Built Ford Tough

I think that might've been the best half I've ever seen Bargnani play. He was playing very well offensively with his 18 points, but what I liked the most was he was playing inside/out instead of his usual stay on the perimeter approach. The Knicks were using smaller players like Chandler to guard him most of the time and, for the most part, he did a nice job of taking him into the post. What I liked the most was his defense on Stoudemire, though. He blocked/altered a couple of his shots, drew a charge and didn't really give him many easy looks. Hell, even the 4 rebounds is an improvement from normal. The Raptors are lucky that the Knicks stopped playing aggressively and were just content to chuck up jumpers after getting that big lead midway through the second. The Raptors defense did pick it up a bit, but the Knicks shot themselves in the foot by jacking up jumpers. Toronto really needs to push the pace to get anything offensively. They are a good team in the open floor with guys like DeRozan, Jack, Weems, Johnson, Barbosa etc... but they really struggle getting much offense in a half court set.

Well, some of you Knick fans in here were commenting about how good the Knick point guards have been playing or how good they were shooting from deep, which doesn't mean much considering it is against Toronto. I figured I'd make my own version of that post, haha. That would've been a SICK slam by DeRozan. He got up so high there. What happened on the weakside between Kleiza and Fields there? All I saw was DeRozan get fouled and then Fields suddenly hit the deck hard. PS: Did I mention that I love the way Evans is playing? PPS: Not sure if I mentioned this before, but: Jarrett Jack >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Jose Calderon

Amir Johnson has 3 fouls in 7 minutes. There is no way that he will ever be able to be a starter on this team if he continues to commit all of these stupid fouls. Evans is killing the Knicks on the glass. I think he already has 8 rebounds in about 8-10 minutes. I'm still waiting for him to grab Amare's gonads, though. Kleiza has looked pretty poor so far tonight. He is really forcing his game.

That was a flagrant foul?

Amir Johnson may not be the most skilled player, and his contract is hardly ideal, but I absolutely love what he brings to the table. You've gotta love a big man blocking a shot at one end and beating everybody else down the floor for a layup. One thing that I really love about him is his soft hands and touch around the rim. If only he could stay out of foul trouble and not commit stupid fouls like that last one against Amare. You just can't throw away fouls like that, especially to Amare 18 feet from the hoop.

Stoudemire was scared that Reggie was going after his balls there. You could tell.

Bargnani.... drawing a ..... charge?

I don't know. He was trading Turkoglu to anybody willing to take on his contract. It turns out he struck gold by getting somebody of Barbosa's caliber in return, but I honestly think he would've traded Turkoglu regardless of what the return was, as long as he got a shorter term contract back. The Kleiza signing could be argued either way. You could argue he was brought in for immediate impact, but you can also argue that he is a piece for the future considering his age fits right in with the youth movement of the team. The Chandler trade that fell through would've cleared a lot of money from the Raptors books. I do think he went after that trade to help the roster as well, but in my opinion, the number one reason for it was to clear Calderon's contract while freeing up enough space to offer basically a max contract in the summer. The Barnes signing that fell through wasn't a rebuilding move. That is for sure. I think his original plan was to try and put the best lineup on the floor possible, but once Peddie basically confirmed that he will get an extension with the team and that his job wasn't in any sort of danger, I think he changed his stance on the team. I can understand the argument either way. Intentional or not, though, this is the first time that I can legitimately say that entering the season the Raptors have a direction. As of this moment, they are a rebuilding team. Who knows what Colangelo will do to potentially change that in the future as he is completely unpredictable.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/basketball/barbosa-says-wrist-surgery-in-his-future/article1773771/ If he needs the surgery eventually, I almost think it would just be better to get it over and done with now, rather than have to deal with it halfway through the season or something. If he can play through it, I can understand the decision to put it off but by the sounds of it, surgery is inevitable and there is a good chance that this can have a negative effect on his play. I don't really see the point in trotting out a 70% Barbosa night in and night out considering the playoffs aren't in the Raptors future this year anyways, not to mention having players like DeRozan and Weems on the roster. I think I'd rather see them just get it over with rather than let it linger on. Get it now, get healthy and then come back at 100% later in the season.

Server problem. I actually think it is the opposite of that. I think this is the first time since Colangelo took over that this team actually has a direction. The team has officially entered rebuilding mode while basically every other season since Colangelo took over he has done nothing but throught together a cluster[expletive] of talent together in hopes that it would result in wins. With DeRozan, Kleiza Weems, Bargnani, Johnson and Davis he has finally put together a young nucleus together while building for he future. He has surrounded these younger players with veteran leaders like Jack, Evans and Calderon to help mentor them. Clearly their isn't a whole lot of talent and none of these players are ever going to be a star in this league, but I honestly thnk this is the first time since he took over that the team actually has a direction. It took him about 5 years, but better late than never I guess.

http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-hawks/horford-contract-extension-talks-692045.html What do you think the hold up is with a Horford extension? Do you think it is money, years or something like that? Or is it possible that Horford may not want to sign an extension with Atlanta? I actually think it is pretty interesting that he hasn't received an extension yet. I know that only two players from the 07 draft class have gotten extensions (Durant and Noah) but I figured that Horford would've been extended a while ago.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/nba/article/881386--feschuk-bosh-revels-in-the-heat-of-the-spotlight?bn=1 Interesting quote from Bosh. I do think it could've been taken out of context to create a story, but regardless of the context, these kinds of comments should probably be kept to yourself, at least as far as I am concerned. No matter what you mean by it, people are always going to come to the worst possible conclusions. Then again, it's pretty hard not to jump to conclusions with a comment like this. Bosh will certainly get his wish, though.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/25/AR2010102503671.html And so it begins...

Just to clarify, I wasn't complaining or anything as even though I don't particularly like the Heat or Magic, I by no means hate them. Your reasoning for selecting us is very solid. I didn't really care which forum I got, though. Like I told you, obviously the Atlantic would've been my first choice because of the Raptors, but even then, I'd be in the same situation with the Knicks and Celtics (who are my two least favourite teams). Just found that slightly amusing, thats all.

I was watching NBA TV Canada (formerly Raptors TV) before I went to work earlier today and Kamla and Scott were doing a Fantasy Insiderm or something like that, episode. They each gave their predictions for the MVP (well, fantasy MVP), leading rebounder, shot blocker, assist and steals. DS predicted that Wall will lead the league in steals this year, which I found interesting. I know he was averaging around 2 a game in the preseason, but who really knows how that will translate into the regular season. Do you think Wall has what it takes to lead the league in steals this year?

I got the division with 2 of my 4 least favourite teams in the league. Oh well, I can make it work. Shouldn't be too difficult considering Miami's new roster, Orlando being a great team and Wall and Arenas in Washington.

I believe so. I haven't heard anything saying that he won't play tomorrow and I've seen quite a few articles saying that he will be in the starting lineup, such as this from Rotoworld: http://www.rotoworld.com/content/playerpages/playerbreakingnews.asp?sport=NBA&id=931&line=141094&spln=1

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-heat/sfl-miami-heat-2010-roster-102510,0,2332868.story Butler wasn't going to make the team considering his injury and the recent signing of Stackhouse solidified that. I don't know much about Beverley aside from the fact that he played pesky defense.. It probably came down to him or a veteran big like Magloire and they opted for the experience. I wonder what the Heat would've done with had Miller not gotten injured, though. If Miller didn't get injured, they probably wouldn't have brought Stackhouse in which would've meant that only one cut was required. Would they have cut Butler or Beverley? It wouldn't surprise me if they have some sort of under the table agreement with Butler that they will bring him back next season once he recovers and is fully healthy.

I watched the fight last night and it was basically an exact replica of how the first round of the Lesnar-Carwin fight went. The difference was that Cain did a fantastic job of picking his spots and not punching himself out like Carwin did. This fight showed just how flawed Lensar is as a fighter. A very good wrestler and a freak of an athlete, but that is all he really has going for him. He wasn't able to keep Velasquez down as he was way too lackadasial when he got him down and thought he would easily be able to pass his guard. His striking is completely mechanical and robotic and he does not take getting hit very well (although to be fair, I don't think too many people would take getting hit from Cain Velasquez or Shane Cawin very well). He was always a fairly one-dimensional fighter, but now that he has fought enough times for his opposition to figure out the book on him, those flaws are really beginning to get exposed. Carwin basically showed everybody the blueprint on what to do against Lesnar and Velasquez perfected it on Saturday. With that said, Lesnar is still a force in the division assuming he stays motivated and passionate about his MMA career. He has only 6 fights in his career and 4 of them are against legitimate top 5 heavyweights at the time (Carwin, Mir, Couture and Cain) as well as a savy vet in Herring. He is still basically a rookie when it comes to the MMA game and he can certainly improve as a fighter. Velasquez is an absolute monster, though. He is so well rounded and such an explosive athlete that he is going to be very difficult to beat. His fight with Junior Dos Santos is going to be a very interesting matchup. JDS is a very different fighter than Lesnar is so it will require a completely different gameplan and skillset to beat him. Haven't watched any other fights, although I heard that Diego Sanchez absolutely dominated Paulo Thiago. I'm absolutely stoked about that as Sanchez is one of the most exciting fighters in all of MMA. I'm glad to see that he decided to go back to Greg Jackson's and it looks like it paid off amazingly well. No, he just got beat by a superior fighter. It is as simple as that. This wasn't a Matt Serra vs. GSP fluke punch KO situation. Cain throughouly dominated Lesnar for the entire first round because he is a superior fighter.

He'll be fine. He came back into the game and didn't play any different than he normally does from what I saw. He had a couple of drives to the hoop where he initiated contact and got the foul line. He wasn't handling the ball any different than normal either. His shot was a bit off, but who knows if that was a result of the injury or him just being an inconsistent shooter. Yup. Like BasX said, he wears number 10 beacuse Kobe wore it in the Olympics. He has also tried to model his game after Kobe's, which you gotta love even though he clearly doesn't possess a fraction of the talent that Kobe has. His turnaround jumper in the post is pretty similar to Kobe's, though. We just haven't seen it much in the NBA due to him never being put into that position. He showed it a bit during the Summer League and when he was playing in the Drew League (posted a highlight package in the summer).

Was at work so I missed it, which sucked as this card was absolutely stacked and I was really looking forward to watching it. I'm not all that shocked to be hoenst with you, though. I predicted Lesnar would win, but we saw what Carwin did to him and Velasquez is a better fighter than Carwin is. I posted somewhere else that if Cain can keep this standing he will be able to beat Lesnar, and it seems like that is exactly what happened. Velasquez is an absolute beast and it shouldn't be a huge shock that he beat Lesnar.

Check out Maggette's line from tonights (last night now, I guess) game against the Bucks: 14 minutes, 0-2 FG, 17-20 FT, 3 REB, 2 AST, 1 STL, 5 PF, 17 PTS He attempted 20 free throws in 14 minutes of action and scored 17 points without making a single field goal. I've never seen anything like this before. This is just unreal.

Arron Afflalo, JR Smith and Ty Lawson AKA the Kobe Stopper, Kobe himself and Mini-Kidd.

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/69683/20101021/davis_anxious_to_be_healthy_make_debut_with_raptors/#ixzz13365i410 Considering how bad the Raptors are going to be, I'm also pretty anxious to see Davis return. Along with the progression of DeRozan, seeing Davis play were the two things that I was looking forward to the most this season. I don't expect much from him right off of the bat considering his injury, him missing training camp and the fact that I don't think he was all that NBA ready to begin with, but I'm excited to see him play none the less. He definitely exceeded my expectations during the Summer League, so hopefully he can do that during the regular season.

http://www.nba.com/raptors/video/2010/10/21/RWEB101021TRIANOflv-1444823.flv It is about 3:30 into this video and a reporter asks him whether he thinks Bargnani has made any progress in his help defense and Triano looks like he is going to give some politically correct answer but changes his mind and straight up says "No" with a pissed off look on his face. I thought it was pretty interesting to see this as usually Triano will go out of his way to give the politically correct answer and doesn't usually make remarks like this, especially in regards to Bargnani. I'm really liking the new Triano attitude. I hope he continues his approach and doesn't coddle all of the players.