Raptor afterthought, point guard Marcus Banks bedazzled Raptor fans by coming off the bench, to, get this, lead the Toronto Raptors in scoring.
He chipped in 4 steals to go with his game high 15 points.

Needless to say the Raptors, minus Bosh and Calderon, and Hedo who left the game due to injury, came up extremely short.

The Rockets back court of Kevin Martin and Aaron Brooks destroyed the Raptors to the tune of 28 points a piece.

The Raptors are looking like a lottery team without Bosh and Raptor fans can now truly appreciate the magnitude of importance Chris Bosh’s decision to stay or go will have on this Toronto Raptors franchise.

The Raptors will likely continue to struggle while Chris Bosh is out with injury, and with our playoff hopes being threatened, one can only hope he makes a speedy and full recovery.

With Chris Bosh nursing his plantar fascia, the short-handed Raptors faced off against a Cavs team that was without Shaq.  LBJ and the Cavs were put to a serious test on the second half of  back to back by Hedo Turkoglu and the Toronto Raptors. Despite LBJ’s 36 points, 6 rebounds and 9 assists, the short-handed Raptors were able to force the game to the extra frame.

Reggie Evans electrified fans with his solid play, and actually led the team in rebounds with 5, he also got to the line 9 times, and finished the game with a solid 13 points.

Andrea Bargnani had 24 points to go with 4 rebounds and Jarret Jack, who has continued his stellar play as of late contributed 24 points as well.

There will not be many times when three Raptors take double-digits shots, hit over 50% and the Raptors still lose; but playing against LBJ, it becomes a plausible possibility.

Hedo Turkoglu once again showed why he is indeed an invaluable piece in the Raptors big picture, as thanks to spirited efforts from both himself and Reggie Evans, the Raptors were able to go punch for punch in a prize fight with the leagues best.

The Raptors square off against the exciting and rolling Thunder led by 21 year old phenom Kevin ‘Durantula’ Durant on Sunday. With Bosh not expected to play, the Thunder should take this one on their homecourt rather easily. It should be a good game and is one to watch.

As stated above, Bosh is expected to miss tonights home game against the new look Washington Wizards. The Wizards will be a tougher test than the Nets were, but since the venue is the ACC, the Raps still should not have much of a problem putting them away with relative ease.

Interesting numbers as most of us Raptor fans probably thought it was closer:

“Cleveland’s LeBron James received two votes and Toronto’s Chris Bosh received one.

The panel consists of nine media members and three fan votes Wade wins All-Star MVP by vote of 9-2-1 based on online polling. The player with the highest online vote total gets two votes and one vote goes to the player who finishes second in fan balloting.”

Source: Marc Stein of ESPN

The Toronto Raptors for one, believed to be positioning themselves to be deadline sellers, have righted the ship and have become deadline buyers.

We have learned that Bryan Colangelo is, and will be active up to the deadline trying to improve our Raptors squad.

Other deadline rumblings we have heard from other NBA teams include Amare to be trade from the Suns, Tyrus Thomas to be traded from the Bulls, Marcus Camby on the market with Portland aggressively pursuing, T-Mac to the Knicks for Hill, Jeffries and Harrington or Hughes. Roger Mason on the market and more.

Where there is smoke there is usually fire and there is reason to believe that Bryan Colangelo is holding out for the Sacramento Kings Kevin Martin.

However, the Boston Celtics have surfaced as a more likely trading partner, especially if the Maloof brothers are looking for salary cap relief. If they are looking for talent and fit, one has to believe the Raptors potential offer trumps the Celtics offer.

Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated tweets in response to Raptors Digest question: Boston. But how good would K-Mart look as a Rap. RT @raptorcity Is Toronto or Boston more likely for K-Martin if he is traded?

However Raptors nation doesn’t completely agree, in a recent poll run by Raptors Digest, while roughly half of Raptor fans do favour a Calderon for Martin swap, the other half would rather keep Calderon or find someone better to trade for.

Whether or not BC should pull the trigger on such a deal remains a hot topic, but the general consensus still remains that the Raptors, should and will likely make a move before Thursday’s trade deadline.

What do you think Raptor fans?? Is this a deal the Raptors should make now that Jose has been relegated to a $8.5 million dollar backup?? If not for Martin, who else should BC be aiming for?? We want to hear your thoughts!!
Leave a comment below or send us an email at raptorcity@raptorsdigest.com. You can follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/raptorcity

Chris Bosh undoubtedly gained some more notoriety as he is quickly becoming recognized as one of the top 2 power forwards in the NBA with the Dallas Mavericks Dirk Nowitzki. Charles Barkely called Chris Bosh the most underrated player in the NBA, and with averages of 24 and 11 and not being voted in as a starter, the general public will soon start to agree.

Chris Bosh plans to ride the momentum the Raptors had garnered before the break to make quite the run over the last third of the season as the Raptors play roughly half their games against teams under .500.

Lets just hope the Raptors don’t fall into that old trap of playing down to the level of their competition….we know Bosh won’t

P.S. Loved Alicia Keys and Shakira in the half-time show, wow!! Just had to throw that in there….

DeRozan had the better event, but little Nate has more support from around the NBA world, where he is viewed as the classic underdog.

Congrats to Nate.

However, multiple fans from Toronto, yours truly included, are claiming issues with the nba.com server, fans claim to have put in their vote and verification word only to get a bad gateway error message. I got this same message on Friday night, but didnt think much of it since I was voting by text anyways.

Fast forward to last night, immediately after DeRozan lost my phone started ringing off the hook and I received multiple texts and emails from angry readers who said nba.com locked them out.  Feeling that the 51% was phony to begin with, this issue that some fans in Toronto encountered only exacerbates the situation.

See the RealGM topic here
See the Facebook group here

Send an email to the NBA league office here http://www.nba.com/email_us/contact_us.html

What was your experience Raptor fans?? Did anyone else in Toronto, or anywhere in Canada have issues with error messages when they tried to vote online?? We want to hear Raptor fans, if so leave a comment below or send us an email at raptorcity@raptorsdigest.com

You can follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/raptorcity

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