Or if we want to entertain any of those Bosh to L.A. rumours, we might as well score Ricky Rubio and go for broke in three years right? I mean, at least then Raptors fans have something to look forward to — the same rationale Knicks fans have used to keep themselves sane for the past 24 months (too bad that bubble is about to burst).

Steve Nash, three months away from his 36th birthday, pigeonholed as the two-time MVP in the twilight of his career — chasing a ring despite a rapidly closing window.

Chris Paul, the future of the position, building a stronger MVP candidacy every passing year and leading his upstart team to the playoffs and beyond.

My how things can change.

Nash and his revitalized Suns ran the hapless Hornets off the court last night, burying 13 of 26 three point attempts en route to a breezy 124-104 victory. Registering 8 assists in the first quarter alone, Nash only needed to log 22 minutes total in the win, letting backup Goran Dragic drop 14-7-7 on the JV team wearing those New Orleans jerseys.

If you’re a basketball fan, does anything make you happier than watching the Suns throwing up 111 points per game? The seven-seconds-or-less era is like plaid — it isn’t just back; it’s back and it’s angry. Led by Nash’s ridiculous 18.3 points, 12.9 assists, 2.1 treys, 52 per cent from the field and 92 per cent from the stripe, Phoenix is mashing opposing teams like its personal. Kid Canada’s current numbers make his lines during those back-to-back MVP years look like chump change. If Amare “Don’t Call Me Horace” Stoudemire can stay healthy and maintain his newfound interest in playing defence, could this be the year Nash finally puts a crowning achievement on his resume?

This is not to say however, that a rejuvenated Steve Nash is necessarily better than Chris Paul. No, in terms of pure ability, Chris Paul is definitely still the number one point guard in the game — of this there can be no more debate. The real story was watching Paul have to play 1-5 every possession as his inept teammates fumbled, bricked and floated their way through 48-minutes of ass-whooping.

Paul finished with a respectable (and incredibly, routine) 25 points and six assists, but when the scoring options you’re passing to include Peja Stojakovic (0-8 shooting), David West (3-9, including two missed bunnies that my mother could have converted) and Emeka Okafor (no explanation needed), six assists starts to look more like the New Orleans equivalent of Nash’s 10 for Phoenix.

What the hell happened to the Hornets? Could Tyson Chandler have been that important?

In college at Wake Forrest, coach Skip Prosser used to give Chris Paul game-tape of Steve Nash to pattern his play and decision making process after. Seeing Nash orchestrate in person Wednesday night however, you can bet Paul was noticing the guys catching those passes more than the dude dishing them out.

With this offensive (literally and figuratively) mentality,  The Raptors posted 124 points in regulation, shooting .592 per cent from the field and nailing 11 of 17 attempts from long distance against the Spurs on Monday. Toronto lost the game.

If you didn’t watch the game, or even if you did, read that last paragraph and try to just make sense of it with a rational basketball mind. That San Antonio — sans Tim Duncan and Tony Parker — managed to put up 131 points in regulation to walk away with a win is simply an unbelievable, untenable fact. I saw most of this crime against basketball (when I was not burying my head in my hands) and yet, my mind remains blown by what I witnessed.

Sadly, this is not an original screenplay. The Raptors again were felled by poor rebounding, poor late game execution and a porous, inexcusably awful defensive effort.

Post-game, reporters repeatedly asked Toronto Coach Jay Triano whether there was something wrong with his defensive system. How do these guys have jobs? Anybody watching could easily assess that the problem is not coaching, or  the “system” or any abstract type of “philosophy.” The Raptors, almost to a man, are poor defenders. Period.

Toronto’s NBA squad cannot close out on shooters, cannot prevent dribble penetration, cannot intimidate in the paint or meet the ball defensively at the rim. The Raptors are slow to rotate from the weak side, show far too softly on pick and roll situations and send some of the most lazy, counterproductive double-team’s and traps this side of a Teenwolf montage.

I don’t know what Triano said to his troops after this loss — but I know if Wayne Brady was coaching Toronto he’d be having to choke an awwwwful lot of bitches tonight.

No need to get into stats. No point observing how Toronto’s defence was shredded not by Manu Ginobili, but by “manu ginobili” — the Agentine’s non-explosive, non-athletic, non-foul-inducing below-the-rim doppelganger. Nor is there much purpose in noting that despite another gaudy statistical effort, Chris Bosh, Hedo Turkoglu and Andrea Bargnani were beasted by rookie DeJuan Blair and the cryogenically frozen body of Antonio McDyess in the decisive stretch of the fourth quarter.

No no no, all you need to do is imagine somebody playing Street Fighter who doesn’t know what blocking means. That was the Raptors tonight.

Button mashing might win you a few matches — but without knowing how to block, parry and counter, the Raptors won’t be pulling out any victories like the one below any time soon.

Brandon Jennings has earned a lot of hype coming out of the gate. ESPN has him ranked as the top rookie of the season so far and justifiably so: the Compton native is averaging an impressive 18.5 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists through five games in his NBA career.

I’m not sure anybody saw this coming.

Throughout last year’s NBA Draft process, Jennings was probably the biggest enigma. Once considered the top player in his graduating year, Jennings spent a highly publicized season in Italy playing Euroleague basketball instead of going the traditional one-and-done route at an NCAA institution.

In light of the Bucks rookie’s explosive performance out of the gate, many basketball heads are now wondering aloud if more talented teens will opt for the Euroleague route on their path to the NBA. This is a valid question, and certainly it will be interesting to see if Jennings ends up being a trailblazer or an outlier. I however am wondering aloud if this tells us anything about how Ricky Rubio will fit in the NBA.

If Jennings, a 20 year-old who struggled mightily and was relatively inconsequential to his actual team performance in Europe is able to make his presence felt on an NBA court — what does (if anything) that project for the moppy haired FC Barcelona star?

Rubio not just plays, but is often the best player on the court for an elite team in the Spanich ACB. Watching Rubio (and his awesome uniform) weave his way around grown men, picking up on-ball steals, finding all cutters and splitting double teams, one cannot help but be intoxicated by his NBA potential.

Jennings’ main weapon is his speed, but there are plenty of athletic speedsters in the league. What has set him apart is his composure at the one-guard spot and progressive basketball acumen; both traits attributable to his Eurotrip. Obviously this is comparing apples to oranges, but it’s hard not to play that game concerning players with talent and potential as tantalizing as Jennings and Rubio, especially when they play the same position.

We will likely have to wait another 2-3 years before Rubio ever sets foot on an NBA court. But if Brandon Jennings is any indication, the wait should be more than worth it.

• They are going to take a lot of threes
• They are going to give up a lot of threes
• If they make more than the other team does, they’re probably going to win
• If they make less than the other team, they’re probably screwed

Basically, the Raptors are the Orlando Magic-lite; and frankly that’s not a bad place to be. The only difference really between the two teams is Orlando has far superior rebounding, which allows for many more chances to launch threes on second and third chance possessions.

With that said, the Raptors walked into New Orleans tonight and won a road game slightly more than the Hornets lost a home game. Just slightly.

Jose Calderon played by far his best game of the year by simply being more aggressive. Instead of turning the corner and depending on his currently-wonky jumper, Calderon looked to push the ball in transition and drive to the net more often. Although this didn’t always result in layups and even ended up with some blocked shots and bad passes, it’s essential for a point guard to put dribble penetration in the mind of his defender. Simply getting into the painted area creates opportunities and cutting lanes for teammates and if Calderon continues to look to get into the lane, he will have plenty of opportunities to shoot himself out of his slump. He’s not all there yet, but there were glimpses of the floor general Toronto fans have been expecting for over a year.

Meanwhile, the real story for the Raptors this year continues to be Chris Bosh. As inconsistent as Toronto’s shooting and team defence continues to be, Bosh has been a rock throughout this young season. Consider these gaudy numbers:

• 29.5 points per game (5th in the NBA)
• 13.0 rebounds per game (2nd in the NBA)
• 16.3 FTA per game (1st in the NBA)
• 11.8 FTM per game (1st in the NBA)

More impressively, Bosh is doing this on .472 per cent shooting while chipping in 2.2 assists and 1 block per game. These are not good numbers. These are mind-boggling-why-isn’t-ESPN-drooling-over-him numbers. If — and this is a huge if — the Raptors crack the top four seeds in the East this year and Bosh continues his torrid pace, it is completely conceivable that Bosh is in the running for legitimate MVP consideration. The most impressive part still is how Bosh is doing all this. Unlike previous years where the Toronto offense simply ran isolation plays and ground to a halt around Bosh, this year the lanky Texan is scoring points relatively quietly in the flow of the game. It’s an easy 27 points, and this speaks to Bosh’s lack of ego as much as it does to his unique basketball talents.

Yes, it’s a contract year but if anybody (myself included) had any doubts over whether Bosh is worth a max contract; this five game body of work is a tantalizing, if small sampled, rebuttal.

Individual performance aside, neophyte head coach Jay Triano has managed to keep Bosh’s minutes down under 40 a game, an important and under-reported fact that will protect his star power forward from wearing out before the games matter. This is a concern mainly because it happened last year, when Bosh got off to a similar start but gave out after a 42 minute per game workload. On top of some successful tweaking of the Raptors offense and some work-in-progress defensive philosophies, Triano has done a good job thusfar. How much progress that defence ultimately makes will be the deciding factor between “good” and “great”.

With an equally encouraging outing was Hedo Turkoglu, who each game looks more and more comfortable with his new teammates. Ball movement is clearly a strength for the Raptors, so as these relative strangers continue to learn tendencies and build chemistry the Raptors have only up to go. How bad the Raptors can be is a known commodity. How good they can be, however, is seemingly still beyond anyone’s guess — and that has to be encouraging if you’re a fan of the Dinos.

As for the Hornets, after watching New Orleans steal an overtime game from Dallas this week they had no right to win, the Chris Paul’s simply ran out of luck tonight against a good shooting team.

Anemic offense coupled with lacksadaisical perimeter close-outs were symptomatic of a team that seems to have completely quit on Byron Scott. Normally a frustrated superstar gets angry at his teammates but Paul’s attitude and body language completely indicate a player discontent with his greater lot in life.

There were no coach-player discussions taking place, no strategizing, asking for advice or mentoring moments from Former Champion Point-Guard to Current-All-Star-Point-Guard. That is not a good sign. Consider that a gritty veteran leader such as James Posey has been not just bad, but lethargic, and you wonder how long Scott has left in the Big Easy.

This is not to say the Raptors were not impressive tonight however. As discussed, overall the Toronto offense was firing on all cylinders and clearly had a role in making New Orleans’ defense look bad. But much like the first Toronto win against Cleveland this year — the result probably says more about New Orleans than it does Toronto.

After all, the Raptors can’t be this good.

Can they?

For Regular 12-team H2H

Anthony Morrow is somehow only 22 per cent owned in Yahoo leagues right now, below injured players such as Francisco Garcia and Mike Dunleavy Jr. I know his early averages have been nothing to cheer about (12.7 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 0.7 apg) but for anybody in need of shooting percentage help from the wings (and buckets of treys while at it), Morrow is your man. He broke out against Memphis going for 24 points on 83.3 per cent (!) shooting, 4-4 from long range. Don’t expect that every game, but if he evan halves that production consistently he’s worth a pickup for those looking for speciality help in those cats.

DeJuan Blair again is worth a look for speciality needs. Particularly if your league counts offensive rebounds, his 3.3 per game would offset decidedly poor FT numbers. His .704 from the field is nice however, and overall 9.8 points, 8.5 rebounds and 0.5 steals in only 20 minutes a game are gaudy numbers any way you slice it.

Roy Hibbert is sitting at 51 per cent owned right now, meaning just over half of the owners out there are cluing in. Expect that number to rise precipitously over the next week. With Jeff Foster and Troy Murphy both hampered by injury, Hibbery has posted back-to-back massive double-doubles in his last games, hauling in 15-14 and 14-12 along with averaging 3 swats over that stretch. There is no reason not to expect more of the same going forward.

Corey Brewer is shooting an atrocious .364 from the field. If you can live with that however, and his equally traumatizing 53 per cent from the charity stripe, he might single-handidly win you the steals category. Brewer is averaging an insane 2.6 steals per game along with 1 block, 12.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. His contributions in the valuable hustle categories definitely make him viable for a team with enough solid shooters to hide Brewer’s brick laying tendencies.

Ben Wallace is back. Don’t look now, but Big Ben has returned to at least a partial shadow of his old self, averaging 10 boards, 1.2 steals and 1.2 blocks per game. Teams in deep leagues needing big man stats could definitely do worse. Wallace’s 4.2 points on 61 per cent shooting also won’t do any real damage, while his signature achilles (50 per cent FT shooting) is mitigated by him averaging only one trip to the line per game.

Beno Udrih should see starters minutes with the recent announcement that Kevin Martin will be out 6-8 weeks with a fractured left wrist. Although Andres Nocioni should also see an uptick in numbers, it will probably be Udrih who gets fills Martin’s missing court time as Tyreke Evans slides to the shooting guard position. Udrih had 16 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds in a win against Memphis this week and followed that up with a 14 points performance against Atlanta. Although decidedly inconstant in his decision making, as a fantasy option Udrih has always produced decent numbers given adequate minutes. Expect averages close to 12 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists with nearly a steal, nearly a three and decent percentages all-around. For 6-8 weeks, at least.

Watching tonight’s ESPN doubleheader, the unavoidable thought in my mind was how different the NBA would be if Carlos Boozer had stuck around in Cleveland. Booze is exactly the type of mobile scoring big man that would make LeBron even more of a monster. Imagine Boozer at the four alongside Varejeo or Big Z at the 5 depending on the matchup? Scary stuff.

Chicago at Cleveland

If I’m a Cavs fan, even though it’s only been five games into the season, I am officially very, very worried. Chicago was incredibly mediocre on both sides of the ball but because Cleveand’s offense was so inept, the Bulls ground out an ugly road win despite poor shooting and broken execution.

Charles Barkley provided some actual basketball insight in wondering why Mike Brown keeps trotting Shaq and Big Z out there at the same time. The Cavs’ twin towers have trouble guarding mobile bigs in the pick and roll and neither of them command a double team on offense. That same big lineup got burned in Toronto repeatedly as well, so what gives? In my mind, it’s the Kevin Durant phenomena — except in reverse.

Stat geeks complain about Durant’s flummoxing negative statistical effect, arguing that just because it makes sense in your mind to have your best player on the floor, it doesn’t play out that way in the science. And I use the term science loosely.

Despite perception however, the Cavs five most statistically effective players this season (by win share) have been Shaq, Big Z and Varejeo alongside Mo Williams and LeBron. If this is an experiment in trusting your number crunchers, it’ll be interesting to see how this lineup evolves as the 2009 season rolls along. Watching Taj Gibson, Brad Miller and earlier in the season, Andrea Bargnani pick apart the Cavs bigs on the PnR I can’t see Brown keeping this up much longer.

Worth noting is that in the final minutes of the game, with the decision hanging in balance, Brown went to his small lineup with LeBron at the four. Second guessing his own strategy a bit?

On the other side of the ball, the Cavs offense is just horrible. I like how people keep referring to John Kuester as Cleveland’s “offensive coordinator” for the past few years. If I was a Pistons fan, I’d have some questions. As in, like being told your family doctor is named Dr. Kevorkian questions.

Nothing has changed. Down the stretch, you could visibly see Chicago load up on LeBron waiting for him to go 1-on-5 and, unbelievably, that’s exactly what the Cavs did. A weak attempt at screen-and-roll by Varejeo gave way to four Cleveland players standing around the perimeter watching LeBron work. That just isn’t going to work; not for the past three years and not now.

Strangely enough, the Cavs lost in Chicago exactly the same way last year, except Tyrus Thomas blocked LBJ’s shot at the end of the game. Those who don’t learn from history…

San Antonio at Utah

The Spurs are old. This wouldn’t be a big deal if they didn’t also look and play their age.

Incredibly, Barkley hit the nail on the head again with this matchup: Manu Ginobili is the x-factor for the Spurs this season. The walking-bald-spot just isn’t as explosive as he used to be, unable to get to the rim and draw fouls or break his man off the dribble. Without those two essential elements, Manu is no longer an elite wing scorer. And without any scoring from the wings (speaking of which, did anyone think Richard Jefferson would be this useless?) the Spurs are done like dinner.

The Jazz on the other hand looked good, with the Williams and Boozer machine rolling like old times. AK47 didn’t do much damage and Okur looked pooped, but considering how banged up Utah’s bench is this win was definitely a big one they’ll take.

Tony Parker’s face when Pop pulled him with three minutes left in the game was pretty awesome. You could tell, down 12 points the Frenchman wanted to give it one last shot. With Portland on the sked tomorrow though, Captain Pop was having none of it. Strangely enough, when he put Duncan and Parker back in for a last minute push, he left Ginobili on the bench. Punishment for a bad shooting night perhaps? Recovering from bat-rabies?

Notes:

• Raptors fans laughed incredibly hard when the Cavs signed Jamario Moon. Now, at least once a week, a national audience will understand why. Especially John Hollinger, who for some reason constantly asked why Toronto didn’t play him more. Perhaps he can ask that question to Mike Brown, who gave Moon a DNP-CD tonight. Again.
• Taj Gibson — impressive.
• Manu Ginobili’s bald spot deserves its own jersey.
• Gregg Popovich continues to defend his title as “worst interview in the history of sports television.”