Guess what I received in the mail today? Words of deep concern from Coach Dwane Casey. The rebuild's not going as you planned. The center has injured his calf. The payroll will exceed the cap. You swore, Bryan, you learned your math. The fans are going home. (x4) Meh! The fans are going home. (x3) Meh! Meh! Meh! My name is Jonas.
I Had A Dream Last Night And It Looked Just Like A Dream by Connor Huchton I am the one who drifts dangerously close to the fabled Eastern Conference eighth seed. I am the one who improves just enough every year to keep fans hopeful. I am the purveyor of smooth-shooting big men. I am not, however, the purveyor of insatiably rebounding big men. I am the team with no stars but several players who reach ever so closely to the sky's greatest heavens. Close, but never close enough to retain a grip. I am the one who hires a defensive-minded coach and changes team culture for the better. I am the one who replaced Bayless and Johnson with Lowry and Fields, and who now waits on the precipice of the next nebulous step. I am the Toronto Raptors, and I will lightly knock.
MVM: Most Valuable Meme by Jared Dubin Jonas Valanciunas is the single greatest organized basketball player in all the land. Which land? All of them. America. Canada. Lithuania. Everywhere there is land. There has never been a better basketball player than Jonas Valanciunas. The Cavaliers should have drafted him in the 2011 Draft. Not only over Tristan Thompson, but over Kyrie Irving as well. The Wolves should have drafted him. Not only to add to their stable of white guys, but because he could crush Derrick Williams in the palm of his hand, while a basketball was in that palm, and then dunk both Williams and the ball. He is, quite simply, the most spectacular, marvelous, exciting basketball phenomenon the world has ever known. Able to leap small forwards in a single bound, Valanciunas will single-handedly obliterate the NBA this season. He will drive and he will dunk and he will dish and he will dominate. He will rebound and he will rotate and he will roar like a Raptor when he blocks every single shot taken against his Toronto team this season. There is simply no stopping Jonas Valanciunas, the greatest organized basketball player in all the land. You can only hope to contain him. These are all things I know about the great Jonas Valanciunas, despite the fact that I have never seen him play even one second of organized basketball. I know these things because many, many people on Twitter have told me. These people are apparently able to say, with great certainty, that Jonas Valanciunas is a surefire Rookie of the Year candidate poised to take over the world based on his respectable Euroleague stats as a teenager, a mildly unimpressive performance in the Olympics, and… well, I really don’t know what else. Maybe the kid’s a player. Maybe he really is that good. But I’ll believe it when I see it.