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One time many years ago after a hard weekend of late, late nights I lay down for an afternoon nap. I've never been much of a napper. Power snooze? Ten minutes with my head back in parked car? I'm all over that; take'em whenever I can get'em.

But crawl into bed for an hour or two? Almost never; not even on weekends.

But on this occassion I had no choice. I was exhausted, and into the sack I went, early one mid-winter afternoon. And I slept. And slept.

And then I woke in a panicky state of confusion: it was dark out, the clock showed five. I'd slept all afternoon and through the night! I'd missed work! I was supposed to meet some freinds after. I'd had errands to run. What an idiot!

On and on. I was convinced I'd been asleep for 14 hours, and reacted accordingly.

But then I took a second look at the clock. It was five p.m.; Not five a.m. I hadn't missed work. My plans weren't dashed. Everything was fine. Everything I'd been thinking just a moment before was untrue and based on incorrect information.

How this relates to Friday's trade is this: When I was listening to Colangelo explain the nuances of the deal on a conference call I was beginning to get that same panicky, confused feeling. Could I really be this wrong in my understanding or expectation of what needs to be done to build a franchise that can realistically  become a championship contender?

Colangelo is the expert. He's paid a whack of money to know this stuff. By default you tend to concede that his view is sound and your own based on faulty assumptions, even though he gave Jason Kapono $24-million.

It's getting harder to do that.

To me the operating premise behind dealing JO for Marion was to begin the process of getting under the salary cap so the rebuilding can begin in earnest. To me, the timing is kind of perfect for that. You don't want to rebuild when the cupboard is bare, you want to do it when you still have some good stuff in there, just not exactly the stuff you want. I guess re-stocking is a better term, or turning over the merchandise.

For that reason I was kind of luke warm on this deal from the get-go, because it ivolved bringing back Marcus Banks who has $10-million on his contract for the next two years and yet couldn't find a role at point guard on a Miami team that had a rookie and Chris Quinn. Right away you've got a contract on your roster that simply takes up space. Not good.

I really felt that a better direction would have been to try and go for a straight salary dump -- JO and AP to the Knicks for Marbury and Malik Rose. The Knicks get some productive players to help them be competitive in the short term without compromising their 2010 plans.

The Raptors get even further under the cap sooner and have a clear mandate to retool. The Knicks and Raptors never talked, so maybe it's a moot point, but it doesn't mean it's a bad one.

But what was so discombobulating about Friday was the clear indication from Colangelo that the version of the Raptors we're going to see for the last 27 games of the season won't be that different from the one that is on the floor next season, and if fact will be kind of a hybrid of the 2007-08 team.

Marion is not a rental player, he said, which suggest to me they're serious about re-signing him. There's your small forward.

The only way to get the kind of cap room this deal could have provided would have been to renounce the rights to AP, Graham and Carlos Delfino.

Colangelo seemed to suggest that wasnn't going to happen. Delfino is coming back from Russia, it sounds like, and he's going to play in Toronto.

There's your two guard.

AP is sounds like he's going to get another deal. Graham too. There's your bench. Oh and Kapono is still around.

All of this means the Raptors won't be under the cap, but over it. Since you can only use the mid-level exception if you're over the salary cap, the Raptors will be in position to use that next summer.

Of course they'll still be in need of a decent big man to fill out the rotation behind Bargnani and Bosh.

Hmmm. Which big men are available for that kind of money? Ideally one who would be more than willing to play in Toronto?

Hey! How about Rasho Nesterovic?

There. That's your off-season work done and you're back bumping againt the luxury-tax threshold again.

And so the new-look Raptors are kind of like the old Raptors, except you've got Shawn Marion filling in for Jamario Moon at roughly what eight times the money, or about $8-million for who knows how many years, but even three seems like a lot for 31-year-old whose main basketball asset is his pogo-stick legs.

Is that worth it? Check out the relative rates of production for Moon and Marion -- seriously their per 36 minute numbers over the past two seasons are virtually identical --- and judge for yourself if that's good value. And then judge how happy a guy who always felt disrespected as the 11th highest-paid player in the NBA is going to feel when he takes a 50-per-cent or more pay cut and is living in Toronto in February instead of Miami, Pheonix or Las Vegas as he has for his entire adult life.

And you've brought back Carlos Delfino, who by leaving for Russia has somehow been elevated to a status that seems unlikely given he has come off the bench his entire NBA career, including one season on a 41-win Raptors team. His numbers projected over 36 minutes: 13.8 points (meh) and 6.7 rebounds (nice!) on 39-per-cent shooting (maybe that's why he got all those rebounds?).

And Rasho? Well, there's a lot to like there, but he's not exactly a guy who moves the needle, you know what I'm saying?

Put it all together and what do you have? A team a lot better than 07-08? A lot better than this past season?
I just don't see it, personally.

I see a team that is older, expensive, still lacking a late shot-clock scorer or shot creator on the wing.
Can this team make a run at the eighth spot this year? Possibly. More likely they make a run at ninth spot and hurt their draft position.

Can the outline of the team next season be much better than a 45-win team? It's hard to think so; I mean, the guts of it won just 41 games last season. And if it does I'm not sure it projects as one with a lot of upside. But hey, maybe it will be enough to convince Chris Bosh to sign that six-year, $127-million contract in the summer of 2010.

But does that make you a team that has a serious chance to win championships? Is that the point?

I thought it was, but I'm not sure anymore. I am, however, feeling kind of sleepy.