Doug Smith claimed that “…Sam Mitchell is the right coach for this team” today in his mailbag. All I have to judge is what I have seen, and been put through for the last three years. This is part one of my FULL assessment of Sam Mitchell as the Raptors head coach…

Player Management

He had successfully alienated and chased away our franchise player (with help from Babcock of course). Say what you want about Carter, but he is one of the top players in the league. He scores at will, plays decent defense, is unselfish, gets everyone involved, and is always a threat. He was so poorly utilized, that it lead to his losing interest, and being traded for a bag of balls and some towels. For all his issues, he is a sick player, and is the second or third leading scorer (in terms of average) over the last 7 or so years in the NBA.

The whole Rafer Alston fiasco. Granted, Rafer is a sociopath, and wasn’t a good fit for this team, and was another factor for Carter leaving, but it takes two to tango right? There relationship was almost comical, they would come short of exchanging blows, then say everything is fine. I thought for sure it would deteriorate into a Sprewell/Carlissimo situation, but never went that far.

Morris Peterson…I don’t even know where to begin. You expected some reduction in minutes and stats from MoPete, with Parker and Garbajosa coming in. What you didn’t expect was MoPete getting an extended seat at the end of bench, while Joey Graham graced us with his inconsistent play. Smitch rode Joey all season, then gave MoPete his minutes back in the playoffs, as expected He probably also cost Peterson hundreds of thousands of dollars on his next contract with the minutes he lost to Joey Graham.

Unlike the Bargnani situation (rumor has it Colangelo made him play Bargnani after the rookie was not being fully utilized), Graham was given every opportunity to shine, showing only glimmers from time to time. In fact, he was given so many chances, I started to question my eye for talent…turns out I wasn’t wrong.

Flip flopping Ford and Calderon… Some say it is a luxury to have two capable point guards on the same team, and I am one of those people. The school of thought I don’t share is his incoherent substitution patterns for the two. Throughout the whole year (playoffs included) he would yank Ford much faster than he would Graham. Ford would play the whole game, and sit the whole 4th, in I don’t even know how many games. you could see it on his face, he was absolutely frustrated with the substitution patterns. Calderon would get, and jump start the offense, and things would be moving. I understand the strategy, but you have to play your starters like a starter, and your subs, like subs. Otherwise you get into situations where inflated expectations poison an otherwise great team environment (not saying that this has happened, but it is a potential risk to the team).

Kris Humphries played valiantly all season. Earlier in the season, in his limited role, he would come in, provide some rebounding, energy, and kill some time for whoever he was substituting for. When Garbo and Bargnani went down, he was thrust into a bigger role…and contrary to Graham, he performed damn well. What happens come playoff time? Bargnani returns, and all Humphries minutes, that he has earned mind you (unlike Graham again), disappear. Bargnani got some of those minutes early in the series, and really stunk it up…but started to play much better later on in the series. The Raptors really could have used Humphries’ energy, rebounding and low post defense the first couple games against the Nets.

There are a couple more, but they aren’t as glaring as these ones.

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