Fire Sam Mitchell.

1. The “Hot like fire, cool like…” Raptors ‘reading is fun’ commercial that they play to fucking death on Raptors TV is ‘pull out my toenails with white-hot barbecue tongs instead’ annoying. A 1986 Sony handicam films the Raptor doing cartwheels through a dusty elementary school gym. Then, Pullitzer-aspiring Chris Bosh, offers this deadpan reason for reading:

“Its very important…in life…and um, it’s a good hobby”

Um, Chris, ehhhhhhhhhhhhcccch (family feud buzzer)

Hobby? Likely not amongst the official top 3 reasons for reading. (Probably education, knowledge and ultimately, dollars).

2. Jose masterminding a genius backcourt inbound play (probably, I’ll pass it to you, you pass it back) to Joey Graham who, seemingly by Jose’s growing impatience, is standing facing the crowd, picking his ass.

But also, calm down Jose - how important could the game situation be if Joey was on the court?

3. Sherman Hamilton in HD. (His scientist looking co-host isn’t taking home any ‘least annoying’ awards either.)

Erm, Sam Mitchell hacked the site, and it was down for the last three days. Another reason to fire sam mitchell.

Love or hate him, he was inexorably woven into the Raptor fabric, and will be missed by many.

(Whoever’s in charge - Please no Rod Black. At any time. Please! Even Suneel Joshi, but not Rod f@cking Black.)

You’d be hard press to argue Jose is a (dorky) student…of the game:

The Sam defenders are REALLY coming out of the woodwork recently, so answer me this. (Last post micro-analyzing the round 1 loss, I promise — the below article just cements something we were harping on earlier).

Despite not having players with Piston’esque defensive ability, while Dwight was putting up those gargantuan numbers, why wasn’t the below strategy considered?

[from ESPN.com]

“He averaged 22.6 points, 18.2 rebounds and 3.8 blocks against Toronto — helping Orlando advance in the playoffs for the first time since 1996 — to rival what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Moses Malone produced in those categories during the playoffs in the 1970s.”

Pistons coach Flip Saunders started with Jason Maxiell guarding Howard before sending Rasheed Wallace, Antonio McDyess and Ratliff at him.

Howard’s 12 points were the fewest he scored during this postseason and his eight rebounds marked a career low in 10 playoff games. His lackluster game led to Orlando scoring a season-worst 72 points, 13 fewer than its previous low.”

The four horsemen would have slowed Dwight considerably — Hump, Primo, Rasho, Bosh — in the LEAST sending him to the line more often (HOWWW-ARD, HOWWW-ARD) and causing him to expend more energy, jostling for position with players not so concerned with saving their fouls. Common sense.

According to MLSE, Andrea was energetically riled up for Game 4 against the Pistons…

Bryan Colangelo: “We have no intention of making a coaching change – period. It’s not an issue. He has three years left on his deal and what happened in the playoffs does not affect his status here. We lost to a very good basketball team.”

It begs the question: what’s the real deal? Surely, what happened in the playoffs isn’t enough to call for a coach’s job, especially after such a solid season…wait, this season was a FUCKING disaster. Read the rest of this entry »

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, well-publicized-ly short on revenues this year, in the vein of diversifying their interests resorted to publishing fiction:

Hey Bryan,

Sorry for all the memos this month (with the lack of home-town playoff basketball available and all, idle time abounds) but add one more thing to your off-season shopping list, please: Bulk.

(opposite pictured below)