Posts tagged BryanColangelo at FanHouse

Michael Grange of the Globe and Mail penned a solid profile of Raptors interim coach Jay Triano, illustrating just how excited folks in Canada are for one of their own to take over their country's lone NBA team.

It's a good piece, but what struck me was how even the recently deposed Sam Mitchell had good things to say about the man who replaced him. As Mitchell told Grange, though, he harbors no ill-will over Bryan Colangelo's decision:

"Fans, calls, e-mails, everyone's been great," he said. "I've enjoyed every minute working for the Toronto Raptors and I've enjoyed every minute of living in this city, I have no regrets and no complaints and everyone at MSLE, the owners, board of directors, Bryan, has treated me better than anyone deserves to be treated. You just have to move on."

I agree that the Raptors probably had to make a change, and while the timing seemed early, it's better than pulling the trigger too late. That said, I'd love to see Mitchell get another chance, or at least an invitation to move into the broadcast booth.

When discussing Sam Mitchell's firing yesterday, my colleague Tom Ziller cited Toronto's dismal defense as a likely contributing factor -- last year the Raptors' defense ranked slightly above average; this year, it's one of the worst in the league.

Such a decline put Mitchell in an awkward position, especially since his entire coaching philosophy of rebounding and defense was somewhat at odds with Bryan Colangelo's preference to run-and-gun -- if a defensive coach can't coach defense, what use is he?

Mitchell was already in place when Colangelo took the job, and after Mitchell led the team to their first division title and was named Coach of the Year two seasons ago, Colangelo faced pressure to sign him to an extension. After hearing his comments at yesterday's press conference, I'm convinced Colangelo has given interim head coach Jay Triano (pictured), who's coached Steve Nash for Canada's national team, a mandate to run. From the Toronto Star:

"As of last week, I believe, we were 29th in the league in fast-break points. That was concerning to all of us," said Colangelo last night. "There was talk about running, but it's something that I'm not sure we ever really thought about or practised or discussed to the extent it appeared on the floor with any kind of habit."

Fortunately, the tools are in place for the Raptors to become an up-tempo team. Jermaine O'Neal won't be winning any footraces, but he can trigger the fast-break with his rebounding, and his frontcourt mates Chris Bosh and Jamario Moon are both extremely athletic. Plus, no one in the league finds the open man (9.5 assists per game) while protecting the ball (4.9 A/TO) as well as Jose Calderon.

It's safe to call Toronto's start a disappointment: Canucks were thinking conference championship, not below .500 ball into December. As such, impeccably dressed Sam Mitchell has seen the end of his Raptors tenure. The team has named assistant Jay Triano (a former captain and coach of Canada's national team) as the interim man in charge.

Doug Smith of the Toronto Star reports that the lack of effort shown by the team in Tuesday's 132-93 disaster against Denver set Bryan Colangelo's mind. If anything, the game highlighted what has become an abysmal Toronto defense, ranked 26th in the league in opponents points per possession. Last season, Toronto's D was slightly above average. You'd think adding Jermaine O'Neal, one of this era's elite post defenders, would help. It has not.

If you took a time machine to 2005 when Colangelo took Toronto's reigns, and you said Smitch -- the antithesis of the prototypical Colangelo coach -- would be around until December 2008, we would have all called you crazy. (I mean, you have a time machine and you're worried about the Toronto Raptors coaching job? Weirdo.) Mitchell stuck around longer than he had any business to, and he'll get another job. Hopefully his next gig will have a team that better fits his persona/philosophy (smashmouth, defensive basketball).

Triano becomes the league's first Canadian-born head coach. I have a hunch he's also the first NBA head coach who saw Rent on Broadway more than 10 times and whose favo(u)rite musician is Sarah McLachlan.

Team USA needs no confidence boost heading into tomorrow morning's gold medal game against Spain: the Americans have whooped all comers, including the Spaniards. By 37. But the United States gets another chip on its stack nonetheless, as Spain's starting point guard Jose Calderon will apparently not play due to injury. ESPN's Chris Sheridan confirmed the news with Raptors boss Bryan Colangelo ... who has a bit of a history with the Spanish basketball federation. Something tells me Calderon (who just signed a weighty contract with Toronto) won't be pressing the Raps on this.

For Spain, this might put wunderkind jumblebum RIcky Rubio into the starting five. Raul Lopez got the nod to open the semifinal game against Lithuania, but was ineffective. Rubio started the second half. He was also ineffective, though he did a spritely job of frustrating craggly Sarunas Jasikevicius.

Lopez and Rubio are both, at this point, significantly inferior to Calderon and vastly inferior to the American opponents ... even Jason Kidd. (!) Spain needed close to a perfect storm to beat the United States to begin with. Without their top PG, Spain needs a miracle.

Team USA needs no confidence boost heading into tomorrow morning's gold medal game against Spain: the Americans have whooped all comers, including the Spaniards. By 37. But the United States gets another chip on its stack nonetheless, as Spain's starting point guard Jose Calderon will apparently not play due to injury. ESPN's Chris Sheridan confirmed the news with Raptors boss Bryan Colangelo ... who has a bit of a history with the Spanish basketball federation. Something tells me Calderon (who just signed a weighty contract with Toronto) won't be pressing the Raps on this.

For Spain, this might put wunderkind jumblebum RIcky Rubio into the starting five. Raul Lopez got the nod to open the semifinal game against Lithuania, but was ineffective. Rubio started the second half. He was also ineffective, though he did a spritely job of frustrating craggly Sarunas Jasikevicius.

Lopez and Rubio are both, at this point, significantly inferior to Calderon and vastly inferior to the American opponents ... even Jason Kidd. (!) Spain needed close to a perfect storm to beat the United States to begin with. Without their top PG, Spain needs a miracle.

Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that the on-again, off-again deal that would send Jermaine O'Neal to Toronto for T.J. Ford is officially on, and has been agreed to in principle by both clubs. The Raptors will also send Rasho Nesterovic and another player to Indiana to match O'Neal's huge salary that he's owed, about $44 million over the next two seasons.

Both O'Neal and Ford have a history of medical issues, so the obligatory team physicals may yet have something to do with this deal actually being completed. But if all goes well, the Raptors can have Jose Calderon running the team without any drama, and the Pacers can begin rebuilding with a solid point guard in place, along with the 11th and 17th picks in the first round of Thursday night's draft.

Tom Ziller called the T.J. Ford part of this deal back in April, as Toronto GM Bryan Colangelo all but guaranteed that Calderon would be staying in Toronto, and also mentioned that he wasn't sure if the two point guards could happily co-exist. This seems to be a good deal for both sides, and is probably just the first trade of many that we'll see between now and the end of tomorrow evening's Draft festivities.

Typically, player contract buy-outs in the NBA come solely for financial considerations. The heaviest spate of buy-out action came in 2006, when the league instituted its limited amnesty program, allowing teams like Dallas to save some luxury tax cash by cutting overpaid men like Michael Finley loose. Rarely -- Steve Francis in Portland is the only one who comes to mind -- do teams buy out a contract because of a broken relationship or bad attitudes. It's always money.

Toronto won't be saving much cash at all in buying out Jorge Garbajosa, as the Toronto Globe & Mail reports has just happened. After last summer's saga with the Spanish national team, this break-up is solely based on hurt feelings and an incompatible relationship. For his part, team boss Bryan Colangelo pulls the old "it was mutual" bit.

"It's bittersweet," Colangelo said. "Because no matter what the financial benefits of the deal we don't have the player. We missed him last season and now we won't get him back and have to find what he brought to our lineup and that's not easy."

We're sure Garbo needs a hug, too. The G&M's Michael Grange's first guess has Jorge returning to a top Spanish club after the Olympics; dude's 31 years old, coming off a second knee surgery -- yeah, nary an NBA team's offering enough to keep Garbo stateside.

I remain wary of the dichotomy present in Toronto: the team is built on the backs of a Euro style and myriad international players, but Colangelo seems uneasy with allowing his players to be farmed out during the summer international season. (San Antonio shows the same paradox, asking Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Fabricio Oberto to forgo FIBA play last year.) The stance makes practical sense in dollars and cents, but it comes off incredibly shrewish.

It's fairly disappointing to look back at the 2007-08 season and realize I didn't make a single post relating to Jose Calderon's blog. It's been mentioned before, of course, in the relevance of cultural importance, but it doesn't necessarily get a lot of media attention. Or at least not enough media attention. But I bet that will change with Jose's most recent and a little picante entry, posted May 7 and relating to his contract status.

As of today, the Raptors would like me to continue, however until the 1st of July we will not know anything about the possible renewal or other offers from teams interested in me for next season. What is clear is the fact that if I have to choose between a sports offer versus an economic offer, I will opt for the first. I want to be a starter and to be in a team that aspires for everything. Of course I will not be on a team in which I cannot be an important contributor nor if there is not a solid structure or if there are not options to be in the "Playoffs".

Okay, first of all, the fact that the is willing to give up money in order to start for a contender is just superb. It's something that you obviously don't hear much anymore. You do hear people frequently say that they would like to start though, but I feel like JMC's case is a bit of an exception. Clearly, Bryan Colangelo prefers him to T.J. Ford.

He does so with good reason; Calderon is a better point guard. Calderon probably should have been an All Star this season, and he is also clearly the future at the point for Toronto. And if he gets his wish, he'll be the only future. Honestly, too, that doesn't seem like something Jose would fire out publicly if he didn't believe the team was ready to move Ford either.

In news that can either be described as an anti-collusion effort or simple petty bitterness, the Globe and Mail reports that when the Suns granted Mike D'Antoni permission to speak to other teams about their head coaching positions, they had one condition. He is not allowed to speak with the Toronto Raptors.

Now, if the two teams were division rivals, this would be pretty self-explanatory. If they were conference rivals, even, I could see the inherent value. But as they play in different conferences, there are really only two options. The first is that Suns owner Robert Sarver wanted to make sure D'Antoni's buddy and Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo didn't benefit if he was in any way involved in D'Antoni's decision to ride out of the desert. This is not beyond reason, considering the personal and professional relationship between the two. Likewise, it prevents D'Antoni from hooking back up with Colangelo and re-instituting the "run and gun" which the Suns have decided to abandon, and succeeding with it where the Suns failed, however unlikely that may be. Better to just nip the possibility in the bud than to risk further embarrassment and attention to how quickly the Suns disintegrated when Sarver hired Steve Kerr.

But there's a more likely reason, after the jump.

A look at the losers as they get bounced from the playoffs.

After winning 47 games in 2006-07, the Raptors regressed to an even .500 record this year, in part because of injuries to Jorge Garbajosa, Chris Bosh and T.J. Ford. That said, no matter how well they played, there was no catching the Boston Celtics, who won the division by 25 games.

How They Got to the Dance: By being in the Eastern Conference. A 41-41 record would have left the Raps on the outside looking in were they in the West, but it was good enough to result in a No. 6 seed in the East. That said, there's no doubt that there's enough talent on this team to make the playoffs every year, but they need their key guys to stay durable, and it wouldn't hurt if Andrea Bargnani would finally live up to his No. 1 pick status.

How They Got Bounced: Dwight Howard is without a doubt the most dominant center in the NBA today. There aren't a lot of teams who can slow him down, let alone the Raptors, who are used to playing a more of a finesse game. Howard put up three 20-20 games in the series, helping the Magic dominate the boards while a crew of sharpshooters fired away from three-point land.