Bryan Colangelo felt he put together a good team at the start of the season but the Raps GM was forced to make a move.
There is an old adage that says: "No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn around and go back".
You couldn't help but sense that Bryan Colangelo was still convinced he had gone down the right road and the Toronto Raptors as constructed at the start of the season were a very good team. A playoff team that could have advanced past the first round in the east this season, and with confidence and momentum reached lofty heights. At least that is what he seemed to imply toward the end of his conference call with the media last night after making a trade that has been rumoured for quite some time. In short, Colangelo turned back even though he believed he was on the right road.
Jermaine O'Neal and Jamario Moon along with a conditional draft pick were sent to Miami for Shawn Marion, Marcus Banks and cash considerations.
Say what you want about Colangelo but he is not afraid to make trades that will make his team better. Looking back, while many in hindsight now will say the O'Neal transaction this past summer was a bad move, you couldn't help but argue, right up until the minute the trade was made, the opposite viewpoint. After all, why is Pat Riley trading for O'Neal? Isn't he looking for an inside presence that can score down low, albeit not with the same efficiency as he once did, and guard the paint with enough ferocity and respect to get calls, and sometimes "non calls" late in close games?
For Toronto, the deal will help address some of the Raptors needs at the wing where they have been underperforming all season. But again, maybe Colangelo's partial reluctance to throw in the towel on something he felt would work, the current deal is not made if the wing players put up the kind of production that is, not spectacular, but just above average offensively and guard their opposite number with some tenacity? It says here that if the two aforementioned deficiencies had been better, the Raptors would be further ahead in their quest for a playoff spot and the three-man rotation that had been established between O'Neal, Andrea Bargnani and Chris Bosh up front is one that would have looked good moving forward.
The Raptors were built at the beginning of the season as a better playoff team than regular-season squad. The problem was the team's lack of chemistry had them underachieving which was not going to give them a chance to show that they were indeed a better playoff squad than the one that went through the regular season. Regardless of what has happened of late, Colangelo felt he needed to make a move for a couple of reasons.
Marion, who has a valuable expiring contract, is a good fit in Toronto for a number of reasons. Initially, on the floor, he will provide the Raptors with a perimeter defender capable of stopping or at least limiting opposing wing players by making them work harder for scores in one-on-one situations. He's a good rebounder and at times he can create match up issues for opposing teams.
Sam Mitchell remarked that he watched tapes of Tim Duncan and David Robinson in the off-season to see how two big players co-existed in anticipation of using Bosh and O'Neal together. Quick, someone get Jose Calderon some video of the Phoenix Suns under Mike D'Antoni with Steve Nash running the show so he and all the other Raptors can see how Marion can perform at peak efficiency. It would also make for less grinding in the half-court game as there would be some easy scores.
But the deal, as Colangelo has always said about any personnel move he makes, would have legs for the future as well. In short, he has made a move similar to the one made by Joe Dumars when he traded for Allen Iverson. You get a good player who may or may not fit and you can "rent" him for a while and test drive the situation. If it works, try to bring him back at the right price. If not, then you maintain cap flexibility where Colangelo would still have enough money to bring in a number of solid players to construct a contender. A fact that becomes more important with Chris Bosh's decision about the summer of 2010 looming on the horizon.
So while he may have felt in his heart that the 2008-09 Toronto Raptors were a better squad on paper than any of the previous teams he had built here, Colangelo could never say he was right because of the bottom line. That and an eye toward Chris Bosh's impending decision in 2010 eventually forced his hand.
Only time will tell how this trade works out but even if it doesn't, regardless of what he believes, don't expect him to go down the wrong road until the very end.
