I have never seen a basketball team disintegrate as the Raptors are doing. If you go to their games you can tell how disaffected the players are: they're practically walking up and down the court, they are not paying any attention to the coach during the breaks and they often seem more excited to see their opponents - chest thumps, smiles and some easy conversation - before the game than winning the game for their team.
Then there is the off court stuff. Last week Alston and the coach, Sam Mitchell, got into a fight at half time in the locker room. Alston did not play the rest of the game and was ultimately escorted by security guards to the team's bus. Some witnesses say that the he was in tears. For the past few days Alston has been asking for an apology and some of his team mates agree that he deserves one.
Then last night Vince's mom came out and said that in December Vince and Mitchell also got into an altercation in the locker room.
I have seasons tickets to the Raptors and I sit next to the "super fan," who is on good terms with most of the Raptor players and, for example, went to Vince's wedding last summer. He has taken a paternalistic liking to me and often tells me stuff about what's going on with the team. I don't entirely believe everything he has to say but I can't totally discount it either.
According to the "super fan," Mitchell has a very physical style and is often wrestling and sparring with the players in practice and in the locker room. So he was not at all surprised at the Alston situation. The "super fan" thinks that Mitchell will be fired very soon.
If all of this is true Mitchell is a very bizarre guy.
So we are left with a team without a franchise player, which has gone through something like 5 coaches in 8 years and no real prospects on the horizon.
Two years ago Maple Leaf Entertainment - the company that owns the Air Canada Center, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors - was sold to a very large Canadian pension fund. In a subsequent post I will tell you why I think that today's Raptors are just what the owners want.
2 comments:
I see many parallels with the final lame duck years of the Grizzlies - ineffectual management and coaching, players refusing to play, declining promotion by the NBA.
Is it possible they are positioning for getting the team out of Canada and into a US market?
Whats going to happen with Alston? I should probably pick up Milt Palacio in my fantasy league.
Mitchell sure does sound weird. Like a roman catholic priest weird! What is all that bumping and grinding going on and what could have done to an athletic full-grown man like Alston to put him in tears. Freaky.
Great overview, Buz. I can't wait to hear your econonic analysis. I have the same questions as Lantzvillager.
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