1) It’s Hard to Excite Chris Bosh

Chris Bosh is “not too excited to the point [he] was last year.” It’s understandable. It’s hard to find any NBA player that would rather play with Hedo Turkoglu, Jarrett Jack, DeMar DeRosen, Antoine Wright, Marco Belinelli, Rasho Nestrovich, Reggie Evans and hopefully soon Carlos Delfino than Jermaine O’Neil, Jason Kapono, Kris Humphries, Anthony Parker, Joey Graham and Nathan Jawai.

Oh sorry, wait a second, the Raps are significantly improved from last year. I guess I’ve just been way too busy following Chris Bosh’s twitter competition with Charlie V to properly analyze the Raptors off-season moves.

The latest quote from the YouTube video, racetrack appearance, and tweet making superstar is another public relations blunder that makes Raps fans wonder whether Chris Bosh could give less of a f*** than Alex Rios. When Bosh’s used car salesman All-Star YouTube video first came out, it was endearing. The video was pretty funny and painted Bosh as a fun-loving good guy. Now Bosh’s array of internet endeavors reminds fans of Darius Miles’ role in the 2004 hit teen-com The Perfect Score: FOCUS ON BASKETBALL!! (Don’t bother watching past about 1:30 unless you’re really bored. [Editor's note: This movie rules and I own it on DVD.])

I used to love Chris Bosh, but after being spurned by Damon Stoudemire, Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter, his lack of commitment to Toronto has driven me to hate. I realize this isn’t totally fair to Bosh, but the contract extension saga has brought all of his negative attributes to the surface thanks mainly to the particularly scathing article written by Dave Feschuk in the June 5th Toronto Star.

Word on the street is that Bosh will resign with the Raptors and I hope he does, but he has a long way to go to repair his image in Toronto.
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On Sunday afternoon I was sitting on my couch rocking my vintage #16 Raptors jersey watching Matt Bonner rain down threes on the Celtics and thinking ‘could life get any better?’ Then it did when I turned on tsn.ca to learn that Bonner has applied for Canadian Citizenship and is planning to represent Canada in international basketball competitions. Born in Concord, New Hampshire, Bonner has a Canadian Grandfather and his wife is from Toronto, but that’s all just semantics. The fact is Matt Bonner is awesome, he has red hair, he loves Toronto and he drains three balls, so give him a damn passport already.
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1) I would sign Darius Miles

Why not? You sign him to a 10-day contract and play him in garbage time and all of a sudden the Portland Trailblazers don’t have cap space this summer. Is this a jerk move? Yes, but the NBA is a cutthroat competition so why wouldn’t you cut your competitions throat when you have the chance? Good on Memphis.

2) With oil prices down the Diesel is back

Many panned the Shaq for Marion trade, but this year Shaq has shown that he still has some life in his legs. Shaq is averaging 18.2 points 9.1 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per games. He has produced 18 double-doubles and posted highs of 35 points and 17 rebounds. With Miami now scouring the NBA for big men – with Marion as the bait – I’m sure they’d like to go back in time and reverse their trade with Phoenix.

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In 2000, the Toronto Raptors were the NBA’s up and coming team led by Vince Carter and his cousin Tracy McGrady. People were expecting big things from this dynamic duo, even paying them the ultimate compliment of comparing them to the legendary duo of Jordan and Pippen. Unfortunately for Raptors fans, McGrady spurned Toronto choosing to sign a long term contract with the Orlando Magic and play Pippen to Grant Hill’s Jordan.
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This article has been submitted by Rob Shaw.

Imagine David Stern woke up one morning and realized that he has let the NBA completely abandon basketball fans in the Pacific Northwest, first allowing the Vancouver Grizzlies to move to Memphis and then the Seattle SuperSonics to relocate to Oklahoma City. Imagine Stern felt so bad that he granted the Pacific Northwest a new franchise – obviously in Vancouver because he feels awful that during the first go round Vancouver fans had to endure Bryant “Big Country” Reeves’ hair cut – and gave this new franchise the opportunity to pick up any player in the NBA it wished so long as they stayed under the 2008-2009 NBA salary cap of $58,560,000. The management would have to make some difficult decisions. Would they choose to take Kobe Bryant, the NBA’s best player, knowing that his salary of $21,262,500 would eat up 36% of the cap? Would they choose to take only players on their rookie contacts and hope that they don’t need any veteran presence? Luckily in this imaginary world, the Vancouver Scarier-Than-Memphis-Grizzlies have hired a person with no NBA managerial experience, but someone who has won many championships on EA Sports’ NBA Live and recently wrote an absolutely fabulous article on Jamario Moon.
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This article has been submitted by the debuting Rob Shaw.

“Break out the Salami and Cheese, the HoneyMoon is Over!”

First off all I’d like to apologize for the Chuck Swirsky phrases, but like most Raptors fans I’m suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms and I’m not sure what life will be like in 1 AS (After Swirsky).

Bryan Colangelo and Sam Mitchell had onions, baby, onions to take a 27-year-old journeyman from the Nunavut of the NBA landscape and plant him in the Raptors starting line-up. Jamario Moon rewarded them with solid play and endeared himself to Raptors fans with highlight reel dunks that were getting more hits on YouTube than the Blue Jays got for John Gibbons. However, like his performance in the Slam Dunk Contest, by the playoffs Moon was taking off more than a foot in front of the free throw line and disappointing Raptors and YouTube fans alike.
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