southeasy

made the thread, went out to drink, didn't see the game, saw the final score, pretended it didnt happen, if we have bosh & bargnani are our healthy our next meeting it should be a much better game with a more favourable outcome.

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Twenty with the Disease of Illness
1AJosh Howard/1BGerald Wallace/2Amare Stoudemire/3Rajon Rondo/4Sean Williams/5Chris Bosh/6Renaldo Balkman/7Al Thornton/8Stromile Swift/9Jose Calderon/10Dwight Howard/11Antawn Jamison/12Dorell Wright/13Leandro Barbosa/14Samuel Dalembert/15Thabo Sefolosha/16Caron Butler/17Ronnie Price/18Trevor Ariza/19Jamario Moon/20Travis Outlaw

Close but No Puro: Julian Wright, Jeff Green, Amir Johnson, Louis Williams, JR Smith, Quincy Douby


RIP to the Career & The Man, Jonathan "Best Practice Player In NBA History" Bender & Eddie "Most Known Unknown" Griffin

ballocks

"we'll see what kind of team we have once we get healthy." - sam mitchell

tell me, sam, when exactly is this going to happen? how long do our players have to be on the sidelines before we realize that they will always be either on the sidelines or pretty close to it?

this game was embarrassment # 2. wonderful. and now apparently chris bosh and andrea bargnani are the saviours of toronto basketball. is it just a coincidence that we begin to overrate them as soon as the rest of our team starts putting bombs out on the floor? classic denial, really, and it prevents us from using these debacles to get better. that's what bothers me.

going back to the point, chris bosh is not a durable player. god love him, he's a tough guy and a fierce competitor but his body is frail. from his hand to plantar fasciitis to his knee to his groin, he's shown that he can match eric lindros (well, not quite). what's more, even when he returns from injury, he typically needs a good five or six games to get acclimated, at which point he begins to thrive for a week or two... just before another injury shelves him. to think that this problem with his groin will be his last injury setback (even this year) is to be in denial and avoid dealing with the reality.

tj is much of the same. he's always hobbling, he's getting stingers to follow-up on his spinal problem, his therapy regimen is longer than lindros' (well, not quite) and you'd be rather foolish to think that he'll get any healthier with time (imo).

andrea bargnani may not have yet proven himself as an injury magnet, but he is like chris in the sense that he needs time to get his body adjusted to the game after returning from injury. in fact, after last year's appendicitis, he looked like he was playing his first game of the year. likewise, this year's first game saw him look like he did in the first game of his rookie season, and i imagine upon returning from this "knee contusion" he'll look just as raw as ever.

the point is that you cannot rely on these players long-term. to say that you can is to ignore historical evidence and let the team off the hook after bad games. the raps had better get used to playing without chris and tj, and possibly andrea as well, because they don't exactly match kobe bryant- or paul pierce, ray allen and kevin garnett- in durability. i don't think anyone has been surprised at their injury woes this year- whereas if it had happened to boston's big three, for example, i think most people would have been surprised. with the raps, this is the status quo.

also, good thing we decided to forget about the phoenix blowout and concentrate on friday night's game in boston instead. really paid off.

peace

trick

You know, at this point last season the team turned things (or were on their way of turning things) around. Now it's just as frustrating to watch as the first 10 games of last season (or even further back, as frustrating as that abysmal 24-58 season).

Our core players are injured. Our lineups are wonky. No one has any set roles yet. We're still trying to find our footing when things are supposed to unravel and solidify how the rest of the season shapes up.

This team is better than their .500 record shows for it. Seriously.

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bigbabyjesus

No doubt we're better than our record.

I mean if JUST Bosh was out, we'd be fine. Bargnani would be filling it up for us, because when he gets consistent minutes, he usually always brings it to the table. Albeit he is still young and inconsistent, but he would provide that scorer that we really need right now.

Let's hope one of Bosh and Bargs comes back asap.. even better both obviously.

I firmly believe we're better than last year, I don't think anyone doubts that. But this year has showed us we're a star away from being an elite team. Can Bargnani become that star off the bench, is the question... Because it doesn't look as though he'll be starting anytime soon.. I see it as this - win a couple more games with Rasho starting, or develop our #1 pick by letting him play through mistakes. Personally I'd like to go with the latter.. not only does that develop Bargnani into a better player for us, but that allows us to flip one of him or Bosh for a trade sooner.