<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The Raptors unveiled their new home whites yesterday and let's just say the fresh threads weren't designed by the sadists who hideously transformed the Buffalo Sabres into the Slugs. In a welcome move, the resident hoopsters have opted for Team Canada white and red and black. And just as they've ditched all traces of purple, they also appear to be attempting to erase all memory of a certain ill-fated era. Yesterday, Jorge Garbajosa, the Spanish rookie forward, accepted his new jersey with a handshake from Bryan Colangelo, the general manager. And as the photo-opping duo held up the jersey for the flashmen, Colangelo grinned and smiled: "You guys recognize that number?" Garbajosa, of course, is Toronto's new No.15. And that numerological nuance only underlines how, when training camp begins Tuesday, we'll be witnessing both a symbolic shift and a seismic one in Raptorland. Where once the franchise's defining player, Vince Carter, wore that number on his super-hyped ascent to the team's competitive high point, he also wore it while wearing out his welcome. He wore No.15 pouting and tanking and asking out. And in the end, when once it looked as though those digits might be hoisted to the rafters, a wise man resorted to printing them on baby bibs in a fitting mock tribute. Garbajosa, the diametric heir to No. 15, will not lead an international shoe company's marketing campaign anytime soon. He's a grinder, a role player. But he is, by many accounts, a skilled and willing doer of the dirty work ? a good guy, in other words, to have on a good team. If you need credentials, look back on his pivotal role in Spain's world championship run. Jose Calderon, the backup point guard, was on that team, too. And when you glance at the Raptors roster these days ? replete with six players and a coach, Sam Mitchell, who learned the game or played professionally in Europe ? you realize that if Colangelo was playing some theoretical sporting stock market, he'd be winning big. Never before have American-bred players ? never before have the duper-stars in the Carter mould ? been so poorly thought of by observers of the game. Never before has selfishness ? the most obvious product of the U.S. me-first star system ? been looked on so suspiciously. But such is the baggage of a losing streak. And American teams, once the unquestioned dominators of so many athletic arenas, have been losing with startling frequency of late, in everything from the Ryder Cup to the men's and women's hoops world championships to the World Baseball Classic. They've been losing so much that everyone from Michael Jordan to Mitchell has been heard questioning the American sporting system that produces players who can't co-exist as a unit. "It's not the most talented (that wins)," Mitchell said. "It's the group that commits together, plays together, works together."</div> Source
