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Dwane Casey may have already made his most important coaching contribution of the season.

With the accelerated NBA free agent period already in high gear, don’t expect the Toronto Raptors to be making plays for the handful of big name prizes out there.

And according to those familiar with the team’s mindset at the moment, the Raptors newly hired coach is good with that.

“He supports this,” was how one insider put it.

Now, that may sound redundant. Despite the potential cap space the Raptors could have at hand – as much as $17-million if they took advantage of the new collective bargaining agreement’s amnesty provision to make unwelcome contracts go ‘poof’ – it’s hard to imagine the franchise attracting top talent now.

Casey may have forged a strong bond with free agent centre Tyson Chandler in Dallas over the past season, but strong enough for the 29-year-old defensive whiz to leave a championship team in Dallas for an uncertain present in Toronto?

Unlikely. There was a report Thursday that the Raptors would be active in pursuit of the likes of Chandler as well as Nene, the free agent from the Denver Nuggets, and Marc Gasol, a restricted free agent centre who played with the Memphis Grizzlies. All will command contracts beginning at $50-million and heading straight up from there.

But the sense around the Raptors now is a splashy move is far off the radar at this stage. Even if there were an option to “get in the game” on the sexy free agents, the team’s brain trust is focusing on building, rather than re-building.

Translated: Look for free agent moves or trades that will have minimal impact on the long-term. Instead look for moves to fill out the roster or provide a look at a potential development piece. In general, expect an effort from the team to encourage the fan base to be patient as president Bryan Colangelo uses this year and next to position the club for long-term success.

Newcomers will likely be brought in on one-year deals, although there might be an exception made for a veteran who could help Casey communicate the former Mavericks defensive specialist’s message on that side of the ball.

Chuck Hayes, the undersized centre by way of the Houston Rockets might get a look, as could Jason Collins, who veteran Raptors fans will remember for neutralizing Chris Bosh during the 2006-07 playoffs when Collins was with the Nets.

That Casey is onboard for a longer term approach is significant. It’s his resume that will bear the brunt of the wins and losses this year.

And while you’ll never hear anyone associated with an NBA team throw words like ‘tanking’ around – that’s for the guys like me -there is an acknowledgement that competing in a top-heavy Eastern Conference will require some significant talent infusion best achieved through the draft.

Accepting short-term pain for a long-term payoff is risky – drafts being by their nature uncertain – and also a departure by Colangelo, who has typically embraced the challenge of rebuilding on the fly.

That Casey has bought in will only help.

But coming off a 22-60 season and with their first overall pick, Jonas Valancuinas playing in Europe and looking at a 2011-12 campaign that will be two months shorter than the norm, it’s a perfect time to hit the reset button.

Like most NBA talent evaluators Colangelo and executive vice-president of basketball operations Ed Stefanski were expected to be in Lexington Saturday to watch the University of Kentucky host the University of North Carolina.

Raptors fans should pay close attention to the Wildcats’ Anthony Davis and the Tar Heels’ Harrison Barnes – the Raptors decision makers doubtless will be.

If accepting another losing season is going to be worthwhile the payoff will need to be in the form of a high pick in a deep draft and the addition of a franchise-changing type talent. Barnes and Davis may just qualify.

Does it have to a long slog through the bottom of the NBA to get back to respectability?

Not necessarily. Colangelo, remember, only managed to gain a two-year contract extension so he’ll be motivated to show progress sooner than later. He’s not the type to take the long way ’round anyway.

Passing on long-term contract commitments at this stage could set the Raptors up well a year from now, when – if the amnesty provision were in play – they could have as much as $24-million of space under the salary cap.

As well, Valancuinas would be available to them, along with whoever they manage to land in what again is considered a deep, talented draft.

In place already are the likes of DeMar DeRozan and Ed Davis.

It’s not a playoff team, but it’s a base of talent worth building on.

There’s hope in that.

Michael Grange will provide insight and analysis on all the top stories in sports.

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Eric Koreen 
Nov 25, 2011 – 1:51 PM ET
| Last Updated: Nov 25, 2011 4:35 PM ET

Aaron Lynett/National Post

Jay Triano coached the Raptors for more than two seasons. The team did not pick up his contract option after last year.

Posted in: Basketball, NBA, Sports 
Tags: Howard Triano, Jay Triano, Raptors, Toronto, Toronto Raptors, Trianos

That’s all the news for today.

Eric Koreen 
Nov 25, 2011 – 1:51 PM ET
| Last Updated: Nov 25, 2011 4:35 PM ET

Aaron Lynett/National Post

Jay Triano coached the Raptors for more than two seasons. The team did not pick up his contract option after last year.

Posted in: Basketball, NBA, Sports 
Tags: Howard Triano, Jay Triano, Raptors, Toronto, Toronto Raptors, Trianos

What are your opinions.

Running low on time today, i’ll be back tomorrow hopefully with some more news.

The whole thing went down like the plot of some terrible Hugh Grant romantic comedy. It was on. Then it was almost off. But now it is back on again.

We will see if Ed Stefanski and the Toronto Raptors can live happily ever after.

The two sides are close to a deal to make Stefanski the team’s Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, a deal that should be finalized in the coming days, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo on twitter.

Stefanski was the GM of the Philadelphia 76ers but was pushed aside as part of the new ownership change. In Toronto he will work with Bryan Colangelo, the GM and the guy still ultimately calling the player/personnel shots.

Toronto is in a rebuilding mode right now and Stefanski had mixed success with that process in Philly. He did draft or bring in Jrue Holiday, Lou Williams and Marreese Speights, plus he kept Andre Iguodala as a cornerstone. All good moves. Except he overpaid Iggy and the Elton Brand deal has not worked out well (despite a bounce-back season last year Brand is remains overpaid, although that doesn’t mean you should throw him out).

Toronto, which has a history of overpaying underproducing big men, should be a good fit for Stefanski that way.

We’ll see if he and Colangelo can have a happy marriage in Canada.

That’s all for today guys, i’ll be back to blog you tomorrow.

After making progress on an agreement to become the Toronto Raptors’ general manager, talks with Philadelphia 76ers GM Ed Stefanski have stalled, league sources told Yahoo! Sports on Friday.

Two sources with knowledge of the talks used the term “hit a snag” to describe the state of the discussions.

In the past several days, sources said, this development has caused former New Orleans Hornets GM Jeff Bower to re-emerge at the forefront of the search.

It’s unclear what caused the talks between Toronto president Bryan Colangelo and Stefanski to come undone, but several sources said what seemed inevitable a week ago – the hiring of Stefanski – has been derailed. Stefanski is trying to become more engaged in the Trail Blazers’ search, sources said.

Stefanski is working under Sixers president Rod Thorn and has one season left on his contract. But Stefanski knows the Sixers’ new owners want to make their own imprint on the franchise, and that he needs to find his next job sooner than later.

Once San Antonio Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey pulled out of the Raptors’ search earlier this month, Stefanski and Bower became the two finalists for the job.

Other popular stories on Yahoo! Sports:

• NBA rank-and-file fine with missing games?

• NBA TV forced to repeatedly air ‘Teen Wolf’ with lockout ongoing

• Tony Romo vows the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl. Someday.

That’s all for today guys, i’ll be back to blog you tomorrow.

The Toronto Raptors are still looking for a new front office guy to have a fancy title and explain his decisions to Bryan Colangelo, who is shifting roles in the organization.

The Raptors are through their first round of interviews and have brought in some name people, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo.

Philadelphia 76ers general manager Ed Stefanski, San Antonio Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey, Indiana Pacers pro personnel director Kevin Prichard and former New Orleans Hornets GM Jeff Bower traveled to Toronto in recent weeks to meet with Colangelo, sources said.

There’s no clear frontrunner, but several sources have reason to believe Lindsey could hold an edge over the other three candidates. Lindsey is also on the short list for the Portland Trail Blazers’ GM job.

Lindsey may have his choice of gigs, and he already has a pretty damn good one so he can afford to take his time and be choosy. The other guys need a job — Bower is without one, Stefanski is in the final year of his deal with a team undergoing an ownership change, and Pritchard has a one-year scouting deal in Indiana that may or may not grow into something more.

We’d discuss the timetable for this decision if the Raptors felt any pressure to make this decision. But they don’t. So it could be a while.

What do you guys think about this.

Toronto Raptors president Bryan Colangelo has completed interviews with four candidates for a high-ranking executive job, leagues sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Philadelphia 76ers general manager Ed Stefanski, San Antonio Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey, Indiana Pacers pro personnel director Kevin Prichard and former New Orleans Hornets GM Jeff Bower traveled to Toronto in recent weeks to meet with Colangelo, sources said.

There’s no clear frontrunner, but several sources have reason to believe Lindsey could hold an edge over the other three candidates. Lindsey is also on the short list for the Portland Trail Blazers’ GM job.

Among the four executives, Lindsey is also the candidate most likely to turn down an offer. He has a top executive’s job under Spurs GM R.C. Buford in one of the NBA’s preeminent and respected front offices. He’d have to be willing to leave that for Toronto, where Colangelo and coach Dwane Casey are on two-year contracts with an ownership mandate to get things turned around sooner than later.

Even if Colangelo cedes the GM title to get Lindsey – something he’ll almost assuredly have to do – it’s hard to imagine that Colangelo, an NBA two-time executive of the year, won’t still wield significant clout on every basketball decision.

Stefanski is in the final year of his contract, with new ownership waiting for approval from the NBA’s Board of Governors to take over. Pritchard lost his job as the Trail Blazers GM, and took a one-year scouting assignment with the Pacers that allows him to interview for higher-profile positions. Bower was fired as Hornets GM a year ago.

There’s no clear timetable on when the Raptors will extend a formal offer on the job.

Other popular stories on Yahoo! Sports:
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Toronto, Canada (Sports Network) – Add Kevin Pritchard to the list of
hopefuls for the vacant Toronto Raptors general manager position.

The former Portland Trailblazers GM joins Ed Stefanski, Jeff Bower and Dennis
Lindsey as the list of names that the Raptors have been reported to show the
most interest towards and, out of everyone, he certainly seems like the
obvious choice.

Pritchard’s time in Portland wasn’t the longest but it was quite successful,
as he laid down the building blocks to transform a perennial loser into one of
the most talked about up-and-coming teams in the NBA.

The young core of LaMarcus Aldridge, Brandon Roy and Nicolas Batum has
Pritchard’s fingerprints all over it, so it’s clear that he’s very capable of
building a winner. And out of all the other lead candidates for the Raptors
job, he’ll probably be considered the frontrunner because he’s more of a known
commodity than the others; even though some of them have more experience.

With that in mind, Pritchard’s arrival would be pretty exciting for Raptors
fans. After all, he would be a young, vibrant GM eager to prove himself again
and turn the franchise’s fortunes around. However, that is exactly why a
Pritchard hire would be problematic.

Toronto already hired a GM much like Pritchard back in 2006 in Bryan
Colangelo, and even though he’s decided to step away from the GM role and just
act as president of the team, his DNA is still all over the franchise –
something that may not mesh well with Pritchard.

Both Pritchard and Colangelo are control freaks with strong personalities. If
he were to come into the Raptor-fold the two would likely butt heads with each
other. And while healthy debate and input on how to improve the team is
generally a good thing, constant disagreement is something a franchise doesn’t
want to deal with.

It has been reported in the past that the reason for Pritchard’s departure
from Portland was because he hungered for both power and media adoration.
These are two things he isn’t likely to receive as much in Toronto, as long as
Colangelo stays above him in the franchise hierarchy.

The hire that the Raptors president should make is one that can create synergy
amongst him and his GM. Colangelo won’t find that perfect sync if he hires
Pritchard, but he may just find it in Lindsey.

As the current assistant GM of the San Antonio Spurs, Lindsey would bring some
championship knowledge to the front office and seeing how the Spurs have made
a living off picking exceptional players later in the draft, his talent
evaluation skills will work wonders for a team likely headed to the lottery.

A Lindsey selection would also make sense, as he’ll work well with Colangelo
because of the emphasis that the Spurs have made on scouting international
players — something the Toronto boss has been known for.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the reason why Lindsey should be the
prime candidate is because Colangelo will still be able to go hands-on with
the team because Lindsey would be a rookie GM, making him more easily
controlled, which would allow Colangelo to still execute his vision for the
club.

Lindsey may not be the sexiest pick, but he seems like the right one. If the
club decides instead to go with Prtichard, however, it will be very
interesting to see how he and Colangelo work with each other.

The Sports Network

Gotta run!.

Someday the Toronto Raptors are going to hire a GM.

That day is not in the near future, but the process is slowly grinding forward. Not that there is any real pressure due to the lockout.

Apparently they have got some candidates in mind to join Bryan Colangelo running the Raptors, and eventually they will interview them. So reports David Aldridge at NBA.com.

Don’t expect any movement on the Toronto general manager’s search for a couple of weeks. Team president Bryan Colangelo was in Europe last week and won’t start whittling down his group of candidates until the middle of the month. Sixers GM Ed Stefanski, former Hornets GM and coach Jeff Bower and Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey are among the candidates, but former Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard is also believed to be in the hunt and is a strong candidate. Pritchard took a player personnel job with the Pacers earlier this summer, but has an out in his deal that would allow him to leave if a GM job became available.

That’s a good list of well-respected basketball minds. They could all help the Raptors. The impression, with Larry Bird likely leaving the Pacers after next season, is that Pritchard will get the chance to move up with that team. And there are questions about how much freedom any of these men will have with Colangelo still there. But still, a good list to start with. Once they really start looking.

Leave your comments on the news below.

Someday the Toronto Raptors are going to hire a GM.

That day is not in the near future, but the process is slowly grinding forward. Not that there is any real pressure due to the lockout.

Apparently they have got some candidates in mind to join Bryan Colangelo running the Raptors, and eventually they will interview them. So reports David Aldridge at NBA.com.

Don’t expect any movement on the Toronto general manager’s search for a couple of weeks. Team president Bryan Colangelo was in Europe last week and won’t start whittling down his group of candidates until the middle of the month. Sixers GM Ed Stefanski, former Hornets GM and coach Jeff Bower and Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey are among the candidates, but former Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard is also believed to be in the hunt and is a strong candidate. Pritchard took a player personnel job with the Pacers earlier this summer, but has an out in his deal that would allow him to leave if a GM job became available.

That’s a good list of well-respected basketball minds. They could all help the Raptors. The impression, with Larry Bird likely leaving the Pacers after next season, is that Pritchard will get the chance to move up with that team. And there are questions about how much freedom any of these men will have with Colangelo still there. But still, a good list to start with. Once they really start looking.

Feel free to leave your comments below.

By Charlie Wilmoth

– Contributor

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Jul 14, 2011 – Adrian Wojnarowski reports that Toronto Raptors president and GM Bryan Colangelo has found three candidates to be the team’s new GM. Those candidates are ex-New Orleans Hornets GM Jeff Bower, Philadelphia 76ers GM Ed Stefanski, and San Antonio Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey.

Colangelo may or may not step down as general manager (but maintain his position as president), depending on whether he can find a replacement GM he likes. 

If the Raptors do hire a new GM, it’s unclear exactly what his relationship with Colangelo would be. Colangelo would retain veto power on basketball moves, and might continue to participate in basketball-related decisions.

Colangelo had a good run with the Phoenix Suns and a nice start to his career in Toronto, leading to NBA Executive Of The Year awards in 2005 and 2007. But the Raptors have fallen on hard times in the past few years, finishing below .500 in each season since 2008-09 (and losing Chris Bosh in 2010). The Raptors won just 22 games in 2010-11.

For more on the Toronto Raptors, check out Raptors HQ.

Read More: Chris Bosh (F – MIA), Jeff Bower (H – NOH), New Orleans Hornets, Phoenix Suns, San Antonio Spurs, Philadelphia 76ers, Toronto Raptors

That’s all for today.

As far as insights go, this one isn’t particularly incisive: It is not a great time to be a Toronto Raptors fan.

There is the three-year playoff drought, capped by an arduous 22-win season last year. There is the lockout, with no end in sight, which means president and general manager Bryan Colangelo cannot make changes to that mangled roster at the moment. There is the leading scorer, Andrea Bargnani, who could not sell out Toronto rock venue Lee’s Palace (capacity: 550) with his believers. And then there are some of the team’s other core players, such as shooting guard DeMar DeRozan (who cannot make a three-pointer), power forward Ed Davis (who does not possess much offensive game at this point) and…well, yeah. That is not a needlessly negative portrait of the team. That is the reality.

To add to that, Colangelo decided to draft Jonas Valanciunas, a Lithuanian centre who will not be able to play for the Raptors thanks to a contractual situation with his club in his home country — that is if there is a 2011-12 NBA season.

This was thought to be a disastrous public relations move for Colangelo. “Remember that team that won 22 games last year? Well, forget about helping that team with the high draft pick we earned by being so terrible,” Colangelo seemed to be saying to the fans.

That was just an immediate reaction, though, and it has been replaced. Jonas fever is sweeping Raptors fandom.

Valanciunas, indeed, has been wonderful for Lithuania at the FIBA Under-19 World Championships in Riga, Latvia. Through six games, he is averaging 20.6 points per game on 59% shooting from the field, and bringing in 13.3 rebounds per game. He leads the tournament in both scoring and rebounding, while shooting nearly 83% from the free-throw line.

And yes, Raptors fans are abuzz, and with cause. Draft guru Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress tweeted that Raptors fans should be “elated” with Valanciunas, and that is exactly what has followed. It is all Valanciunas all the time for devout Raptors followers. By way of an example, seven of the last 10 posts on The Score-affiliated Raptorblog are about Valanciunas. (This is not a criticism, as there is simply nothing else going on at the moment. Valanciunas is infinitely more interesting than players who can’t play or coaches and executives who can’t talk about their players. And page views do not stop mattering, even if the games and transactions stop happening. Lockout 2011: Catch the fever.)

At this point, Raptors writers would be best served to start up all-Jonas blogs. (Two suggestions that were tweeted at me: The Jonas Bloggers and My Blog Is Jonas.)

However, it would be best to remember that Valanciunas is putting up these numbers against kids. There are a few promising players that could be draft high in next year’s draft playing — notably University of Florida-bound centre Patric Young — but their experience largely consists of dominating fellow high-school players. Valanciunas has played in the Euroleague, home of the second-best basketball in the world.

Valanciunas has been great in the tournament, and that should not be taken away from him. If people want to keep tabs on him, there is no reason not to. The NBA will come back at some point, though, and two things should be remembered before a world of pressure is put on the 19-year-old centre’s shoulders. First, remember who he is dominating. Second, remember how much Raptors fans need someone to believe in.

If that context is kept in mind, a little hope is not a bad thing.

• Email: ekoreen@nationalpost.com | Twitter: @ekoreen

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