I know I rag on the Toronto Raptors a lot, but I say it’s their fault for giving me something new to laugh/rant about on a weekly basis. The latest being the comments by Bryan Colangelo yesterday about what new forward Linus Kleiza could do for the team as a potential starter in Toronto.
First of all, if Linus Kleiza has even a sniff of being a starter on the Raptors next season, you know the team is going to be bad. We knew already that losing Chris Bosh would make them a terrible team on the floor, but they’ve lost Hedo Turkoglu as well and only really replaced that with Leandro Barbosa and a couple of draft picks.
But in furthering his point about Kleiza possibly being a starter, Colangelo went into a bit of a whirlwind in his thoughts and let out a gem of a comment to Prime Time Sports host Bob McCown... “As far as his mid-range game is concerned, it’s...uhh...a little awkward to say the least.” This forced McCown to ask the obvious follow-up of what he meant by awkward.
I also liked the fact that he tried to sell the fans on Kleiza by saying that if he was on the floor, he could very well be the best post-up threat that the Raptors have. UH-OH! That might be a positive as far as pumping the tires of Linus Kleiza, but it’s a huge negative when you highlight the lack of options that the Raptors have for their inside game with a comment like that.
It’s just not been a very good summer all around for Bryan Colangelo, which is a big letdown for the fans and the organization as well. Colangelo was supposed to be the brilliant basketball mind that would rise this team up from mediocrity and make them a contender in the Eastern Conference. He has failed at doing that in his short time with the franchise, but he could have made up for the lack of success by handling this off-season well.
Losing Bosh was inevitable and he did well to trade Turkoglu away to the Suns for Leandro Barbosa, but he really dropped the ball when he couldn’t close the deal with Michael Jordan and the Charlotte Bobcats that would have allowed them to pick up Tyson Chandler and Boris Diaw for a small price of Jose Calderon and Reggie Evans. He also dropped the ball by flinching too early and picking up Linus Kleiza when he could have waited and had Matt Barnes from Orlando for the same price.
Instead of a team that has a plan to move forward without the services of Chris Bosh, the Raptors look like a team that is spiralling out of control all because of the loss of Chris Bosh. And I’m sure the people of Ottawa who read this love the idea that another Toronto team that plays out of the ACC will be a loser for years and years and more years.