| Burnt On The Edges Of The Page Authored by Matthew Gordon - February 14, 2009 - 2:24 pm
| Current Featured Columns | | Merry Christmas, Raptors Fans The Raptors might not be playing good basketball right now, but there are plenty of things for Toronto fans to be thankful for this holiday season.
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For the Heat, trading Marion for O’Neal seems either like a head-scratcher or desperate. The Heat needed a centre, and Marion was deemed expendable almost from the time he arrived in South Beach, but O’Neal has been banged up all year and is due to make $23 million next season. The Vince Carter rumor that surfaced just after the trade was complete might also present a reason to second-guess the Heat’s decision to make this trade, although his gargantuan contract and not being seven feet tall were notable obstacles there.
Had I been told, just before the trade that brought O’Neal to Toronto in the first place, that I could trade TJ Ford, Rasho Nesterovic and a draft pick for either O’Neal or Marion, I would’ve had a tough time deciding. Oddly, had the Raptors simply traded Ford, Nesterovic and the pick to Miami, removing Indiana from the equation altogether, both Toronto and Miami would be better off now. Miami would have Ford, who’s more of a long-term piece than O’Neal; Nesterovic, whose contract is more palatable; and Roy Hibbert, or someone of comparable talent, would’ve been nice for depth.
The reason this trade fails miserably for the Raptors has nothing to do with O’Neal or Marion, albeit maybe a bit to do with their salaries. Swapping Jamario Moon, arguably the NBA’s best non-rookie contract bargain, for Marcus Banks, who’s $4 million per year of driftwood, is horrifyingly bad. That’s the price of deciding midseason that O’Neal wasn’t the fit Bryan Colangelo thought he would be. The Raptors are also dangerously thin at centre.
The truth is, Bosh and O’Neal fit fine together. That was never the problem. Looking at the Raptors’ abysmal record and blaming it on the team’s two best players is a kindergarten tactic. It’s like looking at the Grizzlies’ record and blaming OJ Mayo and Rudy Gay. Bosh and O’Neal, contrary to presenting any kind of problem for the team, were all it had.
Aside from Bosh and O’Neal, the team had Jose Calderon, who’s a good starting point guard but without any semblance of defense; Andrea Bargnani, whose inconsistency is reminiscent of poorly-made mashed potatoes; and… exactly.
The Raptors handcuffed themselves by paying Jason Kapono $6 million per year and stubbornly refusing to trade Anthony Parker’s almost $5 million expiring contract. Now with Banks on the team, the cap relief from Parker’s expiration is moot. The team will still have $10 million poorly spent until 2011, past everyone’s favorite free agent summer. A team that’s done nothing but whine about its cap situation all season (fans will remember how they only signed Jake Voskuhl to a prorated veteran’s minimum contract when it became apparent that cutting Hassan Adams could keep the team from paying the luxury tax) has only made things worse. Having a sub-$1 million starter in Moon was the saving grace, and now he’s gone for another bad contract.
Is Marion really $16 million better than Moon? I’ll guess no. If the Raptors plan to re-sign Marion, they’ll have to deal with an agent who’s been saying nothing but near-maximum money. If not, all they’ll have to show for the two O’Neal blockbusters is Banks.
Putting the sheer lack of comprehensibility of having Kapono and Banks on the same team into perspective, consider that, combined, they make more than the following players:
Caron Butler
Antawn Jamison
Tayshaun Prince
Jose Calderon (so this concept is clearly not foreign to the Raptors)
Nene
Hedo Turkoglu
The list goes on from there. While it’s far from an expectation that the Raptors could acquire any of these players, it’s a chilling testament to the kind of money the organization is capable of wasting. If $10 million can fetch a player as good as any of the ones listed above in 2010, the Raptors will have to seriously consider why they’re paying a one-dimensional shooter and a player averaging 2.6 points per game that much.
On top of the cap issues, there’s also the little problem of having only Bargnani and Voskuhl at centre. Although Bargnani’s shown marked improvement this season, he could still fade back to last year’s level. He hasn’t played this well for a full season yet. With all the reports about how much O’Neal helped Bargnani work on his game, how will Bargnani develop without a veteran post player to go up against every practice? Voskuhl’s a serviceable backup, but if Bargnani falters, twenty-four minutes of Voskuhl won’t win many games no matter how well Marion plays.
Acquiring Mark Blount instead of Banks would’ve been markedly better. Blount expires a year earlier, which would have allowed the Raptors to have more money in 2010. He’s also a centre, which would’ve been nice considering the alternatives. An outsider can only assume that Colangelo tried.
Not long ago, in that (falsely?) hopeful season of 2006/2007, the Raptors were a deep team lacking bad contracts. Now, they’re the exact opposite. When the Raptors do have significant cap room again, whenever that is (probably not 2010 unless Bosh jumps ship), they’ll also have to think about which players will want to sign with a team that’s willing to trade away its second-best player after half a season.
With the summer’s hope disintegrated and the playoffs so far away, the Raptors will likely have an extended offseason to think about where they want to take this team. If there’s any boredom in the front office, making out checks to Banks should pass the time. |
