Edwards fandom and Flynn hits 50
Kind of a feeling around the old Heroes Of The Hardcourt today, isn’t there? Funny what getting a few legitimate, experienced NBAers back in the Raptors rotation to bump a few others down a peg can do. So, with the sky not falling after ending that losing skid at 15 games on Friday night in Milwaukee, to the mail ...
Doug, do you feel tanking is a legitimate strategy when we are talking about professional players and professional organizations and fans paying high prices to watch this Raptor tank unfold? Thanks for your thoughts on this rather dark and trying time in Raptor land. Frank K.
I do not think it’s legitimate, nor should it be advised and, most important, it seldom works. Maybe, perhaps, possibly this OKC team is the outlier, but ask Detroit or Philadelphia or Washington or Houston how it’s been. And your point of cheating the sport, cheating fans, cheating the players on the roster is a whole rant I could go off on.
Could there be a better exclamation point to this truly weird Raptor season (cursed, as you noted in the Insider column) than Malachi Flynn dropping 50 points in a losing effort for the Pistons? Fortunately this basketball fan finds many other entrancing things to distract, none more than the NCAA women’s tournament. What Aaliyah Edwards has done as the only sizable player on a six-person team is both extraordinary and mostly anonymous in the shadow of her brilliant teammate Paige Bueckers. Could she make a difference in Paris? James A.
I am an unabashed fan of Aaliyah Edwards, have been following her story for years and know what kind of player and woman she is. You might want to reserve April 15 to find out where she lands in the WNBA draft. A Paris differencemaker? For sure. If you add her to a frontcourt with Kayla Alexander, Natalie Achonwa and Laeticia Amihere, that’s stacked. What’s going to determine how Canada does, however, is guard play.
I know the Raps have been hurt by injuries and decimated by trades. Yet the results in the tag end of the season are so lopsided it causes me to wonder: Do the Raptors have a future? How do they come back from being so low?
Richard W.
Well, since I don’t think they’re gonna turn out the lights and lock the doors in a week or so, I’d say they have a future. And when they open camp next fall with the four of five starters they missed for more than half of that 15-game losing streak, and with maybe six new faces on the roster, they’ll be fine. Maybe not great, but fine.
You had mentioned that a team that had only Canadian players on it would be a pretty good NBA team and would go reasonably far. So, if you, Doug Smith, were the GM, which Canadian players would you pick for the starting five, and the remaining four rotation players? MSG
Man, that’s a hard one. Really, really hard, and I hope you’re only talking about today’s players rather than all history because that would be impossible. To win in the NBA you need shooting and defence, that’s my first premise. And you also need size, but GM Doug doesn’t have anywhere near enough of that at his disposal. So ...
Starters Shai Gilgeous-Alexander,
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Jamal Murray, RJ Barrett, Dillon Brooks, Kelly Olynyk
Primary second unit Lu Dort,
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Andrew Nembhard, Shaedon Sharpe, Nickeil Alexander-Walker
Tough to cut Andrew Wiggins, and Bennedict Mathurin’s hurt or he’d make it.