The Mad Viking

People have posted terrible evaluations of Babs. ESPN dissed him terribly. He has done a lot of questionable things, and been slammed on the Raptors Forum quite a bit.

I think it's time for an objective interim evaluation.

Well, he's been a GM for 12.5 months now. People have said it was a terrible year, that everything went wrong, but given what he inherited, I think it's a little early to judge.

IMO, he hired a very good coach, and it was a pick that took some fortitude, not a recycled hack or the assistant of the team that just won the title.

IMO, Rafer Alston was a good signing. I know I'm in a minority there, but this is how I see it.

1. He was cheap. $3.0 mil a year for a PG who puts up 14.2ppg with 6.4apg (11th in NBA) and 1.5 spg (18th in NBA).

2. Yes, he has emotional problems. Big whup, at least he cares passionately about winning, and works his *** off. It was a tough situation for a rookie coach of Sam Mitchell's personality, but in the end I think they worked things out.

3. Yes, he looks for his perimeter shot a little more than we'd all like. Sort of like Stephon Marbury, Baron Davis, Gilbert Arenas, Jay Williams, Kirk Hinrich, Stoudamire, Iverson and even {gasp} Jason Kidd.

Rafael Araujo was a terrible pick. We can all make Babcock shoulder the entire blame, and maybe that's fair. But he didn't decide to wait until one week before the draft to hire himself. And he didn't direct the scouting before he was hired. So while I'm not ready to forgive him, I'll give him another draft before I give up on his drafting.

The Carter trade - IMO, he did a bad job there as well, But unlike the draft, or even signing a FA, we really don't know anything about what the alternatives were. I hated taking on Aaron William's contract, and Eric Williams didn't pan out. The two first round picks were nice, and buying out Zo, as much as it incensed some, I really could care less if that was part of the price. I would much rather have taken on, say, Glen Robinson and picks, and gotten the cap space. I can't help but think that the APPEARANCE of getting value in return drove the trade. But we will never know what was out there.

The Donyell non-trade - IMO, a very good non-deal. Again, we don't know what was offered, but it is unlikely that a contender would trade a matching contract of a good player. Contenders don't trade good players at the deadline. So we would have had to take a bad contract on to maybe also get a draft pick. And further cluttered a roster and a payroll that already has too much baggage. A very good non-deal.

This draft, I think will be decent. Charlie V IMO can be just as good as Chris Bosh. Likely he will fall a little short, especially defensively, but that is still very good. (Mostly, I think people don't like him because he's funny looking and his name is Charlie.)

Graham will be a decent pro, and Ukic has a pretty good chance to be a starting PG in the NBA, maybe even a special one.

It was a nasty situation for Babs to come into. He may just be starting to turn the corner...

__________________
With the first pick in the 2010 draft, the ... select, Ricard Rubio of Spain.

Minstrel: There's no such thing as a "proven loser." Teams win and lose, not individuals.

butr

Glenn Robinson was on PHI and as you know had no picks to give up. We got theirs from NJ.

So that would have been cap relief and nothing else.

Would PDX have done SAR AND a pick/prospects?

They did not seem keen to give them up, and they wanted to dump DA.

NY did not acquire the late 1st until the deadline, so they could not trade their own first since they have a conditional pick out there, just like we do with CHA.

So we would not have been even able to do TT AH and the eventual 8 for VC and Rose.

Big Z expired but CLE had no picks.

Seattle had Ray, but would they have traded a pick too. Even if they did it was 25 and bound to be that late given how good they were.

So what I'm getting at is that there were no deals out there for relief AND picks.

I'll take the picks. The only thing I'd raise a question over is the picks we got. From what I heard, NJ offered 2 and Rob took it. Given that we were going to have to take Zo back and buy him out AND get no real value in players, there could have been another pick in there. They had some 2s and LAC 1 and their own 1.

Maybe they did ask and this was the price, but I'd like to know.

wind161

too early to tell.

i give him one more year...

for Araujo to pan out
for the new rookies to show their promise
for Carter to bust his knees/ankles again
for Green/Granger to flop
for more trades to occur
for mopete to show consistency
for EWill to take a leadership role
for alston to play more of a team

and probably more...

Junkyard Dog13

those 2 will not flop, Gragner for sure, Green could turn out to be nothing more than a daruis miles but Green's game is completely different and more versitile.
He may not become the next T-Mac but he will be a good pro.

__________________
Raps fans since Day 1
Steelers fan since 97
Leafs fan since 88
Mets fan since 98

Ballyhoo

Babcock has been awful. Let's start with Araujo, we all know how that worked out, but what everyone is forgetting is Utah admitted they offered two first round picks for Araujo. We could have had Al Jefferson and Jameer Nelson or something similar, instead of Araujo. Now Araujo's value is probably a second round pick.

The Vince situation was mishandled. He should have been traded on draft day when his value was still fairly high. Yeah, it's hard when you've only been GM for a week, but you can get better value on draft day when people trying to move up and down, and they have cap space available so salaries don't necessarily have to match. This was his chance to display some vision, to put his stamp on the team, to pick up some young players and build around Bosh. Instead he drafted the oldest player in the draft, and kept the unhappy Vince. The result was Vince dogged it and decreased his value so much he had to be traded for three olds guys with bad contracts and two late picks. Denver's 2006 pick looks like it may even have negative value, because it will be mid-20s pick in a very weak draft because of the age limit, essentially a waste of capspace on a guy who probably won't make the team. So Vince for Joey Graham and four bad contracts. Nice job.

Donyell Marshall should have been traded on draft day last year. He was coming off averaging 18/10 for the Raptors after leaving the Bulls, and with a very reasonable contract his value was at its apex. Meanwhile Jameer Nelson was sliding dramatically in the draft, and the Raptors had a gaping hole at PG. I believe Donyell could have been traded for a late teens pick to get Nelson. What's the point in keeping Marshall anyway? He's a nice player, but he's not going to be around when the Raptors are contenders, so trade him. Instead it looks like Babcock will get nothing for him.

Now in this year's draft he picks Villanueva at 7th. I don't hate CV, but he's not worth the 7th pick.

So I see a pattern forming. Babcock takes the Raptors' assets and converts them into something of less value. 2004 8th pick, Vince, 2005 7th pick, Donyell, all spent with little return. This is exactly the opposite of what you want in a GM, and is the reason this team is going backwards, and is getting flamed on ESPN and other media outlets.

SkywalkerAC

I like the "lineup" that Babs has drafted so far-

Ukic
Graham
Sow
Charlie
Hoffa

Some serious toughness and talent there to go with good character. Add Alston on a reasonable contract and I'm more than happy. Quickly compare with the stagnation of GG's campaign and Babs' reign seems glorious. And two more picks next year baby!

__________________
AC

NeoSamurai

very good point...Grunwald really left a huge mess for Babcock to clean up but since coming in a year ago, Babcock has drafted a good set of young, hungry guys with good character on and off the court (with the possible exception of Charlie, but I think hes changed since being with Calhoun for two years). This year we should see a slight improvement in the team's win total, but the year after that, after adding 2 more picks to the aforementioned crop, we should no doubt crack the playoff bubble...

His moves have been questionable, but ultimately, I feel he has a model for the team set out in his mind that will eventually work out in the end...

__________________
Diversity, Our Strength...Lets Go Raptors

foul_balls

Hindsight is 20/20. If you were the new GM, you wouldn't dismantle a team who missed the previous playoffs due to injuries to your two top scorers in VC and Jalen Rose. You would open the season (which originally had a lot of promise) and see if your draft pick (Araujo) could have made a difference in putting your team over the top.

So your shoulda coulda woulda seems a bit inappropriate. I am with Wind161. Let's evaluate Babcock after 2-3 years before we put him in the same ranks of Glen Grunwald, who is the real reason we are in this mess.

Ballyhoo

You can call it hindsight, but people were calling for these moves at the time, including myself and other posters on this board. Where do you think the handle "blowuptheraptors" came from? It was pretty obvious in 2004 that the Raptors weren't going anywhere, even before the draft. Araujo and Alston do not put a 33 win team "over the top". Dismantling the team is exactly what you do, if you're serious about building a championship contender.

The Suns dismantled by trading Marbury and Hardaway, and now they're one of the better teams. The Magic dismantled by trading McGrady, and they're well on the way to recovery with some good young talent.

Yeah, we're in a mess because of Grunwald, but you don't try to keep patching that mess, that only makes it worse. You blow it up, and start over with Bosh.

Crossword

Babcock knows what he's doing, let me put it that way. He has a plan, and he's executing it. I don't know how far it'll get us, but I know what he's trying to build in Toronto, which is a solid team at all 5 positions (as you can tell, it's pretty damn hard to get a solid 5), a young but mature core, quality role players who can play their parts well, and a team that will have cap flexibility in a couple of years, and hopefully will not be strapped by a mediocre team like Glen's Raptors were.

Sam's a great coach too.

__________________
www.myspace.com/crosswordmusic

Crossword

ballyhoo, yeah it would have been great to trade VC on draft day. The problem is he demanded a trade ONE WEEK LATER. His value was extremely low then, so the rationale was that if he can up his value in the season, the Raptors could get a better trade. Hell, if the team plays well enough, he might even forget about it and want to stay here.

Obviously it was a miscalculation and Vince tanked the season for us, and even admitted to it later. But again, Rob was put into a tight situation that he really had little control over, with Vince wanting out at a horrible time. It's true that we didn't get full value for him in the actual trade, but we wouldn't have gotten much better in the summer anyway.

__________________
www.myspace.com/crosswordmusic

foul_balls

I think it is easy to say they should have picked Jefferson and Nelson. I think 20 some other teams passed on those guys. But Ballyhoo, if you wanted a potential start over, this is a pretty good lineup in terms of potential (you might say it is not the best possible, which still is yet to be proven), so your opinion that he has been AWFUL seems a bit over the top.

This lineup may or may not be great, we just don't know yet, hardly enough to say he has been terrible.

Bosh 21 Charlie 20 Graham 23 Ukic 20 Sow 24 Cook 23
Bonner and Araujo 24?

HKF

They serve Kool-aid in Ireland? Cause you're obviously sipping on some.

__________________
My favorite NBA players: Kobe Bryant * Carmelo Anthony * Ben Gordon * Deron Williams * Joe Johnson * Kevin Martin * Tim Duncan * Kyle Lowry * Thad Young * Amare Stoudemire * Dwight Howard * Josh Smith * Brandon Roy * LaMarcus Aldridge * Rudy Gay * Al Horford * Brandan Wright * Craig Smith * Renaldo Balkman

2008-09 Favorite Rookies: Jerryd Bayless (POR), Roy Hibbert (IND), Greg Oden (POR), Jamont Gordon (undrafted), Chris Douglas-Roberts (NJN), Joe Alexander (MIL), Patrick Ewing, Jr. (SAC)

College Basketball: "Where 7-Foot Bigs Foul Out Happen"

Ballyhoo

Since you still seem to think I'm using hindsight of how the 3 players turned out, here's my comment on the situation from June of last year: