Larry Brown Sports

Earlier this month, a report surfaced that indicated Phil Jackson is anxious to return to the NBA next season in some sort of capacity that may not be coaching. As you might expect, several teams have already expressed interest in bringing Jackson on board. However, it may surprise you to hear that the Toronto Raptors are believed to be a frontrunner.

According to ESPN.com, the Raptors have intensified their pursuit of Jackson in hopes of making him their next team president. The man now overseeing the Raptors is Tim Leiweke, who was once a big name associated with the Los Angeles sports scene and has a close relationship with the NBA coaching legend.

While many believe Jackson, who is 67 years old, would want to join a contender, that is not necessarily the case. Since Phil may not be interested in a head coaching position, he is looking to start out in a place where he would be able to oversee basketball operations and select a head coach. Now that Leiweke has taken control of the Raptors, head coach Dwane Casey’s future is in doubt. The team has also yet to pick up president Bryan Colangelo’s option for the 2013-2014 season, meaning Jackson could easily slide into his position.

One ESPN source said that Jackson is looking at his future options with an extremely open mind and is willing to listen to pitches from just about any team in the league. It seems like the question comes down to how big of a challenge Jackson is looking for. Given his resume, it’s safe to assume there will be no shortage of teams willing to carve out a role for him. Does he want that role to be with a team like the Lakers alongside fiancee Jeanie Buss, or with a team like the Raptors, who have been to the playoffs five times in their team’s 18-year history? We’ll just have to wait and see.

It has been more than two seasons since Chris Bosh left the Toronto Raptors via free agency to join the Miami Heat, but many of the fans in Toronto are still bitter about it. On Sunday, a number of Raptors fans booed Bosh when they hosted the Heat. The 28-year-old center said he is surprised they have not gotten over his departure.

“Yeah, I’m a little surprised,” Bosh said, via the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “They (fans) pay their money. They can do what they want. I hope they just remember the good times.”

While he may not have expected to be booed nearly three years after leaving the city where he began his career, Bosh said it helped him elevate his game.

“I was hearing a lot from the fans,” he said. “I thank them for continuing to stay on me and calling me names. That helped my focus a lot. I was like, ‘I need to get in this game to shut them up.”‘

He did just that. Bosh scored 28 points in the Heat’s 100-85 victory — 22 of which came in the second half. Perhaps Raptors fans have yet to get over the comments Bosh made about being on TV a couple of years ago. But if he’s going to react like that when the fans boo him, they should probably bite their tongues next time around. Clearly the heckling isn’t throwing the big man off his game.

H/T SB Nation
Photo credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

Andrea Bargnani was the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2006 and has not developed into the franchise player the Toronto Raptors hoped he would become. The team has had one winning season since he was drafted, and they actually started winning this season after he got hurt. Though he is talented, one of his big problems seems to be his mental toughness.

Sam Mitchell coached the Raptors four and a half seasons and led the team to the playoffs twice. He was the team’s coach when Bargnani was drafted, and he says he wasn’t able to coach the Italian player the way he would have liked.

During an appearance on “Tim & Sid” on the Fan 590 in Toronto, Mitchell says the organization coddled Bargnani.

“I would say my biggest problem with Andrea is I wasn’t allowed to coach Andrea the way I was allowed to coach Jose (Calderon). I was a hard ass on Jose. I was hard on him,” said Mitchell, “but look at the type of player he turned out to be.”

Calderon was drafted by the team the year before, and he has developed into a fine point guard.

“I was not allowed to be that tough on Andrea because the organization thought he couldn’t take it. My whole thing is, if he can’t take it, then we can’t build around him,” said Mitchell.

“No one thought Jose could take it, but look at how Jose did.”

Mitchell was asked by the hosts how early the team decided Bargnani couldn’t handle harsh coaching.

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Amir Johnson is in his fourth season with the Toronto Raptors, and the power forward is damn proud of it. If you weren’t aware of that before Friday morning, you are now.

Johnson tweeted a photo of his new haircut early Friday morning, which includes the Raptors’ logo — color and all. We have seen athletes shave their team’s logo into their standard haircut or their sweet high-top fade before big games, but Johnson took the detail to another level.

Should Johnson earn himself another ejection for throwing a tantrum like this one, NBA officials will now be frightened as they look at the back of his head while he’s walking off the court. That’s just one of many perks this haircut is going to provide.

H/T The Basketball Jones

Don’t worry, guys — everyone has to do it. The Toronto Raptors are welcoming their rookies to the big show this week the only way NBA veterans know how. As you can see from the photos above, 2011 first-round pick Jonas Valanciunas and rookies Terrence Ross and Quincy Acy have been rocking children’s backpacks with the added bonus of stuffed cartoon characters. Since Valanciunas is technically a sophomore he got to rep someone cool like Bart Simpson. Ross wasn’t so luck and neither was Acy:

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Over the course of a year, Jeremy Lin has somehow gone from a player who was destined to play overseas to a highly sought-after restricted free agent. Such is life in the world of professional sports. With the Knicks having control over whether or not Lin leaves for another team, the general consensus is that they will match any offer Lin receives in order to retain him. One of those offers is expected to come from the Raptors.

According to the NY Daily News, Toronto is high on Lin and could make him an offer that would annoy the Knicks. In addition to sparking the team on the court, Lin became a marketing machine for New York when he burst onto the scene earlier this season. There are a number of reasons they cannot let him leave, but a team like the Raptors could make things interesting if they become desperate enough.

Both the Knicks and Raptors are also expected to make a run at Steve Nash, but Nash is at the very end of his career and will only sign with a team who is a definite championship contender. Neither is a likely suitor, but the Knicks probably have an edge on the Raptors. If Toronto misses out on Nash, they could make life even more difficult for New York and force them to really overpay for Lin’s services.

H/T Eye on Basketball
Photo credit: Brian Spurlock-US PRESSWIRE

Can’t we all just leave Kris Humphries alone?  The man recently had his heart broken.  He was in love with a beautiful woman and ended up having to go through a horrible divorce.  He was completely blindsided by his relationship with Kim Kardashian going south, as she has an immaculate track record.  Yet for some reason, the poor guy was recently voted the most hated player in the NBA and has had boos raining down on him wherever the Nets travel.  On Friday night, Humphries had to deal with one of the most hilarious and brilliant forms of heckling we’ve seen from NBA fans.  Check out what some clever Toronto Raptors fans did to him:

Oversized Kardashian cutouts? Brilliant.  By now you probably realize the commentary that came before the picture was completely sarcastic.  Humphries knew what he was getting himself into so it’s almost impossible to feel badly for him.  That being said, booing him every time he touches the ball is so overplayed.  Kudos to these Raptors fans for coming up with a brilliant idea and executing it to perfection.

See, now you know exactly why Danilo Gallinari turned down Kim. This is the exact reason why it won’t be so easy to predict who the next athlete to date Kim will be.

Picture Credit: Jay Satur on Twitter
H/T Eye on Basketball