Oooh, boy!

The Mad Ants!

In case you missed it – and I imagine many of you did – the hard-working people who handle all that is the D League let us know officially yesterday at the Raptors will be affiliated with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants for the coming season.

What’s it mean?

Not an awful lot, given that 12 other teams will share an affiliation with Fort Wayne and it’s not like the Raptors are consistent users of the D League as a development tool.

Yes, they sent Dwight Buycks down a couple of times last season but that really wasn’t with long-term development in mind. Buycks was never part of the future here, it was done to get him some run and maybe get him noticed by another team and to help out last year’s minor league team, the Bakersfield Jam.

Other than that? Nada. A couple of injury rehab stints in the past, a couple other demotions for a quick weekend of playing time and it’s more likely they would pluck an unsigned player out of the league on a 10-day deal to fill a late-season hole than to use it as a way to develop players.

(And what’s with D League nicknames? Mad Ants? Jam? Skyforce? D-Fenders? Charge? Odd, aren’t they?)

That aside, we’ve said this before but what the Raptors need to do is what so many other teams have done, either buy their own D League franchise or enter into some sole affiliation with an existing team.

Then, they can truly use it to develop players, coaches, front office and back-of-house staff the way they want.

I see basically nothing to be gained by sending, say, Bruno or Bebe down to a minor league franchise that has no vested interest in making them better players. The systems they play are likely different, there will be established players in roles already and in many ways it’s just a waste of time.

Owning your own team, though, alleviates all of that. You can put your coaches in place and run the same stuff in the D League that you try to run in the NBA, there will be a consistency of message and teaching that is important and worthwhile.

Toss in training front office staff, media relations staff, trainers, managers, all and sundry of the back-of-house people you desperately need and it’s a bit of a no-brainer, isn’t it?

So until Maple Leaf Sports wants to do that – and they’ve shown they are willing to try something with their ownership of the AHL Marlies and the TFC Academy that are feeder systems – they will not have maximized the reasons the D League exists.

Obviously, they think it’s worthwhile in the pucks and the soccer, maybe it’s time they took a serious look at the basketball side of things.

But, until then, go, Mad Ants!

Quick Fort Wayne story, which might dissuade anyone from going.

We were there for a pre-season game eons ago – I seem to recall it was the first game Larry Bird ever coached with the Indiana Pacers – and I went in a day or so early to do that piece.

Stayed downtown – think Urban Blight only without the excitement – and right across the street from the hotel was the Fort Wayne Welcome Centre.

For three days, it was closed.

Some welcome.

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Heard somewhere it’s BB King’s birthday and he’s a giant with a very cool restaurant in Memphis so …

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Always thought there was something about the Stroman kid that I liked even more than his pitching skills.

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Reading Griff today, it’s obvious the kid doesn’t put up with any crap and will always defend his teammates and you cannot imagine how much that is going to stand him in good stead with the old heads on the roster.

Good on him. Teammates – and fans – should notice and appreciate things like he did last night.

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I am way late to this because I paid absolutely no attention to the NFL at all on Sunday – and I have a feeling that’s going to be a constant – but …

It’s football. It’s guys trying to knock each other’s heads off, it’s tough and it’s not pretty. There’s biting and trash talking and all manner of nefarious deeds trying to get an edge.

It cannot be for the faint of heart.

What in the world, then, could San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick possibly have said to get a penalty on Sunday night for uslng “inappropriate language” after throwing an interception.

Now, I’m not entlrely proud of this but having been around professional sports for about three decades, I consider myself one of the world’s foremost experts not only on bad basketball but on the creative use of the English language and the somewhat more colourful and, um, descriptive, uses of some words. Don’t forget, I covered KO for a full season!

I’ve heard pretty much every bad word used every possible way – as adjectives and adverbs, verbs and nouns and what have you – and I honestly can’t think of a thing a guy could have said after an interception that would warrant a penalty.

It apparently wasn’t something he called an official, it was something he said to a player on the other team and, man, I’d love to know what it was.

Total aside:

Talking about, um, creative use of the language, there is a tape somewhere out there to this day of John Brophy going off on some tirade in which he uses a very bad word about a billion times in five minutes (okay, perhaps an exaggeration) that is a classic in Toronto media circles.

Best Raptor one I know of?

Benoit Benjamim, after being told, somewhat forcefully, by then-coach Darrell Walker to actually try in some practice drill, responded with this, and you can imagine what it was:

“Bleep you, you bleep-face bleep-bleeper.”

Not 30 minutes later, he was waived by Isiah Thomas and his Toronto career was over.