Bargnani v Boozer

ESPN reports today that the Toronto Raptors and Chicago Bulls of the NBA have embarked on, what they have described as “exploratory” discussions on a trade that would send Chicago’s Carlos Boozer to T.O in exchange for Andrea Bargnani. If I’m Mr.Colangelo, where do I sign up?

I look at this possible deal on behalf of the Raptors, and there are a few things here that would make this a match made in heaven. For starters, in my eyes Bryan Colangelo has over the years addressed the team’s finesse while blatantly ignoring the toughness issue that has plagued the Raps over the years, allowing opposition to walk right over the at times lifeless Raps. At the time of Sam Mitchell’s firing, Colangelo made it prudently clear that the team’s defensive structure would have to be strongly examined when it came to hiring the heir apparent. That philosophy was followed through when it came to this as they brought over Dwayne Casey from Dallas who at the time had just laid claim to the 2011 National Basketball Association championship. However, as I stated in a previous blog post, hiring a defensive expert is one thing, but if you don’t acquire the right pieces you might as well bring in your local high school club coach, in other words, it just won’t work.

Demar Derozan, a decent three who has shown significant improvement to a point that I believe he is a top 10 three guard in the league. Terrance Ross, although not to be mistaken as a defensive specialist has the penchant to knock down the three ball and deliver Vince Carter-esque dunks. Jonas”how do I spell your last name” Valanciunas was supposed to be the steal of the 2011 draft has been anything but. As a European coming over to North America, anyone who didn’t expect obvious growing pains would’ve of been classified as delusional but not even the most researched expert could’ve expected the kind of production Jonas(not even going to try the last name again) has delivered. The 7.1 point per game average although not great is not my most concering statistic. A man of his stature should be clawing more then 4.9 rebounds per game. A lack of physical aggression has been the typecast for most Euros coming over the Association but there also haven’t been many players with pedigree going into this season.  Valanciunas(OK, I did it) would be graded as a disappointment. Kyle Lowry, aka Mighty Mouse Jr, has been alright at times when he has managed to stay healthy.  The pressure has mounted on him even further now due to last week’s trade of Jose Calderon off to Detroit that brought in Connecticut grad Rudy Gay. Speaking of the aforementioned trade of Gay, once again they acquired a sure fire scorer who ISN’T known for his D. All of this offensive firepower is all fine and dandy but if you can’t limit the opposition to under one hundred points which they’ve been guilty of quite a lot this campaign, the offence will not lead to advancing the win column. This all leads to my opening paragraph as to why the acquisition of Carlos Boozer makes oodles of sense, something the Raptors brass has lacked since it’s 1995 inception.

 

Carlos Boozer is a mean son of a gun who can add to the identity that coach Casey is trying to establish. If you google”Dwayne Casey’s type of player”, Carlos Boozer would be the first name to appear on the search. Not known as a prolific player, Boozer is all meat and potatoes, very reminiscent to the National Hockey League’s Mike Richards, no talent and all smarts. When I look at a future potential starting five including Lowry, Gay, Derozan/Ross, Valanciunas and Boozer, for the first time in a long time I see a formidable lineup that could compete with the upper echelon. Comparatively speaking, as much as I would love to see Boozer in red, white and purple, I can’t stress enough that the greatest reasoning for being in favour of this trade is not so much Boozer, it’s ridding them of the softer then facial tissue Andrea Bargnani.  He can take his high-school level of defence and his love of pasta across the border and see if he can endear himself to the Chicago faithful. Highly unlikely however because the Bulls have a rich tradition of playing above quality defense with such guys as the tattoed filled Dennis Rodman and the all around Scottie Pippen and the surprisingly underrated defender, that being M.J himself. Reports are the players surrounding Bargnani in Toronto don’t care for his mellow competitive approach and during the time for which Andrea was sidelined better team cohesion was developed.

Simply put, when Colangelo first came to Toronto, his trademark was attempting the European experiement. Many have come and went, such as Jorge Garbajosa,Rasho Nesterovic and Hedo Turkoglu and it has become clear that the strategical vision that he had was flawed and would be wise to re-evaluate his team’s direction(although to be fair, he’s  realized some mistakes have been made and has slowly corrected some of those faux pas’). The last mistake that needs correction is unfortunately his biggest blunder, that being Bargnani. The quicker he does this the better as if he waits too long, it may be Bargnani who outlasts Colangelo with this organization.