Raptors Getting Better at Getting Worse

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">It's this space's two-year anniversary and, in lieu of the tired old computer-generated regurgitation of the usual doom-and-gloom rantings, this special edition begins with a promise that the laptop guillotine isn't freshly sharpened and poised to chop.

Enumerating the Raptors' innumerable problems, taking potshots at their rag-tag roster of E-list strugglers, suggesting changes at the highest level of the executive branch ? it's all so 2004, especially since the Raptors, if you haven't been paying attention, are actually proferring optimism this offseason.

But more on that later.

Yes, they've spent the summer drafting unconventionally, picking Charlie Villanueva even though he plays the same position as their best player, Chris Bosh.

They've also negotiated unconvincingly, watching the guy they bragged about stealing in the draft, Roko Ukic, sign in Spain.

They've found time, too, in their role as roundball ambassadors, to bamboozle Newfoundland.

A couple of preseasons ago, you'll remember, a game between the Raptors and the Cleveland Cavaliers at Mile One Stadium in St. John's was cancelled when condensation on the floor wouldn't abate. It's hard to forget the pathetic ending, teams rolling down the road in their luxury buses while dozens of hopeful-eyed children continued mopping the floor in vain, unaware their heroes had already left the building.

Anyhow, on that night the Raptors then-general manager Glen Grunwald looked those hopeful-eyed children in the peepers and promised that Canada's team ? and, more to the point, an NBA-calibre opponent ? would return "within two years."

But neither last year's nor this year's preseason schedule includes a trip to the Rock; the Raptors are taking their show to Winnipeg instead.

"Obviously we're disappointed," said Lisa Neville, the general manager of the St. John's arena. "But we know that Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment is going to be fair and reasonable going forward."

Anyone who assumes MLSE is going to be fair and reasonable ? anyone, that is, who doesn't possess a loophole-free contract that legally handcuffs MLSE to fairness and reasonability ? doesn't deserve your mercy.

The Raptors had to do what they had to do. And besides, it's a long-held pro sports truism that one of the great free-agent lures known to man is a late-October trip to the 'Peg?

That explains, in part, why the team's prize free-agent signing was Matt Bonner, the dead-eye redhead whose two-year deal worth about $4 million (U.S.) was announced the other day and who, even though he's a newly minted rich man, remains a strong candidate to become the first NBA player to say of Manitoba: "Nice place."

But Bonner's re-upping is endemic of exactly what's exciting about this summer in formerly forlorn Raptorland. At least now they're not fooling around with the prospect of going .500 and sneaking into the playoffs.

At least they're getting good at being bad.

And why not? Getting marginally better, in an Eastern Conference in which the best teams are too stacked to catch without a 2-through-15 retool, makes little sense.

Getting marginally worse ? which, with any luck, is exactly what they've done ? could put them in prime position to suffer through a sub-30-win season and, more to the upside, snag a top-three selection in next year's entry draft (after drafting eighth and seventh the past two seasons.)

This new optimism has its limits. Maybe Villanueva is the saviour. Maybe Joey Graham, Toronto's other first-round pick, is the new Junkyard Dog. Perhaps Rafer Alston can be medicated. And what if Bonner has spent August learning to dribble with his head up?</div>

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