The Flagrancy

Dubious Raptor Moment #22

October 1995: Raptors Cut Chris Whitney
Congratulations to Glen Grunwald!  Now the NBA office can officially announce their newest surprise expansion team: The New York Knickerbockers.  James Dolan, the owner of the NBA's newest franchise, has gone with a front office team who have proven experience in starting a team up from scratch as Grunwald, Isiah Thomas and Brendan Suhr were all a part of the Toronto Raptors rapid rise from scrappy over-achievers to laughing stock.

Maybe this re-united braintrust can pull off a management decision as wise as the one when they released Chris Whitney at the end of the Raptors first-ever training camp.  Sure Whitney played well enough to make the team -- played so well in fact that Raptor Coach Brendan Malone intimated that Whitney might even take some playing time away from Damon Stoudamire.  But over the coach's wishes this trio of geniuses cut Whitney, leaving the team with a back-up point guard named Vincenzo Esposito.

Coach Malone wanted to win games.  In order to win games you don't play Vincenzo Esposito (I believe that's Rule #1 in the NBA Coach's Handbook).  Thus Damon Stoudamire ended up averaging 41 minutes per game.  Only 6 other rookies in NBA history have averaged more minutes per game.  This earned Coach Malone a public rebuke from Isiah Thomas who complained that Stoudamire was playing too many minutes.

At some point this season I expect Isiah to complain about how the players on the Knicks do not mesh well together and then somehow not blame himself for it.

Chris Whitney got picked up by the Washington Bullets and ended up being a dependable back-up point guard for the next 6 seasons where he could be counted on to put up Chucky Atkins-like numbers.  Stoudamire spent the last 10 games of the season on the IR with knee tenditis.  He averaged 41 minutes per game in 1996/1997 as well since the Raptors still had no back-up point guard.

In February 1998, the Raptors finally traded for back-up point guard Alvin Williams.  Unfortunately, Damon Stoudamire was sent to Portland as part of the deal.

Dubious Raptor Moment #23

October-December 2000:  Charles Oakley picks pre-game fights
- By Charles Oakley

“Pimpin' ain't easy. Pimpin' ain't dead. The ho's are just scared”

Only on a pussy-ass team like the Raptors would whuppin’ two gobler-basters not worth their grissel qualify as a dubious muthafuckin’ moment.  But I should have expected this shit.  When I rolled up into Toronto in ‘98, the only pimp on the team was Jackie Christie, and the ho’s weren’t scared one goddamn bit.  That shit needed to change.

So what did I do?  Whup ass is what.

First there was Jeff McGinnis.  But fo’ real, when word spread that this bitch was trying to move in on this fine Blaxican trick I was hittin’ at the time, I had no goddamn choice. You try to flab-stab another man’s chickenhead, you deserve to get your ass fanned out.  That said, I didn’t plan on beatin’ in his ass during the pre-game, I planned on beatin’ his ass the first fuckin’ time I saw it. 

Then there was Tyrone Hill.  Now the only thing this cootchie-ripper could do worse than shoot free throws was shoot dice.  I barely took off my fur coat at his stank-ass crib in Phillie and I was already up $54,000.  But fitty-k plus no-pay equals you getting your fuckin’ wig split son, even if you do serve me some fine-ass ribs.  When he showed up in Toronto without my money, his ass should have known better.

So next season, when some punk throws T.J. Ford’s surgically repaired ass to the ground and Jorge Garbajosa’s pimp-hand stays stuck at his side, ask yourself: are the ho’s scared now?

- Oak

P.S.  Blue Baller, you even think about asking me to write one more muthafuckin’ story for this piece of shit website, you’ll wish all your peckerwood ass got was a RickBrunson.com cease and desist letter.

Dubious Raptor Moment #24

June 1999: Lottery Pick = Aleksander Radojevic
Remember how the New York Knicks were laughed at for picking Frederic Weis with their first-pick in the 1999 draft?  Everybody laughed a little harder when Vince Carter dunked over Weis (quite literally) during the 2000 Olympics. Well, Raptor fans can stop laughing right now as Weis was picked three spots after Aleksander Radojevic.

What qualified Radojevic for the NBA lottery?  I'm certain that it wasn't his amateur pedigree which consisted of two seasons at Barton County Community College in Great Bend, Kansas.  It probably wasn't the level of competition since he was playing against other community colleges in western Kansas -- you know, big time schools like Dodge City Community College and Pratt Community College.  Against such competition Radojevic averaged a pedestrian 13 points per game.  I'm guessing Grunwald was looking at one stat only when making this pick: 7 foot 3.  You can't teach height!

And you can polish a turd all you want, in the end it is still shit.

Radojevic played 3 games for the Raptors during the 1999/2000 season.  That was it.  For his 24 minutes of Raptor action, Radojevic was paid $1.3 million.  Actually, Radojevic ended up getting paid $4.2 million over 3 years for those 24 minutes.  Maybe the Raptor Draft of 1999 was cursed as Jonathon Bender only played 237 games over 7 seasons.  Of course it wasn't cursed for Bender as he made over $29 million in his NBA career.

In January 2001, Radojevic was shipped off to Denver in the Keon Clark/Kevin Willis trade which meant that Radojevic went from lottery pick to salary-cap match in a season and a half.

The real travesty of this pick was that there were a number of players chosen after Radojevic that could have been the difference-maker in the series against the 76ers in May of 2001.  Players like Corey Maggette, James Posey, Andrei Kirilenko or Ron Artest.  That's what hurts a fan like myself.  Can you imagine the comedy gold of having Artest and Charles Oakley on the same team?  Oh, what could have been!

Dubious Raptor Moment #25

June 1995-November 1997: Raptors draft, sign, re-sign Oliver Miller
Now I know what you’re thinking.  Here is yet another convenient opportunity for The Flagrancy to launch a barrage of cheap shots at the expense of a former Raptor.  And let’s face it, who makes for a bigger target than the 300lb Oliver Miller?  But no, attacking Miller’s much publicized weight problem is taking the easy way out—after all, he was overweight when the Raptors drafted, signed, and re-signed him during the mid-90s, and he was overweight when he left.  The real dubious moment is the fact that this future Harlem Globetrotter was not only on the team, but in 1995 was its best frontcourt player.

So if you have come here looking for a bunch of cheap fat jokes, I am sorry my friend.  You have come to the wrong place.

Fuck it, here’s 10:

1. Oliver Miller was so fat that the free Pizza Pizza promotion was launched as a motivational tool
2. Oliver Miller was so fat that the SkyDome mop boy used to scrape up his sweat using a gravy boat
3. Oliver Miller was so fat that when Darryl Walker told him to haul his ass down the court, he would need to take two trips
4. Oliver Miller was so fat that when he drove to the hoop, the lane would get stretch marks
5. Oliver Miller was so fat that he had more Chins than a Yao Ming charity game
6. Oliver Miller was so fat that when he’d bend over to pick up a loose ball, his ass would be called for out of bounds
7. Oliver Miller was so fat that he’d draw charges using gravitational pull
8. Oliver Miller was so fat that whenever he'd take a jump ball, he’d set off Willie Anderson's car alarm
9. Oliver Miller was so fat that his Raptor players card says ‘picture continued on other side’
10. Oliver Miller was so fat that when he set a high pick and roll, Damon Stoudamire would have to ask him for directions around his ass

Dubious Raptor Moment #26

April/August 2004: Fans Campaign To Oust Richard Peddie
With the proliferation of sports coverage on both traditional media and the internet sports fans have become a lot smarter about the games as well as the decisions that lead to their teams eventual success or failure.  For the purposes of this post let's look at failure (a shocking development, I know).

Over the past couple of decades fans of losing teams have gone from blaming the refs, to blaming the players, to blaming the coach, and then on to blaming the general manager.  At the end of the 2003/2004 season the Toronto Raptors fans took it to the next level by blaming the President & CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, Mr. Richard Peddie.

"Create Champions...Excite Our Fans, Inspire Our Employees, Bring Pride To Our Community...And We All Win."

That's Peddie's vision statement.  In 10 years with the Raptors, I think it's pretty safe to say he has yet to achieve any of these goals.  Thus far Peddie has presided over zero championship parades, which frustrates fans and leads employees to demand trades that in turn embarasses the community.  The only people winning are the guys collecting all the money from tickets and merchandise...  which is the reason Richard Peddie remains President & CEO despite the widespread mutiny of the fans in the spring and summer of 2004.

But the anti-Peddie contingent got their sweet revenge by pooling up enough money to make a grand public statement against their nemesis: "Keep Vince, Trade Peddie."  They hired a plane to fly a banner around the ACC which was a curious choice considering it is not an open-air stadium.  But that wasn't so much the problem as the fact that the plane wasn't able to fly until the day after Vince Carter's Charity Event.  So their statement reached the approximately 25 random people who happened to be looking up at the sky on August 1st, 2004.  Proving that while fans may have gotten smarter, they still have a ways to go.

Dubious Raptor Moment #27

December 2002: Charles Oakley insults Canadians

It kills me to include this in the Dubious Moments List.  Charles Oakley is not only the greatest Raptor ever, but he is also a great friend and contributor to The Flagrancy.  But since so many of you sensitive double-double-drinking Canadians got your flannel panties in a twist over this episode, I need to mention it here.  And it fucking kills me.

Once Charles Oakley left the Raptors, he joined his BFF Michael Jordan on the Washington Wizards.  After the Wizards defeated the Raptors during a game at the ACC, Oak was upset that Toronto fans did not give the newly un-retired Jordan a standing ovation*.  He explained to reporters: “You know, that’s how they are in Canada…they don’t know polo from lolo.” 

Now, at first blush this may seem like direct shot at the level of intelligence of Canadian basketball fans.  I can assure you, it is not; most Canadians do not know polo from lolo.

From personal experience, I can tell you that whenever I spend time with Canadians and our conversation inevitably turns to 13th century Asia, someone always confuses polo with lolo.  So allow The Flagrancy to set the record straight: polo is the common name for Marco Polo—the explorer who traveled through Asia from 1271 to 1295.  A lolo, on the other hand, is an Asian who lives in the mountainous region of southwestern China. 

Pretty confusing, eh hoser?

* The game that Raptor fans did not award Michael Jordan with a richly-deserved standing ovation, the NBA legend scored 2 points on 1-9 shooting.

Dubious Raptor Moment #28

July 1995: Raptors Sign Vincenzo Esposito
For the uninitiated, Toronto has a lot of people of Italian origin.  There is a Little Italy, as well as  Corso Italia, and the suburb of Woodbridge that is so distinctly Italian it has its own accent.  Isiah Thomas, in all of his marketing wizardry, decided that signing the best basketballer Italy had to offer would surely bring the fans down to the SkyDome.  The problem?  Italians like soccer.

Maybe if the Raptors wanted to draw fans based on the ethnic make-up of the city, they should have done some research into which ethnicities actually like basketball.  For example, Serbians love basketball.  Anybody who attended a Raptors/Kings game during the Divac/Stojakovic era knows this.  Those seemed like away games for the Raptors.

Another suggestion might be to actually make an effort to find a space on the bench for a Canadian.  In 1995, the Raptors kept Esposito and cut Rowan Barrett.  And it's still happening in 2006 as we draft PJ Tucker and not Denham Brown.

Finally if I were Isiah I might have actually made sure Esposito was any good. El Diablo (yes, that was his real nickname) was terrible.  Eposito only appeared in 30 games during the Raptors initial season.  During games in which Esposito played the Raptors were 5-25, a .167 winning percentage.  Mainly because he only saw the court when the team was getting blown out.  He spent a lot of time on Injured Reserve which proved hilarious whenever he would go out onto the court and shoot around before every game (For the record, Dell Curry's kids could have probably taken him in a 3-point contest).

In games that Esposito did play, he was atrocious.  While the stats indicated that he only averaged 6.6 turnovers per 48 minutes, it certainly seemed like more.  Maybe because every turnover he made bordered on the spectacular.  Usually it involved Esposito driving the lane with his head down, leaving his feet and then either getting stripped or whipping a pass as hard as possible at no one in particular.  Every one of these drives ended with Esposito looking like a flying starfish.  It can't be a coincidence that Esposito remains the only Italian to play in the NBA.  The scary news is that it was reported that Esposito was seen at Raptor summer leagues games this year encouraging Andreas Bargnani.  Please Andreas, don't listen to him!

But for this Raptor fan, one game in particular sums up the Esposito Experience: December 5th, 1995 versus the Seattle Supersonics.  The Raptors had actually beaten the Sonics a couple weeks earlier which was a huge embarassment for the Sonics as they would go on to finish 64-18 and lose to the Bulls in the NBA Finals.  During that Raptor victory, Damon Stoudamire recorded a triple-double in what probably still remains the greatest single-game performance ever by a Raptor.  Exactly 2 weeks later Gary Payton wanted his revenge.

Payton threw down The Glove that night and when the game became a rout, Coach Malone wisely pulled Stoudamire to give Esposito some real NBA minutes and to protect his star.  The trouble was that Payton didn't care who he was playing that night.  He played Esposito just as tight as he did Stoudamire.  The 6 turnovers in 18 minutes looks bad on the scoresheet but you had to watch the game on TV to witness just how overmatched Esposito was.  Think about what happens when Ron Artest plays nerf-ball against his kids and that might approximate the mismatch that occurred.

In fact anybody who happened to be watching the game that night witnessed NBA history as Payton took charges from Esposito on consecutive possessions...  at half fucking court!

Vincenzo Esposito was the Raptors original Italian Job.  Let's hope the sequel is better. A LOT better.

Dubious Raptor Moment #29

August 2000: Mo Taylor backs out of deal with Raptors

If Toronto has one distinct advantage in attracting NBA free agents, it is Caribana (if you guessed ‘CHIN Picnic’, Bryan Colangelo—you’re wrong paisan!)  Every year, this world-renowned event attracts millions of tourists looking to celebrate their roots, or just revel in rich Caribbean culture.  The celebration is particularly popular with NBA players.  So much so, that Vince Carter would schedule his annual Charity Games during Caribana Weekend, just to ensure maximum participation.  In 2000, he invited Mo Taylor.

Three years removed from bunking with Louis Bullock, the wide-eyed free-agent forward experienced his first Caribana, and had the time of his life.  The 24-year old woke up to the sound of steel drums pounding in his ears, the taste of dark rum licked from the tits of a thonged float performer soaking in his mouth…and the faint memory of agreeing to a contract with the Toronto Raptors lingering in his mind. The Blue Baller dreams of such hangovers. Enter Taylor’s agent to rectify the situation.  The savvy rainmaker promptly cancelled Taylor’s verbal agreement with the Raptors, and found his client another deal with the Rockets—for less money. 

Hypothetical question: which moment would rank higher on the Dubious Moment List: Taylor backing out of the 3-year $18M deal, or the Raptors actually signing him to it?

Dubious Raptor Moment #30

April 2004: Kevin O'Neill Fired
Normally, I don't find myself in a position to defend Mr.Weatherbee but when the Raptors hired him they certainly knew what they were getting.  Lenny Wilkens was fired the previous spring for his lack hard-nosed discipline, fiery temperment and defensive schemes.  A disciple of Pat Riley & Jeff Van Gundy, Kevin O'Neill had all of those in spades.

While the Raptor games during the 2003/2004 season were abysmal defensive affairs that forced a change to the long-standing Pizza Pizza 100-point promotion, at least the post-game press conferences were entertaining as O'Neill routinely spit out rage and cuss words.  One night O'Neill even smashed a lamp in his hotel room upon finding out that Jalen Rose broke his hand (Notice how O'Neill didn't bust anything whenever VC got injured).

At the end of the season O'Neill was summarily fired for the exact same reasons he was hired: the team was too defensive and the coach was too hot-headed.  Fittingly, the day before he was fired O'Neill unleashed a nice tirade at the team that included this apt epitaph...

"I can just tell you right now, the focus is not on winning here all the way through the organization all the time. There needs to be drastic measures taken."

Dubious Raptor Moment #31

December 2004: Rafer Alston threatens to quit NBA

Over the years (and over the past few weeks) we have seen the Raptors frustrate players to the point where they have demanded trades and threatened to not report to the team.  However, on one occasion, a player became so furious that he actually ‘Skipped’ this half-measure, and threatened to quit the sport entirely.

The 2004-2005 season should have been a good news story for Rafer Alston; over the previous two years, the Rucker Park legend successfully proved critics wrong by playing quality minutes for a handful of teams, Toronto included.  Convinced that Alston could make the transition from volatile me-first streetballer to starting NBA point guard, the Raptors signed the player to his first long-term NBA contract.  The only problem was that Alston arrived as advertised: a volitile me-first streetballer, miscast in a starting role.  He quickly grew frustrated, and wanted out. 

And I don’t blame him one fucking bit.

Alston’s return to the Raptors was similar to the scene in Goodfellas where Joe Pesci’s character meets up with an old Made gangster who remembers Pesci as a kid.  The old-timer refuses to respect the recent strides made by the up-and-comer, and tells him to shine his shoes.  Ditto Alston: the veteran players and coaching staff treated their new starting point guard like he was the same player of two years prior—on a10-day contract, competing for a job.  Sam Mitchell even reminded the media and fans not to be fooled by Alston’s newly minted status, after benching him in Boston.

Mitchell took additional steps to personally ensure that Alston’s transition to Raptor starter would not be a smooth one, positioning the player at the blast radius of his frequent emotional and physical outbursts.  On a number of occasions, Alston would compete throughout a tough Raptor loss only to absorb post-game barbs from Mitchell, while Jalen Rose and Vince Carter—both of whom combined provide less defence than a hymen at a gangbang—coasted with free passes.

It is comforting to see that the Raptors have learned that they need to provide full support for a player to grow into a larger role, and that awarding a large contract and starter minutes to a career bench player does not automatically qualify them for the job, particularly a volitile me-first streetballer.

In 2005, the Raptors traded Rafer Alston for Mike James.