From The Desk Of The Dino Blogger- Friday Free For All

It is Friday and the NBA Season is officially over as far as games on the basketball court. The NBA Draft is right around the corner, as is our second annual Party with folks at St Louis Wings. So hope to see some of you live and in person next Thursday. I always enjoy getting to see the folks that have read the DNB and get a chance to talk with you. What I have always attempted to do is write in a way that is personal and as much as if you were to be listening to me talking to you. In starting off this whole Team DNB concept that is something I stress to all the new people that I am bringing into the DNB to work here. I want real people showing you their personalities and hopefully providing you content you enjoy and find interesting, informative and above all entertaining on some level. This is only scratching the surface of what Team DNB is designed to be doing going forward. The hope is to provide all kinds of different opinions and content for you to enjoy. It is also is the hope to make you feel part of Team DNB as well. So we have a whole summer in front of us for everyone to learn and grow and be ready for the upcoming NBA Season in the fall. After almost five years of doing this all on my own it was time to reach out and bring more people into the fold. In doing so also to hopefully engage you more as a reader and make you want to come here for your Raptors and basketball fix. It has been a process working with others and something I am getting use to. In everything I have ever done with the DNB it has always been with the thought of you the readers in mind. That will never change.

Now on to the NBA Finals and the sad pathetic finish to the NBA Season. This is of course unless you wre rooting for the Miami Heat and if that was the case you may in fact not have a soul. A bit to harsh? Yeah probably it was but at the end of the day I just can't applaud the Miami Heat. I can respect them and tell you that they deserved to win this series and out played the Thunder that I picked to win in six back in December. Still at the end of the day, I will always have more respect for Kevin Durant than Lebron James. It has nothing to do with basketball really, it has more to do with people and how they represent themselves as such. I will say, that Lebron James having a genuine conversation with Bill Russell, who I consider the greatest NBA Player of all time, was a point in his favour. Russell to me is the true icon of basketball, he just did it in era that most of us were not around to see. Kevin Durant hugging his mother in defeat would melt the soul of even the most jaded person you could think of. If it doesn't, than they to likely are without a soul. I think at the end of the day Kevin Durant will learn from this and this is only the beginning of an epic rivalry for the ages between him and Lebron, along with the Heat and Thunder. The word epic is used far to often these days but it really applies here.

Then there is Chris Bosh, the first face of a Raptors Franchise to find ultimate success going elsewhere. Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady never came close to that. Again in terms of basketball Chris Bosh was a big part of why the Heat find themselves NBA Champions. His play in the Finals and since his return from injury in the Pacers series was outstanding. He averaged a double double in the Finals. Still it is the person that Chris Bosh has become that I take issue with. I just don't know how someone who was so intelligent and well spoken in Toronto, has turned into this cartoon like character we have seen since deciding to go to Miami. Let me say that it is not the choice he made to go there that bothers me. I think ultimately it was the right one to make. I think he had legitimate reasons to walk away from the Raptors. Still it is this arrogance and quest to be noticed that drives me nuts. It seems being a celebrity and popular is almost as important to Bosh as it is to win. I don't get it and I just don't understand it. Maybe there were always signs of this in his time here that being a basketball player was only part of his goal. In fact there clearly was. Still since going to Miami it seems that guy that craves attention has been put on full blast. I saw it tweeted by Ryan Wolstat that Bosh said to him that none of this would have been possible without him growing up here with the Raptors. I just can't figure out if I am to believe that as genuine or just the right thing to say. What I can say is I genuinely liked Chris Bosh and supported him in his time here. Even when it probably wasn't the cool thing to do. Still ever since his departure the guy that I thought I knew becomes a distant memory. I think he has changed, if you were to ask him it is all of us that are the ones that have changed. In the end it becomes a chicken and egg debate and I will let you decide who is the chicken.

As for the current Raptors it is really starting to come down to crunch time in terms of re-shaping this team into a playoff contender. A huge step in that direction would be Steve Nash becoming a Raptor. It is something that has been talked about for years and I really am trying my best to stay objective and distant about it. Ultimately, I am not sure that I can. Eric Smith from the Fan 590 was on Hoops last night and was saying he is hearing Nash's short list is down to three teams Toronto, Phoenix and Portland. Eric said this comes from a number of people he was talking with down at The Finals. None of which would have a rooting interest in where Steve Nash ultimately decides to play and likely end his career. If this is true and Nash ends up a Toronto Raptor it will be the biggest moment in the history of this franchise. Bigger than anything before it. Why make such a bold statement? Simple, because for every casual Canadian Sports fan the Raptors will become instantly relevant. While people debate and ponder who or what the Raptors do in the upcoming draft, make no mistake about it, if two days later the word leaks out that Steve Nash is signing with the Raptors, that debate of anything else will be shoved to the side. The Raptors signing of Jaamal Magloire was a meaningless and a pointless gesture. Signing Steve Nash is a game changer in so many ways before you even get into the basketball discussion of how it works for the Raptors and the impact of it basketball wise.

After a lot of frustration this just might be a move that brings the Raptors back to a level that they had when Vince Carter was on top of the World and jumping over giant French men in a single bound. Steve Nash the basketball player is not the same guy that won back to back MVP's but he is the same person. I guess all of these topics have a general theme. It is about people and sometimes that is far more important than any stats on a page or rings on a finger. Something that I think gets lost in this day and age.