The Saturday Morning Post: Shhhhh

Shhhh….(whispering) if you listen closely you can hear it. Shhhh….there it is..it’s the sound of nothing happening in Raptorland. It’s what the off-season is made of and results in a void around these areas for long stretches at a time. But nay! I wow to keep the train chugging along despite the lack of activity or rumour in the Raptors camp. It makes for quite a pathetic read but we’re like meth addicts, we need something…anything.

Since there’s no Raptors news this morning, I found it quite apropos to start off with the Chris Paul contract extension which stands at $68M/4yrs for 17 million a year. Even in the inflated NBA market that is superstar money indeed. If we sign Calderon to an 8M/yr deal it doesn’t sound like overpayment at all. In fact, if I was Calderon I’d hold the Raptors feet to the fire and ask for even more money since we don’t have a backup plan at PG anymore. Hell, I’d start the bidding at 13M and settle at 10M if I were him, you think Colangelo has the balls to let Calderon walk at this point?

I don’t want to scare anybody but the Celtics are talking about getting Maggette (Spurs hunt). If that’s not enough, Josh Smith might end up in Philadelphia. New Jersey’s retooling and will have a young athletic product on the court which leaves the Knicks as the only team that I can confidently say that we’ll finish ahead of next year.

Chris Duhon gets a 12M/2yrs contract with the Knicks, that’s 6M per year. You can’t possibly tell me Calderon is only 2M/yr better than Duhon. There is a Raptors connection to this (very lame one), Duhon was signed to an offersheet by Rob Babcock but the Bulls matched it paving the way for the TJ Ford trade a year later. The most interesting story is the one suggesting that the Warriors have been contacted by nine different teams about sign-and-trade offers for Monta Ellis who thinks his future is away from the bay area. Insert sentence which drools over Monta Ellis in a Raptors uniform. On another guard note, Keyon Dooling is likely done in Orlando as they signed Courtney Lee to a contract.

Ontario’s debating whether they should allow Vegas-style gambling and MLSE doesn’t care either way. The opinion of this insignificant observer is that how could it possibly hurt? There’s lots to gain in this proposition including more tourism and increased business; I can’t see the OLGC being opposed to this as long as they’re the major shareholder of the “house”.

Toronto stole some NFL games from the Bills so the least the city of Buffalo could do was try to snatch some NBA games away from us – good luck! Unless MLSE’s getting 90% of the ticket sales that’s highly unlikely to happen. On a similar note the Raptors are holding their training camp at Carleton University.

Leo Rautins and Canada are off to a rocky start with a shocking loss to New Zealand. The shocking part wasn’t the loss but the fact that New Zealand actually had a basketball team. As long as Leo keeps on stressing how vital it is to keep the ball inbounds when blocking a shot I think we’ll be fine.

I have a confession to make, I am a D.I.S.C.O Dancer.