Living in Indiana, it hasn’t been a secret that for the last four or more years Jermaine O’Neal, has been phoning in his play, and that the All-Star center wanted to relocate to L.A. or New York.
Despite his lackluster and injury-shortened 2007-2008 seasons, Pacers fans do remember that J.O. was the best center in the East for several years.
At only 30, it seems that O’Neal could bring that former excellence with him as he travels north of the border.
Jermaine may not have been sent to his ideal city, but the Raptors look to potentially have one of the best frontcourts in the NBA.
O’Neal will join All-Star, Chris Bosh, and former No. 1 overall draft pick, Andrea Bargnani, to complete a forward/center trio that includes no one shorter than 6′10″.
While height isn’t everything, these players’ collective talents are.
Bosh has developed into a near-clone of what O’Neal was in his Pacer prime and is considered by most to be one of the premier big men in the Eastern Conference behind Kevin Garnett and possibly Dwight Howard.
His numbers from last year look a little something like this: 22.3 PPG, 8.7 RPG, and 2.6 APG.
He’s been putting up these same numbers for the last three years, and he is at the top of his game physically and mentally.
Bargnani is somewhat of the wild card here, aside from O’Neal’s passion for the game and his new city.
He’s put up just 10.8 PPG/3.8 RPG in his two seasons. However, even with Bargnani as the weak spot, this starting trio could be churning out 50+/20+ nightly.
This stacks up with league leaders.
11 comments Last one added 12 months ago — Leave a Comment
Josh Foward 12 months ago
The Raptors have a very good G.M. in Bryan Colangelo.
Sure they gave up talent in Villanueva, but Ford is often injured and Roy Hibbert is totally unproven.
Prior to Colangelo's arrival, this team also gave up Vince Carter for a bag of basketballs and a gift certificate to Starbucks.
So, you have to at least give Colangelo credit for making moves that seems to make sense. Sure, the Raptors may not be sure winners of the East this year, but this is clearly a much improved team, and all he gave up was a baby in Ford and a couple of pylons in Rasho Nesterovic and Roy Hibbert.
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Alex McVeigh 12 months ago
It's kind of misleading when you mention the Odom/Gasol/Bynum trio, since there wasn't any time when all three were on the court together.
However, I think you're right about the trio of O'Neal/Bosh/Bargani being dangerous next year, assuming that Bargani will finally step up, and O'Neal isn't so used to mailing it in that he hasn't forgotten to play.
Add a newly re-signed Calderon in the mix, as well as some dealy 3-ball shooters like Kapono, and all of a sudden this is a relatively young team that has nowhere to go but up.
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Dave Jutzi 12 months ago
Your assessment of the Raps is flawed in a number of ways. First of all, Kapono will be the starting SF not Bargnani. And if you watched the team last year you'd know the biggest problem was not scoring but interior defence and rebounding - both of which should be seriously improved by the addition of Jermaine O'Neal (if he can stay healthy). With Calderon, Parker, Kapono, Bosh and O'Neal as your new starting five and Bargnani, Adams and Moon coming off the bench, scoring should not be a problem again. They don't need a premiere 2 or 3. Their game will be rushing the low post with Bosh and O'Neal and kicking out to their perimeter guys (Kapono, Parker and Calderon - who ranked 1st, 7th and 11th in 3-pt shooting last year) when it gets too crowded down low. And how can you say the Raps will compete with Boston for the Atlantic title but get pummelled in the playoffs by teams that "dominate" the conference? Didn't Boston win the NBA Championship?
I'm not saying the Raps are gonna win the crown but they should be much improved and will be one of the top four in the East at the very least.
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tommy peters 12 months ago
I love how weak people feel parker is because he doesn't score 20 plus points a game. Parker is one of the most under rated players in the game. And the O'Neal trade helped the raps in a BIG way with the two main issues, which were inside D and rebounding. Last season, with Moon and Parker starting, the raps were around 10 games over 500, beating the spurs and hornets on the road, the mavs at home, beating the celtics in Boston. The reason the wheels fell off were due to 3 things... ford coming back from injury and not wanting to come off the bench, creating issues behind the scenes that had not been there for a while. Bosh getting injuried during this, and them going on a 5 game west coast swing with no bosh that killed their confidence and added to the behind the scenes issues.
I understand how people get confused when they see guys like kobe who score 30 points a game on 40 or 50 shots and think "thats skill" but it ispossible to bring other skills to the team (defense, rebounding, ball movement) like parker does and not be considered weakest in the league.
And before the whole, kobe is a great defender thing, i think pierce proved that was all just ABC/ESPN hype.
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Zig Sha 12 months ago
why does everyone spread the hate??? you only fear what you what you don't understand and when you don't understand it, you tend to hate it. The raptors are going to make a legitmate run at the playoffs this year and of course, if JO stays healthy, the raptors accompanied by some great commanders like Chris Bosh who is an all star player by himself to Bargnani the wild card, Anthony Parker a euro league MVP and JOSE CALDERON who the raptors gave the ingition keys to are going to make a name for themselves in this league. Do us a favour Billy and hope that your Miami team or Minnesota team or whatever team bombs out this year just so you can get lottery picks...
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Kenny Watson 12 months ago
in my opinion, the raps will win around 45-55 games (55 if bosh and oneal become the twin towers like a duncan and robinson combo) however it will take a bit for them to work as a team, if they have a season like boston, which they wont becuz of there sf issues, they wont have as many wins so 55 is the maximum for me, realistically im saying around 48-50 games, which is an awesome goal for the raptors, since they just signed jawai to a two year contract and roko ukic is on his way, the raps appear to have confidence in the second round pick (41 overall) and roko who has calderon as his mentor, he will have quick success in this league, a lot shorter than it took calderon, as for there current 5 man roster, oneal-center, bosh-power forward, kapono/moon-small forward, parker-shooting guard, and calderon-point guard, bosh and oneal pending his health will be very successful, parker always produces in one way or another, if it be a 15 to 20 point night or assists or even on the defensive end, moon is a shot blocker and can pump up a crowd with his athleticism, he needs to improve his outside shot though if he is to be a good starter for 82 games, kapono we all know he can shoot, he can drive and has a good finish there, but he cannot defend worth a damn so he has to improve there, and calderon who i felt was always better than t.j ford, will always get better and i think he can compete as an all star this year, what the raptors as a team need to improve on are defensive intensity, getting to the free throw line (as a team excluding bosh and oneal), blocking shots and no easy baskets, we had times where we would let players just walk in, this is just my opinion on the raptors and im sure people have many more, may be negative or positive but im all about the raps going for a 50 win season
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Markus 12 months ago
Pretty good article, I always enjoy reading articles about the Raps from people outside Toronto to get a more objective point of view.
I do however disagree that the O'neal thing makes the Raps one of those 'on paper' teams, in fact I think the result is just the opposite. I think adding a swingman such as a Maggette, or R-Jeff or whatever was available on the market would have had such effect. Watching the last two playoffs series the Raps have been in, I'm sure you saw that the Raps lost to two inferior teams simply because they couldn't work anything inside, especially in the dying minutes of the fourth because Bosh was either double or triple teamed. This meant that the only possibility for points in crunch time was an outside jumper. That's all fine and good in regular season, but in playoffs, outside jumpers, with the season on the line is an altogether different monster.
Basically what I'm saying is I think that this move is all about post-season. The Raps are good enough, even with some improvement in the EAST, to make the playoffs, with or without O'Neal. There's a lot of talk about the success of this trade depending on O'Neals health. Not so. He can miss 30 games. The success of this trade will depend on O'Neal's health come playoff time. If he's in there, knocking off Orlando will be a foregone conclusion.
Toronto will miss TJ, but he missed a lot of time last year, and when he was back it was crazy how messed up things on the court got, those two points guards in and out messing up each other's up momentum.
And no mention of Moon? He's the starter, and he was a rookie last year. Look for some improvement there.
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David Sietsma 12 months ago
Thanks for the well written comment. I couldn't agree more that the playoffs are an entirely different scenario than the regular season. In fact to respond to an earlier comment, that is what I meant by the fact that they would challenge for their division (win enough games) but they likely won't be able to match up against teams like the Pistons come playoff time.
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Taylor Gram 12 months ago
This is a good article and I agree with your thoughts at the end. Yes, O'neal is a good pickup, but there are much better options like a scoring SG, or SF. As much as a low post game is needed, a Center or Power Forward can't lead a come back in the 4th and take control of the game. Great Analysis David.
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jacob smithson 12 months ago
1.Boston This time there won't be 7 games, boston in 5.
8. Atlanta
2. Detroit Look for RJ, Redd, Bogut and company to pull off the upset.
7. Bucks
3. Cleveland I'd like to see Philly pull it off but Lebron won't go out in the first round.
6. Philly
4. Raptors This year T.O drinks the blood of Dwight Howard
5. Magic
Billups>Rose>Calderon>rest of eastern point guards
P.S.: Primo Brezec > Your life
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Jake Riz 12 months ago
The Raptors should really have drafted Brandon Roy in the 06 draft....he would be their fourth-quarter scorer and clutch player. Bargnani is kinda not-number 1-pick-material if he is going to be coming off the bench
also they shuld have drafted Andre Iguodala in 04 draft.....then they would have a small forward
just one bad decision after another....
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