Anyone is welcome to submit a Guest Blog Entry to torontomike.com. I received the following submission earlier today.
Mike! Long time no chat. Good to see your site is running good. Well, now that all the chit chat is through ;) I'll get right down to business:
I'm glad Vince was traded. Ever since that last second playoff loss a few years ago Vince hasn't been the same player. He went through Nick Anderson syndrome. (aka - completely disappears from the face of the basketball universe) He turned soft. Yes, the coaching changes have something to do with it, and yes, the personnel changes might have had an influence as well. But the fact remains that (as he said) Vince simply stopped trying. I saw it coming for a long time and constantly called VC a "Bi**h" because he deserved it. Loyal fans defended him feversihly and I could not understand how their love could be so unconditional to a person who gave his best conditionally. Instead of playing hard and getting his team back to where they belonged he started complaining about hangnails and officiating. I hate to be an I TOLD YOU SO .... but I told y'all so. In my opinion, all his injuries the last 2 years or so were a cover up so that he could simply not try his best. I don't think there was a single injury that he could not have played through. Hell, in my men's league and other similar beer leagues across North America, lesser players suffer more serious injuries and simply play through it for the love of the game. And that is the difference between many NBA players and true sports fans like us. A love of the game. Where we see drama and passion, players like Vince see dollar signs, dollar signs and more dollar signs.
The city of Toronto ... and Canada, deserve better out of a franchise basketball player who is idolized by an entire country. Yes there will be rough times right away, but if the team adopts a Chris Bosh passionate attitude as opposed to Vince's sobbing demeanor they will be back in the playoffs sooner than later.
On a personal note, I'm involved in a basketball pool. And now that Vince is playing better, people have begun to pick him up. I thought about it for about a minute. But based on principle, I'd rather LOSE the pool than add Vince to my team.
Whew, I'll let someone else have the soapbox now.
Rico
The entire attitude of this Raptors team has changed for the better with the deletion of that virus. It's Chris Bosh's team now and we're better off for it. Don't look now but we're 7-3 in our last ten games, 1.5 games out of first in the division and a full two games up on Vince's Nets. Perhaps there will be playoff games at the ACC this spring after all.
