Toronto's sharpshooter

MICHAEL GRANGE

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

October 30, 2007 at 9:57 PM EST

As the clock struck nine on the night of June 30, Jason Kapono was trying to relax in his Danville, Calif., home with his wife, Ashley.

Relaxing is something the laid-back Californian typically doesn't have a problem with, whether it's with a golf club in hand, a boogie board in the trunk or a fine meal in front of him. But he knew that in a matter of moments, his cellphone would ring and his life would change.

At the same time, Bryan Colangelo, the Toronto Raptors president, was in his office at the Air Canada Centre, along with assistant general manager Maurizio Gherardini. Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell was at home in Atlanta waiting to join in via a conference call.

When the clock struck 12:01 a.m. (EDT) the NBA's free-agent season was officially on — and Colangelo knew exactly what he wanted to do with the money he had to spend.

"I believe [that] in these situations, you have to be decisive," Colangelo says. "You have to know what you want, what you need and what you can get."

A few minutes after 9 p.m. in California, Kapono got the call he was waiting for. His agent, Bob Myers, was on the phone to tell him the Raptors wanted to offer him a four-year contract worth $24-million (U.S.), or about 12 times his most-lucrative previous deal.

Uh, yeah, he was interested.

"I was ecstatic," says Kapono, 26. "I've always been someone fighting for my career and going to a new team every year and someone comes out of the gate and puts you No. 1 on their priority list? … It's surreal, you don't really believe it's happening. I'm like, 'Is he serious? Are the Raptors serious? Are we getting a long-term deal? Do they really want us?' "

How long did it take to make up his mind?

"Not that long," Kapono says. "Maybe 10 minutes."

So that's the how behind Kapono becoming the Toronto Raptors' marquee free-agent signing this past off-season — the player the club is hoping will help it improve from a middle-of-the-pack playoff team to a legitimate contender for the NBA Eastern Conference title. It's an 82-game, multiple-choice test that begins tonight at the ACC, when the Raptors are host to the visiting Philadelphia 76ers.

The why is more complicated.

Heading into the off-season the Raptors' shortcomings were obvious.

Rebounding (the Raptors ranked 27th in the NBA last season) and athleticism were issues that were only underlined when Toronto was outrun and roughed up by the New Jersey Nets while being upset in the first round of the playoffs. Ideally, the shortcomings could be addressed in a single package and play small forward — perhaps the Charlotte Bobcats' Gerald Wallace; or maybe even Ruben Patterson, who was all those things, though a convicted sex offender, too. Kapono's teammate with the Miami Heat, James Posey, was a possibility; Mickael Pietrus of the Golden State Warriors was an option.

But Wallace, it became clear quite quickly, had played himself out of the Raptors' price range, as the six-year, $57-million deal he signed in Charlotte proved. Patterson had merit, but the Raptors were wary about adding a Patterson-type person to a collegial working environment. Pietrus was hardly established. Posey seemed hardly worth it.

And there was another thing: Even the best of them were just okay shooters. Colangelo likes players that can shoot.

"To quote [former NBA coach] Cotton Fitzsimmons, you can never have enough shooters," he says. "The whole goal is to outscore your opponent. You have to be able to put the ball in the basket."

The Raptors have one of the most free-flowing offences in the NBA, with the majority of their possessions beginning with pick-and-rolls near the top of the three-point line. The idea is to give point guards T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon the option of using the screen to set up dribble penetration or create a shot for the screener — usually Chris Bosh or Andrea Bargnani.

Meanwhile, their teammates — typically Anthony Parker and now Kapono — set up shop one and two passes away from the ball outside the three-point line, ready to burn teams slow to challenge an otherwise open triple.

It's not exactly your father's style of basketball, where a good post pass was often the first, second and third option, and Colangelo opened himself to criticism that he'd only made his team softer, and defensively more suspect. But with the money available it was perhaps the most practical approach in today's NBA, where zone defences are allowed and the (former) ritual laying of hands on perimeter players is not.

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