Here’s a whole bunch of stuff to digest before the NBA season really opens here Monday and the baseball playoffs are upon us.
Hi, Doug. St. John’s Ambulance has extra staff around the Rogers Centre, no further comments on that topic!
On to basketball! Some questions:
1) Following up on the “aimless” question from last week, similarly many NBA writers seem to expect virtually no improvement in the Raptors win total. This is regardless of the presence of Brandon Ingram. Any idea why that is? It seems like there’s doubts surrounding fit or chemistry or something? Why the nearly unanimous hate?
The Raptors’ presumptive starting five of Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram and Jakob Poeltl haven’t played together
The Raptors’ presumptive starting five of Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram and Jakob Poeltl haven’t played together
2) A wise man once said every team is one injury away from disaster! This sounds like the Rockets. Do you think their season is salvageable? Does the Tyler Herro surgery open up the East a bit more?
3) A question for GM Doug. After how many games will we know what we have and what we don’t?
4) Haven’t thought about this much, but is booing the U.S. anthem over? Maybe we could alternatively have the entire Scotiabank Arena belting out “O Canada” as a patriotic alternative. Pretty sure most fans don’t hate all 300 million-plus Americans, but one trumps them all, so to speak.
I won’t say it’s hate. Rather, it’s show-us, and frankly the Raptors haven’t. Yes, Ingram is intriguing, but he hasn’t played since last December. Yes, the East is diminished, but Toronto’s shown nothing in reality. No one knows what will happen. I think they will be better, but I can understand why others would think they won’t be.
I no longer consider the Rockets legitimate champion contenders and they were with Fred VanVleet. But I could be surprised, so I wouldn’t say unsalvageable. Besides, other guys might get hurt, too.
I always say 20 games is a legitimate barometer of where a team is at, and there’s no reason to change from that right now.
I think the booing is over — unless the guy does something egregious again — and I wish the entirety of playing the anthems was over. But that won’t happen and the urge to boo/cheer lustily will arise again at some flare point. Otherwise, people will barely notice it.
Best of ongoing summer lounging to you, Doug.
World athletics and women’s Rugby World Cup have been beauty to watch. We are a hammer-throwing nation and hammer-and-tong tacklers on the pitch. While Summer McIntosh and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander lead the way, what a cornucopia of Canadian athletic successes to choose from for this year’s Northern Star Award. Good luck to you and the committee on making a difficult choice. On the other hand, I guess you can’t go wrong.
Has the committee ever talked about adding awards? The Northern Star Awards for teams, women and men?
Soon you’ll be in Calgary and it’s game on for another fall-winter-spring hoops season. While we know you’ve been on the Raps beat since Day 1 (oh my, this September makes season 31) if we cut open Doug Smith, how many basketball rings would we count? What was your first experience with Mr. Naismith’s game?
I was intrigued by your rankings of basketball importance in the past mailbag: World Cup, Olympics, EuroBasket, NBA. What are your criteria?
After watching so many stars play in EuroBasket, and so few in the AmeriCup, I fear many Canadians will never get the necessary FIBA experience at the senior men’s level before they sign up to strive for gold at the World Cup or Olympics. Players and team play are getting better and better worldwide. Nothing is a given for Canada. Even the U.S.A. is in danger of becoming “one of the teams” in another generation. Number of players in the NBA means less and less.
There are several potential Canadian senior men’s players, who didn’t make the NBA playoffs or were eliminated early and were without an injury, who could have spent a week in training camp and less than two weeks in Managua.
It’s not about skill development; these guys are all good and getting better individually. They’re already training during their off-season. Summer national team ball is about crafting the culture of a team in a FIBA tournament and carrying that experience and bond forward to win the most difficult global basketball titles. It’s so hard to reach the podium at international events.
Even a veteran like Norman Powell played for Jamaica this summer to get ready for World Cup qualifying. Powell understood he needed this experience to get better.
Well, lots to unpack here, let’s get to it. And I’ll save a bit for next week if you don’t mind. Don’t want to get too long in one day.
I’m not privy to any high level Northern Star discussions other than voting on the winner, but my sense is they are just fine with it being an individual rather than expanding to each gender and team. And I’m fine with that. The Canadian Press administers its male, female and team athlete of the year, which is fine.
Me? This is my 31st of 31 training camps — I’ll be heading to Alberta after Monday’s media day here. But how many rings? I can recall as a very young teen watching Bill Russell and the Celtics win every championship in the mid-1960s and “playing” pretend games in a buddy’s driveway with what was a fake basket nailed to an eaves. And way, way, way back in the day, I was a proud member of the Stamford CVI “midget” team in Grade 9, used to meet buddies in the “gym” of the Lundys Lane United Church hall about the same era. So maybe 50, 52 years ago? That’s a lot of years.
I rank global events as World Cup, EuroBasket, Olympics and NBA Finals in that order for one reason: The first two (and the first is bloated, let’s not forget that) are solely basketball events, resonate for the sport and always attract the best players. Or should. I think the Olympics are too hard to get into and too easy to win in and get lost a bit in the deluge of sports, and I get that it means more in North America, but that’s our fault.
CFL rule changes: Doug, what a dumb idea to reduce the size of the CFL playing field at a time when players are bigger and faster than ever. U.S. teams outgrew the smaller size of their field decades ago, so that every play is now a battle of attrition with virtually no movement, despite their four downs to our three. Your thoughts?
I’m glad they stayed with the wide field because that’s the true differentiation in the games. And they better not mess with it and three downs and 12 players, but I fear this past week’s moves are the thin edge of the wedge.
And I get there needed to be something done to re-energize the fan base, but I don’t think they needed to do all they did. I cannot for the life of me figure out why cutting off 10 yards in the middle of the field seemed necessary, and while I can see that the middle of the end zone may open for more passing touchdowns, I wonder how many touchdown passes caught between 15 to 20 yards deep in the end zone will be lost.
Hi, Doug. Hope you are well. I know you are not really a pucks guy, but a story out of the Leafs had me thinking about some broader sports issues, so I hope you can oblige my curiosity.
The Leafs have given their goalie Joseph Woll an indefinite amount of time off to deal with a personal issue. This is, of course the right thing to do and happens in every sport (eg. Kyle Lowry a couple of years ago). I would wholeheartedly support the player’s right to keep whatever is going on personal and private. I would say, however, that I was quite surprised when Leafs GM Brad Treliving seemed to go out of his way to point out that this was not an alcohol or other substance abuse issue. Usually the fans are just told the issue is private and left at that.
Which had me thinking ….
1) Have there been any other times that you are aware of when professional players have taken time off and the message was that it was not substance abuse?
2) I guess the most logical reason for the GM to say that would be because the internet is such a miserable place at times that they didn’t want rumours to spread. Would you concur?
3) The cynic (conspiracist?) in me wonders if that comment has anything to do with sports betting. Gambling has been blended into so many facets of professional sports (much to its detriment) that I can’t help but wonder if there are some odds on the player’s stats that would change if he had a substance abuse issue.
And a totally random Kawhi Leonard question. Does he still drive his ’97 Chevy Tahoe?
I know of athletes who have taken absences, extended or not, to care for ill family members and/or spend last days/weeks with loved ones. Lots of very, very good reasons.
And yes, because of the irresponsibility that’s rampant on the interweb, I can see teams wanting to nip misinformation in the bud to protect the players.
Sadly, that’s the era we live in and it absolutely extends to the all-pervasive gambling aspects of our times and leagues and teams have to be wary of that, which is in part the reason more of them are more transparent with things like injuries and personal leaves.
Hello, Doug. Still going strong I see!
Kyle Lowry is joining Amazon Prime’s NBA broadcast crew, which last I looked included Ian Eagle, Kevin Harlan, Stan Van Gundy, Dell Curry, Allie Clifton, Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade and Candace Parker.
My goodness that’s … ambitious.
Watching this group’s chemistry develop might be a better storyline than some of the teams they’ll be broadcasting.
Are you looking forward to watching them?
I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to see up here — and I am not paying extra to stream an American network, regardless — but I think it’s interesting to see which play-by-play people are with which analysts and which others are teamed panels.
I suspect there will be a lot of mixing and matching to find combinations that work; my feeling is always that too many voices cloud any broadcast.
But I do want to see how our friend Kyle sneaks away from his team often enough to do any broadcast work. Of course, it’s an easy limo ride from Philly to New York.
I seem to be hearing a lot more about NBAers being interested in playing golf. Do you notice a huge difference in this during your time covering the league?
It’s a noticeable increase because of things like FaceGram and InstaChat where we’re inundated with off-season hijinks of athletes. My guess is that players have loved to play golf in the off-season in these numbers in the past, it’s just that no one was dogging them with cameras every day and they weren’t promoting their own selves.
Hi, Doug. So, you are back into the NBA marathon. I hope everybody wants to talk to you and answer all your questions clearly, concisely and correctly. All flights are on time, all food is fine, all stools are welcoming, all hotels are comfy and all beverages are precisely to your taste (oh, and the games are good).
I was hoping this question was going to be all about the success of the women playing positionless rugby, but, alas, the CFL rule changes dropped.
This looks like an argument between people who are interested in Canadian football and people who are interested in making money from Canadian football (and thinking that making it look like American football will help with that).
If you wanted to spin Friday as the dawn of a new Raptors era, there was a way to get there.
If you wanted to spin Friday as the dawn of a new Raptors era, there was a way to get there.
I am not sanguine about the chances of heading this off with reasoned arguments about the consequences of the rule changes. I think this requires an attack on the pocketbooks. I am thinking a direct boycott of the games is not the way to go. I am looking to organize a list of advertisers and invite people to boycott them.
I understand you may not be in a position to publicly offer political advice in this area, but I would be interested in your comments.
I wouldn’t know where to start to make that list. Each team has so many in-market “partners” and I suppose the national sponsors/partners can be found by watching TV games?
As for the value or impact of a boycott? I honestly don’t think it could possibly be as wide ranging as to have a real impact on the companies, or the league.
My sense is that the outrage has diminished, but I stand by my original reaction: I cannot see these rule changes attracting as many new fans as it will drive away older ones.