Everything Valanciunas

[Scraptor]

JV sounds like a player who was brought up with exactly the right values.

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One of my favorite stories about JV was when he was a rookie: before each game he would go up to each official, introduce himself, and shake their hands. You knew right then that he was a high-character kid.

[Bandit]

One of my favorite stories about JV was when he was a rookie: before each game he would go up to each official, introduce himself, and shake their hands. You knew right then that he was a high-character kid.

He must've leaned in and said some nasty shit to get the calls he gets then

[tDotted]

this guy is making less than Tristan Thompson.

To be fair, the Cavs' front office is a joke

[Raptorsnz]

BC's two best moves by far were drafting JV (it was an obvious choice, in my mind, though still a difficult one with that one year delay before coming over), and trading for Lowry.

Frankly, BC was always good at each individual move. It was the overall picture he struggled with.

Turkoglu, Jermaine O'Neal, Kapono and Landry Fields say hello.

[thead]

Turkoglu, Jermaine O'Neal, Kapono and Landry Fields say hello.

Landry Fields was a high character dude, solid wing and had a shot before his arm went all gimpy. He could pass, cut, and was a top notch defender. I give BC a pass on that one... the rest were a hot mess express

[white men can't jump]

Landry Fields was a high character dude, solid wing and had a shot before his arm went all gimpy. He could pass, cut, and was a top notch defender. I give BC a pass on that one... the rest were a hot mess express

Hot mess express sounds like a good name for a Thai restaurant

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[3inthekeon]

Landry Fields was a high character dude, solid wing and had a shot before his arm went all gimpy. He could pass, cut, and was a top notch defender. I give BC a pass on that one... the rest were a hot mess express

Except Fields was an overpay, and everyone knew it at the time.

[DanH]

Turkoglu, Jermaine O'Neal, Kapono and Landry Fields say hello.

The Turkoglu sign and trade was a case of not knowing who to get to complete the team. It was brilliantly executed, managing to leverage Marion leaving into signing a free agent AND keeping the MLE.

The O'Neal trade, again, is overblown. Colangelo didn't value low picks, and Hibbert seemed for a couple years like a terrible price to pay but not so much anymore. Again an example of bringing in the wrong guy to fit the team, but for a very low cost - Ford was never a player again, Nesterovic was expiring and the 17th pick was of middling value. Considering the team had a star, the timing and execution of the move made sense, just not the target.

Kapono - exactly another example. In an off-season where the team desperately needed a rebounder, he signed a shooter. Madness. But the issue wasn't signing Kapono - three point specialists do have value - it was signing Kapono when we had actual needs elsewhere.

Fields was a very solid signing and I stand by my stance that he would have earned his contract had he not been debilitated by that nerve injury. The strategy of signing Fields to get Nash was very bad, and that big picture plan of getting an aging PG in free agency was the problem.

The problem is he didn't know what pieces to add, not that he really overpaid for pieces or couldn't add them.

[thead]

slightly off topic but he has so many assets in Philly I'm really curious to see how he builds it.

I feel like the entire NBA is just hovering over that team waiting to see what they can extract

[Bendit]

To be fair, the Cavs' front office is a joke

To be further fair TT was really a Lebron signing. He had to have put much pressure to get that done.

[Rudy Bargnani]

Good read... and BC definitely deserves credit: http://www.torontosun.com/2016/04/18...oars-in-game-2

Didn't Colangelo actually trade away to Miami the pick that would become JV as part of the trade for Shawn Marion? The raps only got the JV pick back as part of the bosh sign and trade a year later right?

I think there was some conditions on the pick actually--but the next non lotto pick they had would actually have been Bruno.

[DanH]

Didn't Colangelo actually trade away to Miami the pick that would become JV as part of the trade for Shawn Marion? The raps only got the JV pick back as part of the bosh sign and trade a year later right?

I think there was some conditions on the pick actually--but the next non lotto pick they had would actually have been Bruno.

Yeah, the pick was heavily protected.

[Puffer]

Turkoglu, Jermaine O'Neal, Kapono and Landry Fields say hello.

I would say that the Raps never used Kapono correctly. I think he was a better player than Steve Kerr, and Kerr became an important cog in an NBA champion team.

[Puffer]

Nice comment from a Lithuanian fan from the front on Valanciunas "No Pressure," which is also a great read.

No Pressure

"Hi! His home town is Utena (28k of population), which is really small even in the small country like Lithuania. JV is big for Lithuanian's for already long time. Started to be a real star after U19 super MVP performance and Gold medal (while youth basketball is not very popular in our country it was something amazing - even though Final was in Neighbor country capital, it was fully crowded by our fans). After he started to play for national team, which is top world level and in couple of years became a leader of it, which he will be in RIO Olympics as well. We have to understand that participating in Olympics is something very hard for non USA teams and competition outside is huge (only two teams from Europe qualify) and teams like France with full NBA starting line up (where Tony Parker is not the main player for sure) could not achieve this. So JV being a leader of such a team which have amazing battles every year in international games, gives him huge amounts of experience. While now Indiana not double him on their defense, in Europe and World cups or Olympics he is double all the time since he was 19-20 years old. Regarding Toronto Raptors - off course all country knows where he plays and what he represents across the Ocean. We not only know - we all read articles about his game at night (cause most of the games are played when in our country we have 2 or 3 at night), we analyse games and so on. We all kinda hated couch Casey during his decision to not play him in last quarters last year, while we were very happy that he was starting under same couch on his first season in Toronto. Though we still know that he is better than you have an opportunity to see. We never understand how can he get so few chances to touch basketball when he has ability to finish in highest percentage in the team and if doubled he can throw back. But couch somehow gives a ball to less effective shooters instead, to have a ball 10 times more often. But this discussion will never end and it should not. Anyway a lot of young people are not sleeping and watching Raptors games not only on playoffs but on regular season as well. And for example while Casey is not happy while Raptors plays on the midday - for us it is like a birthday. These NBA games are often commentated by our national TV "Stars" because in our country everyone knows enough to commentate a basketball game and everyone loves to have a chance to do so. Anyway, regarding JV's family - grown up with his mother (divorced), but it seems he has good relations with his father as well, interesting that his father's surname is Vilkas, which means Wolf. His parents both lives in the same town Utena where JV grew up. JV married a year or two ago and has a kid already. One thing which Toronto fans n Canada does not feel a lot is his Comedian talent (due to language barrier), but you will get it more and more as he learns it perfectly. I do not know what to say more, cause i can write a book on Raptors and JV "

[RandomGuy]

oh, I remember myself falling asleep when trying to watch Raptors games couple of years ago... usually during halftime break, around 3.30 AM... those were the times. Now I am enjoying Raptors games at 10-11 AM, as the guy would say "birthday everyday".