The Raptors are over .500 and winners of two straight. Time to get that bandwagon rolling right? Ahmmm, not quite yet, and not just because the team’s three key players – Bosh, Bargnani and Ford – all seem to be prone to getting dinged and nicked on a regular basis, if not injured out right. It’s a fair point that the Raptors have yet to lose to a bad team yet – Boston, Orlando, Utah, Dallas, Golden State, Cleveland – not a dog among them, and even Milwaukee has shown they might be a playoff team now that they’re healthy again.
But it’s also fair to point out that the Raptors have beaten a bunch of mutts for their eight wins, with New Jersey being the exception and just barely. Philly twice? The Bulls twice? The Grizzlies twice? Indiana? Not exactly murderer’s row. I’m of the opinion that once the Raptors get right and healthy, they can really do some damage. I think they’re a better team than last year and, with the emergence of Jamario Moon, a better team than they were when the season started. But talk is cheap.
Anyway, One game, five things v1.17:
1. This has nothing to do with basketball. Walked into the dressing room after the game and Maceo Baston was in deep conversation with this really little person I thought was a toddler at first. Nothing that unusual, kids make their way into the Raptors room fairly regularly. But then I look closer and the toddler has some nice jewelry on and is wearing some slick Pumas and a Ferrari shirt with a ball cap on backwards. Funky toddler.
Look closer and it’s, it’s, Mini Me! The guy from the Austin Powers movies, not Gord Ash.
Now, I am generally celebrity illiterate, but it was kind of wild seeing Verne Troyer in person. And not to sound too obvious, but the dude is small. You know that expression where they say the camera adds 10 pounds? In Troyer’s case it adds his entire body weight. Apparently he’s two-feet, seven inches, or
roughly the height of an average three-year-old. Anyway, the players loved the guy, and
he seemed pretty cool. He was in town filming the new Mike Myers Movie, Love Guru
T.J. Ford chatted him up and they exchanged cell phone numbers. T.J. had a pretty good question, I thought: “How does one guy have like three different movies coming out at the same time? And how do they know in advance that guy is going to be so hot that they put him in three movies?” So Troyer filled him in on the star-making business and T.J. couldn’t have been happier. And then Troyer started talking up the opening of some night club tonight and a lot of the guys said they planned to be there, proving that Mini Me has friends in high places.
2. Okay, I still think I can beat Juan Carlos Navarro in a push-up contest. And I don’t think I’d have to get past 10. But that guy is an awesome basketball player! Which isn’t to say he’ll be an awesome NBA player or lead the Grizzlies to the playoffs or any of those things. The NBA is ruthlessly efficient at exploiting your weaknesses and it just might be that Navarro’s weakness will always be his weakness – 6-3 and a not-to-muscular 165 pounds is a lot to give up at the shooting guard spot. I don’t think it was a coincidence that Anthony Parker got off with Navarro covering him. They played against each other in Europe and AP knew that he could just rise up on the guy at will.
