Arizona's Finest
Your My Favorite Mistake
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I found this article very very sad for fans in Toronto who actually follow the team. I mean i seriously i think that me, elindholm, grham, ford, joemama and george obrien could run this team and the results would be exponentially better.
Do the Raptors actaully have die hard fans??? Wait a minute... theres probaly some Toronto Argonauts message board laughing at us Cardinals fans for the same thing....(sigh)
Big Brazilian busts not always entertaining
Time for Raptors to ditch Araujo
DAVE FESCHUK
[font=Times, Times New Roman, Serif, MS Serif]In the wake of the Raptors' historic and embarrassing loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv on Sunday, some observers registered surprise and even disgust that the Air Canada Centre crowd was, by the game's electrifying conclusion, not only cheering for the yellow-jerseyed visitors, but cheering against the home team as they stepped to the free-throw line and the like.
But why would anyone assume those folks in the seats were Raptor fans? Canada's NBA team, after all, isn't even marketing its players as the main attraction anymore. These days the team's Web page touts single-game tickets alongside a buxom, toothy cheerleader. A newspaper ad begs for your business next to a picture of the admittedly excellent mascot. Radio ads push the adrenaline rush that comes with attending a game, if not the game itself, selling the merits of the noise and the pyrotechnics and the food without so much as mentioning, say, the once-in-a-lifetime chance for a garbage-time viewing of Pape Sow.
In some ways the marketing approach makes sense. "Come see the pretty cheerleader!" beats "Come see Rafael Araujo booed out of the building and on to a plane to join the Arkansas RimRockers!" Either way you're selling a bust. But if there were truth in advertising, the latter would be the pitch.
It's only the pre-season, and there are some situations in which pre-season feedback doesn't tell you anything. Teams that have great pre-seasons don't necessarily have great regular seasons. Same for players. But Araujo, the 6-foot-10 musclehead who sometimes mans the middle, is not some established veteran who's easing into midseason form. He's the stone-handed, slow-to-react fumbler who got yanked after a painful-to-watch four minutes against Maccabi.
What's his problem? What's the prognosis? You can't get a straight answer out of anyone in power.
Rob Babcock, the GM who picked Araujo eighth in the 2004 draft, said it's a Catch-22, a young guy who can't get comfortable without getting minutes, but who can't get minutes because he's not comfortable.
"His confidence is up and down," Babcock said.
Sam Mitchell, the coach, said confidence has nothing to do with it: "One thing Hoff is, he's very confident.''
Double-talk is becoming a local dialect in Raptorworld. Babcock has already said his club is going to be worse than it was last year, only to spend weeks insisting he didn't say that. And the GM somehow spun Sunday's loss as "good for the league (and) good for international basketball, which should eventually be good for us, too."
Mitchell said yesterday that he is "always cautious letting rookies start" because "you've got to keep your rookies hungry." But if that's his coaching philosophy, why did he spend half of last season starting Araujo when the clueless rookie looked neither deserving of the role nor particularly hungry for success?
Granted, we've hammered Araujo to a critical pulp. And it's about this time that even the merciless observer might begin to feel a little sorry for the hapless Brazilian — if, that is, the hapless Brazilian weren't making a preposterous $2.2 million (U.S.) this season (and another $2.4 million next season) and, more to the point, making his mental residence on Pluto.
His output from yesterday's media scrum made even a part-time thinking man shudder.
On playing centre: "It's a hard position to play. It's not like a guard position, point guard."
On his chief obstacle: "The way I've got to improve, I've just got to have playing time. If I play more, I'm going to improve more."
On getting booed by the Toronto crowd last season: "Charles Barkley got booed in a game. Another day they cheered for him."
The biggest problem with Araujo isn't his delusional self image. It's that he's running out of time. At 25 he should be nearing his prime, not stutter-stepping back to the bench after another crime against logic. If the Raptors are serious about improving they won't let the beefcake waste space much longer. Ship him to the RimRockers of the NBA's development league. Buy him out. Admit the mistake. Or: Keep force-feeding the real fans slap-in-the-face doubletalk while selling the non-fans on the busts.[/font]
Do the Raptors actaully have die hard fans??? Wait a minute... theres probaly some Toronto Argonauts message board laughing at us Cardinals fans for the same thing....(sigh)
Big Brazilian busts not always entertaining
Time for Raptors to ditch Araujo
DAVE FESCHUK
[font=Times, Times New Roman, Serif, MS Serif]In the wake of the Raptors' historic and embarrassing loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv on Sunday, some observers registered surprise and even disgust that the Air Canada Centre crowd was, by the game's electrifying conclusion, not only cheering for the yellow-jerseyed visitors, but cheering against the home team as they stepped to the free-throw line and the like.
But why would anyone assume those folks in the seats were Raptor fans? Canada's NBA team, after all, isn't even marketing its players as the main attraction anymore. These days the team's Web page touts single-game tickets alongside a buxom, toothy cheerleader. A newspaper ad begs for your business next to a picture of the admittedly excellent mascot. Radio ads push the adrenaline rush that comes with attending a game, if not the game itself, selling the merits of the noise and the pyrotechnics and the food without so much as mentioning, say, the once-in-a-lifetime chance for a garbage-time viewing of Pape Sow.
In some ways the marketing approach makes sense. "Come see the pretty cheerleader!" beats "Come see Rafael Araujo booed out of the building and on to a plane to join the Arkansas RimRockers!" Either way you're selling a bust. But if there were truth in advertising, the latter would be the pitch.
It's only the pre-season, and there are some situations in which pre-season feedback doesn't tell you anything. Teams that have great pre-seasons don't necessarily have great regular seasons. Same for players. But Araujo, the 6-foot-10 musclehead who sometimes mans the middle, is not some established veteran who's easing into midseason form. He's the stone-handed, slow-to-react fumbler who got yanked after a painful-to-watch four minutes against Maccabi.
What's his problem? What's the prognosis? You can't get a straight answer out of anyone in power.
Rob Babcock, the GM who picked Araujo eighth in the 2004 draft, said it's a Catch-22, a young guy who can't get comfortable without getting minutes, but who can't get minutes because he's not comfortable.
"His confidence is up and down," Babcock said.
Sam Mitchell, the coach, said confidence has nothing to do with it: "One thing Hoff is, he's very confident.''
Double-talk is becoming a local dialect in Raptorworld. Babcock has already said his club is going to be worse than it was last year, only to spend weeks insisting he didn't say that. And the GM somehow spun Sunday's loss as "good for the league (and) good for international basketball, which should eventually be good for us, too."
Mitchell said yesterday that he is "always cautious letting rookies start" because "you've got to keep your rookies hungry." But if that's his coaching philosophy, why did he spend half of last season starting Araujo when the clueless rookie looked neither deserving of the role nor particularly hungry for success?
Granted, we've hammered Araujo to a critical pulp. And it's about this time that even the merciless observer might begin to feel a little sorry for the hapless Brazilian — if, that is, the hapless Brazilian weren't making a preposterous $2.2 million (U.S.) this season (and another $2.4 million next season) and, more to the point, making his mental residence on Pluto.
His output from yesterday's media scrum made even a part-time thinking man shudder.
On playing centre: "It's a hard position to play. It's not like a guard position, point guard."
On his chief obstacle: "The way I've got to improve, I've just got to have playing time. If I play more, I'm going to improve more."
On getting booed by the Toronto crowd last season: "Charles Barkley got booed in a game. Another day they cheered for him."
The biggest problem with Araujo isn't his delusional self image. It's that he's running out of time. At 25 he should be nearing his prime, not stutter-stepping back to the bench after another crime against logic. If the Raptors are serious about improving they won't let the beefcake waste space much longer. Ship him to the RimRockers of the NBA's development league. Buy him out. Admit the mistake. Or: Keep force-feeding the real fans slap-in-the-face doubletalk while selling the non-fans on the busts.[/font]
Didn't see that coming...
