The battle for 3

So who is in this battle? Carlos Delfino, Jason Kapono, Joey Graham and Jorge Garbajosa.

The early favorite going into training camp was Jason Kapono. Having the best 3 point shooter in the league in the starting lineup is definetly plus. Forget all the junk about Kapono needing Wade and Shaq to get his looks, with the ball movement Raptors create, Kapono will see plenty of looks and even if he doesn't, the other Raptors will because of the attention Kapono demands. Now the problem is, the Small forward positions is going to need to be successful in two very important tasks for this team...Defense and Rebounding. Kapono is average so far in both.

Joey Graham has always been known as the two headed player. One is named Good Joey and one is named Bad Joey. Sometimes Graham gets it and is on point and is a machine. Good Joey is a starting forward type of player. But Bad Joey is 11th or 12th man type of player on a roster. That is what scares me. We saw alot of good Joey last year down the stretch, but in the playoffs vs the Nets it was pure bad Joey. Even though the Raps have the depth to sub someone in if needed, I would still like my starting 5 to be strong for the playoffs. If we knew we would get good Joey, I am all for it, but we don't know so I see a huge risk in this.

Carlos Delfino on the other hand seems to have fallen out of the mix. Today, Mitchell mentioned how the battle is now between Kapono or Graham. He even went on to mention that Delfino might not be putting in the maximum effort during practices that Sam wants. I was worried about this, could Delfino be bringing in a potentially negative attitude onto the team? But in an interview with Delfino today, he mentioned how much more effort the Raptors put into practice compared to Detroit. What that tells me is that he is not used to the Raps way of doing business. Therefore, this is a watch and see situation, and Delfino could still be in the mix for the starting spot, although as of now he is in 3rd place.

Jorge Garbajosa was also mentioned by Mitchell yesterday as being a potential dark horse for the position. Jorge did it last year and did great. I think though they are set on having Garbo play his natural position at power forward. If Jorge started, it would not be the end of the world, but no matter what, I do think we will see Garbo get some nice minutes this season off the bench.

The Raps still have 4 more preseason games in the next two weeks so plenty of time to see how everything shapes up, but one thing for sure right now, the Raps overall do need to get it going after a sluggish performance overseas.