Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History

[trekfan]

December 1st, 2010

“Still?” Ray’s face was contorted into one of confusion, annoyance, and disbelief. An altogether familiar look, really. “He came to play tonight, Boomer! You can’t trade him!”


A towel wrapped around me, my skin still wet with water, I only shook my head at my agent and my friend. “Barbosa came to play tonight; that doesn’t excuse the other nights, Ray. That doesn’t excuse the way he treats the rookies, the way he gets in my face when he doesn’t get his passes. He came here with the idea of this being a stat-year for him.”


“You won tonight because of him.”


I glared at Ray, a nasty-looking one. He didn’t deserve it, but I felt like giving it anyway. “We won tonight because Jerryd got hot in the third quarter. He went supernova out there, then DeMar in the fourth. Barbosa got his points and put us into a hole in the first half.” I leaned against my locker. “We’re .500 now. Ray, we got a chance to be in the playoffs if we can get the right mix.”


Ray’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you really want that? The roster isn’t that talented. We could use a high pick and this draft is decent.”


He was proposing tanking and it was an idea I considered; the problem was, I was too damned competitive. I wanted to win. My play on the court was evidence of that; once the game got going, once I got started, I couldn’t hold back. I went all out, every night. Playing with the guys around me, I couldn’t do less than that.


Hell, even Barbosa deserved to have a teammate give his all. That’s what we were supposed to do and everyone was buying in so far … mostly. Barbosa bought in sometimes. But Jerryd? Danny? Ed? Asik? DeMar? They bought in fully. We were defining this team as a hardworking, ferocious playing squad. We left it out there every night.


Were we making stupid mistakes? Yes, too many of them. Bad fouls. Bad turnovers. Lousy plays. I was responsible for some, just as they were … we were young. We were hungry and we gambled. We won against Carmelo tonight because we made less mistakes than everyone else.


And the home crowd, the fans, they loved it. The atmosphere tonight — every home game, really — was playoff level. It was “this *hit is important, let’s scream till we can’t scream any longer” levels of important to them. We played, they saw, they responded, we responded … we were feeding off each other. It was a symbiotic relationship that had come on faster than I could have predicted.


“Yes,” I said after a long moment, “I do want us to make the playoffs. I do want us there. Look at the best teams the past decade, Ray: the Spurs. They consistently make the playoffs, don’t get high draft picks, and swing okay trades — nothing ground-breaking. They do it smart. 12 years now, they’ve done it. We should do the same.”


Ray looked at me skeptically. “But don’t you want a good player?”


I laughed at him. “Ray, we have good players. They’re young, that’s all. The next draft is pretty deep, so I think we’ll be okay.” I gave him a pat on the shoulder, then pointed at the door. “Now, I’m going change. I’ll meet you outside.”


He frowned, ever the worrier. “Pushing for the postseason is a mistake.”


“Tanking is the mistake, Ray. Not having a goal is the mistake,” I corrected him.

[trekfan]

Complete aside ... these are the new Raptor unis for 2K16. I am not impressed; feels like a step-back to me, way too minimalistic and bland. http://www.nba.com/raptors/uniforms/home

[AC]

Quote: Originally Posted by trekfan

Complete aside ... these are the new Raptor unis for 2K16. I am not impressed; feels like a step-back to me, way too minimalistic and bland. http://www.nba.com/raptors/uniforms/home

The look literally the exact same as our current jerseys, lol.

[trekfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by AC

The look literally the exact same as our current jerseys, lol.

It's missing the big stripe across the rear of the pants -- I liked that, it was unique. They just seemed to have scaled back everything. I'd welcome a return to the Dino unis (updated, of course -- Jurassic World just came out, cash in again!) to prominently feature the RAPTOR. As it stands, I really feel these new jersey's are just ... boring. There were no risks taken here and there's nothing iconic about them (like Golden State's current unis, which blends the classic iconography of the franchise with modern sensibilities).

If the NBA champs can put a bridge on their uniforms front and center, Toronto should be able to put a Dinosaur, but it's just my opinion.

[trekfan]

UPDATE: This still lives, but I've been swamped with work of late -- I'm going to try and get back to this during the upcoming weekend, so stay tuned.

As always, thanks for following and keeping the faith.

[trekfan]

December 8th, 2010

The loss to the Bulls in November was the first loss that I felt sick at. But the loss against the Knicks — a 121-107 beating — made me angry. Damned angry. After the game there were questions, there was talk at how good that team was and I was furious at how I played. I blew the game, I knew it.


Oh, sure, I scored a bunch (39 points), dished 12 assists and got everyone involved, but I got sucked into a game of one upmanship on the one man you can’t one up: LeBron James. And the fact is LeBron let me do it. He played me and it was only after the adrenaline of the game wore off did I realize how he did it: he let me dunk to my hearts content, shoot, do whatever I wanted.


And, with the ball firmly glued to my hands, I missed opportunities to get my teammates the rock and get them going. When two of us catch fire, we can’t be stopped as a team — when it’s just one of us, it’s easy to stop us.


I made a rookie mistake and I was a rookie — but I was supposed to be better than that. The entire point of my life was to be better than what people expected of me. People expected I’d be nothing but a washout in Europe, but I proved them wrong. No one took me in the draft because I wasn’t a star player from a big-time school, but I was proving them wrong now.


But tonight I wasn’t better — I was exactly what people expected.


After the game, I was the last one in the locker room. I had refused every offer for anything, just kept silent and staring at my locker. No questions were answered, no statements responded to … I was like a pot set to boil and someone had turned the stovetop up all the way. The game just replayed over and over in my head (damned photographic memory again) and I could see all the little things now that I completely missed.


I got played and, as a result, my team lost. Our chance to go above .500 was lost for this game — we now sat at 9-10. It wasn’t a bad record, especially considering where people predicted us to be (at the bottom of the league). But small victories weren’t going to get us into the playoffs, actually victories were.


“Hey.” I turned around to find one of my opponents looking back at me: LeBron James. The man was dressed casually, a pair of headphones around his neck, a gym bag in one of his hands. “You played good.”


“And lost,” I added, sounding pissed. He may have been the best player in the game, but he was the man who baited me that night and I didn’t want to hear compliments from him.


LeBron smirked at me. “Yeah, you did but you came to play. I didn’t think you could.”


I frowned. “What the hell is your point?”


“Just that you showed up tonight. Keep going.” He turned around to leave.


But it was at that point that I found my voice. “We’ll beat you,” I told him, eyes drilling into his back. “We’ll do it.”


LeBron just nodded as he walked away. “We’ll see,” he called back over his shoulder. The door to the room opened and closed. I just stared after him. Was he actually complimenting me or just trying to bait me again?


I didn’t know then. I wouldn’t know for quite a while.

[trekfan]

God damn *ucking Bulls. They did it to me again.

*sigh*

Recap soon to follow.

[trekfan]

Must bid farewell to this franchise, as I'm moving onto NBA 2K16 when it releases next Friday (preordering FTW). Really excited about what this game is going to be, the customization and depth looks incredible. I've got a whole new rig on the way that'll be built and assembled by game-time Friday -- it's going to be very pretty (should last me a good five years before I need to upgrade, barring a disaster).

All that said, I have plans for the MyLeague portion of 2K16, but I don't have any for MyGM, and -- as it happens -- I'll be wanting to to keep a list of teams to potentially take over and tell a compelling story about.

A few questions for you good people:

1. Who would you guys like to see me dynasty about?

2. Where would you like to read about it: here in this forum or in the Dynasty section (which I've never used before but definitely seems like that's where people are putting stuff now)?

3. What features would you like to see in the new Dynasty? (I've got a kickin' rig lined up, it'll be WAY more capable so expect there to be video recaps/highlights more than likely -- assuming my vid program plays nice with Win 10.)

4. Any players you'd like to see specifically?

As always, thanks for following and keeping the faith. I look forward to your input and the basketball season ahead (only a month or so left till NBA is BACK).