firstrounder

agreed Lucky. TJ Ford sucks. I've been saying it all along, and taken flak from some posters for doing so.

But other than a few games where he did play well, TJ has hollow stats. Like you said his assists are easy assists, and his point totals is the result of him taking so many shots.

He took 19 shots yesterday!

But what REALLY burns me up is that TJ seems to have no brain at the most critical times of the game.

Yesterday at the end of the 3rd quarter he made a terrible shot selection, and then near the end of the game when we were making a bit of a run he didn't know what to do with the ball.

He's a joke. I'd love to see him dealt. Calderon is better.

seifer0406

It's kind of funny how you derived all that by watching a game where the Raptors didn't have their leading scorer and rebounder on the floor. I'm sure glad you didn't own the Raptors because even if Red Auarbach comes back to life and is running the Raptors, he'll probably be out that door a couple months into the season with you at the helm. What are you suggesting anyway? Fire BC? Let's get Grunweld back, lol, hey even Babcock had almost 2 years.

A winning team isn't built overnight. With the mess that the Raptors was in last year and the previous couple of years, it will take more than an off season to transform the raptors into a contender. This should be common sense for raptors fans, I hope it is for you.

The Raptors' rebounding situation has already improved from last season. Besides Bosh and CV, Raptors had basically no frontcourt player that could stay on the floor for more than 10 minutes a game. Now we at least have solid players such as Nesterovic, Garbo, and Bargnani. The Raptors frontcourt still needs much improvement, but from what we had last year, it has already gotten better. Moreover, if you look at what was out there on the market this off-season, there really isn't much that the raptors can do that will make a drastic difference than what they already have now.

As for the other aspects of the game, can you really list one area where the Raptors have gotten worse this season compared with last season? I seriously doubt that you can come up with an obvious one that isn't up for debate. Again, you are not going to turn one of the worst teams in the NBA into a contender overnight. If you look at BC's track record, it is clear that more moves are on the way.

As for TJ Ford, I agree that he has his ups and downs eventhough most of his downs this season have turned into some exaggerated criticism from some posters. My view on him remains the same. Give him at least 30-40 games and then make your judgement. From what I've seen out of him this season he has been solid in most of the games. I do not agree with saying that his assists are different from other guards. I mean, who is there to define which assist is considered skill and which is considered to be easy? If it was so easy to average 8 assists a game, and like someone said, "Every PG in the league can do it", I would like to see it done. Find me a season where "Every PG in the league" is averaging 8 assists or more. I don't even want to look for 30 pgs, find me 15 in a year.

Turkish Delight

What's wrong with him taking 19 shots? Bosh was injured, and for most of the time there was absolutely no movement on offense, so taking a shot was the best option.
Claiming Calderon is better than TJ Ford says a lot about your basketball knowledge.

speedythief

I don't think it is unfair to criticize players or team composition but its clearly too early to condemn this team and its players.

Dee-Zy

I don't think it's too early to condemn the team for THIS game, that was totally unacceptable. We have a long way to be winners, winners come out to play, you can have a bad half, but atleast show something in the second or atleast the last quarter

if you going down, you gotta go down swinging, especially at home, especially against a weak team, especially when their leading scorer and rebounder is out.

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lucky777s

1. Where did you get the idea my opinion was formed from 1 game? I have said all along that TJ is not a special PG and is way overrated. Not having Bosh this game was the perfect opportunity to judge the rest of the club and how TJ can impact a game. It was not pretty.

2. Babs barely had 1.5 years, and his firing was in the works for some time before that. It would be interesting to see what he could have done if he was allowed to handle the Zo situation himself and have the cap room and draft picks this summer. He also had to deal with a franchise player forcing his way out and coming in just before the draft.

3. This was no ordinary offseason. Colangelo came into a gift-wrapped situation with the #1 pick, HUGE capspace, an incredibly nice tradeable asset in CV, and a pretty valuable asset in MJames. He also had CB4 emerging as an all-star. He has done very little with all that to work with.

We could have added to last years team and improved greatly instead of totally blowing it up.

4. Capspace is not just about FA's. It also means you can be very creative with trades. We got Rasho from the Spurs but Nazr is the superior rebounder and post presence. And other guys were out there too.

Plus we did have rebounders last year that Sam just refused to play. Woods was soft but he was top 10 in boards/minute and blocks/minute I believe. And while Hoff was not a good player he did keep his man off the boards for the most part and rotated well in the paint area. If Babs had laid down the law to Sam like Colangelo did about Bargs we could have been better last year in rebounding. Hoff's stats when playing 20mpg were quite good.

5. Oh, I can mention two areas right away where the Raps are worse this year. The biggest one is half court offense. MJ ran the pick and roll to perfection with CB4 last year. It was unguardable at times. Which leads me to the second area, 3pt shooting. We now have nobody who can hit that shot consistently despite bringing in two wing players this summer plus Garbs and Bargs. Defensively we are probably equally bad to last year.

lucky777s

1. Where did you get the idea my opinion was formed from 1 game? I have said all along that TJ is not a special PG and is way overrated. Not having Bosh this game was the perfect opportunity to judge the rest of the club and how TJ can impact a game. It was not pretty.

2. Babs barely had 1.5 years, and his firing was in the works for some time before that. It would be interesting to see what he could have done if he was allowed to handle the Zo situation himself and have the cap room and draft picks this summer. He also had to deal with a franchise player forcing his way out and coming in just before the draft.

Colangelo will be at 1 year in FEB?

3. This was no ordinary offseason. Colangelo came into a gift-wrapped situation with the #1 pick, HUGE capspace, an incredibly nice tradeable asset in CV, and a pretty valuable asset in MJames. He also had CB4 emerging as an all-star. He has done very little with all that to work with.

We could have added to last years team and improved greatly instead of totally blowing it up.

4. Capspace is not just about FA's. It also means you can be very creative with trades. We got Rasho from the Spurs but Nazr is the superior rebounder and post presence. And other guys were out there too.

Plus we did have rebounders last year that Sam just refused to play. Woods was soft but he was top 10 in boards/minute and blocks/minute I believe. And while Hoff was not a good player he did keep his man off the boards for the most part and rotated well in the paint area. If Babs had laid down the law to Sam like Colangelo did about Bargs we could have been better last year in rebounding. Hoff's stats when playing 20mpg were quite good.

5. Oh, I can mention two areas right away where the Raps are worse this year. The biggest one is half court offense. MJ ran the pick and roll to perfection with CB4 last year. It was unguardable at times. Which leads me to the second area, 3pt shooting. We now have nobody who can hit that shot consistently despite bringing in two wing players this summer plus Garbs and Bargs. Defensively we are probably equally bad to last year.

seifer0406

1. I was talking about your views on the Raptors team as a whole. If you read my post, you would've seen that I left the part about TJ Ford at the very end. You derived the fact that the raptors had no shooting, rebounding, defending, etc. out of a game where they are missing their best rebounder/scorer. Moreover, a team that doesn't have all those things you've mentioned wouldn't even win a game in this league. In short, you are exaggerating things.

2. The problem with Babcock was that he wasn't doing anything. He wasn't making any significant trades, he wasn't bringing in free agents, and he drafted a blunder in Araujo. The Raptors had a logjam at PF that needed to be resolved, they needed depth at basically every position. Quite simply, the Raptors wasn't improving with Babcock there. If Babcock was constantly wheeling and dealing, I'm sure that he wouldn't have been fired so quickly. Again, as bad as Babcock was he had 2 drafts and a season and 3/4 under his belt before the raptors fired him. BC has had 1 draft not even an entire year.

3. Look at the rookie rankings on nba.com, tell me who is currently ranked #1. This year's draft is about as deep as the Atlantic Division. Besides the #1 pick, they had CV which they traded for TJ Ford (I'm not going to get into the Ford argument again, we've established our views on him are different). Mike James was a free agent, besides a sign and trade there isn't much value in him. Other than those 2 players, the raptors was empty in terms of trade bait and that's why you look at the available free agents that were available.

4. I believe I said the Raptors besides Bosh and CV did not have another frontcourt player that can stay on the floor for 10 minutes a game. Loren Woods and Araujo both cannot play extended minutes because they had extremly low basketball IQ and were constantly lost both on offense and defense. The rebound/minute stats are quite hollow. If we follow those stats, then he should be playing 40+ minutes a game and grabbing like 20 rebounds a game. It doesn't tell the story of why he's glued to the bench.

5. I have to disagree with the Raptors half court offense getting worse. The Raptors did lose CV and Mike James, but they have gotten Garbo, Bargnani, TJ Ford, and Parker. All of them are capable scorers. If you look at Raptors games this year, scoring isn't the problem. As for the 3 point shooting, we lost Mike James and CV who shot 30% from 3pt and Bonner who played sparingly. In return we got Parker, Bargnani, and Garbo. You need to do some convincing as how that exchange resulted in the raptors decrease in 3pt ability. We were just as weak last year as we are this year.