Paul Jones

Paul Jones is the voice of the Raptors on the FAN 590 and writes regularly for Sportsnet.ca.

Damon Stoudemire is now an assistant coach with the Grizzlies.

It's a shame that the Naismith Cup won't be on the line when Mighty Mouse and the Grizzlies face the Raps.

The Raptors get back at it tonight as their expansion cousins, the Memphis Grizzlies, come to town. That has left me wondering, in a different time, this game had real significance didn't it? It would have been the Battle of Canada with Toronto against Vancouver, but now it's really just another game. There are more significant rivalries in the eyes of Raptor fans if you were to take some sort of poll. And where exactly is the Naismith Cup?

For the record, the all-time series stands at 15-13 in favour of the Grizzlies. Every time I think about it, I'm upset that the Grizzlies left the West Coast for Memphis. There's all this talk of basketball being a global game and can you think of a better city than Vancouver, particularly with the game's wildly growing popularity in Asia? Mind you, it has always been popular there, but we here in North America are just starting to realize that fact.

But back to Vancouver. Hopefully the NBA will feel that way but once the NBA picks up and leaves a city it rarely goes back. True it went back to Charlotte, but that franchise is in trouble with a sale imminent according to commissioner David Stern. New Orleans also landed a team when the Hornets fled from Charlotte. Even the "Commish" has lamented the fact that things failed in Vancouver but I just don't see the league going back.

Hopefully they will have a change of heart but until then, we Canadian fans can only hope. Quickly can you name where these current franchises came from; LA Clippers, Sacramento Kings and the Utah Jazz? The answer later on in this writing and yes, there are more but I would just be showing that I am a true basketball nerd.

Memphis assistant coach (and one-time Raptor) Damon Stoudamire will be recognized tonight at the Air Canada Centre as Toronto's 15-year celebrations continue. Biggie, as he was called in his early days as a Raptor, was a guy who played hard every night. Yes, people will remember him wanting out after then part-owner and general manager Isiah Thomas moved on. Raptor fans would remind him with a chorus of boos every time he returned to play in Toronto, but in recent conversations with Stoudamire, he has said that if he could do it all over again, it would have turned out differently. Stoudamire still loves Toronto and as a young player, he wore his heart on his sleeve in those early days of the franchise and eschewed the idea that an expansion franchise was supposed to grow slowly. He had been drafted by the Raptors as a successful collegian having been to the Final Four with the Arizona Wildcats and being accustomed to winning. When I once asked him what he learned from losing as the franchise was growing during the team's first season, he looked at me as if I was speaking a different language and said "nothing man, losing sucks." That's about as direct as you can get isn't it?

I have many Stoudamire stories but there are two that come to mind.

Initially one that speaks to his competitiveness and that was the franchise second-ever game and first road contest in Indiana. With Toronto trailing by a large margin in the second half to a Pacers, a squad that if you remember had its eyes on a title during that period of NBA history, Brendan Malone took to Stoudamire's ability as a quick guard who was difficult to guard one on one. Malone looked at the slow-footed Mark Jackson guarding Stoudamire and stood up and waved his arms away from his chest repeatedly. Translation: Spread the floor boys and Damon, you go to work. Stoudamire did just that as he brought the Raptors back single-handedly from a 22-point halftime deficit (60-38). The Raptors outscored Indiana by 20 points in the third quarter with Stoudamire running the show and cut the margin to two points before finally losing 97-89. But that game told me volumes about Biggie's competitiveness.

The second instance was the Raptors first appearance on TNT in a nationally-televised contest against the Seattle Supersonics. Yes, those Sonics, the team that would eventually get to the Finals that season with Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton and Detlef Schrempf coached by George Karl. To quote the late Johnny Cochrane's phrase on a glove "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit" and Gary Payton's glove didn't fit Stoudamire that night as "Biggie" turned in the franchise's first-ever triple-double with dazzling 20-point, 12-rebound, 11-assist performance en route to a 102-97 Raptor victory.

Yep if he would have known differently, things may have been differently for Stoudamire and the Raptor fortunes but what's the old adage? "Youth is sometimes wasted on the young".

Tonight though, maybe there won't be boos when he is recognized as Stoudamire has come clean about making a mistake the way it ended in Toronto. Would have been a pretty good storyline with Stoudamire now a coach for the Vancouver Grizzlies… oh well! Oh yeah, and your answers are Buffalo, Kansas City-Omaha, and New Orleans.