Raptor De Ja Vu All Over Again

Matt Barnes a Raptor....Forget About it!!! Yes, once again it would appear the Raptors end up on the short end of the stick. It seems that Orlando does not have the money to pull off the sign and trade required to make this deal happen. Did it also involve Gortat and Calderon as well. We may never know. For the second time in the span of a couple weeks, the Raptors get left holding the bag. If this had happened in the Rob Babcock era, he would be getting buried so deep he would never be found. While it is true that in both cases it appears the Raptors did nothing wrong on their end of things. Still the perception or optics of it all look bad on the Raptors.

So once again the Raptors go back to square one with nothing to show for it. At this rate you almost feel thankful nothing happened to screw up the Hedo trade for Barbosa. The only successful trade of the summer. Well there was technically the Bosh sign and trade as well. It is getting to the point that I am afraid to write a story about a trade anymore. I actually waited on the Barnes one. I felt that Barnes could have been using the Raptors to get leverage to sign with Cleveland.

I don't know about you, but I am to the point of wanting to raise a white flag and say we give up. This is shaping up to be one of the worst off-seasons in franchise history. The only good thing aside from unloading Hedo was the great performance in Summer League.

If I am frustrated to the point of banging my head against a wall. How must Bryan Colangelo be feeling? He just seems to have a dark cloud following him around. The last time I can remember anything like these last 2 incidents, is when John Salmons stiffed us because God told him to go to Sacramento. B.C would have to scramble and sign Fred Jones. That as we all may recall did not work out so well. He would end up dealt to Portland for Juan Dixon by the trade deadline.

You can blame social media or the rumour mill, but the perception out there will be that Bryan Colangelo is working off of plan C and D at this point. To put it more directly, the people that come now will be second choices not first choices. When a team already has lost it's 5 time all-star and got back nothing more than a couple draft picks and a TPE this is not good. Especially when the casual basketball fan has no clue what a TPE is. Clearly the perception of the Raptors is not good at the moment, even though they appear to have been the innocent victim in both cases.

It all makes me envy all the kids that have the summer off. They can play X-Box and PS3 while I sit here typing starting to feel like the little boy that cried wolf. This has been a summer to remember and forget at the same time.