The Other Side - Crunch Time for BryCo

Around this time last year, Bryan Colangelo made a lot of people scratch their heads by leaving one of the best teams in the league, the Phoenix Suns, to come to one of the worst: the Toronto Raptors. It was an inconceivable move to some: why walk away from a cushy job, in a city where it's always summer, to come to the "frozen wastes of Canada" and a team that lost to Maccabi Tel Aviv? Madness.

Or was it? Those who follow basketball closely could come up with several reasons for Colangelo to jump, not least of which was the chance to get out from under his father's shadow. Jerru Colangelo is a legend in the NBA, and is responsible for some of the best trades in league history. As long as Bryan was in Phoenix, there was always going to be an element that believed good old dad was pulling the strings, not him. This same element probably believed he didn't deserve the job he had. A change of scenery gave him the chance to prove that he could build his own team, without help from dad, while simultaneously showing his father that he was just as good.

Coming a close second was the situation he was coming to. Phoenix had been built from the ground up, with shrewd cap management, intelligent trades and scouting, and a touch of luck. Colangelo appears to be a GM who believes in building around what you have, and not in changing what you have to build according to your ideal mould. Phoenix is an athletic, small running team that puts up ridiculous offensive numbers. They can do this because of 3 players: Nash, Marion and Stoudamire. Everyone else fits around them. Toronto had nothing worth keeping outside of Bosh, Mo Pete and Villanueva, so there was a lot more room for Colangelo to manouvre. The Raptors also had ridiculous cap room and a city hungry for a team to cheer. This was jsut the clean slate that Colangelo needed to prove his point.

So, the jump having been made, Colangelo set about building his team. Out went the dregs of other team's benches. Out went draft mistakes. In came multi-faceted players from overseas, an underutilised but athletic 2-guard, a couple of role players and, in the most controversial move, out went Villanueva, one of last season's top 3 rookies, for a point guard with a questionable spine but undoubted quicks and mercurial talent. Before a shot had been taken, this team was either doomed to the lottery, or headed for the playoffs, depending on who you listened to. Colangelo, having heard it all before in Phoenix, smiled and waited.

Preseason came, and the Raptors played out of this world. Everything they tried worked. The team gelled well. Fred Jones, who most people thought was a good pickup despite also being a second choice behind John Salmons, caught fire. Still, the negativity was rife. Preseason means nothing, came the cry. They're playing against scrubs. Colangelo, who'd heard all of it before, smiled, waited, and cheered on his team.

Start of the season, and the Raptors struggled out of the gate. The negative crowd started rolling the pastry for the crust of a most excellent crow pie to feed the positive crowd. They, in turn, were pointing to a lack of familiarity with each other and a nasty road schedule to start the season, as excuses. Bargnani, the team's first ever number 1 overall pick, looked lost. So did the European imports. Bosh was playing well, and TJ Ford was doing OK, but we were losing. Sam Mitchell's job was called into question. Colangelo, who was used to hearing all this, smiled, waited, cheered on his team, and watched them improve.

And now here we are, scant weeks from the team's first playoff appearance in several seasons. Colangelo has made mistakes, namely Fred Jones and PJ Tucker, and has corrected them both: Jones was traded for Juan Dixon, and Tucker has now been released and replaced with former lottery pick Luke Jackson. Dixon has been playing very well on both ends, and costs less than Jones did, which is a plus. Jackson is a good shooter who can penetrate but has suspect defense...which should ring familiar to Raptor fanse.

What comes next, though, will determine if Colangelo has "Onions baby, onions!" or if it's time to "Get out the salami and cheese, momma, this general manager job is OVER!". And, unlike most GM's in the league, very little will rely on his team's performance in the playoffs. The negative crowd will tell you that, despite the team's offensive prowess and their undoubted defensive improvement over last year, the team is still a poor rebounding unit, and well sub-par defensively. They will also point to the number of wins this team has had this year against other teams missing their top stars. None of our success of this season is likely to be repeated next year unless the rebounding and defense are rectified. They are pointing to siging Luke Jackson as evidence of this. Those who are more optimistic will point to the fact that adding one defensive stopper to 14 sieves on defence is like using a cocktail umbrella in a hurricane: largely pointless and unlikely to last. Instead of trying to address a glaring hole with a very small plug, instead improve and already good area of the team and add a slightly different dimension to it. There is precedent, albeit from other sports: the great Brazillian soccer teams win games by the mantra: "It doesn't matter if you score 3 goals, we'll score 5 anyway". This seams to be the way Toronto are going. In the East, there are not many teams who can trade shots with Toronto, Washington being the best equipped. Of the playoff-bound teams, only Detroit is good enough to shut down the Raptors on a night when the shots are falling.

Next season, though, Colangelo has some serious work ahead of him. Bosh and Ford have their extensions activated, together earning over $20 million. The salary cap has been estimated around $57 million. Peterson is likely to leave, possibly via sign and trade, but we'll presume not for the purpose of this article. Sow is not likely to be extended, and Darrick Martin may be asked to move behind the bench. That's about $12 million off. Given we're currently under by about $2 million, and the cap is going up about $3 million, we're still over the cap. Meaning less flexibility. Colangelo will have a mid-level exception to work with, around $5.7 million, plus the possibility of trading Joey Graham, a possible sign and trade for Mo Pete, and a draft pick. Somehow, he has to turn those assets into 2 or 3 players who can rebound and defend at something approaching the league average for their positions. And it's not the best year for it.

There's no glaring impending free agent that rebounds or makes stops, so we're relying on Colangelo's ability to find hidden gems, either overseas, on the ends of benches, or on the trading blocks. He also has to remember that Calderon is going to need extending, and will want big money after the way he's played this year. Ultimately, the way Mr Colangelo handles the next 4-6 months will determine his legacy in this league, more than anything he has done until now. Only time will tell if he is as good as he says he is, or if daddy dearest was the one with the brains.