Land of the Leaf

Aside from being a die-hard Blue Jays fan, the professional sports scene in Toronto can get pretty depressing at times.  Then bam!  Hoop Heads North compiles a flawless Raptors video highlight package and asks you to vote on your favorite play of the season.  I do suggest you follow the link and view all 10 plays, and place your vote, but I thought I’d post video clips of the two plays that I’ll look back on and smile about.

We might look back someday and think, “wow, I forgot that Shawn Marion was a Raptor for 11 minutes”.  This clip of him posterizing Danny Granger reminded me of when The Matrix was flying high in the run-and-gun offense of Phoenix:

It’s sad when one of your standout players of the season came from the NBDL and he’s forced to question the work ethic of the “superstar” players around him.  I love Pops, but he should just let his play do the talking ‘cuz it can be intimidating at times.  I could do without Matt Devlin and his “big daddy with the flush” call though:

Shameless Plug
I love Scott Richmond, but mostly because he’s Canadian. That shouldn’t warrant him a spot in the Jays’ rotation. I did something about it. I went to the Bleacher Report and I spit some words out on why J.P. Ricciardi should make a move for Ben Sheets. Hold the cynicism and rising blood pressure for a minute, it’s the Bleacher Report, people have said much wilder things over there.

Leafs Prepared to Sign Christian Hanson
Joe Ross at NHL Rumours is on to something: the media scrutiny this poor Hanson kid is going to face for his entire career because his father was an actual Hanson brother from Slap Shot. Hanson projects as a strong two-way centre and he has posted 16 goals and 15 assists in 37 NCAA games at Notre Dame this season. Tyler Bozak could be heading to Toronto as well.

Alonzo Mourning Is A Piece Of Shit
From Doug Smith’s blog:

I didn’t hear the whole speech so maybe I missed it but I don’t think Alonzo Mourning thanked Rob Babcock and the Raptors for repatriating him to Miami, where they retired his number last night.
But how crazy is this?
Normal halftime breaks are 14 minutes; the Heat-Magic game was delayed 43 minutes at halftime for the Mourning ceremony.

Giving A Man Named Pops a Nickname?
Seriously, I thought Pops worked just fine. Nonetheless, he’s going to be the “British Bulldog”.

Should They Stay or Should They Go
Arsenalist runs down a list of so-so Raptors and gives some insight into who should be bought out, benched, and given playing time. I think I can agree with almost all of the suggestions, except Joey Graham… he can go stack shit for all I care. Quincy Douby “looks like Tupac”!

Well at least the green jersey thing is over.  I remember the glory years when we could always say, “hey, at least we’re not as bad as Charlotte”.  I miss those days.  Yes, they were dressed like the Boston Celtics again, but Pops Mensah-Bonsu looked more like Pops Mensah-Bonsu than Kevin Garnett last night.

Suddenly the Bobcats are being mentioned in the same breath as ‘playoffs’, while the Raptors are only being mentioned in the same breath as Washington and Sacramento.  Nobody loses harder than the Raptors, nobody.

It wasn’t as though they didn’t put up a fight.  That makes 7 straight losses for the lost cause struggling Raptors.  Despite a very strong effort from Bosh and Calderon, the Raptors took a tough 99-95 loss in OT to the Pistons.  Just call it another loss, definitely don’t call it frustrating if you’re talking to Chris Bosh.  After being asked if last night’s loss was particularly frustrating, Bosh replied in a huff:

“Stop using that word ‘frustrating’… Jesus Christ, where do you all get that word, use another word, you all got a thesaurus around?  I’m not upset. You compete, you play the game, you play to win, if you come up short then that’s what it is. Nobody’s frustrated around here. When you lose a game, of course you want to win, but it is what it is.”

Pops Mensah-Bonsu continued with his hard working ways, and chose his words much more carefully after the game as opposed to his work-ethic tirade from Wednesday’s loss:

“It’s tough to have some players going hard, some not. I’m not trying to pinpoint it on anybody, but that’s the reality. I’m watching tonight and it looked like the Sixers didn’t want to play. They’re not 20 points better than us, but it’s tough to win games when you don’t have a lot of energy and effort.”

He’s got a point, and one look at the guy’s game and you can understand his frustration, he’s rarely outworked.  The Raps host the Indiana Pacers tommorrow at 12:30 at the ACC, something has got to give.