Lohensports

 OK I've officially dropped the less talked about from the title. As we move closer and closer to the trade deadline, it looks like anyone who isn't 26 or younger is up for grabs at the right price on the Raptors. Kelly is a guy they went to get last year for veteran leadership and some minutes at the backup 5. He's been ok in his limited tenure in Toronto but a back injury early this season has zapped the little mobility he had left. It is hard to see teams giving up meaningful assets for Kelly at this stage of his career, but he can still contribute a solid 15 minutes a game and provide shooting and playmaking in the frontcourt. There's another year after this one on Kelly's contract and the guys in Toronto seem to like him pretty well so there's no urgency to get a deal done. Still, I think if a team calls and offers future assets, the Raptors have to listen. Lets see who these teams might be:  Golden State Warriors This is an interesting one and maybe the be...

 Oh boy what a weekend of football! I was lucky enough to be able to catch at least parts of every game and watch the end of each one. It was so exciting it actually has me a bit sad that I am going to Spain this weekend and will have to miss the conference finals. Poor me right? Anyway, thought today is as good a day as any to give thoughts on each game from this weekend! Texans Chiefs  Damn it, my preseason Superbowl pick is over just like that. This one was probably the most boring of all the games this weekend and is coincidentally the one I watched the least amount of. It has felt for a while that KC is a foregone conclusion in the Superbowl and they took care of business on Saturday. To be fair to the Texans, for a lot of this game they played the Chiefs tough. You know going into KC that the calls probably aren't going to go your way, but the Texans stayed level headed and continued to play their game despite some annoying flopping from Mahomes. Ultimately, there were j...

 Another short one today. I am both running low on ideas and decently busy at work. Luckily next week my bosses are on vacation so I should pound out some good ones!  Anyway, I wanted to take 5 minutes to just be excited about the Raptors win over the Celtics last night. From start to finish they played great, team basketball finishing with 35 assists and it matched the eye test. If they can play with togetherness and effort like this on a nightly basis, I am not even kidding they will make a push for the play in this year. It's yet to be seen what trades will be made and I bet the rotation goes back to being filled with rookies in the next couple of weeks, that's ok I understand what the season is. We need to take these moments though to celebrate, especially when they beat the Celtics. I'll leave us with this, at the end of the game Scottie Barnes let out a primitive scream as he encouraged the fans to cheer. He was met with a standing ovation and I've never seen a ma...

 Ok maybe this one isn't less talked about. I pretty much started with these titles and then as I've gone on I've realized all these guys are pretty talked about they're just not Bruce Brown. Anyway, this one would make me sad! I've been a Jak defender since they made the trade. Any deal we make for Jakob Poeltl is going to leave the Raptors with a gaping hole at center. It will certainly lead to more losses, but they will need to find a replacement next season or else they risk running Scottie into the ground battling opposing 5s. That being said, Jak is having his best statistical season ever, he's expanded the range on his floater and is always solid at all the little things required of a big man. He'd be a locked in rotation piece on most playoff teams and can really help a team push over the edge for a regular season push. If ever there was a time to trade Jakob Poeltl, it's right now. Lets see where we can ship him off to:  Phoenix Suns This one is...

 Extremely short post today since I'm caught with lots to do at work. I couldn't let last night's performance by Chris Boucher slide without saying something! In the 4th quarter with the Raptors down 5, Boucher assaulted the rim with a vicious dunk which energized the team and got them locked in on defense again. He didn't stop there, Boucher hustled, knocked down 3s, crashed the glass, played defense, and won the Raptors a basketball game! Boucher ended up with 17 points in the 4th outdueling Steph Curry to lead the Raptors to a narrow 3 point victory. If this is one of the last games he plays in a Raptors jersey, Chris Boucher is going out on top. Shout out to the Canadian legend and as always BONJOUR!!!

 Well all that shit I talked all week has finally come back to bite me. It's always sad when your favorite team gets eliminated, marks the end of this season of my favorite TV show. It has been a fun season though and like every other game I have some thoughts to get down here! I think this post might be pretty limited in terms of breaking down the actual game, they got smoked, it'll more be a eulogy for the season. On the plus side for me now, I get to watch the rest of the playoffs stress-free with my favorite team not in it anymore! Yay! Lets get into it:  Thank You Russell Wilson Could we have just seen the last game Russell Wilson plays in a Steelers jersey? I knew after Roethlisberger retired that it'd be a long journey back to stability at the QB position. After suffering a couple of seasons of Mitch Trubiski and Kenny Picket, this season seemed more promising with Russell Wilson and Justin Fields both joining the team. Russ ended up taking over mid way through the s...

 Last night's game was actually pretty good and I'll explain why. The first half was competitive and we saw the Raptors play super hard on defense to keep the game tight going into the half. Halftime lined up perfectly with an extremely exciting 3rd quarter in the Cavs Thunder game then the Knicks talent started pulling away late in the 3rd quarter of the Raps game which lined up with the exciting finish in that Cavs Thunder game. So no, it wasn't a perfect Raptors game, but it was perfect if you wanted to watch the losing Raptors AND the Cavs vs Thunder which I did. Anyway, back for part 2 of this series that I am dragging out just to stretch my ideas for as many days as possible. I would be sad to see Chris go. Long time readers of this blog will know I wrote an entire piece about Boucher, the last remaining member of the 2019 championship squad. I'd love to see him retire a Raptor. That being said, Chris is a useful spark plug off the bench who for the second straigh...

 I was super sick yesterday which resulted in me attempting to write this then abandoning it when the brain fog became too much to contest with, so sorry if you didn't get your Lohensports fix yesterday. Tons of chatter going around about Bruce Brown and rightfully so, as soon as the Raptors got him the thought was that they'd flip him for more future assets. His contract does make this difficult, but with Jimmy Butler seemingly on the move, he figures to be a good piece to throw in if the Raptors want to be a third team facilitator in a blockbuster. I wanted to spend more time talking about a few candidates that could help winning teams today that might actually be easier to move. I think I will break this up into multiple posts talking about 1 player in each one and giving some potential trade partners.  Davion Mitchell has 1 year left on his deal making under $6.5m. Although his offense leaves something to be desired, he is legitimately one of the best on ball guard defende...

 Sigh. I feel like I've seen this season play out a million times. Steelers start off hot, look like they're one of the NFL's elite, then end the season on a huge cold streak and barely limp into the playoffs. Luckily for the Steelers the playoffs was clinched weeks ago and these last 4 games were only for seeding purposes, but oh boy were they ugly. Don't let the score in this one fool you, it was a 2 point game but the Steelers got whooped in my mind. Lets get into why! George Pickens Disappearing Act I have been up and down on Pickens all season. When he's on, he's one of the best receivers in the NFL, he's clearly the best receiver in Pittsburgh with nobody else coming even close. He has his fair share of attitude issues, but that comes with the territory of most elite receivers, you can stomach it when the production is there on the field. On Saturday night, the production was not there at all. Pickens finished with 1 reception for 0 yards despite being...

 First things first, happy new year everyone! If you've been on my blog for the last couple of weeks you'd think that I have been having a dreadful holidays with my teams all faltering at once. It has been actually quite lovely, tons of family time and a chance to reset and have a couple weeks basically off from work. With that being said, every other night I had been subjecting myself to what started to become awful Raptors games. The Raptors to close out 2024 lost 11 straight games with the final 3 losses all setting new negative franchise records. They lost to the Grizzlies giving up a franchise record 155 points. They lost to the Hawks setting a franchise record for turnovers at home with 31. They lost to the Celtics by the biggest losing margin in franchise history 54 points. All of that is gone now, new year, new Raptors and in 2025 all I see is 1-0. To bring the vibes at Lohensports back to positive, lets talk 2025 Raps! Return of IQ Holy shit did I ever miss having a re...