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If you were investigating and Sam Mitchell and Bryan Colangelo were the suspects, who would take the fall, presuming a season that has fallen short of expectations is any kind of crime?
It's the kind of barstool discussion that promises to fuel the Toronto Raptors' fan base in the off-season.
Less than 24 hours after the Raptors were eliminated (exposed?) in their five-game, first-round loss to the Orlando Magic, the two men charged with guiding the franchise's fortunes were on the stand.
In the absence of hard facts, what is a jury to do but gauge, measure, weigh and compare?
The essential truths are beyond dispute. Even as the Raptors' subpar season was limping to a finish, club president and general manager Colangelo let it be known that some parts of his carefully assembled roster had been “underutilized” and the team had underachieved. Any reasonable jury would interpret that as code for undercoached.
Mitchell's take was that the season had been “unbelievable,” an 82-game march uphill against adversity. As for the outcome of the recent playoff series, the second consecutive first-round exit, the head coach's analysis didn't go much further than the impact of Dwight Howard, the Magic's once-a-decade centre, who tore through the Raptors like a comic-book monster.
“Dwight Howard is Dwight Howard,” Mitchell said. “He's too big, too strong and too quick for us.”
That and some high praise for the rest of the Magic rotation can easily be interpreted as roster envy in the first degree, a crime for which Mitchell has priors.
And so it goes round.
A club president spends $24-million (U.S.) on Jason Kapono, only to see his coach forget about him for most of the second half of the season. When Kapono comes alive against the Magic and finishes the postseason as the team's second most dangerous offensive threat, is Mitchell right to wonder where he was hiding all season, or is the president right to say, “On your bench?”
When Andrea Bargnani, the president's No.1 pick in the 2006 draft, flounders and regresses as the season goes on, was the coach right to adopt a sink-or-swim approach to the 22-year-old's development? Even Mitchell wonders about that. “Maybe I should have pulled back a little bit,” he said.
Which adds weight to the president's doubts that tough love was the right brand of affection for an underachiever he staked his professional reputation on.
“For everyone who is ready to throw him out with the bath water, I beg to differ,” Colangelo said yesterday. “We need to do a better job maybe nurturing what we have.”
It's not that the two men can't agree on anything. It's not that simple.
Take the club's two-headed point guard situation. Both said the status quo can't continue, though in a different way, with Mitchell wisely picking this as an issue to defer. “That's a question that's going to be for Bryan,” he said.
Colangelo reiterated that Calderon, a restricted free agent, will be back with the Raptors next season, and that Ford's future might be elsewhere. “If it's not going to work, then decisions need to be made.”
So, yes, they can co-exist just as they have for more than two seasons now. Any fair jury would find both their fingerprints on a season that was more cold and lifeless than anyone expected. But they do look through the looking glass and see different things.
Yesterday, Mitchell was asked about speculation about his job security and the possibility that if Phoenix Suns coach Mike D'Antoni, a Colangelo favourite, were to come available in the wake of a Suns first-round ouster, would the domino effect be felt in Toronto?
“If a frog had wings, he would bump his behind when he jumped, would he?” Mitchell said, before allowing that, yes, he could understand how one thing could lead to another. “There are always things changing to make people say, ‘Wait a minute, that was before that happened.' ”
Colangelo faced the same question and, of course, tried to smother it with a pillow, though he left just enough air for it to survive: “All things should be put to rest right now when I say that I have absolutely no intention of making a coach change at this time.”
Time being the most reliable witness of all.
