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| quote: | TORONTO (CP) - The Toronto Raptors didn't have a pick and sat tight through most of the NBA draft before making a late move to tweak their roster Thursday night.
President and GM Bryan Colangelo traded his team's second-round 2008 pick to the San Antonio Spurs for Greek forward Giorgos Printezis.
The 6-9 small forward averaged 11.5 points and 3.9 rebounds last season with Olympia Larissa. The 22-year-old Printezis, who is at Madison Square Garden for the draft, was considered one of the top young players in the Greek League.
Colangelo is turning his sights squarely on free agency, which begins Sunday, to further revise the roster.
"We've got free agency on our mind right now," Colangelo said after the first round of the draft wound up. "Our sole focus is preparing for Saturday night, Sunday morning at 12:01 (when teams can negotiate with free agents).
"We want to be active, we want to try to move quickly in terms of reaching out to various free agents."
With no pick in the draft this year, Colangelo and the Raptors found themselves in an unfamiliar position as spectators. Last year at this time, the Raptors were the centre of attention, holding the No. 1 pick, which Colangelo used it to take Italian forward Andrea Bargnani.
Thus began a major off-season overhaul, and the revamped team went on to capture its first Atlantic Division title and make the playoffs for the first time in five seasons.
"We like what we have with this team," Colangelo said. "It got down to the point where there were very few players we were excited about, looking at where we could jump in."
Colangelo, who's known as a fearless wheeler and dealer, spent draft night working the phones at the Air Canada Centre. He said he received offers for picks in the first round, but nothing worth the price.
"We did have a few deals come up that were somewhat interesting," Colangelo said. "I would tell you a couple of the ones that were top-10 or near the top-10 were things we just felt were a little bit too rich for the value that was coming back."
Jose Calderon was the one Raptor that was hotly sought after, but Colangelo had said he wasn't about to part with the Spanish point guard.
The Raptors were interested in acquiring a pick late in the first round - they were rumoured to have had their eyes on Italian Marco Bellinelli, and Spaniards Rudy Fernandez and Tiago Splitter - but nothing came to fruition.
Action will now heat up for Colangelo in the wee hours Sunday morning when free agency begins.
"We have targeted one or two we want to focus on and address some of the things we're talking about," said Colangelo.
Among the players the Raptors are believed to be interested in: Orlando's Grant Hill, Luke Walton of the Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State's Mickael Pietrus and James Posey of the Miami Heat, reportedly.
Both of Toronto's 2007 picks were traded away long ago. Charlotte acquired Toronto's first-round pick in 2002 as part of the deal that sent Michael (Yogi) Stewart to Cleveland for Lamond Murray, while Portland held the Raptors' second-round pick in a deal that went back to 1997.
In what was touted as a deep draft, the Portland Trail Blazers took seven-foot Ohio State centre Greg Oden with the top pick. The Seattle SuperSonics took Texas forward Kevin Durant at No. 2, while Florida forward Al Horford went third overall to the Atlanta Hawks. |
Source
The Raptors definitely need to do some signing this weekend. There's a lot of rumours going around that Colangelo wants Pietrus, but I've heard some mixed things about him.
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