04/25/24
February 09, 2005
"It's like one big soap opera": Rafer Alston, the Raptor's point guard and a former streetballer, left the arena midway through last night's game after being benched. Some reports had he and coach Sam Mitchell coming to blows, which Mitchell denies. This is not the first episode.
posted by dusted to basketball at 12:17 PM - 41 comments
No Canadian team will ever win the NBA championship. Real players don't want to be there, which is why Vince left.
posted by mayerkyl at 01:45 PM on February 09, 2005
Why? The tax thing? Calling Vince a "real player" doesn't make much sense, anyway. "Real sandbagger" maybe.
posted by dusted at 01:56 PM on February 09, 2005
No Canadian team will ever win the NBA championship. Real players don't want to be there, which is why Vince left. Oh no. They'd much rather be in cutural hotbeds like Millwaukee or Sacremento, or San Antonio, or Pheonix, or about 16 other smaller, infinitely more boring cities I can name. Winning and money brings players. How many players signed in Chicago this off season? How many want to play in San Antonio? You think that's because of the nightclubs? Look at the free agents that signed in Toronto (including the Dream) just a few years ago. I've heard your theory before - the problem is it just doesn't hold water. Is basketball any different than baseball and hockey? No - It's called pro-sports. If they'll play in Millwaukee and Salt Lake City - they'll play in Toronto. The Vince deal can be more properly examined following the draft. Of course it looks like shit right now. And if he's a 'real' player, I'll eat my own ass. What you got know is the honeymoon. Enjoy it.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 02:04 PM on February 09, 2005
people (athletes or maybe "real players") that hate on Toronto are justing moaning for something to moan aboot. there is nothing wrong with the city that can't be said about lots of other places other than you don't get ESPN there (and Canadian taxes will always be an issue to some but spending USD in Canada would make up for some of that). cold? better than minneapolis, same as detroit. boring? ha. Vince had no qualm with the city (from what I gathered) but the organization in a rebuilding mode and him not getting DrJ in as manager seem to have been too much for him (again, from what I gathered and that gathering was mostly from online suggestions). forgot about the draft picks. the jury is still out except for people like me with short memories.
posted by gspm at 02:59 PM on February 09, 2005
No Canadian team will ever win the NBA championship. Real players don't want to be there That's what they said about MLB, too, before the Jays reeled off two straight.
posted by smithers at 03:05 PM on February 09, 2005
As per Vince (this topic gets a lot of play in these parts) - he had gone through three coaches in the last three years - 5 coaches in the last seven. 3 GMs as well. He was promised by management that he would be consulted in terms of the recent hiring of coaches and GMs in the off-season, tried to participate and then was ignored. Now if you replace 'Toronto' with any other NBA city and thier resident superstar, you wouldn't blink twince or condemn the city.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 03:12 PM on February 09, 2005
Vince is a real player, but with a disappointingly real ankle.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 05:13 PM on February 09, 2005
Wy would someone not want to play in Toronto? Now that the US dollar isn't much stronger than the Canadian, I would think Toronto would be an attractive place, especially for black athletes. Unless they can't resist the siren song of Boston's Southie.
posted by yerfatma at 05:29 PM on February 09, 2005
Hey, I like Toronto. Great theater town, and it's supposed to have the best dim sum outside of Hong Kong.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:31 PM on February 09, 2005
Yeah, but it's another country. Hard to convince people to cross the border and go to a town with weird customs, no local Fox affiliate, with screwy cel service (especially when you're trying to call home), where you have to flash a passport every single time you play a road game, where everything is the same yet just a little different. For what it's worth, I consider Toronto my hometown. I lived there the first 25 years of my life, and love it unreservedly. But I can understand why a city with the size and culture of, say, Chicago (with 1/10 the crime) might still be a tough sell for many players.
posted by chicobangs at 03:23 AM on February 10, 2005
Really? You had screwy cel service? Telecommunications is one of the biggest industries. Actaully that probably explains it. So Chico - more players (when considering these things that aren't money or playing time, or the coach) would be against having to go through customs (which for these guys is remarkably fast) than say, living in Salt Lake City? I think you're wrong about that. And good christ there is a Fox affiliate - and anyone on the planet can get ESPN if they want it. And the different culture is hardly that different. It means Sportscentre leads with Hockey. And what weird customs? Not walking around armed?
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 07:38 AM on February 10, 2005
The player culture of the NBA, predominately African-American males born in the U.S, would not list Toronto within their top 25 cities in which they would like to live. I would venture that a poll among NBA players would place Toronto as one of their least desirable places to live and that includes most of the aforementioned cities. I just can't hear Lebron saying, "I'd sure like to get up out of Cleveland and move up to Toronto." Cleveland is pitiful, but at least it's in basketball's homeland. Face it Canadians, the NBA in Toronto is a side-show, nothing more.
posted by mayerkyl at 09:50 AM on February 10, 2005
while such opinions among the players might be the consensus i would venture that they are based on ignorance, unfortunately.
posted by gspm at 10:29 AM on February 10, 2005
Back on topic, the soap opera keeps getting better: Another Raptor wants out, fast - Crumbling team's situation painful DAVE FESCHUK The TV lights had gone out. The actors, Sam Mitchell and Rafer Alston, had performed on cue. Meanwhile, back in the quiet and crumbling Raptor locker room, Eric Williams was considering the soap opera and shaking his head. "It's a damn shame that a guy's got to be an a--hole in order to get some attention around here," said Williams. "All the a--holes get all the attention." As he spoke, Williams was staring across the room at the stall inhabited by Alston, the controversy-courting point guard whose public feud with Mitchell, the rookie coach, has dominated the newspaper plotlines in these parts. And though the Raptors didn't need another twist in their sordid saga, Williams delivered a zinger last night. Frustrated that his playing time has diminished to zilch, the highly touted veteran acquired in the Vince Carter trade said that he has demanded a trade through his agent. "I need to get out of here, man," Williams said before the Raptors' 110-107 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. "If I'm not going to be a part of this team, I can go anywhere else and help a team out. I can go to New Orleans and help them out." It was a harsh indictment of a wobbling NBA franchise, and not only because Williams was suggesting he'd welcome a job with the league's worst team if it meant leaving the Raptors. Williams' words have weight because he's one of the NBA's solid citizens, a 10-year veteran not prone to shooting off his mouth, a guy who, when he was acquired in the Carter trade, was feted by Raptors GM Rob Babcock as the "the type of (person), character-wise, that we want in our program," praised as "team-oriented" and "tough" and "professional on the court and off the court."
posted by dusted at 11:01 AM on February 10, 2005
posted by dusted at 11:02 AM on February 10, 2005
Mayerkyl - You have no idea what you're talking about. Show me the poll - show me the list of cities that come ahead, show me where your obvious bias comes from and where it actually translates into fact. There aren't cities in the US where basketball is secondary to other sports? Because I raise you one World Champion Detroit. Unmittigated bullshit sir. So African Americans don't know squat about Toronto? Despite being a terrific blanket statement (and perhaps motivated by your own ignorance - becasue if your from the Northwest - you probably know) So what? Does anyone know anything about Salt Lake City when they come from New York? About San Antonio when they grew up in LA? What about the myriad of players who aren't from the US - All the European talent, etc. Is this your bias, or theirs? Like I said - show me the money - I'll show you the players.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 12:03 PM on February 10, 2005
"I ain't on the court, and I'm away from my family," he said. "That's just doubled the (pain). -At least we can now agree that living in Toronto is part of the pain. Sure he could move his family there, but they probably don't want to leave the U.S. either. It's unfortunate, because Toronto is a cool city, but it's never going to attract NBA players of a high caliber.
posted by mayerkyl at 12:04 PM on February 10, 2005
Weedy, you spelled Sportscenter wrong. (See, I said that in my new American accent. You like?) And cel service is screwy from Canada to the States. Somehow, the fact that the Bell grid covers both countries and everyone's got a 3-digit area code doesn't make a ton of difference. If I could find a plan that had a call from NYC to Toronto be as cheap as a call to LA (i.e., free), I'd take it in a second. The Fox & ESPN affiliate is in Buffalo, not Toronto. You think that doesn't matter? I bet it does. It's not just basketball where you see this attitude about Toronto. The Blue Jays certainly have the same problem convincing talent that Toronto isn't some outpost on Mars or something. It's a parallel universe; their successes are just that much harder to share with the boys back home, despite the fact that Toronto's way closer to everything, and has more of almost everything, than a town like Salt Lake City (good example) or Portland does. It's a slightly different world. To the mainstream pro athletes, you might as well be playing in Tokyo as Toronto. The evidence, here and in many other stories especially since the Blue Jays stopped winning World Serieses, bears this out, dollar strength be damned.
posted by chicobangs at 12:05 PM on February 10, 2005
precisely chicobangs!
posted by mayerkyl at 12:16 PM on February 10, 2005
Weedy, the fact that the Raptors are the lone NBA outpost in a country other than the U.S. serves to identify them as different than all other teams. The NBA fan base is primarily in the U.S. which means that less people across the continent even care about the Raptors and would probably route agaist them vs. any other U.S. team. This shared sentiment is part of the reason players don't want to be there. It's not so much that there's something wrong with the city of Toronto. There's simply a stigma of being an outsider that goes along with being a Raptor.
posted by mayerkyl at 12:27 PM on February 10, 2005
At this point it needs to be said again that all these problems with wortking in another country wouldn't matter if the management had a plan to create a winning atmosphere. There's money and a solid fan base there, and the lure of a ring brought a lot of baseball plyers to Toronto in the early 90's. Once management gets its collective shit together, the people who do decide to play in Toronto will find rewards, be they financial, championshipical, or globally adulational. But until then, these players simply don't care about the rest of the world. It's the USA or it's nothing.
posted by chicobangs at 12:41 PM on February 10, 2005
Roger Clemens, Paul Molitor, Dave Winfield, Vince Carter, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Cone, Alvin Williams, Antonio Davis, Carlos Delgado, Rahib Ismail....... A small sample of the list of prominent free agents who have signed with a Toronto sports team. I didn't bother to include hockey since, obviously in the USA hockey 'doesn't count'. The only one who expressed disinterest in playing in Canada was Davis - but that didn't stop him from signing. I still suggest the 'no Canada' stigma is ours. Bad teams have trouble attracting talent. There is no doubt the Raptors are as fucked up a franchise as exists right now - but it isn't because they're in Canada. I don't reject it as a factor, because it will be to some people in the same way that some players will never play in X city for whatever reason - but it isn't a trump card that will prevent any success in US based sports (as was suggested) - frankly, it's pretty low on the list. Sorry, I don't mean to be hyper-sensitive about it, but this sentiment (No one will ever play in Toronto) is so overstated it's grating. And you've got mayerkyl over here saying that Eric Williams family doesn't want to move here either - which if you read the statement is just an assumption that gets presented as a fact. It's how ignorance is perpetuated.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 01:43 PM on February 10, 2005
i think problem with the recent Jays teams are budget issues and playing the AL East. how many big name free agents would WANT to come to ANY team where the team budget is half of what other teams in the division are paying (meaning no big contracts for big names, not that Toronto even tries to sign the marquee names) and with the Red Sox and Yankees you are pretty much topping out at third place (ie no playoffs) as the Jays did from 1998-2003. anyway, can toronto trade the whole raptors team for another one? no good stories coming from there these days.
posted by gspm at 02:14 PM on February 10, 2005
...this sentiment (No one will ever play in Toronto) is so overstated it's grating... Weedy, no one in this thread has said anything close to that. Of course the players that do decide to come play in Toronto (by & large) don't regret it. (You did pad that list a bit. Hakeem was only here for a paycheck, Ismail skipped out on the Argos mid-week when he got a tryout with the Cowboys or whoever, and he never even came back for his stuff, and my opinions on how the Jays got treated by that selfish little whore Clemens don't need to be rehashed here.) But -- Steve Francis, anyone? Here's a story that's far from an isolated incident: I remember when Barry Bonds was renegotiating with the Giants a few years back, and there was some talk about where else he was going to go, and there was an interview (on TSN) where he made a joke out of the fact that he'd consider playing for any team, "...except, of course, for those two, heh heh." It was very clear where he was referring to, and the way he said it, he'd never heard the other side of that argument. Tell me that that mindset doesn't exist in the minds of a large number of players (not all, but many), and that it's not one more bridge that has to be crossed in the minds of many players that would otherwise be perfect fits for Canadian Teams.
posted by chicobangs at 02:19 PM on February 10, 2005
"I ain't on the court, and I'm away from my family," he said. "That's just doubled the (pain). -At least we can now agree that living in Toronto is part of the pain. Dude, that has nothing to do with him being in Toronto. That has to do with him not being in New Jersey. He would've had the same sentiments about any of the other 28 NBA clubs that aren't in New Jersey. This is a guy who was looking for stability after his kid's mother was murdered. Sure, he doesn't want to uproot his kid from the rest of his family. That's perfectly understandable, but has nothing to do with Canada. He'd be expressing the same sentiments no matter where he'd been traded.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 03:16 PM on February 10, 2005
...this sentiment (No one will ever play in Toronto) is so overstated it's grating... Weedy, no one in this thread has said anything close to that. Yes they did - though perhaps 'wants' is a better word. That's what got me going. Second comment on the thread.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 03:32 PM on February 10, 2005
Keep in mind that we're talking about a pretty small sample-size when it comes to drawing broad generalizations about where players want to play. Fact of the matter is that athletes will play where they have a chance to win. In the mid-90's, baseball players had a chance to win in Toronto. Basketball championships have been won in such African-American hotspots such as Portland and San Antonio. Oh, and mayerkyl, did something bad happen to you in Cleveland, or were you still on your broad generalization kick?
posted by avogadro at 04:07 PM on February 10, 2005
i dunno about knocking off Hakeem and the Rocket from the list - Hakeem took the money. He would go to any team that offered him the money so he went to Canada. Hence - money can trump the displeasure being in Canada. And the Rocket - comparing playing in the CFL to getting a chance to play in the NFL are two different things. The Rocket followed the money (if the NFL wasn't then who ELSE was gonna offer him $17mil/4yrs) and the chance to play (if in 1991 you're not playing in the NFL then where ELSE can you play) to Canada but I can't imagine he really wanted to have a career in the CFL. When the NFL came calling he was gonna leave. It wasn't like he was trading a Canadian NFL franchise for an American one. So, hence, money and opportunity trump the displeasure being in Canada.
posted by gspm at 04:35 PM on February 10, 2005
weedy, i hear ya. the mindset is there. but its comparable to the mindset of people who surprisingly ask canadians "wow, you speak english?! i thought they spoke canadian up there" [true story] Weedy, you've seen the 'this hour has 22min' gag 'ask the american'. Come'on man! What do you expect? Igloos, mounties, beavers, and beer. beyond that, learning about canada below the 49th takes effort....and we all know about the correlation between an athlete's effort for their sport vs. education, to grossly generalize. on the bright side, with global warming ramping up its efforts for the canadian tourism industry, perhaps more american athletes will get some canadian exposure, without a contract demanding it, and discover its beauty, eh!
posted by garfield at 04:36 PM on February 10, 2005
money can trump the displeasure being in Canada Is that what it says on the sign, driving into Quebec? I don't parle.
posted by yerfatma at 04:38 PM on February 10, 2005
I think the bigger issue is the coach. Alston is, by all indications, an idiot, but to have Eric Williams saying "trade me to New Orleans?" Now even GM Babcock is backing Alston, so the Coach Carter act is getting old from top to bottom. One of the qualities of being a good coach is getting the best from your players. In that sense, Mitchell is failing big time.
posted by dusted at 05:19 PM on February 10, 2005
Oh wait, I found one more negative. It's frickin' cold.
posted by dusted at 07:11 PM on February 10, 2005
So? Florida has, like, hurricanes.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 10:55 PM on February 10, 2005
And aging Quebecers.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 07:56 AM on February 11, 2005
is toronto all that much (if at all) colder than, i dunno, minneapolis, chicago, green bay, detroit, buffalo or pittsburgh (to cast the athlete net beyond NBA cities)? the "it's cold" negative applies several places and the bigger issue is being based in another country. and having to live in an igloo and take a dogsled to the arena rather than your hummer.
posted by gspm at 11:05 AM on February 11, 2005
Florida also has the Stanley Cup.
posted by gspm at 11:06 AM on February 11, 2005
gspm, you know it's perception, not reality, that's driving this stuff. I'm almost positive that every single city you mentioned is colder (and in most cases gets way more snow) than Toronto on a month-to-month basis. I'm also positive that most players don't really care about that reality. Just because many of these guys are college graduates doesn't mean they don't hear "Canada" and think "snowshoes in July, useless monopoly money and people who talk funny." The ones who get past that do fine here, and those who don't miss out, but it means the Canadian teams suffer from a smaller pool of talent willing to play here than many other teams. There's money here, but if the Biggest Names won't come and management is disorganized, what's the incentive to play "overseas"?
posted by chicobangs at 03:24 PM on February 11, 2005
yeah it is perception. money can change some of that though. while it is true that i doubt the top echelon of players will be swayed by a max contract to play in toronto (see Shaq's comment) you look at a team like the Pistons of last year and it does seem possible to win with an echelon of player possibly below that of the SuperDuperMoneyWon'tConvinceMeToPlayInCanadaStar. a blanket statement that nobody good will come to toronto feeds into that perception with the FORCES of GOOD waging a battle in a sportsfilter thread to try and suggest that the perception need not be so harsh. meh, what can ya do.
posted by gspm at 04:46 PM on February 11, 2005
FWIW, I posted that link because I liked the photo. I fully realize that it gets just as cold in Minnesota, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit.
posted by dusted at 05:03 PM on February 11, 2005
I figured the aesthete in you was all over that photo.
posted by smithers at 05:55 PM on February 11, 2005
they guy is making a load of money for someone who used to be a streetballer. it'd be nice to see a little humility. swallow some pride, respect the coach. does he think he is bigger than the team? i mean Jalen Rose is rather unhappy with his role coming off the bench but he seems to be wiping his tears with his paycheques, sucking up his wounded pride, playing every night, and not throwing tantrums. the raptors, ugh. undertalented and with Carter now in NJ and not sulking anymore it looks like they got pretty much nothing in exhcange for a 6 time allstar. it'd be nice if the players they do have would play.