I know there ain't a lot of Basketball fans on here, but would any of you be interested in a Fantasy League? The league would be on Yahoo, head to head league, live draft sometime next week as I would like to start on Christmas Day. Send me an email on here if you're interested and I'll go from there and hopefully I can give out more information too.
They gave up a lot, but they could pull together a decent lineup with a couple more moves.
Paul / Billups
Foye / Leslie
Butler / Gomes
Griffin / Tompkins
Jordan / ???
And they've still got Eric Bledsoe as a solid asset to move. Need to upgrade SG (Foye's really a PG and Leslie's a ways away from being a solid contributor). Desperately need a backup big-man (or two). Could amnesty Williams, and then they can go get some guys who want to play with Paul and Griffin. Humphries would be a good fit.
The Warriors and guard Monta Ellis are being sued by a former employee for sexual harassment.
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According to Boltuch, the plaintiff is accusing Ellis of sexually harassing her from November 2010 to January 2011. The accuser, according to Boltuch, has photo evidence of the harrassment, which he claims was sent to the plaintiff from Ellis' cell phone.
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The photo will be revealed -- along with the identity of the accuser -- at the press conference, Boltuch said.
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"You will be shocked when you see it," Boltuch said. "It's pretty disgusting and graphic."
New coach Dwane Casey faces the thankless assignment of significantly upgrading Toronto's terrible defense without reducing the prominence of leading scorer Andrea Bargnani, who is owed more than $40 million through 2015. Moving Bargnani from center to power forward might help the spindly 7-footer's coverage, but Toronto is already stocked with solid, if unspectacular players at that position in Ed Davis and Amir Johnson; plus, Casey's options for a legitimate big man in the paint rest with the long-past-his-prime Jamaal Magloire and earnest Aaron Gray, who has never played more than 715 minutes in a season in his four-year career. In the backcourt, point guard Jose Calderon is, like Bargnani, offensively gifted and a horrendous defender -- and he's owed $20 million for the next two years. Good luck, Mr. Casey.
Seattle finally has a contender . . . in Oklahoma.
Detroit, Charlotte, Milwaukee, and maybe Washington, all probably worse than the Raptors. Obviously they're not great, but I certainly hope the guy is right. Here's to a high draft pick.
To me Charlotte is the only team that's clearly worse than the Raptors. The next four or so are all pretty close in terms of skill level. I'd be very surprised if they were not in the bottom five. Although watching them right now against Boston, and it's as bad as they played at any point last season. They're going to lose a lot of games early this year before they have a chance to come together.
edit: actually looking much better in the second half... outscoring Boston's starters 11-3 to start the half. My feed is jittery and pixelated, but it looks like the reports of their offseason workouts are accurate... Bargnani defintely lighter, more athletic. Davis and A Johnson bigger, even DeRozan looks stronger, and I was pretty cynical about his offseason schedule. Defense is okay... effort is there but a lot of miscues that leave guys wide-open.
Game summary: Positives for the Raptors: outscored Boston 34 - 24 in the paint, and out-rebounded them 48-38. The bad news: 1-17 on 3-pointers. Ouch. Distance was bad last year, and it's not getting better anytime soon. Something like 5-for-35 on shots longer than 16 feet. So you put those stats together and part of the reason they had so many offensive rebounds was the result of all those long misses.
A few players who looked good: Bargnani... never thought I'd say that the defense looked better with him on the court than on the bench. He wasn't always in the right place, but when he was in the wrong place it wasn't the result of laziness. Only 4 rebounds, but his positioning was solid. The overall rebounding stats supports this. Ed Davis looks great. Needs to work on his foul shots, but if he gets 30 minutes a night, he'll average a double-double. I think by necessity, we'll see a lot of Davis and Bargnani on the court together.
A few players who looked bad: Bayless is quickly removing himself from the starting PG conversation. 4-16 with 4 assists (and two of those assists and two buckets in garbage minutes) is not what they need from him. Finishes well at the rim as always, but has tunnel vision. Aaron Grey... this guy is the stiffiest stiff who ever stiffed. Alibi was really mobile and athletic compared to last year, but when you only get four minutes and blow a routine putback, it doesn't bode well. Was wide open for a lot of time on the court, and the other Raptors were trying hard to pretend he wasn't there, like they knew he couldn't finish.
Great to sign the Chicago Bulls lock up their franchise player Derrick Rose to a 5-year, $94 million extension. How much longer until OKC locks up a key piece of their core and another good young PG in Russell Westbrook?
