Farewell to Jose Calderon, the under-appreciated Raptor

A crying Jose Calderon left his team-mates last night. Al Dannity was almost in tears with him.

He’s been around you know. European leagues, international tournaments for every age group bringing him everywhere, and then the NBA. Jose Calderon may hail from Spain but he’s been a citizen of the world. For the last eight years, he has been able to unquestionably call Toronto his home.

The fans loved him, they even wanted him to stay, but everyone knew the end was coming. When Kyle Lowry arrived via trade with Houston, it reminded me of a piece of dialogue from Predator.

Dutch: What happened to you, Dillon? You used to be someone I could trust.
Dillon: I woke up. Why don’t you? You’re an asset. An expendable asset. And I used you to get the job done, got it?

Dillon would of course find redemption later, we’ll have to wait and see if trading away the second-most tenured Raptor ever will go the same way for Bryan Colangelo. Rudy Gay is a bona fide star, an immediate upgrade to the Toronto roster but one has to ask if it was worth it?

Calderon’s trade value mid-season was far higher than when the Raptors were first looking at moving the Spaniard. Nothing happened over the summer but this is the NBA. Injuries happen, playoff races get tighter, contenders need to tool up and are willing to over-pay. In Memphis, despite rumours of the trade circling for weeks, the Raptors found a most unusual trade partner. The Grizzlies are likely going to the post-season but they came into this deal from a position of weakness. Memphis was fighting against going into the luxury tax and needed to ship Gay of Zach Randolph. Z-Bo was never going, it was always going to be Gay. While a straight trade of Calderon for Gay was never on the table, the real question is why did it have to be Memphis?

Defence matters in the playoffs, so does ball-security. Do you know what Calderon excels at? Both of those. Not that he’ll get a chance to show it this post-season. In a trade Billy Beane would be proud of, the Grizzlies immediately flipped Calderon to the Piston for Austin Daye and Tayshaun Prince. Back in the time BLFS (before Landry Fields signed), the Raps were positioned nicely for a big re-building job. Losing Calderon and the remarkably effective, not to mention cheap, Ed Davis for a huge contract wasn’t part of that plan. There were smarter moves out there, moves that could have positioned the Raptors into being more than a middling team by 2015. While never an advocate of blowing up the bus. When you stay in neutral this long, it’s eventually going to feel like you’re moving backwards.