Worse than Isaiah?

xaoshaen · Post by **xaoshaen** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:53 pm

Wow, at least you get the feeling that Isaiah Thomas believes he's making good decisions, even if he's horribly, horribly mistaken. Apparently the Raptors' GM, Rob Thomas, believes the moves he's made will actually make the team worse.

Toronto Raptors general manager Rob Babcock doesn't have high expectations in terms of wins this season.

Because of the influx of young players on the roster, the second-year GM doesn't expect the club to improve on it's 33-49 record from last season.

''There will be growing pains, no doubt about it,'' Babcock told the paper. ``Whether we win or lose more games than last year, I think if you look at us on paper, we probably will not win as many games as last year.

''We more or less have the same team back with the exception of Donyell Marshall, who was an integral part of our team last year. We're replacing him with rookies.''

vonkaar · Post by **vonkaar** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:58 pm

FOCUS!

You'd think that in their division, they could make the playoffs simply by paying out the ass for 1 decent player.

Need to dump the bad contracts on teams that need cap room next year...

xaoshaen · Post by **xaoshaen** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:03 pm

My favorite line was, "Whether we win or lose more games than last year, I think if you look at us on paper, we probably will not win as many games as last year."

Regardless of whether they win more games than last year, Babcock doesn't think they'll win as many games as last year?

vonkaar · Post by **vonkaar** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:43 pm

A good quote, for true.

You know... the Mavs have sold the fans on one thing - HOPE. That's been Cuban's business model for years. We make these huge blockbuster trades every off-season and the fans get excited. We win 50+ games... we gear up for the playoffs... and then things fizzle. But, the potential! We JUST NEED - blahblah. For years, it was a center... then it was more guards... then it was a backup PF (KVH!)... shrug... my point is, they spent a lot of money every Summer to get us excited. What has Babcock done here? The exact opposite. He's basically said, " Don't get too excited, we're going to suck this year too."

IgraineShedra · Post by **IgraineShedra** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 6:53 pm

My favorite part of the story is that, if Xao is to be believed, the Raptors GM might also be the guy from Matchbox 20. Nice stealth reporting uncovering his secret alter ego other last name.

vonkaar · Post by **vonkaar** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 7:52 am

Jalen Rose agrees with me -

Jalen Rose wrote:"I've never been part of a situation like that, and I'm pretty sure I've never heard anybody in professional sports make a comment so negative that early in the season," said Rose, who is about to embark on his 12th NBA season. "Even the bad teams have optimism. You don't want to take away the optimism so early in the season. The Bad News Bears coach wouldn't even tell them that."

Zanchief · Post by **Zanchief** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 8:13 am

Wow you guys are clueless. He was asked a straight question and he gave an honest answer.

Who here thought the Raptors were gonna win more games this year than last year.

Anyone?

Xao?

Maybe he should have lied.

Wanna know why this is news Xao? Because the amount of negative coverage the Raptors get in the US is fucking disgusting and your just blindly eating this shit up vomiting out all over the place. I would expect you to have a bit of a better barometer for bullshit than that bud.

When the raps were good a few years ago it was always soft Carter and how overrated he was. The second he gets traded he gets rumpeted as the next big star. Every article I have read off ESPN about the Raps has been negative. Compare the early success this franchise has had compared to other young teams. They won a playoff series about a decade faster than the Wolves did.

Babs IS selling hope. He's selling a big picture. I'm buying into it. We don't want to be the knicks sucking every year with inflated contracts. We are trying to get younger and more athletic and more flexible with the cap. In the 1 year Babs has been here he's made great progress in that direction. Now the dude has to answer to all this bullshit cause fucknuggets think ESPN is the end all of sports reporting. Everyone loves a good kill the raps story. I love reading Simmons weekly Babs sucks report, or Chad Fords, why Babcock doesn't know basketball as much as I do.

I'm glad you advocate lying, Xao.

And what the christ does this have to do with Thomas?