The 2013-2014 Toronto Raptors thread: A 'Drake' New World
- Thread starter Champ Kind
- Start date
Corn Flake
New member
Love for Wiggins, Bennett and a protected 1st. Love apparently committing to opting out of his deal next summer and re-signing long term.
kkkrazy trades!
kkkrazy trades!
hockeyfan1
New member
First he was known as simply Ron Artest. Then, he changed his name to MettaWorldPeace. Now, he will soon be known as "Panda Friend". The always entertaining Ron Artest, eh. Go figure.
mettaworldpeace.com @MettaWorldPeace
New Chinese name coming soon. You guys are going to love it!!!!.
Source: Sportsnet
mettaworldpeace.com @MettaWorldPeace
New Chinese name coming soon. You guys are going to love it!!!!.
Source: Sportsnet
Corn Flake
New member
Corn Flake said:
Also, this should help pave the way to Wiggins signing in Toronto in 4 years.
dappleganger
Active member
I thought LeBron-Wiggins could have been the new Jordan-Pippin. I was looking forward to it.
Wiggins was coming into the NBA with the type of hype not seen since LeBron went 1st overall but, admittedly, Wiggins stock has dropped since his one season in Kansas.
Oh well, Love is a future hall of Famer. He might be the most underrated (or least talked about) star in the NBA.
Wiggins was coming into the NBA with the type of hype not seen since LeBron went 1st overall but, admittedly, Wiggins stock has dropped since his one season in Kansas.
Oh well, Love is a future hall of Famer. He might be the most underrated (or least talked about) star in the NBA.
Kin
Active member
dappleganger said:
If it weren't for the fact that both guys play the same position I think there would have been more support for the idea. As is this lets Wiggins operate on the wing where he belongs and allows Cleveland to put a better shooter out there with Lebron at the #2.
dappleganger
Active member
Nik the Trik said:
Cleveland has Wiggins listed as a guard, FWIW.
I thought Cleveland's starting five would be: Irving-Waiters-James-Thompson-Varejao.
Wiggins would be coming off the bench, at least to start the season. This is purely a win now move for the Cavs and they had a bigger whole at PF which they filled with probably the best PF in the league. Not bad.
Kin
Active member
dappleganger said:
Position aside, and I would bet a great deal of money that Wiggins plays SF in the pros, you still have to ask how Wiggins would have played with Lebron because Lebron just plays so many minutes. Wiggins isn't a catch and shoot guy and he wasn't a great off the ball player with Kansas. He needs the ball in his hands so it's hard to imagine that the 10-12 non Lebron minutes a night he'd get would be the best for his development.
dappleganger said:
I don't know about "purely" a win now move. Love is young. Irving is young. Worst comes to worst and Lebron leaves in two years building around those two isn't the worst thing for the future.
Kin
Active member
Another Canadian in the NBA? Sacramento signs 7'5, 360lb Toronto native Sim Bhullar
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11357504/sim-bhullar-joins-sacramento-kings-becomes-first-player-indian-descent-sign-deal-nba
He's a longshot to actually make the roster(his main talent is being big) so he'll probably see some D-League time but good news, potentially, for the national team.
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11357504/sim-bhullar-joins-sacramento-kings-becomes-first-player-indian-descent-sign-deal-nba
He's a longshot to actually make the roster(his main talent is being big) so he'll probably see some D-League time but good news, potentially, for the national team.
hockeyfan1
New member
Ujiri upset about Lieweke leaving...
...Raptors? newly approved $32-million practice facility. It was one of the pre-conditions for Ujiri accepting the job as general manager, and one of Leiweke?s first coups as the president and chief executive officer of MLSE just 14 months ago.
...64,000 square foot facility to be built on CNE grounds...
?It?s not been easy man,? said Ujiri of the news that the partnership he forged with Leiweke suddenly had a hard deadline attached. ?I love chemistry, I love team sports and Tim is a great team player. He?s a great boss and a great leader. It just makes it tough. You feel you have all of that chemistry and you have to change again.?
It?s clear that Ujiri reveres his boss.
It?s also clear the Leiweke had a knack for rubbing his bosses the wrong way. ?They like to believe that MLSE is a best in class organization,? said one source. ?And Tim kept telling them that it wasn?t, and he wasn?t always that nice about it.?
.?No one wants to hear their company?s not good enough all the time,? one source said.
Getting a practice facility done was nearly an obsession for Leiweke, because it was a ?must-have? for Ujiri and essential to being a model NBA franchise.
Ujiri had been with the Raptors when Bryan Colangelo had his plans for a practice facility turned down by the MLSE board, and wanted assurances that the franchise?s new ownership would make the facility a priority.
Leiweke found himself trying to convince the board at MLSE that spending $32-million with no prospect of a return on the investment was a good idea. This was on top of a $120-million investment to renovate BMO Field and $100 million spent on bringing in Jermaine Defoe and Michael Bradley to Toronto FC.
...Leiweke was adamant...?We needed something, some bricks and mortar, that was a symbol that Raptors were important,? said Leiweke. ?The board needed to make a commitment that the Raptors were as high a priority as the Leafs.?
It will have all the bells and whistles ? a kitchen, a video room the size of a small movie theatre, a state-of-the-art sports medicine centre, two full-sized courts ? and most importantly all of the coaching staff, players, and management will be in one location with an open door policy.
?It?s a symbol of ?yes we can?, not: why we won?t,?? said Leiweke.
It should all be ready in time for the 2016 All-Star game, and Leiweke made no bones about why that?s significant.
?In order to be among the top six or 10 teams in the league, it?s about recruiting now,? he said. ?They understood that we could be a great team and we need a facility that helps us keep players and it?s not lost on us that every great player in the league will be in this facility for a week during the NBA all-star game in 2016. It?s a pretty good calling card.?
?There were so many bumps...but Tim would always walk into my office and say: ?we?re going to get you a training centre done, we?re going to get it done, we?re going to get it done, and he did.?
?He?s a bulldog, man.?
http://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/ujiri-deflated-by-leiwekes-departure/
...Raptors? newly approved $32-million practice facility. It was one of the pre-conditions for Ujiri accepting the job as general manager, and one of Leiweke?s first coups as the president and chief executive officer of MLSE just 14 months ago.
...64,000 square foot facility to be built on CNE grounds...
?It?s not been easy man,? said Ujiri of the news that the partnership he forged with Leiweke suddenly had a hard deadline attached. ?I love chemistry, I love team sports and Tim is a great team player. He?s a great boss and a great leader. It just makes it tough. You feel you have all of that chemistry and you have to change again.?
It?s clear that Ujiri reveres his boss.
It?s also clear the Leiweke had a knack for rubbing his bosses the wrong way. ?They like to believe that MLSE is a best in class organization,? said one source. ?And Tim kept telling them that it wasn?t, and he wasn?t always that nice about it.?
.?No one wants to hear their company?s not good enough all the time,? one source said.
Getting a practice facility done was nearly an obsession for Leiweke, because it was a ?must-have? for Ujiri and essential to being a model NBA franchise.
Ujiri had been with the Raptors when Bryan Colangelo had his plans for a practice facility turned down by the MLSE board, and wanted assurances that the franchise?s new ownership would make the facility a priority.
Leiweke found himself trying to convince the board at MLSE that spending $32-million with no prospect of a return on the investment was a good idea. This was on top of a $120-million investment to renovate BMO Field and $100 million spent on bringing in Jermaine Defoe and Michael Bradley to Toronto FC.
...Leiweke was adamant...?We needed something, some bricks and mortar, that was a symbol that Raptors were important,? said Leiweke. ?The board needed to make a commitment that the Raptors were as high a priority as the Leafs.?
It will have all the bells and whistles ? a kitchen, a video room the size of a small movie theatre, a state-of-the-art sports medicine centre, two full-sized courts ? and most importantly all of the coaching staff, players, and management will be in one location with an open door policy.
?It?s a symbol of ?yes we can?, not: why we won?t,?? said Leiweke.
It should all be ready in time for the 2016 All-Star game, and Leiweke made no bones about why that?s significant.
?In order to be among the top six or 10 teams in the league, it?s about recruiting now,? he said. ?They understood that we could be a great team and we need a facility that helps us keep players and it?s not lost on us that every great player in the league will be in this facility for a week during the NBA all-star game in 2016. It?s a pretty good calling card.?
?There were so many bumps...but Tim would always walk into my office and say: ?we?re going to get you a training centre done, we?re going to get it done, we?re going to get it done, and he did.?
?He?s a bulldog, man.?
http://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/ujiri-deflated-by-leiwekes-departure/
Kin
Active member
L K said:
Maybe, although whereas the Clippers would have been on anyone's shortlist for the most desirable teams in the league(good team, marketable stars, huge market) the Hawks have to be right near the bottom(mediocre team, Al Horford, indifferent market). Forbes most recent NBA valuations, which to be fair did miss the value of the Clippers by 1.5 billion or so, had the Hawks as the 27th most valuable team in the NBA.
Anyways, I read the email in question and it's really sad. I don't know if "racist" is necessarily the word I'd use but it seems to sort of be "Our white fans are racist but we want their money so let's do what we can to get more of them in the building" while decrying the racism of the people whose money he wants. It's ridiculously racially insensitive and displays the worst sort of cowardice but it's not Donald Sterling.
In fact, I think it'd be fair to say that it's an email that's sort of rooted in a lot of the league's policies from the past from things like the dress policy to the age limit that have been perceived by a lot of people to have a racial motivation.