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Feb. 25, 2005. 01:00 AM
Babcock buying time
Did Raptors GM make no trades because he's snakebitten by the Vince debacle? Division rivals improved their teams greatly while Toronto just sat on its assets
DAVE FESCHUK
In explaining why the Raptors stood pat at yesterday's NBA trade deadline, general manager Rob Babcock said, "We like our players ... We think we can make a playoff run."
Those shocking comments suggest two possibilities. Babcock is either a bad liar — which, since he's on the payroll of an image-over-substance entertainment empire, will eventually get him a raise. Or, more disturbing, he's an even worse evaluator of talent than anyone imagined in the wake December's Vince Carter trade, which has seen him widely vilified as the victim of an historic fleecing.
For Raptor fans, neither theory is particularly comforting. With Canada's team 10 games below .500 and Babcock's managerial batting average stuck at .000 yesterday, the rookie GM sat on a tradable asset named Donyell Marshall while a couple of divisional rivals, the very teams the Raptors will have to pass if they're to make that far-fetched postseason sortie, added all-star-calibre talent. That meant that Marshall, who'll become a free agent this summer and has shown as much interest in re-signing in Toronto as he has in taking up crocheting, will almost surely depart without yielding an ounce of compensation — not a second-round draft pick or, Heaven forbid, an actual player with actual value, nothing but $5 million (all figures U.S.) in payroll savings for a basketball club run by a locked-out NHL cash cow.
Meanwhile, teams with an admirable desire to satisfy their fan bases got to work. The Philadelphia 76ers were the winners in the late trading, swinging the Wednesday-night blockbuster that brought five-time all-star Chris Webber to town for a trio of lesser power forwards (Kenny Thomas, Corliss Williamson and Brian Skinner). Webber's big contract and questionable resolve make him a risk. But Sixers stalwart Allen Iverson hasn't had a teammate with a 20-plus point scoring average since Jerry Stackhouse. And unlike Stackhouse, Webber, who is averaging 24 points and nine rebounds in the wake of left-knee surgery that has slowed him, will actually pass the ball.
LeBron James, chiming in for reporters from Cleveland, called Webber's acquisition "an early Christmas present" for Iverson.
And it came with a stocking stuffer, too.
The Sixers were also buoyed by the arrival of shooting specialist Rodney Rogers in a deal that yielded the injured Jamal Mashburn and sent the also-infirm Glenn Robinson to New Orleans. Rogers has been playing like a pooch for the bottom-of-the-West Hornets (read: who hasn't?), but he's a long-bomb specialist who'll help spread the floor.
Said James of the Sixers, who sat in a percentage-point deadlock with the Boston Celtics for the Atlantic Division lead as the deadline passed at 3 p.m. yesterday: "They're going to probably win the Atlantic now."
Funny James didn't pick the Raptors. Perhaps that's because if the Sixers don't win the division, and the No.3 Eastern playoff seed that goes with it, the Celtics surely will.
Boston pulled off an unexpected déjà vu deal that, in sending Gary Payton, Tom Gugliatta, Yogi Stewart and a first-round pick to Atlanta, repatriated Antoine Walker. Walker, of course, was the guy who claimed a personality conflict with Celtics director of basketball operations Danny Ainge when Ainge traded him to Dallas nine days before the 2003 season opener. And though it's no secret that Ainge then disdained Walker for his shoot-too-much proclivity, the Celtics have changed coaches in the interim — from Jim O'Brien to Doc Rivers — and they're a higher-scoring unit as a result, seventh in the NBA at 100.5 points per game. Also, they're desperate to join the race for the Eastern title which — as Shaquille O'Neal's recent knee tweak has shown — is no sure thing.
Babcock, if he wasn't lying about his belief in a Raptor playoff run, isn't paying attention. Or maybe he is — to his boss's new mandate. Letting Marshall's contract expire tells you a lot about how the Raptors mean to do business in this hockey-lockout era. No longer the poor cousin to a richer-than-thou hockey club, yesterday's idleness suggested new-found thriftiness. And let's be clear: Letting Marshall walk is a financial coup, not a competitive one. It doesn't push the Raptors anywhere close to being under a salary-cap threshold that would make them players in the summertime free-agent market. It only means the club saves cash, just as it did in the buyout that has freed Alonzo Mourning — one of the pieces acquired in the Carter debacle — to sign with another team.
Maybe yesterday was about penny-pinching. Or maybe Babcock, shell-shocked by the continent-wide criticism he's receiving, was simply afraid to make another mistake. Sitting out yesterday's action bought him time, at least. His next measurable performance won't come until the June draft, where he's likely to have multiple picks and multiple options, one of which will not be inaction.
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source:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...ol=970081593064
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