Was good to see Dwane yesterday up at Humber, that fine school that’s produced some many smart and accomplished people, when he made an appearance at the Raptors annual urchins camp.

Was a long-ranging conversation that touched on an awful lot of things but the one that stuck with me is that while he’s quite looking forward to having all kinds of roster flexibility he’s still hoping against hope that Valanciunas can play well enough to earn those fourth quarter minutes everyone was so desperate to see last season.

But that’s totally going to be on JV, who is spending a chunk of the summer working out with the great Jack Sikma up in the Pacific Northwest.

Valanciunas is going to have to be a better, more decisive and more willing passer, he’s going to have to defend pick and roll better or he’s not going to be on the floor down the stretch of close games.

David Blatt brought up an excellent point during the final when he said that in the last five minutes of games you have to play your most versatile players regardless of position or size; I think Dwane agrees with that but if JV can become one of those guys, that would be the best of both worlds.

Dwane like size (see the quote in the story that came out of the little chinwag) but he likes to win more and it’s going to be entirely on Valanciunas to see if he can earn those minutes.

This is a huge summer for the big guy and fans can only hope he gets more out of Sikma than he did from that sprint coach he worked with last summer because that was an abysmal failure.

The one thing I’m interested in seeing once September rolls around is whether or not Masai sees fit to talk contract extension with Valanciunas, since he’s eligible for one that would have to be done by Halloween.

I can see the benefit of doing one for a couple of reasons. It would bring cost certainty for a few years and with the crazy money coming into the system next year, it might be that they get a relative bargain by doing it now instead of having to wait and deal with him as a restricted free agent about a year from now.

But – and this is the question that no one has an accurate answer to – how good is he going to be? And do you want to marry yourself to him for three or four or maybe even five years at what’s going to be a rather substantial salary.

I don’t know and that’s the dilemma.

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This is a toe-tapper, no?

Download 'Little Talks' EP on iTunes here: http://po.st/OMAMLittleTalksEP

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Saw this yesterday about LaGuardia getting a makeover and smiled because they should have done it a decade ago.

It is without doubt the worst airport that I go to regularly; it’s small, congested, lacks services and amenities and they should have razed it years ago.

And that gives me rise to come up with …

THREE WORST BIG-CITY AIRPORTS

LaGuardia

You can’t even see second place, it’s so far out in front.

Logan

The Air Canada pen is disgusting, there’s always traffic chaos getting in and out.

Philadelphia

I don’t think I have ever – EVER!!! – had a flight to or from that went on time. It has nice services – a Yeungling at Jet Rock is a good relaxing time – but everything is always late.

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Bet you TOD fans woke up and had to wipe the sleep out of your eyes to truly focus on the overnight blockbuster that Alex Anthopoulos pulled off.

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And I bet Brendan didn’t really appreciate the dead-of-night call to scribble this thorough pull together on the Reyes-Prospects for Tulowitzki (and I’m never going to consistently spell his name right) and Hawkins.

Four salient points:

First:

No, the deal doesn’t address the dire need for pitching but either he thinks this team can simply bludgeon opponents into submission night after night or he’s got something up his sleeve that might cost him a good hitter and he’s made a pre-emptive strike to fill and anticipated hole.

Second:

I don’t think we can stand any more whining about tight-fisted owners not letting the general manager do anything because of money; the Tulo kid’s owed $100 million or something crazy like that and the beancounters signed off on it. So just maybe that stuff about having the cash if the right deal came along was right.

Third

I’ll let Griff, Brendan and Zorro get into the talent cost more fully because they know what they’re talking about more than I do but don’t prospects more often than not turn into suspects? And with this team right now, it’s about this year and not some time in the future.

Fourth

They may be great but they need a couple of vowels to make it to WAMCO status.

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Oh yeah, one last cool Dwane quote about ONMLT (Oddly Named Minor League Team, does that work?) and what it’ll mean for guys like Bruno and Lucas.

“Some of the players aren’t going to like it because it means they’ll go out and play the night before and come back and practice the next day or practice and go play that night.

“It’s going to be a lot of basketball but the most important thing for Lucas and Bruno to have is to be able to play … the opportunity to play meaningful minutes and not just in a blowout loss or a blowout win.”

And don’t worry about going to a game and not seeing the kids.

“It’s not like sending them to Timbuktu and hoping they get to play. If Jesse doesn’t play Bruno, I’m going to kick his butt.”

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