NBA Trade Update – Raptors, Suns Exchanging Turkoglu For Barbosa

July 12, 2010 by admin
Filed under: NBA Baseball Betting 

In a trade move I won’t completely understand until the NBA season starts, the Phoenix Suns have agreed to trade Leandro Barbosa to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Hedo Turkoglu.

Barbosa is a wildly underrated utility guard. In 17.9 minutes per game last season he averaged 9.5 points and 1.5 assists. The defensive emergence of Jared Dudley, and the exciting playoff performances of Goran Dragic at the point, made Barbosa expendable in Phoenix. The Brazilian stud is due $7.1 million next season, and has a player option in 2011-12 unless Toronto decides to extend him.

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At just 27-years old, Barbosa is the type of player that Toronto fans have been drooling for. He’s a terrific scorer and an all-purpose player in the backcourt who can play the point or work off the two spot. His ties to Bryan Colangelo, a former member of the Suns brass, are likely what led to him crossing the Canadian border via trade, but whether he’s a long-term solution, or a salary dump remains to be seen.

The Raptors now have a log jam in the backcourt, where they still have Jose Calderon, Jarrett Jack, Sonny Weems, DeMar DeRozan and Marco Belinelli. The obvious point for Toronto is that acquiring Barbosa makes Calderon completely expendable should Toronto decide to shed even more salary weight in the form of Calderon’s $9 million pay check for next season.

It’s obvious that the Raptors are trying to bypass the early, and often ugly, stages of a rebuilding process after seeing Chris Bosh jilt them in free agency. Barbosa is a young gun who has been itching to become a floor leader, but whether Toronto gives him that chance by extending his contract is still unknown. First, they’ll have to get rid of Jose Calderon somehow, someway.

What’s important for Toronto is that they got rid of Turkoglu’s mammoth contract. Due $44 million until 2014, Turkoglu had become a cancer in the locker room of the Raptors. Instead of being the floor general he was in Orlando, Turkoglu became a selfish malcontent that pissed off the Raptors coaching staff and their NBA betting backers. They’re happy to be done with him.

Turk fits somewhat in Phoenix’s scoring offense and fills a void at small forward that Grant Hill and Channing Frye weren’t exactly electric in last year. He averaged 11.3 points and 4.6 rebounds for the Raptors in a disappointing one-year run, and at 31-years old his best stuff is likely behind him.

Phoenix has also landed Josh Childress from Atlanta, a player that many deem a second-tier backcourt guy. He’s only made headlines because he played in Europe for a gigantic pay check instead of staying in the NBA.

It isn’t without a faint yawn that I break down this trade. Does this make the Raptors a contender to challenge the Miami Heat? Not even close. Will anything? Nothing except a miracle. I wrote that what I hated most about the Miami Thrice is that it makes the regular season incredibly boring. Trades like this used to ripple amongst fans. Now it’s just a whole lot of movement that’s getting lost in the wind.

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