It was only a few years ago, when the Raptors were an NBA laughingstock and Richard Peddie induced cringing every time he spoke for the team, that Peddie made repeated vows to increase the "Basketball IQ" of the Raptors brain trust. They brought in Bryan Colangelo and a small army of Colangelo's sidemen, all of them toting impressive resumes and high intellects and immaculate fashion sense.
And yet for all that grey hair and grey matter, as the brain trust pondered its roster on Wednesday morning, everybody in the room had to agree that the outlook wasn't brilliant. Yes, the club was poised to sign coveted free agent Hedo Turkoglu to a five-year deal. But thanks to the NBA's often-oppressive salary cap rules, the Raptors were facing the possibility of rounding out their lineup with a bunch of minimum-salary scrubs. And nobody in Raptorland was seeing a way around that not-so-ideal fate. Nobody, that is, except for Steve Fruitman, the team's director of Basketball administration. Fruitman, a 37-year-old chartered accountant from North York, has been working for the team for six years in an administrative role - he's best known to the players as the man in charge of making sure everybody gets their millions on time. But he is also the club's unofficial salary cap expert. While discussion of the rules and regulations of the NBA's cap can be a room clearer for even hardcore fans, Fruitman is passionate about its minutiae.
Yesterday, as the Raptors celebrated one of the most unexpectedly joyous moments in the franchise's sordid history, Colangelo credited Fruitman with proposing the cap-friendly strategy that allowed the Raptors to acquire Turkoglu while retaining the financial flexibility to bring aboard a handful of credible players to round out the team. Antoine Wright and Devean George are already on the roster via Dallas. At least a couple of more decent pieces, possibly Carlos Delfino and Rasho Nesterovic, will be joining soon.
Exactly nobody saw it coming, especially the modest Fruitman, who estimated Colangelo worked "eight phones" simultaneously to broker the four-team swap, and who figured the league's nitpicking lawyers would nix the transaction.
"After (the league) said yes ... I said, 'I'm stunned. This is the first time any of my crazy ideas have ever passed muster with you guys,'" said Fruitman. "I've had a lot of them over the years, 'Can we possibly do this, this and this?' And (the lawyers will) eventually find something to stop it. When they actually said yes, I was very surprised."
That was the beauty of yesterday's big announcement - its unexpectedness. As a manager of a Basketball roster, after all, Colangelo clearly knows his way around the NBA maze. But as a manager of expectations, he often loses his way. Last season's team, before it won 33 games, was the "best" he'd had in Toronto. Last month's draft pick, 19-year-old DeMar DeRozan, had Colangelo invoking comparisons to Vince Carter.
Colangelo's assessments sounded more and more like delusional optimism, and fans seemed to be tuning them out. Indeed, in the days before yesterday's announcement, word around the franchise was that season-ticket renewals were going frighteningly slowly.
This should speed them up, which is not to say the Raptors are suddenly contenders, or that Chris Bosh, who helped recruit Turkoglu, is sold on sticking around. Colangelo was uncharacteristically reserved in summing up his team's chances yesterday, speaking about a work in progress, and rightly so. Chemistry, the unknowable, will be key. Roko Ukic is still the backup point guard. And even if Delfino and Nesterovic arrive, a bruiser named Reggie Evans is going to have to play a lot of minutes to overcome the club's weaknesses in defence and rebounding and toughness. But these gents, all the good ones, can shoot some jump shots. And if you were committed to watching all 82 games next year, thank Fruitman for popping the kernel of an idea that promises to make them a lot more interesting than even the tallest of foreheads could have otherwise expected.
"My idea is usually, like, how we might save some money in the budget. This one has a pretty profound impact on what our team could look like," said Fruitman. "But again, it was just the idea to start the ball rolling ... Bryan worked his tail off. I'm happy I could be a part of it."
