draft Forum, but I figure I'll post it here as well. http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2011/

It looked worse just beause he was already falling (and awkwardly) as Komisarek pushed him in the back, which forced an even more awkward fall. Definitely a poor decision on Komi's part, like you said, but that is nothing new. Making poor decisions is about the only thing he does well (well, that and gloved punches to opposing players when the ref is between them )

Without a doubt it would be Rita.

Grabovski using his head to score a goal. Literally. What a weird goal, though. Phaneuf takes a slapper from the point, hits a Flyers stick, bounces off of Grabo's visor and goes in. That was awesome. EDIT: Wow, Boucher with a nice glove save on Armstrong about a minute after letting the goal in. Very nice recovery from him there. After seeing the replay, Armstrong shot it right at the glove, but still, nice job from Boucher to recover.

Win or lose ESPN will stalk about the Heat for 3 hours.

Never said that he didn't (do his job well) and I never defended what Komisarek did. He deserved the 5 minute major and the game miscoundunct. Should he get suspended for a couple of games, he will deserve that as well. Doesn't change the fact that it is awesome how he is completely silent whenever the Leafs have Orr or Rosehill in the lineup but whenever one of those two aren't playing, he is suddenly Mr. Tough Guy again. Like I said above, he is a good agitator. I don't deny that.

at Carcillo so far tonight. I don't think the guy has stopped talking all game long (wouldn't surprise me if he was talking when Komisarek ran him from behind, haha). It is pretty funny how much he is talking though, considering he has been completely silent in any of the games that he played against the Leafs when they had Orr and/or Rosehill in the lineup. He skated away from Mike Brown's challenge, even. I've gotta give it to him, though. He is one hell of an agitator. Huge [expletive], but great agitator.

He was never good in the first place. Its like Erick said, he had one good (and even that may be a stretch) postseason and people thought he was this great player. I don't really understand why people are surprised by these shooting numbers considering he shot 39/33/65 last season. He was awful last season and has had three seasons in his career where he has shot 42% or better from the field, is a career 31% 3 point shooter and a career 66% free throw shooter. The guy just isn't that good.

The thing is that Howard isn't capable of playing 40 minutes a night, either. He has always had troubles with fouling, especially against Boston. As long as Shaq can still give the Celtics around 25-30 minutes a night, I don't think that they really have to be worried about the 5-10 minutes where a guy like Kristic is forced to guard Howard. Even if Howard does go off on the Celtics, I don't see him getting the help necessary to pull off the win over Boston. Turkoglu, Richardson, Arenas and Nelson would all have to step up a great deal, and I don't see them being able to do that when they have guys like Rondo, Pierce, Allen and Green guarding, with Garnett providing the help. It is certainly possible for the Magic to upset the Celtics, more so than when they had Perkins on the roster, but I just don't see it. The Celtics are just a better team at pretty much every other position on the floor and, as good as Howard is, he doesn't have the ability to steal you an entire series. A game or two? Sure. But not an entire series.

His steals are a bit surprising, but he has shown very nice hands earlier in the season so I'm not shocked. He does a good job of stripping people of the ball when they are trying to back him down and getting into the passing lanes when teams are looking to pass it into the post. As for the blocks, I noticed that he has been robbed of quite a few. In one of those games against the Nets in London, I counted at least 3 blocks of his and I think he was only credited with 1. I've noticed this happening quite a bit lately, so I'm not too worried about his blocks being a bit low so far this month because he is still doing a nice job of contesting and altering shots.

Air Canada is also threatening to withdraw its sponsership as well. I'm surprised Montreal hasn't rioted, though. When Chara wasn't suspended, I thought for sure that they would go absolutely bat shit crazy.

I don't see this having any impact on his draft stock. Jones is going to be drafted for his potential anyways, and the chances of Baylor even making the tournament are extremely small so its not like playing in the NIT was going to suddenly make him a surefire number one pick anyways. Sucks if he is officially suspended for the rest of the year (as far as I know, no concrete ruling has been confirmed as of yet), but in terms of his draft stock, he is still probably a top 3 pick. Workouts are probably more important for him in terms of his draft stock than the rest of the seaosn would be.

The problem I have with the play is that whether Chara intentionally did this or not, he should've been aware of where he was on the ice. There is a reason that area on the ice is considered the number one dead zone and plays like this show why. Also, there was no need for the extra shove by Chara at the end. If he had just simply rode him out without the extra shove at the end, Pacioretty wouldn't have been driven into the stanchion the way that he was. I won't go as far as to say that Chara set out to hurt him, but I do find it a bit questionable how it happened to be Pacioretty who got hit and the game just sho happened to be out oc reach when the hit occured. Chara not even reacting or anything once the hit occured and Pacioretty was laying motionless on the ice doesn't really do him any favous, either.

Al Jefferson scored 34 points on 17-24 shooting. I don't think putting Davis on the floor would've made much of a difference at all, considering he had to have lit him up at the time as well. Great loss, though. Got home from class to find out that the Raptors blew a 14 point 4th quarter lead and lost due to a tip in with 0.5 seconds left. Gotta be a tough loss for the team and a hard one to swallow, especially after the previous game against the Nets, but they can't afford to win games at this point in time. Teams like Washington, Sacramento, Cleveland and Minnesota are in full tank mode, so they need to follow suit.

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/211954/DeRozans_Shot_Creation_Will_Mean_More_Late_Game_Shots#ixzz1G4Gyp51T Might as well considering how futile it has been giving the ball to Bargnani down the stretch. It is just another area of his game that he will have to develop if he is going to be more than an average shooting guard in the NBA. I'm not expecting much considering he still isn't very good at creating his own shot off of the bounce, but it will be nice to see something other than a Bargnani iso from 25 feet away (seriously, who draws up an iso for a 7'0 from 25 feet away?). The guy who I think is the best suited to get touches down the stretch is actually Jerryd Bayless, believe it or not. He is without a doubt the best player on the team at beating his man one-on-one and could really open things up for teammates with his ability to get into the paint, should he actually pass the ball. Too bad with Calderon ont he team he will rarely, if ever, get the opportunity to play in these kind of situations.

I honestly thought that he had done that last season as he was without a doubt the best perimeter defender on the team (isn't saying a whole lot, but I would say he was the only wing to play average defensively) and his mid range jumper was pretty much money whenever he got an open look. It seems like he figured that since Bosh left he needed to become this lights out scorer for the team and completely ignored what got him minutes with the Raptors in the first place. If he gets back to just playing within himself, playing defense, sticking open jumpers and running the floor in transition I'm sure that he will get an extension with the team considering how popular he is with the fanbase and teammates. Even if the Raptors aren't in his future, he will still be able to get a job somewhere. However, should he continue to refuse to play any defense, chuck and force things on offense, he will be out of the league within 2-3 years. He simply doesn't have the ability to play like that. PS: How awesome was the "I need to feed my family comment" considering PJ is a coach on the Raptors? Love that.

What about the 30% he shot, the complete inability to defend and being a complete liability on the offensive end of the floor, forcing the team to basically play 4 on 5? Don't get me wrong, he is a phenomenal rebounder but at this point in the season there is absolutely no reason to give him extended minutes when you have a 21 year old rookie power forward to develop and a 23 year old power forward who is seeing extended minutes for the first time in his carer to also develop. I like the hustle and tenacity he plays with, but if he gets anything more than garbage minutes for anything more than a 3-4 game period, it just shows the incompetence of the Raptors when it comes to developing young players.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/article/950839--feschuk-weems-a-far-cry-from-happy-with-reduced-role I can't really blame him for being uspet that he is constantly singled out for not defending considering how DeRozan and especially Bargnani play little to no defense either, yet they are rarely called out on it (again, Bargnani especially). However, you can't really blame the team for giving Johnson more minutes since he is a new acquisition and they would like to see what he can do. At this point in time it is pretty clear what Weems can and can't do and playing an extra 5-10 minutes a game isn't going to change that. You might as well see what you have in Johnson (which doesn't seem like much from what I've seen) and, unfortunately for Weems, those minutes are going to come at his expense.

His name better not be called. Ed Davis already doesn't get enough minutes and if both his and Amir's minutes are cut so that Evans can audition for a contract this summer, I'll be pissed with this franchise. They already play veterans like Calderon, Barbosa and Bargnani way too much and if Evans plays anything more than garbage time, it will be a joke.

Just once I would like to see a player call out James or Wade instead of constantly focusing on Bosh. Melo and Amar'e in particular always seem to direct all of their snide remarks Bosh's way and don't even mention Wade or James, even though the two of them have probably said and done a lot worse crap than Bosh has this season. Not that I don't find it funny just how much Bosh gets trashed on by his peers and all, but just once I'd like to see somebody actually call out the two superstars instead of taking shots at the easy target.