Bryan Colangelo On Chris Bosh Leaving

Bryan Colangelo on Chris Bosh Leaving

Toronto Raptors President and General Manager Bryan Colangelo walks the walk, talks the talk, and wears high collars.  He is a very well spoken man, is extremely bright, and surrounds himself with intelligent basketball minds.  His charming ways wooed Toronto when he stepped on the scene in February.  He increased the Raptors win total by 20 games in his first full season and the team captured its first division title.  Bryan had the city at his mercy – hockey fans were calling for the Leafs to sign someone similar, kids were being named Bryan (with a ‘y’).  Life was grand.
It is now that Bryan faces his first real road block with this team.  After an ’08-’09 campaign that failed to live up to expectations, many presume his best player, Chris Bosh, will fly the coup in the summer of What seemed so rosy the past couple years has turned gloomy.  Many fans were and are accepting of trading the Olympic gold medalist and 4-time All-Star.  Things have turned quickly in Toronto.  Colangelo joined The Fan 590 in Toronto to discuss if he should / will trade Bosh, his relationship with CB4, and whether Jose Calderon should change positions.

On the Bosh scenario:

“Look where the season started and look what happened to Cleveland and LeBron (James) and all the things that are going on there, and Dwyane Wade in Miami.  You know, those teams seemed to get on track quicker than we did, so it somewhat dissipated.  Professionals put those distractions aside and play and focus on the game… Chris is capable of doing that.  It will intensify, for sure, but if the basketball team is playing better basketball, and we are competitive, that will somewhat moot the argument… Just because he may go doesn’t mean you panic and give him up, and get a bad deal, or make a deal.  Trading your best player doesn’t always work out… I kinda know what the value for Chris Bosh is out there and I’m not kidding when I say he’s a top 10 player in this league… If we get in to a situation where he does wanna leave and we get to the end of the season next year, there’s a sign-and-trade opportunity where using us as a conduit, he can get the most money that’s out there on the marketplace… There’s a difference of about $30 million dollars… Even if he still wants to leave, we’re the team that can still deliver that extra money.”

On whether or not he speaks to Bosh and how supportive CB is of his Head Coach:

“Chris always talks to me about things… Anytime you’re talking about a player you’re building a team around, you wanna know he buys in to some of the thoughts and philosophies of those that are running the show – that’s me, that’s Jay (Head Coach Jay Triano)… To a man, it’s safe to say everybody was supportive of Jay and felt like he did a very admirable job… The players never stopped playing, the coaches never stopped coaching, they were displaying what we had hoped to see all year.”

If Jose Calderon should move to shooting guard:

“I’m not sure why we would want to move him over there when you’re talking about a guy who takes care of the basketball, makes good decisions for the most part, may be a little too conservative, and, I’ll just share with you that I said that to him this year… He’s slowly, over the course of this season, started to think like the point guard that we want him to play.”