You don't need to be in the general manager's office every day bitching and complaining about player

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>The impression is that Sam Mitchell loves expressing his opinion on whatever matter happens to pop up in conversation. He will debate politics or some other issue of the day, or he'll divulge his secrets on parenting, his feelings about the way you look, the way you talk, the questions he is asked.

But there is one area in which Mitchell has no opinion, or at least one area he's smart enough to avoid. In the two weeks between now and the NBA trade deadline, he's not about to go storming in the office of general manager Bryan Colangelo and start offering his thoughts on this player, or that player or any of the players under his watch.

A sage once told him that's counter-productive and Mitchell was wise enough to listen.

"Wayne Embry taught me," Mitchell said yesterday. "He said, `Your job is to coach the players that you have. You don't need to be in the general manager's office every day bitching and complaining about players, because if you start doing that, the next thing they're going to do is start looking at you.'

"I don't ever go upstairs and bitch and complain about our players. My job is to coach the players we have, get them better and win as many games as we can.

"Let's say you do that (make demands) and you make two or three trades and you don't win. ... The next time you go up there and say, `Get rid of guys,' what's he going to start looking at? Getting rid of your ass."

The topic of players – needs and wants and desires among the Raptors hierarchy – is bound to be front and centre over the next fortnight. Colangelo, who is traversing Europe with assistant Maurizio Gherardini and director of global scouting Masai Ujiri on scouting missions, has to decide if the team, as constructed, is ready to take the next step in a natural progression.

It might not, on paper, look like a legitimate NBA championship contender, but Colangelo has to balance any deal for immediate improvement against the long-term financial grief a trade might cause. Taking on a long-term salary commitment when the team's finances are set up to create a chance to tweak the roster each summer would be folly given the need to keep that future flexibility. Colangelo has created a payroll that will give him leeway each summer to add a piece or keep someone whose deal will expire, moves he feels are more important to sustained success than making one big splash that may or may not work.

The GM is speaking daily with his counterparts throughout the league, kicking the tires on potential swaps, but nothing, according to everyone connected with the team, is remotely imminent.

"We talk every day, but we just talk in general," Mitchell said. "We like our team, (but) any time we could do something to make it better, we would."

Mitchell won't say it to his GM, but he knows what he wants, or needs. The Raptors are a poor rebounding team and they could use some experience and size on the wings, areas Colangelo will be looking at.

"The general manager knows basketball, he knows what we need and what we can improve on," the coach said. "He knows; he's not stupid."</div>

Source: The Star