Re: The Raptors sign Roko Ukic to a 3 year contract
Quote:
Originally Posted by Victor Page
God help us if Jose gets hurt for any amount of time though.
i don't know if i agree with this. i just don't think the raps are one of those teams. with or without jose, i think our emphasis is on the frontcourt. i'm not saying our frontcourt doesn't need jose calderon, but it's not like jose is the axis around which this team revolves.
and even if he was, how would that be any different from most of the other 29 teams? "god help" new orleans if chris paul gets hurt, god help utah if deron does, god help san antonio if parker does, or new jersey with harris, milwaukee with mo, washington with zero, the clips with baron, etc... even the suns with nash.
why stop there? god help the lakers if kobe gets hurt or the cavs with lebron or on and on and on. in pro sports, you're not meant to have a safety net for everything. at some point you have to assume the risk. no point in fussing over it. if anything, i welcome the new roster for just that reason: it forces them to perform. our team has grown accustomed to passing responsibility off to someone else, imo, which may have brewed the culture of complacency we've been fighting for two years.
Re: The Raptors sign Roko Ukic to a 3 year contract
Quote:
Originally Posted by lucky777s
I think the point is that just last season the only big injury to fear was Bosh. Anyone else we had an adequate replacement for.
This year we are in big trouble if JO, Bosh, or Jose go down.
And the only reason we can survive injury on the wings is that none of our wings is that darn good to begin with so losing one is no big deal.
i think this is confusing reality with our perception of reality. if bosh was the only irreplaceable piece last year, why did the team take up chances (at different times) to use bargnani, ford, nesterovic and garbajosa to explain their failure to go off on an extended run (and even excuse their slumps)? to me, that is the problem. was garbajosa really that important to us? we claimed he was (before we released him). nesterovic? the claim was made (before we used him as cap ballast). ford? even with jose calderon putting up excellent numbers for the entire time tj was out, we made the claim anyway. we wanted to believe it because it was convenient to do so.
i wouldn't necessarily put chris in a different group either. we missed chris for 12 games in 06/07 and managed to split them down the middle, 6-6. we missed chris for a similar 5-game set this season and we all remember what resulted from that: blowouts. you tell me if the problem was really chris bosh. if it was, then what was the difference between last year (6-6) and this year (0-5)? i think the bigger issue is/was excuses- i do believe i've maintained that since... forever. the team had developed a comfort level with using them.
i am not confident this problem has been solved, either. not at all. heck, we're already looking to see where we can anticipate our next problem. we're preparing an excuse. i don't think cleveland is doing that with lebron, or new orleans with cp3, or whoever else. but we are, and with an equally durable player no less. to me, that may be reflective of a complex we could all stand to leave at the side of the road.
i'm looking at our stats from last year right now and i'm shocked. parker, calderon, delfino all played the full 82, kapono played 81, bargnani and moon played 78, rasho played 71. i mean, aside from tj ford and jorge garbajosa, no rotation player played in less than 67. and from the things sam (and at times bryan) were maintaining all year, you would've thought the entire roster had gone off to fight in afghanistan. we had so many seemingly irreplaceable pieces... "seemingly" being the operative word: we wanted them to be irreplaceable. the pressure of even small success made us uncomfortable.
imo, there are few, if any, truly irreplaceable players in this league. i think you could count them on one hand. some teams accept that angle and play through it. others are so weak that they can't, they won't or they'd rather not play through it. as long as we're discussing a potential injury to jose calderon, i would leave us in the latter category.
Re: The Raptors sign Roko Ukic to a 3 year contract
I think you are making a few different arguments at the same time and it gets confusing:
The team is not a legit contender. We all know that. We will need a lot of things to go right for us to even get a top 4 or 5 seed.
Fans make excuses for the teams poor performance last year. Of course. Garbo was a factor but should not have been that big a factor all year.
Management makes excuses for the teams poor performance last year. Of course. BC isn't going to blame his work putting this together.
No player on the Raps is truly irreplaceable. No superstar. Very true in one sense. That we dont have a LeBron, Kobe, Duncan, DHoward, Yao kind of dominant player. But Bosh might be as valuable to us as JKidd was to the Nets. He was irreplaceable to them, even though on another team he may not make them a winner. Is Steve Nash irreplaceable? No. He is to the Suns though. But look how good Dallas was after he left. That system did not revolve around Nash as much as the Suns system.
Those are all valid points, but I dont' see how putting them all together says anything more.
Being thin at every key position makes us vulnerable to injuries to our starters. That is a fact. Our depth last year allowed us to stay the mediocre team that we always were in my mind. Our big success under BC had as much to do with other teams self-destructing and nobody respecting our Euro line-up as it did with our 'talent'.
The fact that we don't have a franchise player in the superstar sense (like our Gilbert Arenas argument) doesn't change the fact that an injury to Bosh, JO, or Jose could make us a horrible team given that we are barely above average to begin with. Strangely enough, Bosh might be the guy out of those 3 that we could most afford to lose if JO is healthy.
If you look at how the Wiz have survived some bad injury situations it is with a lot of depth.
Re: The Raptors sign Roko Ukic to a 3 year contract
Quote:
Originally Posted by lucky777s
If you look at how the Wiz have survived some bad injury situations it is with a lot of depth.
see, it appears my point of view is not very popular. i believe that in this league, maybe every league, depth is less founded on talent than it is on mentality/approach/intangibles. it's been proven time and again, imo. the raps are a perfect example- at the beginning of last year we were lauding our depth. by the end it was seen as mediocre, and it was pretty much the same group of players. same thing with the celtics: their bench was being mocked mercilessly 12 months ago. by the time they reached the finals, those same 'scrubs' were being seen as useful contributors.
coaching manufactures depth. but players manufacture depth, too. the top players imbue confidence in the bench, while the bench players (together with the coaching staff) find effective roles for themselves. it works like a puzzle. demanding another jumpshot or more size or more athleticism is like, imo, asking for "more pieces" to use in the assembly of a jiggle puzzle. more pieces won't necessarily help; the key is to learn how to use the pieces you have.
imo, sam mitchell and the team have failed in this regard. it also seems like their habitual use of excuses is preventing them from improving there. that is my concern. the complaints about jose calderon's backup are just, imo, yet another manifestation of this problem. if jose goes down, we won't be in trouble because his replacement is "inferior"; we will be in trouble primarily because we won't know how to use his replacement. that's a very different issue, it's an issue that's gone unaddressed, and it's an issue that makes me uncomfortable.
Re: The Raptors sign Roko Ukic to a 3 year contract
but how do you know we won't be able to use his backup?
in my mind Sam and co have implemented a pretty easy system where even inferior players can step in and produce. when Joey and Hump have been asked to play larger roles, they've produced in our system. when we had Mike James, an inferior point guard, he put up huge numbers with Sam.
even if we go into the season with Lucas and Ukic as Jose's backups, i don't think we're weak at the 1 spot. it's not a hard system for point guards to excel in - pick and roll, distribute, and hit shots.
did Washington have great depth or did they have good systems? who was their backup C? roger mason jr was forced into and excelled in a major role. they persevered through grit and defense. we'll need to do the same.
Re: The Raptors sign Roko Ukic to a 3 year contract
I just hope to see Roko earn some minutes. I can see his game develop into an Alvin Williams type...look after the ball, hit open shots, and get people the ball in the right spots. I am sure he wont be the leader that Boogie was in the first year or two, but I think he may be able to get there.
Re: The Raptors sign Roko Ukic to a 3 year contract
and for the record, i'm confident that roko can fill the starting role just fine as a rookie, if, god forbid, jose missed a few games. if beno udrih and ramon sessions can get it done, so can roko, who's going to fit with our team much more than most Raptor fans realize.
Ukic has literally been watching the Raptors, Jose especially, play for years now. he's got to be dying to pick and roll with JO and Bosh and Bargnani and have Kapono, AP, and Moon to dish it to? Jose has shown how efficient one can be with pick and roll shot selection and I think Roko has that shot making ability coming into the L.
The Raptors sign Roko Ukic to a 3 year contract
Linear Mode
