The Finals and Workouts, yet again!

Today The Raptors held Pre-Draft Workouts. The players who worked out were:

Ty Lawson - Guard - 6′0 - UNC

Grievis Vasquez - Guard - 6′6 - Maryland

Derrick Brown - Forward - 6′8 - Xavier

Austin Daye - Forward - 6′11 - Gonzaga

James Johnson - Forward - 6′9 - Wake Forest

Earl Clark - Forward - 6′9 - Louisville

The videos can be found at RAPTORS.COM.

Grievis Vasquez didn’t say anything other then the idea of returning to school, If he felt he wouldn’t be drafted to the right team. Other words, he doesn’t want to play to the Raps.

 

 

You’ve got to love Earl Clark:

“I don’t know hot I fit here [Toronto], but I would love to come here and play with those guys. And learn from the Veterans. You know we’ll see what happens”

I laughed when I heard this. I was trying to figure out what veteran he was talking about. If I searched, I’d probably find out that he’s said this to every team. On the plus side, He’s very adorable.

Ty Lawson’s entire Interview (On Raptors.com) is about Mock Drafts. Him and I agree that they are very opinionated and wrong 20% of the time! A plus, Boogie likes him. Speaking of which….

Give the man a jersey!

Having him back on the team brings back so much memories. I’m young so I grew up watching him, JYD and Vince. Plus, he’s still young and that will help him connect with the players. Maybe he could teach Roko something…

Ryan McNeill from Hoops Addict, had Exclusive interviews with the other prospects that were not interviewed by RaptorsTV and other media members. Derrick Brown. James Johnson who intrigues me. He talks about the ‘mental toughness’ he has. Austin Daye looks younger than me. Best part, When Ryan asks him about Mock Drafts and Chad Ford. The boys is fully rolling his eyes! In case you didn’t know, he’s only testing the waters…

The Finals

I’m sure, if you follow me on Twitter, you know I’m an Orlando Magic bandwagon jumper. (I jumped on when Philly didn’t beat them) So even though they were down 2-0 to Kobe and his minions, I still had faith in them. SO it did not surprise me when they won last night. What did surprise me, is how well they shot throughout the entire game but only won by 4!

You have to thank Kobe for missing the free throws and leaving his clutch in his car (I was going to say ‘in bed with his wife’) because if he hit those shots I would be writing about my secret love for the Lakers. Which I’m not ready to admit it yet…

Another thing you might know from Twitter. I love Courtney Lee!! So here’s a something sweet:

If you notice anything incorrect please feel free comment and let me know. I edit this myself and there might be things I miss. Thank you

Assistant Coaches, Workouts, Finals, etc

"Toronto being right over the border of where I'm from, Niagara Falls, I'm basically Canadian so it would be nice to come here." Jonny Flynn

The Toronto Raptors (finally) announced they have hired Marc Iavaroni and Alex English as assistant coaches. The pair has a combined 42 years of experience coaching and playing in the NBA. They will support Jay Triano, who signed a three-year contract as head coach May 11. Per team policy, financial terms were not announced. (RAPTORS.COM)

Our wonderful (cough) Doug Smith has been saying this for awhile and now it has finally happened. So this isn’t surprising, if you are surprised, shoot yourself! I’m kidding… Now were waiting to hear the same thing for Alvin Williams.

Now normally at this point, I’m supposed to tell you if this is a good choice or not… um, no that’s my forte… But that is! LOL. Sorry, but I can’t judge that and I’m not going to speculate, you can find that here! When they comment on it…

Next. Workouts. Michael Grange told us to keep an eye on who was working out today. Only ones interesting were Jonny Flynn, Jrue (not Jrew) Holiday and Chase Budinger. Flynn and Holiday spoke to the media, about going up against each other. Jonny Flynn actually knows our starting line-up. Don’t worry I’m still on a DeMar DeRozan watch. Even though he hasn’t worked out for us….

I guess I should mention that Chris Bosh has decided not to sign an extension. It’s ok that just means he’ll like its his contract year next year, right? This isn’t news play  people. He will be here next year unless the Lakers and Cavs make a three team deal with us. You get my point. We’ll worry about 2010 next year, for now its about this season coming up.

Now for yesterday. Lebron James has finally gotten fined for ignoring his media obligations. And the Magic lost game 1 of the Finals. I still believe they have a chance in the series. I stopped watching the game in 3rd quarter when it was evident the Magic were not going to make a run. There is no way Dwight only hits ONE shot or they shoot badly like that again. Same with Andrew Bynum, he had too good of a start. Though this might be his series to get going…

The whole JVG thing is stupid. I think he would act the same way for any team. People were just listening to him more because his brother is coaching one of the teams. Otherwise I didn’t think he was bias or a homer like Doug Collins. YES I said it! Anyways, Sorry for the late post been very busy.

If you notice anything incorrect please feel free comment and let me know. I edit this myself and there might be things I miss. Thank you

The finals are here and I have my predictions!!

First, Chris Bosh finally broke out the Big announcement. He is signing a deal with…. Warner Music Canada to produce a unique DVD and CD to be released in the fall of 2009. Chris also announced that he has become the first athlete in the world to launch his own application for iPhone and iPod. Exciting isn’t it? Didn’t think so.

On to the more interesting stuff. The finals will start this Thursday June 4th. After finishing off the Cavs in gorgeous fashion, The Magic are making only their 2nd finals trip in the past 25 years. The Lakers, However, are no strangers to the finals, and are looking to do what they failed to do last year. It is clear that the Lakers are the heavy favourites, but the Magic have just proved anything is possible. It also helps that the Magic swept the Lakers in the regular season and are extremely confident right now

Now the last time I made predictions I went 8/12. This Time I’m predicting the Magic win this in 7. I’m 0-3 in the last 3 years for my finals pick, so I think I just jinxed the Magic.BUT  I believe the Magic have a chance to upset again, so I will stick with them.

Just one more thing, The Nike Puppet ads were good, but they, and everybody else, jinxed suggested a Laker/Cav, I mean, Kobe/Lebron final. I‘m just happy that did not happen, because just like the Denver Nuggets, The Magic had just as much right as The Lakers and The Cavs to be in the final. Unfortunately the Nuggets gave up in game 6 after they played so well to get themselves to Conference Finals.

SO two things everybody learned (Unless you honestly never knew before) in the Conference Finals:

1. The game is a TEAM game. One can show flashes of carrying a team, but in the end, it will not work. Even children know going 5 against 1 is a big disadvantage. And It sucks even more when you think you have that TEAM but they don’t show up when it matters the most. Lebron is ONE of the best players in the game today, but he CANNOT carry a team. Ignore game 2 and game 5, because that wont happen all the time.
2. The game is about MATCHUPS. case #1: Rashard Lewis, a crafty PF, against the likes of Anderson Varejao, Ben Wallace and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Lewis has been a matchup nightmare to most teams in the league. A big part of his game is the 3 ball. Something he shoots pretty well. When a big comes out to guard him he fakes them out or beats them off the dribble, If the 3 is NOT available. Most bigs can’t keep up with that. case #2: Pau Gasol (another crafty big) owned the Nuggets bigs, when his teammate decided to throw him the ball. He kept the ball high, crashed the boards and never shied away from contact (can’t believe I just said that). Trevor Ariza, Dwight Howard and Hedo Turkoglu were others or caused their opponents fits

TSN, ABC, and NBATV will be covering the Finals. Cross our fingers for a seven game series.

SO LETS GO MAGIC!!