These are my Toronto Raptors Linkage links for February 14th from 04:39 to 14:08:

• Exit the Matrix, Enter JO – With O'Neal scheduled to make $44 million over the next two seasons, it leaves the Heat with about $2 million to work with this summer while operating below the dollar-for-dollar luxury tax. In other words, barring a trade, the rotation of Mario Chalmers, Wade, Jones, Udonis Haslem, O'Neal, Chris Quinn, Daequan Cook, Moon and Michael Beasley will likely stay intact next season. It isn't a championship contending team, but it's a big leap for a team just months removed from winning 15 games last season.

  The move also leaves Miami at 14 players, one below the League limit. With only two point guards in Chalmers and Quinn, Riley will probably use it on a guy who can set up plays. Shaun Livingston has said that he's leaning towards a return to Miami after the lanky point guard was traded to Memphis (but immediately waived) for a conditional second-round pick. We'll see if Riley feels the same way.

• Bypassing Vince, Brad … and more – #

  Apparently, the Nets made a late-minute bid for Shawn Marion before the Heat pulled the trigger on the Jermaine O'Neal deal. According to the Newark Star-Ledger, New Jersey offered Vince Carter for Marion, with the intention of re-signing Shawn as part of a high-octane offense alongside Devin Harris, sort of a "Suns II" approach. With Carter's deal running through 2011-12, the trade held little interest for the Heat.
  #

  The final offer from the Kings for Marion, according to the Sacramento Bee, was Brad Miller and Kenny Thomas, who each have this season and next under contract. With Sacramento not interested in taking on Marcus Banks' 2010-11 salary, it was not nearly as appetizing an alternative for the Heat.

• Why The Toronto Raptors Are Still Worth Watching – Addition by subtraction is also at work here. Andrea Bagnani is now the clear starting center for the Raptors, which will allow him to continue his strong development this season without having to look over his shoulder. This deal also sends Jamario Moon to the Heat. While Moon had the athletic gifts to provide a similar impact of a player like Marion, his unwillingness to play in the paint and his often questionable shot selection made him a liability on the offensive end; his penchant for jumping on pump fakes making him a liability on the defensive end.

  Losing Jermaine O’Neal is significant on the defensive end. His ability to draw charges, block shots, rebound, and in general, intimidate in the paint, will be difficult to make up. That being said, the offense is likely to flow more with the inclusion of Marion who can run and slash, which was one of Toronto’s major deficiencies prior to the All-Star break.

• Miami Heat trade Shawn Marion to Raptors for Jermaine O’Neal – Riley said the Heat had the option of taking the first-round pick or maintaining room below the 2009 luxury tax. Had the Heat bypassed the pick, it could have sent an additional player to the Raptors, someone in the salary range of Wright.

  Riley said it is possible Moon starts at small forward, calling him, "somewhat of a facsimile of Shawn Marion."

• All trade, All the time. – Great trade? No.

  Good trade? Absolutely.

  Better Raptor team today? I’d take a frontcourt of Bosh-Bargnani-Marion over O’Neal-Bosh-Bargnani any day because everyone now plays their best and normal position.

  No one can look me in the eye and say Bargnani isn’t a more effective centre than he is a small forward; no one can look me in the eye and say Marion isn’t a significant upgrade at the three spot.

• YouTube – NBA All-Star Weekend 09: Dwight And Chris Bosh –
• It’s About Time – Basically, Colangelo knew that O'Neal was a risk from the start, even if it was a risk worth taking.

  He played as well as anyone could have asked from an individual standpoint but the team simply couldn't work him into the system effectively, a scenario complicated further when Bargnani came on strong in January. With Andrea securing the centre position for the team, the Raptors once again had a logjam at a position while other positions (primarily the wings) got the short end of the stick.

• Let the Roko Era Begin! – About a month later the Raptors were schedule to meet the San Antonio Spurs, No Bosh, no Calderon, another “L” was sure to follow. Roko kept up with Tony Parker, both trading blazing speed and an ankle breaking first step. Tony definitely “out classed” his young counterpart, but Roko didn’t look out of place.

  Then Roko did something out of character, he had a much improved “J”, showing the ability to hit a long range shot. With just over 20 seconds and Ukic with the ball, the Spurs couldn’t leave space to stop his vicious first step; they had to protect his shot. Roko beat his man off the dribble, dropped a “tear drop”, game over Raps win.

• Shawn Marion to the Raptors is a Solid First Move – While I liked Jermaine O'Neal, he clearly did not have the impact on the Raptors that we thought he would. Also, Bargnani's emergence made JO's presence irrelevant. I'm also not sure that JO and Bosh ever clicked on a personal level.

  The fact that Bryan could dump a $23 million contract is a big bonus. Yes, he still has over $4 milion invested in Banks, but he also should land Marion in the $8 million range next season. So we're potentially looking at Marion + Banks + over $10 million remaining next season for Jermaine O'Neal. I don't see that as a bad thing at all.

  If I were to grade the deal, I'd give it a "B". Let's be patient and see what transpires next.

• Raps finally make a deal, no idea if it will work – As for the Raps. It will be too hard to tell how things work out until everyone is healthy. For now it will be interesting to see how Joey G accepts having someone dropped in front of him in the pecking order just as he has found a decent groove.

  We don’t think BC is done and the Blackberry will be going crazy for a few more days. Maybe after J-Killa wins the three point contest tonight, he will get traded before he even gets to board a plane back to TO.

• Raptors rewind? – 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.

• Bosh On Marion – ESPN Video –
• Marion follow-up – We Have More To Spend!!! – Whereas, by either keeping Marion around or far less likely, sign-and-trading him for a comparable player, plus bring Delfino back and possibly Parker and Graham as well for roster depth, the team, because of the vagaries of the cap system, would have far more than that $12 million to spend.
  The team would be over the soft cap, but still well below the luxury tax level, so theoretically, could re-sign Marion, Delfino, Parker and Graham, add a first-round pick and still have some money left over to sign a free agent with the mid-level exception ($5 million or so).
• NBA Trade Rumors: Shawn Marion and Jermaine O’Neal, Amare Stoudemire’s Future? – Secondly, doesn’t it seem like the two main players in this deal (Marion and O’Neal) were considered superstars just two years ago? Sure, O’Neal has had his health issues. And Marion’s stock may have been increased by playing along side Steve Nash in an up-tempo offense, but man. Just a few seasons later and these two guys are relegated to the role of “overpaid and tradable.” Another ironic twist is that both of these players were once tied to rumors that had them coming to Cleveland all within the last year.

  Personally, second-year forward Jamario Moon may wind up being Miami’s biggest prize in this whole deal. GIve it a year or two. Once that kid polishes his offensive game, he has the makings of a younger Marion.

• Miami Heat Blog Perspective –
• Update: Raptors 2010 Cap Situation – # One can see quite clearly how damaging the contracts of Kapono, Banks and Humphries are. They total just under $15mil, in other words almost 25% of the cap. That’s basically a max contract, so they’re here in Toronto at the cost of a Joe Johnson or a Ray Allen or some player of that caliber, a max contract player.
  # Also, the costs of the Ukic and the two first round draft picks adds up to another $5mil or so. That’s a fair bit of money, but for three prospects who can contribute right away and provide good potential, they’re golden contracts for a team up against the cap threshold.
• Marion in Raptor Long-Term Plans – Colangelo said that although the cap space is a nice externality of the deal, the nitty gritty details are really where his decision was made. "Not only will we have a situation to look at cap space, we'll also have a chance to potentially to sign Shawn and utilize him as a very nice piece on this roster and still take care of all the other things," he explained, such as "bringing back an Anthony Parker and bringing in a Carlos Delfino and making another move with the signing of a mid-level player. And still add all those pieces can be added and dealt with and still stay below the luxury tax threshold."
• A Matrix revolution – Without O'Neal, the Raptors will be vulnerable in the post and the team is suddenly thin on bigs. But that is the price you pay when nothing else is available to shore up both short-term holes and position oneself for the future, a future that doesn't look as bleak today as it did yesterday morning.

  The Raptors also forked over forward Jamario Moon and a lottery-protected draft pick, and got guard Marcus Banks and $3 million US, money that will come in handy in these cash-conscious times.

  Give Colangelo credit for at least recognizing a problem and dealing with it, one of many he'll have to address as he attempts to surround Bosh with bona fide pieces prior to next summer's mother of all NBA free agency season.

• Some numbers and some early reaction to the Raptor deal – The money? Well, the Banks contract’s not great but Toronto may still have enough, depending on what it does in the coming summer, to get in on the tail end of the 2010 free agent sweepstakes. I’ll take a look at the financials more closely for the morning, though. The mind’s racing right at the moment.

  The Heat? Pat Riley knew they were not nearly big enough to challenge the top three teams in the East, he loves big guys and Marion was not going to re-sign in the summer.

  Overall, I’d say Toronto came out okay. Not great, certainly not slam dunk, but not a bad deal all in all.

• Raptors’ post-season pursuit an empty thrill – No matter that each of Colangelo's three seasons in Toronto gets worse than the one before it. No matter that each move he makes gets more perplexing than its predecessor. Colangelo and one of his bosses, Larry Tanenbaum, were seen together in Phoenix after the deal went down at the NBA all-star weekend yesterday, shoulder to shoulder, perma-smile to perma-smile. The happy pals were going for it, baby! They were making a gutsy run at the eighth and final playoff seed in the top-heavy East!

  They were also making clued-in fans want to puke.

• Marion more than a hired gun for Raptors – "Shawn is a piece that should be given an opportunity to fit in with the team," Colangelo said in a conference call last night. "He's not necessarily a rental player. That's not necessarily the case."

  Marion, 30, has averaged 12 points and nine rebounds a game with Miami this season. Colangelo is acutely aware of his abilities: Marion spent the first nine years of his career with Colangelo and Phoenix.

  "Shawn could be a valuable piece with this team in this system," said Colangelo.

  Nevertheless, the Raptors gain some financial flexibility this summer with the move, which has been talked about for almost a month.

• Raptors send pair to Miami – The Raptors are also looking ahead to 2010, when Bosh will join a stacked free agent class.

  Neither the Heat nor the Raptors had any immediate comment. NBA officials must approve the trade, which typically happens by conference call.

  Banks averaged 2.6 points in 16 games with Miami this year, and will battle for playing time at point guard with incumbents Jose Calderon and Roko Ukic. Banks, who makes just under $4.5 million and $4.75 million in 2009-10, might also see some time at shooting guard.

• Raptors swap O’Neal for Marion in 4-player deal – It's not that O'Neal was a mistake – this time last year, could you have gotten Marion for T.J. Ford and Rasho Nesterovic? – but the big centre didn't fit, the chemistry went cloudy, and the Raptors needed retooling. This is a good start.

  The building block coming back is four-time all-star Shawn Marion, one of the essential pieces of Colangelo's run-and-fun Phoenix teams. Marion is a marvelous athlete – witness his game-winning dunk in his final play as a member of the Miami Heat in Chicago Thursday night – and a versatile defender. He's the best Toronto wing player since Vince Carter, and in the best-case scenario, this would be like Denver's acquisition of Chauncey Billups: a move that balances a roster.

• Bryan Colangelo Conference Call – The Raptors General Manager discusses the trade that sent Jermaine O'Neal and Jamario Moon to sunny Miami for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks north of the 49th parallel.
• Jamario Moon Interview – The former Toronto Raptor joins THE FAN 590's Zack Cooper only moments after the trade which sent him and Jermaine O'Neal to the Miami Heat in return for forward Shawn Marion and guard Marcus Banks became public.
• Matrix Reloaded? – For me having Marion join the Raps for the final 27 games doesn’t really give me the warm and fuzzies. Nor do I believe they will make a charge into the playoffs with their newly revamped roster. In actual fact it’s probably nothing more than a good opportunity for him to showcase himself for his impending free agency. The likely hood of him resigning with the Raps is not good (I probably have a better shot at being Salma Hayek’s next breast feeding victor..pick me, please pick me). The other player the Raps will receive in this deal is Marcus Banks. I believe the Raps will come to regret acquiring his albatross of a contract. He is the classic million dollar moves and five cent shots kind of player. His impact on the floor will be negligible, but the financial impact will be do much harm to a team that won’t ever swim within the luxury tax thresh hold.
• Blockbuster Trade (For Real, This Time!): Heat’s Shawn Marion is Traded to Raptors for Jermaine O’Neal – This trade will benefit both team, but given the bad timing of the trade – right in the middle of the season – the ability for the traded players to gel with their new NBA team will determine their true impacts on the game.

  If you asked me which team benefits the most of this trade, I’d definitely say the Miami Heat – with the ‘hidden treasure’ in Jamario Moon, the Heat will enjoy an additional hard-working and high-flying baller.

• ESPN Reports: Chris Bosh On Toronto Getting Shawn Marion – Video –
• Peninsula is Mightier – Heat Acquire Jermaine O’Neal And Jamario Moon – The move leaves a hole on the bench with Banks on the move, and it also gives the Heat a plethora of ‘big’ guys. With O’Neal starting, it moves Anthony and Magloire further down the bench, and we also have Mark Blount down here. Also keep in mind that when the Heat go small they will put Udonis at the 1. We’ll have to wait and see if the Heat bring in another PG and if there is an odd-man out between the big guys.
• Friday the 13th – New Beginning or Bad Omen for the Toronto Raptors? – I'm not a fan of Marcus Banks, but BC seems to be on a mission to re-attain his former Suns fringe players to fill out the Raptors' roster. The problem I have with this part of the deal is that Toronto would have ostensibly lost Moon to free agency at the end of this year while Banks is a player that the Raptors will keep on the books for at least the next two and a half seasons. Is Banks an upgrade over Solomon or Ukic? Well, at least he's more experienced than either and for now, he's the solution until Jose Calderon can rest and recover from his injury. However, in my opinion, I'd rather let Ukic develop with the idea that he's the main back-up next year and re-sign Anthony Parker with the mind that Parker can be a third back-up to Jose Calderon. The implications long term of having Banks on the team do not sit well with me…especially considering his career highs last year of 9 ppg and 3 assists with almost 2 turnovers per game.
• Jones: Colangelo pulls the trigger – For Toronto, the deal will help address some of the Raptors needs at the wing where they have been underperforming all season. But again, maybe Colangelo's partial reluctance to throw in the towel on something he felt would work, the current deal is not made if the wing players put up the kind of production that is, not spectacular, but just above average offensively and guard their opposite number with some tenacity? It says here that if the two aforementioned deficiencies had been better, the Raptors would be further ahead in their quest for a playoff spot and the three-man rotation that had been established between O'Neal, Andrea Bargnani and Chris Bosh up front is one that would have looked good moving forward.
• Off the Dribble – Marion Trade a Sign N.B.A. Teams Are Ready to Shed Payroll – “I would have liked to see it flourish a little more,” Bosh said Friday while meeting with news media in Phoenix. “I was hoping it was going to be a lot better. And I’m sure he was hoping the same thing. But it was very short, man. Not even a year.”

  With a deadline of Feb. 19, this year’s trading season is expected to be a frenzied one. Teams are expected to try to shed payroll in response to a sagging economy and in order to get under the salary cap for the summer of 2010, when stars like Bosh, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade are expected to become free agents.

• Trade has major upside – This was the best of the rumored deals. Toronto primarily gets the expiring contract of Shawn Marion, whose reward for Thursday's winning basket was being shipped out of the country Friday. The Heat primarily got the 6 feet 11 of hope in O'Neal and desperately needs every inch of that.

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Related posts:

1. Toronto Raptors Linkage for February 13th through February 14th
2. Toronto Raptors Linkage for February 14th through February 15th
3. Toronto Raptors Linkage for February 13th from 11:38 to 14:00
4. Toronto Raptors Linkage for February 24th through February 25th
5. Toronto Raptors Linkage for February 16th through February 17th