Hooped Up

In the wee hours of the morning — or the reasonable hours of the morning in Spain — the Raptors reached an agreement with point guard Jose Calderon, a restricted free agent. The source of that news: Calderon himself.

“Early this morning, through my agents, I reached a preliminary agreement with the Toronto Raptors,” Calderon said on his Web site. “I want to thank [president and general manager] Bryan Colangelo, [assistant general manager] Maurizio Gherardini, [head coach] Sam Mitchell and all of the Raptors family for the confidence that they have placed in me. I am sure that together we are going to achieve big things in the future.”

The free agency negotiation period started Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. ET. Players, however, cannot officially sign their deals until July 9. However, players are free to talk about the completion of deals, even if teams are wary of doing so.

National Post

Derrick Rose is going home, and a record crowd of freshmen are following him to the NBA. The Chicago Bulls selected Rose, who grew up on the city’s South Side, with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft Thursday night, choosing the Memphis guard over Kansas State forward Michael Beasley.  Below are the rest of the NBA draft results.

Round 1 NBA Draft Results

Second round results after the jump Read the rest of this entry »

After a lot of back and forth, Larry Bird has started the revamping of the Indiana Pacers and has agreed to a deal in principal to send forward Jermaine O’Neal to Toronto For T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic and the 17th pick in tomorrows draft.

This is a risky move for both sides as O’Neal and Ford have been hampered by injuries over the last few years. O’Neal’s injured left knee and Ford’s neck has sidelined each of them for much of the 07 - 08 season.

Hooped Up

Team USA is official and here are the members selected by the USA basketball comitee.

Carmelo Anthony
Carlos Boozer
Chris Bosh
Kobe Bryant
Dwight Howard
LeBron James
Jason Kidd
Chris Paul
Tayshaun Prince
Michael Redd
Dwayne Wade
Deron Williams

This is an awesome squad but, who is going to take a back seat to who and who leads this team?

At least not in Phoenix for Boris Diaw who the Toronto Raptors want in their line up.

Toronto is looking to make a deal for Phoenix’s Boris Diaw and has talked to the Suns. But Phoenix has no interest in Raptors point guard T.J. Ford or anyone else on Toronto’s roster. While Toronto tries to get a third team involved, the Suns appear open to moving Diaw. President Steve Kerr and others have been privately questioning Diaw’s commitment to basketball.

NY Daily News

Boy, this whole Garbajosa experiment really went south in a hurry.  After about a season and a half it looks like Jorge Garbajosa’s time with the Toronto Raptors is coming to a close.

It appears clearer than ever that Jose Calderon will be back with the Toronto Raptors. It’s increasingly certain his friend Jorge Garbajosa will not. According to Spanish media reports, the NBA club is negotiating a buyout of the final year of Garbajosa’s contract, worth $4.25-million (U.S.), which would officially end a relationship that started with considerable promise but effectively ended with a severe leg injury suffered in March of 2006.

Globe and Mail

To bad about his injury, he was what the Raptors needed and still need.

Here is Chris Bosh’s debut for the Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night.  As I mentioned earlier this week Chris Bosh will be reporting on the finals for the The Tonight Show.   Pretty funny stuff, very scripted but funny!

Although the Toronto Raptors are not in the NBA Finals Chris Bosh is, as a member of the media.  Chris Bosh has landed a gig with The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as a NBA Finals reporter.  All that Blaine Harrington stuff has paid of and should make for some comic relief in what is sure to be an intense NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers.

Hooped Up

Here’s a bit of Chris Bosh’s chat with Canadian talk show host George Stroumboulopoulos on The Hour.  

Even TJ knows that Jose is a starting guard in the NBA, why doesn’t Sam know this thought?

T.J. Ford made it clear he isn’t happy to be job-sharing with Jose Calderon at point guard. He concedes Calderon “is probably a starting guard in the league,” but Ford wants the Toronto job. “This year’s been tough,” Bosh said. “We raised the bar last year and we kind of took a step back. That just shows we’re human, that we always have to be on edge, we always have to have a chip on our shoulder and continue to work hard because we don’t want to take steps back.”

Globe and Mail

If the Raptors want to see out of round 1 than starting Jose at the point would be a good start to seeing the second round.