Hedo Turkoglu: A Love Story

Let's blame it on the Turk! Because when he finally gets tired of us, we will be so much better off!

The Raptors' team has been giving lectures on cooperative play this whole season, and the guy who failed is the Turk.

He was the only Raptor who didn't mind sharing the ball until he reached the point of frustration and decided to "fit in" by causally forcing jumpers.

Hedo Turkoglu is a very rare player. Not only is he a good perimeter shooter; he can create, handles the ball well, drives in strong, and has amazing basketball intelligence. He isn't getting paid $10+ million annually to take corner shots when others don't feel like it.

Stan Van Gundy gets him perfectly. "The whole thing with him to me is his energy level. If his energy level is high, he is such a skilled guy that he is gonna play well."

His stats have never been perfect. But watching him with Dwight Howard was an incredible pleasure.

His magic didn't come from the Magic—which was to create, to facilitate, and to deliver to the guy who either takes a shot or puts him in a position to make the perfect extra pass.

Van Gundy adds, "When he plays at a lower energy level, he becomes mediocre." And finishes with, "He is a great basketball player".

If Van Gundy is right, which he is, the Hedo we have been seeing is the mediocre Hedo. We only glanced at the great Hedo—painfully sparingly I must say.

So, the big question is if Hedo had got low energy throughout the season, how much of it was his fault, how much of it was the disheartening selfish play of his teammates, and how much of it was the system?

We have not been able to benefit from one of the most unique players on NBA today.

I can only hope either he would be understood better and necessary adjustments would be made, or he would just become a more dominant player and have other players to play his game.

I don't want to consider any other alternative.