Rob Babcock Fired

[Raps13]

Title says it all, Rob Bacock GM of the Raptors is fired

[Blue Nugget]

Finally!

[Gator]

Yes! I just heard this from a friend! FINALLY!!

[[L3]1101]

damn, i thought if they were gonna fire him, it would be at the end of the season. I don't see a point of firing him now, especially everyone knows that we are gonna be high in the draft lottery. But i guess the owner wants some immediate changes.

Babcock has done many things that the fans didn't like, and i didn't like, but i'm gonna say it; i'll miss him.

[Buckley]

about time babcock gets fired. good move by toronto.

[Axel]

Babcock set up all the pieces for future success. Mike James has been amazing... what a pick up. I'm not sure this was the time to fire him... whaver, I guess they wanted to make their fans think they care.

[volsey]

its about time.........whyd they wait till now to fire him

[cyanide]

It's odd timing. They should've gotten him ousted after Araujo, but his recent moves in drafting Villenueva and bringing in Mike James was promising. Ah whatever, I'm indifferent toward him, and maybe a change is needed for somebody with more experience.

[Its_asdf]

Babcock had his slip ups, but I think he made it up to us by giving us a solid foundation to build upon through the 05 draft and the acquisition of Mike James was pretty big.

[Riot]

Rob Babcock gets way too much heat from Raptors fans and other fans around the league. He has made a we mistakes but who hasn't? Overall, I think he has made a pretty good team in Toronto.

[[L3]1101]

http://www.realgm.com/src_goaltending/70/20060126/babcock_firing_is_premature/

Hers'a good article from RealGM. I think the writer did a great job defending Babcock, and i feel the same. I doubt the new GM will do any better than Babcock given the situation, so i still don't understand the decision.

[Colin]

Until this offseason he was an absolute embarrassment. But he made some nice picks and signings and kind of redeemed himself such as the aforementioned James and Villanueva.

[Cable]

This is the wrong time to fire him, they should have at least waited until the offseason. Btw, from interim-GM Wayne Embry via Raptors Insider emails:

Today we made a difficult decision for our basketball club. We announced that Rob Babcock was being relieved of his duties as general manager, effective immediately.

These situations are always difficult from both a personal and professional standpoint. This has been especially hard for me because Rob brought me to Toronto with him in June of 2004. I appreciated that opportunity, and will always be grateful to Rob for it.

When I came to Toronto I agreed to assist the Raptors in whatever capacity they asked as part of their rebuilding plan. While I never imagined that might include serving as general manager, I have agreed to fill that position on an interim basis until such time as a permanent general manager can be hired.

I'm very enthusiastic about the future for the Raptors. If I wasn't, I wouldn't choose to be here. We have some talented young players, a rising star in Chris Bosh, some great draft positions coming up, a solid young head coach with great potential, a terrific arena in a beautiful city, and the best fans in the NBA.

With the trade deadline on the horizon and the draft just five months away, we have a lot of work in front of us. Half of the current season is ours to use to continue the development we've shown in the first half. After a 1-15 start to the season, we've played .500 ball for more than two months.

This is not an easy road that we're traveling together. But with you by our side, we're heading in the right direction.

On behalf of the entire Raptors organization, I thank you for your support. I hope you'll join with me in looking ahead to the second half of the season, and beyond.

Sincerely,

Wayne Embry
Interim General Manager
Toronto Raptors Basketball Club

[fgrep15]

Before you fire Babcock, you should've looked to fire Sam Mitchell and Richard Peddie. I was never a supporter of Babcock, but I don't really see the need for this move right now, very bad timing. I guess they wanted to get rid of him before the trade deadline, and also bring in someone new early rather than in a bad time like right before the draft, but still quite dumb.

Anyways, let's hope Mitchell goes too..

[Abctest123]

somewhat ironic that peddie is the same person to hire and fire babcock. now that Embry is in charge, i kinda think that a trade made before the trade deadline is imminent. also, didnt bosh say he was starting to like babcock? that aint so great if you want to keep your franchise guy here. although he did mess up his first year, he slowly redeemed himself by having a good draft and getting rid of alston's longterm contract for mike james. i agree with whoever said we shouldnt have gotten rid of him at this point and instead at the end of the season. There isnt really much of a point to fire him right in the middle of the season. personally, i think there isnt much to see for raptors fans until 2007-2008, the season that they have tons of caproom since rose's contract is done.

[hipn]

Babcock sucked as a GM. He drafted Arujo first round and he proved to be garbage. Even Pap Sow was better than Arujo, and we could've had Iguodala, but noooooo... Babcock chose Arujo. YOur might say, "Hey, we needed a C" and that's true, but having Iguadala is better than Arujo because he can do more on offence and defence, and CB4 coud've played C part time, and let Aaron Williams play most of the time at C and maybe Loren Woods too.

Iguadala would have attracted the fans with highlight dunks and passes and thats not the only thing he could do. I might sound like I am trying to call Iguadala god or soemhting, but I am not, i am jsut saying Babcock made extremely bad decisions. Look at the Carter to NJ trade. We got basically nothing from it. Zo kinda didn't want to play here, and we were left with 2 Williams' that hardly got to play and aren't that great.

And we need to get Jalen out of here. He's a good player and everything, but he is getting old, earning too much for what he is doing (which is hardly anything), he isn't consistant, and like I said, he is just eating up too much money. We need to get him out of here, and Babcock failed to do that.

Joy Grahm, is so-so. People said he was athl;etic and good at D, but so far, nothing special. We need him to step up (and lol, this isn't related to the topic).

[Fitzy]

Finally!

[$Chris Bosh$]

wtf fire richard peddie

[Anthony15]

Nice!!!! Now Raps can suck even more!

[Matt]

he left behind a decent foundation behind him......which will go to shit unless they get Bosh back.

[IronMan]

I thought I'd be a lot happier when this day happened... but it's simply not the case. Fact is, if they had done this 5 months ago, I'd be ecstatic. The crap Carter trade left a deep burn... however, the play of Mike James, CV, Calderone, Grahame has almost healed that wound, and I was starting to think... Babcock's not as dumb as he looks. I still wish we kept him longer... a term any shorter than a year is not long enough to judge a GM's performance.

[Jugs]

Babcock sucked as a GM.

shut up raptEr Fan

[hipn]

Babcock sucked as a GM.

shut up raptEr Fan

You think I made that sig??? YOu think I wasted my time?

It was made by someone on userbars I think, so shut your fu**ing mouth, and try thinkin before sayin anything. And what, you think Babcock was a good GM? I thought we could've gotten a better trade for vince, even before the season started.

[Its_asdf]

Babcock sucked as a GM. He drafted Arujo first round and he proved to be garbage. Even Pap Sow was better than Arujo, and we could've had Iguodala, but noooooo... Babcock chose Arujo. YOur might say, "Hey, we needed a C" and that's true, but having Iguadala is better than Arujo because he can do more on offence and defence, and CB4 coud've played C part time, and let Aaron Williams play most of the time at C and maybe Loren Woods too.

Iguadala would have attracted the fans with highlight dunks and passes and thats not the only thing he could do. I might sound like I am trying to call Iguadala god or soemhting, but I am not, i am jsut saying Babcock made extremely bad decisions. Look at the Carter to NJ trade. We got basically nothing from it. Zo kinda didn't want to play here, and we were left with 2 Williams' that hardly got to play and aren't that great.

And we need to get Jalen out of here. He's a good player and everything, but he is getting old, earning too much for what he is doing (which is hardly anything), he isn't consistant, and like I said, he is just eating up too much money. We need to get him out of here, and Babcock failed to do that.

Joy Grahm, is so-so. People said he was athl;etic and good at D, but so far, nothing special. We need him to step up (and lol, this isn't related to the topic).

The stentch of ignorance reeks in this post.

You're looking at a guy who was hired barely before draft day and was forced to make a tough decision. Obviously Araujo was thought to be an NBA-ready player, but he hasn't shown that at all. You can't solely blame Babcock, because things like these happen all of the time. I do regret not picking up Iggy, but we had Carter, Rose and Peterson (although he was an FA and Babcock signed him to a decent deal, so there's another move that doesn't seem to be recognized enough). There was no point in drafting another SF/SG because we already had three solid veterans in rotation who could play a lot of minutes and people assumed they would produce.

Yes, we all want Jalen Rose out of here, but who wants to take his contract? Seriously? If anyone is to blame for that piss poor acquisition of Rose's contract it would have to be Glen Grunwald. It was Babcock who took over a Raptors situation that was looking to rebuild but was stuck with some major cap issues and thank goodness Babcock at least managed to free up cap space and give us some options in the 2007 off season.

Graham is so-so? Well, look at the others drafted after him and tell me that wasn't a good draft pick.

[zmac]

Good news I think for Raps, bad news for Rose, unless he wants to go....