Posted by TrueBlue:
Are you a full blown Raps fan dj? and speaking of them what do you see JR. doing this off-season to change their course. They've already publicly committed to keeping Jose... what next? I assume Garbs comes back. BTW seems that Bargs has come around some. It's been a weird yr for that guy. The first 3mos he was an absolute sophmoric bust.
I like watching the Raps and Golden State myself.
basically. it started bubbling with league pass during the mike james/jalen rose era. don't know why but i just started watching them. then when bc came aboard and traded for ford, they were my guys. are they title contenders? nope, nowhere close. but i like the plan bc put in place and like how he's executing it. they are an example of a team that gets the most out of their ability. they are never nights where you question if anybody is bringing it and they play a style of basketball that i like. very efficient. and i have to give credit to smitch. his x's and o's need improvement, as do his sub patterns at times, but he knows how to push each player's buttons.
tj and smitch just came out and said jose is the starter for the rest of the year so there's no dissention or anything amongst them or anything like that. jose and tj are friends and hang with each other alot.
i think they re-sign jose and keep both for at least the 1st half of next year. then they will make a decision. jkidd makes $15 mil, nash makes $14. i think the way they look at it is they will be paying $15 mil for the same production from that pg spot for the entire game.
they were always about 2009. they will be peddling rasho's expiring, and maybe parker's and garbajosa's as well. and speaking of garbo, they miss him big time but he chose to play for spain after the injury. that's why the brezec deal looks ok b/c they got a cheap backup alternative to rasho (who i think is very underrated) while they look to deal him.
bargs looked phenomenal early in november. almost like it was *his* team while bosh was recovering from knee issues. but then he got hurt, and then fell out of favor with smitch. he then got into a very bad habit of picking up 2 quick fouls early and then sitting. his man to man defense is actually surpisingly good. he can guard other centers tough and force them into bad shots. he's been playing much better this month but so far, a dissapointing sophomore season. winning 47 games wasn't supposed to happen last year, so now there are expectations. trying to win AND developing a young player is tough to do and that's where his learning curve is a slow steady one as opposed to a guy that might be playing for a 20 win team getting 35 mins a night without any worries.
so i'm not sure where his career is headed. they are making him stay in the states this summer and sending him to big man camp. he has the skills to be dominant, and has shown flashes, but right now, he's needs alot of coaching since he was basically an SF in europe. in the post, it's all about positioning and using his body as opposed to his height and arms. toronto still made the right gamble.
right now they are a soft team and don't have an aggressive guard/sf that can create their own shot and attack the rim with ease. they are perimeter oriented so they can never be a dominant unit. we'll see where they are in 2-3 more years. bosh is still only 24 so there's alot more left in his development.
2/27/2008 1:07 PM