It's fairly disappointing to look back at the 2007-08 season and realize I didn't make a single post relating to Jose Calderon's blog. It's been mentioned before, of course, in the relevance of cultural importance, but it doesn't necessarily get a lot of media attention. Or at least not enough media attention. But I bet that will change with Jose's most recent and a little picante entry, posted May 7 and relating to his contract status.

As of today, the Raptors would like me to continue, however until the 1st of July we will not know anything about the possible renewal or other offers from teams interested in me for next season. What is clear is the fact that if I have to choose between a sports offer versus an economic offer, I will opt for the first. I want to be a starter and to be in a team that aspires for everything. Of course I will not be on a team in which I cannot be an important contributor nor if there is not a solid structure or if there are not options to be in the "Playoffs".

Okay, first of all, the fact that the is willing to give up money in order to start for a contender is just superb. It's something that you obviously don't hear much anymore. You do hear people frequently say that they would like to start though, but I feel like JMC's case is a bit of an exception. Clearly, Bryan Colangelo prefers him to T.J. Ford.

He does so with good reason; Calderon is a better point guard. Calderon probably should have been an All Star this season, and he is also clearly the future at the point for Toronto. And if he gets his wish, he'll be the only future. Honestly, too, that doesn't seem like something Jose would fire out publicly if he didn't believe the team was ready to move Ford either.

In news that can either be described as an anti-collusion effort or simple petty bitterness, the Globe and Mail reports that when the Suns granted Mike D'Antoni permission to speak to other teams about their head coaching positions, they had one condition. He is not allowed to speak with the Toronto Raptors.

Now, if the two teams were division rivals, this would be pretty self-explanatory. If they were conference rivals, even, I could see the inherent value. But as they play in different conferences, there are really only two options. The first is that Suns owner Robert Sarver wanted to make sure D'Antoni's buddy and Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo didn't benefit if he was in any way involved in D'Antoni's decision to ride out of the desert. This is not beyond reason, considering the personal and professional relationship between the two. Likewise, it prevents D'Antoni from hooking back up with Colangelo and re-instituting the "run and gun" which the Suns have decided to abandon, and succeeding with it where the Suns failed, however unlikely that may be. Better to just nip the possibility in the bud than to risk further embarrassment and attention to how quickly the Suns disintegrated when Sarver hired Steve Kerr.

But there's a more likely reason, after the jump.

If Gilbert Arenas is the undisputed king of athlete bloggers, Chris Bosh is similarly the sporting world's master of the YouTubes. After making his debut with an awesomely awkward plea for All-Star votes, he followed up by revealing his alter ego, Blane Harrington. And now, Harrington returns:



My favorite character? Bosh as the chef (45 seconds in), though the cable guy (1:27) gets bonus points for the wig and fake stomach. Sure, it may look like a low budget version of The LeBrons, but before you accuse Bosh of copying LBJ realize they're both clearly inspired by every other Eddie Murphy movie. Besides, I think the lack of polish (and commercialism) actually makes it better.

A look at the losers as they get bounced from the playoffs.

After winning 47 games in 2006-07, the Raptors regressed to an even .500 record this year, in part because of injuries to Jorge Garbajosa, Chris Bosh and T.J. Ford. That said, no matter how well they played, there was no catching the Boston Celtics, who won the division by 25 games.

How They Got to the Dance: By being in the Eastern Conference. A 41-41 record would have left the Raps on the outside looking in were they in the West, but it was good enough to result in a No. 6 seed in the East. That said, there's no doubt that there's enough talent on this team to make the playoffs every year, but they need their key guys to stay durable, and it wouldn't hurt if Andrea Bargnani would finally live up to his No. 1 pick status.

How They Got Bounced: Dwight Howard is without a doubt the most dominant center in the NBA today. There aren't a lot of teams who can slow him down, let alone the Raptors, who are used to playing a more of a finesse game. Howard put up three 20-20 games in the series, helping the Magic dominate the boards while a crew of sharpshooters fired away from three-point land.

I think the world's got D'Antoni-in-Toronto fever, because, as The Globe and Mail's Michael Grange notes, the media's pounding Raptors coach Sam Mitchell with hit pieces. We've been over L'Affair Vescey, in which New York Post scribe Peter Vescey published a vicious indictment of Smitch's preparation only to completely retract it a few days later. More recently, Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski said Smitch altered the team's weekend flight and practice schedule so he could spend Sunday afternoon on the fairways of Orlando.

After the Raptors went down 3-1 to Orlando on Saturday, sources said [Bryan] Colangelo flipped out over learning that Mitchell played a round of golf the following day.

If, as Grange indicates in his column, the players were upset with Mitchell's schedule changes ... screw 'em! He's the coach. It might not have been the best idea for Smitch (and reportedly third-string point guard Darrick Martin), especially considering he had to go a bit out of his way to get practice done Sunday morning in order to make his tee time. And judging by Orlando's dominance in Game 5 Monday, maybe some more film room study could have helped.

And sure, Mitchell should have clued Colangelo into the plan. By hiding the round of 18 Smitch shows he thinks he did something wrong. But I don't see the harm in the actual activity ... unless there was a no-fun decree from the boss.

A crush of rumors about the future of the Toronto point guard position has been months in the making, first spurred by Jose Calderon's masterful work during T.J. Ford's unfortunate injury absence, then stoked by Ford's (quiet) bristling at coming off the bench behind Calderon. Some Bryan Colangelo comments captured by the Toronto Sun's Frank Zicarelli offer the strongest evidence Ford will be on the market this summer.

Colangelo understands and applauds Ford's desire to be No. 1, but at the same time Colangelo is going to do what's best for the Raptors. "At the end of the day it's how can he and Jose co-exist,'' Colangelo said. "If, in fact, that's a possibility."

Colangelo then added some very telling words. "It's a very safe assumption that Jose will be back in a Raptor uniform."

Calderon's a restricted free agent, and (unless Shawn Marion or Elton Brand opt out) no team will head into July with both cap space and a pressing need at point guard. If that's the case, the only thing that would stop the Raptors from keeping Calderon is Calderon demanding too much money (something that, for some reason, seems unlikely).

Ford's the guy to go, and plenty of towns would invite the upgrade ... for the right price. Injury concerns related to his tricky spine will never disappear; still, he's a fantastic point guard -- one of the fastest guys in the league and an always improving shooter, distributor and passing-lane disruptor. The Knicks, Heat, Clippers (depending on Shaun Livingston), and Kings (depending on Beno Udrih) make sense, on first glance. (Whether Colangelo chases Mike D'Antoni could affect this whole scenario, as well.)

Peter Vecsey's column in the New York Post occasionally provides some interesting, albeit gossipy tales of what goes on behind the scenes in the NBA. Sometimes these little anecdotes seem a little too good to be true, and that's exactly what the case was in Vecsey's column that appeared this past Sunday.

Vecsey printed an anecdote about Raptors coach Sam Mitchell, where it appeared that he was absolutely clueless regarding who would be active for his team's game against the Lakers. The story went like this:

A few months ago, before the Raptors were to play the Lakers, he addressed the team by telling them, "We'll worry about the guy who got 81 in a second, but first I want to talk about Andrew Bynum and how he killed us last time." A hush engulfed the locker room. "Hey, coach," Chris Bosh interrupted. "Bynum's been out for weeks with an injury."

Now of course, if this were true, Mitchell would deserve to be on the hot seat where he currently sits after his team was unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs by Orlando. But it wasn't.

Vecsey retracted the entire thing today, but he only said he turned in an "improperly researched" project; he never mentioned specifically how he came up with such a crazy, damning story that was 100% false. He instead spent the entire article sucking up to Mitchell, printing quotes from him which affirm that he's not stupid, and finally admitting that he's simply "trying to regain some misplaced credibility by making amends."

I suppose it's a good thing that Vecsey devoted more than a couple of sentences to his admitted mistake. Although it would be nice if he simply didn't print things that were completely made up in the first place.

The Orlando Magic won their first playoff series since 1996, officially ushering in a new era in Orlando, built around Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis, and Hedo Turkoglu. But it was Jameer Nelson who stepped up and score 19 to lead the Magic. With a competent bench suddenly starting to develop at the right time, Dwight Howard destroying everything in his way, and solid defense holding Chris Bosh to 16 points, the Magic look like the best team in the Eastern Conference right now. A combination of a supremely talented big man, two dynamic forwards with range and athleticism, and an emerging crew of shooters? That's a pretty good recipe for success.

Conversely, one year ago, Sam Mitchell was receiving his Coach of the Year award. To show you how fickle this league is, just 365 days later, there is a lot of talk about firing Mitchell. To be clear, there is not a dearth of talent in Toronto like there is in Denver. This team was in a vastly improved division, and still performed well. But this is how it goes in the NBA, and we'll have to have our eyes on Toronto, especially with Bryan Colangelo looking to assert himself.

In another of our continuing series, five things to keep an eye out for tonight in the Raptors-Magic game tonight.

1. Sultan Of Swat: Dwight Howard had 8 blocks last game. That's today's "Matt repeats himself so you can let that sink in" phrase of the day. Dwight Howard had 8 freaking blocks in a playoff game in Toronto on Saturday. Chris Bosh can get all the mid range J's and weakside layups he wants. It's been clear from the start of this series that Howard owns the paint in this series. If the Raptors are going to pull out the semi-miracle and pull this thing back to Canada kicking and screaming, they're going to have to attack the basket and get some fouls on Howard. Because letting him sit back there, legal or not, is only going to result in more jumpers, which you can't rely on in a game like this.

2. Dónde Está Jose?: You remember Jose Calderon, right? The guy all the Raptors fans wanted to start after Game 2, before TJ Ford scored 21 points to help the Raps take Game 3? The guy who in that same game had a dou-ble-dou-ble? Yeah, well, if you see him, holler at your boy, okay? Because Calderon vanished in Game 4. 2 points, 5 assists, 1 for 7 shooting in 21 minutes. I kept searching a box score for something tangible I could attribute the Game 4 Magic win to, beyond my own observations watching the game which were a. Dwight Howard is not of this world and b. Rashard Lewis can pop off when he wants to. The only answer I can come up with Calderon. He's got to step up and be the man tonight along with Ford if the Raptors want to win. Well, that and ...

Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star knows what makes Primoz Brezec happy.

Brezec, Toronto's end-of-the-bench centre, walked into the locker room the other day and pumped a fist in celebration, expressing happiness in news that one of the banes of his existence as an NBAer, a coach named Sam, had just been fired.

"Sam Vincent!" Brezec kept repeating, rather excitedly.

Brezec's disdain for Coach Vincent, whom he spent all of three months with in Charlotte this season, has been documented previously. In fact, here's what Brezec said about the guy in February.

"I was like, you know what Sam? You don't need me, you don't like me and I don't like you, so get me out of here. And see how they're doing this year?"

Players and coaches feud all the time; it's not even necessary that one moves on for it to occur. But taunting a guy who just got the axe? That's a bit harsh, yes?

But hey, Primoz is a gangsta. He can't help it.