What do you expect when your star players are out for a crucial FA Cup game just after you’re lost in a gut-wrenching Carling Cup final? You would think Wenger would covet some silverware after the Chelsea Carling Cup loss but no such luck. I was shocked to see Henry out of the lineup despite his minor foot injury while Fabregas also sat. Adebayor was also out of the lineup (suspension) against Blackburn so misfiring Julio Baptista and flash-in-the-pan Jeremie Aliadiere got the call. It’s a little sickening to lose to Blackburn with the same pathetic excuse that we didn’t have our best side.

Henry’s been resting since last Tuesday, how much rest does a man need before he can play about 30 minutes. Even a little appearance by him would’ve given us a spark, after all only a touch of his skill was required to finish off one of the many chances the Gunners had. This side featured the likes of Gallas, Ljunberg, Traore, Denilson, Aliadiere, Baptista and that f***ing fool Senderos who keeps screwing up in the clutch. The Arsenal back four looked disjointed and even the midfield was coughing up possession through poor passing. Early on Traore nervously headed out a Pederson pass from the left even though nobody was within 10 yards of him. I’m not sure if this kid really needed to be playing in this game, maybe Clichy (who came in much later for him) was the better option as a forward-thinking back. Blackburn controlled early possession but it was sloppy and never threatening.

Arsenal finally managed to get some possession after 10 minutes and Aliadiere was setup beautifully by Eboue but a poor first touch helped out Friedel who accused Aliadiere of diving. He didn’t dive. I’ve seen a penalty given in those situations but a no-call was the best call. Baptista then tried to latch on to a cross but because of his clumsiness he lost the ball. He never had any bearing on what he was doing, this guy hopes he can score, he doesn’t actually believe he can.

In the first game Arsenal were denied a clear penalty and the same can be said here. Ljunberg was clearly trampled inside the box as he was well past the defender but no call from Graham Poll who shook his head like he knew exactly what he was doing but really didn’t have a f***ing clue. Baptista again was wide open on the far post but his clumsy header flew over the bar. The commentator at this point summed up the situation, “the game could be over in truth”. Arsenal missing too many chances and this was going to be much like the 1st tie and the CSKA Moscow game. Aliadiere spun around a little later and fired a shot in but it was too weak, still a good effort but it would never beat Friedel.

First Half Highlights (FSC)

Blackburn came out in the second half with a little more purpose in the second half but never really created any scoring opportunities with Almunia having to do almost no work. Senderos almost screwed up by letting Nonda run past him, if Nonda would’ve been a little more aware of where he was, this might have been a goal. But we’ll hear from Senderos later. On the counter-attack, Baptista unleashes a powerful and purposeful strike which Friedel gets his fingertips to, a decent strike, good save. Almost a repeat shot a few minutes later with the exact same result. Baptista, settling for power knowing he has no finesse, as seen in the first half. But wait, later on Baptista tried a bicycle kick which harmlessly rolls to Friedel, why f***ing bother dude?

Walcott is brought in instead of Eboue who was stepped on in the first half and was still feeling it. Clichy comes in for Traore, something which should’ve happened in the 1st minute but didn’t have any runs down the sides that could break Blackburn. Alexander Hleb had a good game, he played smart and did whatever he could possibly do to setup the strikers and midfielders in attacking positions but when you can’t put the ball in the back of the net, nothing really matters. Arsenal was quicker to the ball in the second half and won a lot of freekicks but none of the set pieces ever amounted to anything. The only thing Blackburn could muster up was Darbyshire challenging Gallas inside the area on the right but Gallas saw him off well. So after Hleb works hard to win a freekick, Baptista is all eager to take it and the look on his face before he’s about to strike is one of focus, concentration, desire, determination and intent. But what comes out of the freekick? A direct hit against the wall! I can’t believe this guy and how awful he is. At least, Reyes would score and create occasionally, this guy is just completely bankrupt when it comes to creativity and talent. Here’s to him being sent back to Real Madrid so him and Robinho can cuddle together.

Late in the game, Benny McCarthy blows by Senderos, who was stumbling like an old woman, and unleashed a cracker which Almunia could do nothing about. Senderos actually backed up after stumbling and invited McCarthy to strike the ball with as much time and power as he needed. Arsene Wenger had that look on his face which said, “Oh Shit”. You would think after Sunday’s display of ineptitude Senderos might come into this game with some purpose and a mindset of redemption, but nothing of the sort. A terrible defensive performance in a critical part of the game.

McCarthy 1-0

If only we had a talented striker in the game, we would’ve won. I’d even settle for Adebayor if not Henry, even he could finish off some of the chances Aliadiere, Baptista and Ljunberg wasted. That little outburst he had at the end of the Carling Cup final might have cost us a place in the next round, shows you how important controlling your temper is. We’re now out of two major competitions and on the brink of the biggest one. The Champions League is all that we have left.

Highlights from the first leg are here.

Marty York is a stain on professional journalism, there is no doubt about that. Nobody respects his opinion or bothers to give him a decent interview and that probably explains why he’s lingering deep in the shadows of insignificance and covering the CFL on a full-time basis. He’s a disgrace to journalists everywhere and the site of him on any publication is good enough reason to immediately discredit it and burn it to ashes. The free commuter newspaper, The Metro, is where Marty finds primary employment these days. You know, it’s that paper people read out of complete boredom on the subway.

Marty York also hates the Raptors because it goes against everything he believes in: hockey being the #1 sport in Toronto. Everytime the Raptors lose, Marty wets his pants and anytime the Raptors do well, he’ll play down their achievements like they were nothing. The Raptors have been one of the hottest teams in the NBA and coach Sam Mitchell, star Chris Bosh and GM Bryan Colangelo have been praised across the NBA. All this of course resulted in sleepless nights for Marty York but yesterday his luck changed when the Raptors lost to the Spurs in a tough road game in San Antonio, today Marty York opened his fat little mouth:

While misleading and mindless cheerleading for the Raptors continues to emanate from ignorant, irresponsible and self-serving suckups and shameless shills in the Toronto media — Leo Rautins, for instance, actually suggested during a broadcast last week that the club’s acquisition of insignificant guard Juan Dixon was “tremendous” — honest and objective appraisals of the team are coming out of the United States.

Here’s a case in point from Marc Stein, ESPN’s NBA insider: “The Raptors are not a good team,” Stein said on the weekend. “They’re a fun team, but they’re too young to be good. If they win their division, it’ll only be because they happen to play in what may well be the worst division in NBA history.” ? The Fan 590 radio station actually allows Raptors employee/salesman/- announcer Chuck Swirsky to serve as a host of one of its shows but, fortunately, it also employs a sensible update person named Barb DiGiulio, who keeps Swirsky in check. “

Marty picks the one writer who agrees with him and treats it like the word of God. Just browse a little further on ESPN.com (which is Marty’s primary “source”) and you’ll find Chad Ford and Bill Simmons praising the Raptors but thats not what Marty chooses to report. Why? Because he wants to do everything he can to make the Raptors look bad, it’s that simple.

Now, despite the sorry journalist Marty York is and looking past the glaring fact that he’s incapable of shedding any insight on anything other than why the Argos might sign John ____ to a __ year contract, he’s by chance, touched a nerve with Chuck Swirsky. Of course it’s purely out of jealousy that York has begun to attack Chuck but beneath the hate he has for Swirsky are some valid points. Continuing on with the quote from above,

Such was the case last week when Swirsky decided to attack the nicknames of NBA teams outside of Toronto. He went on about how he considers the Wizards a bad name for the Washington team. “Well,” DiGiulio said, “what about the Raptors?

What do Raptors have to do with Toronto?” Obviously stumped, Swirsky emerged with an incomprehensible response during some blatant bafflegab before changing the subject.

Give Swirsky credit, though. He knows how to sell the Raptors and himself and he has managed to brainwash thousands of fans and even media types.

Thankfully, folks such as DiGiulio won’t merely listen to his nonsense without providing perspective and challenges. ? Accolades are being heaped by Toronto media types on the Raptors’ irascible and arrogant coach, Sam Mitchell, but here’s what you should really know:
Unless the team defies the odds and goes deep into the playoffs, Mitchell’s contract will be allowed to expire after the season and he will be replaced.

And then Swirsky can start deriding Mitchell, just as he cuts up many other ex-Raptors. Swirsky seems to think they’re good guys when they’re with the Raptors, but he can be awfully critical of them when they leave.

He sure takes a lot of cheap shots at Vince Carter, for instance, and yet he glorified the allstar by calling him “Air Canada” and other names of worship during his Toronto years.

And then, just the other day, Swirsky took a shot at ex-Raptor Lamond Murray, suggesting on his show that he was poorly behaved in Toronto.

Strangely, though, I cannot recall Swirsky being critical of Murray while he was with the Raptors.

The above is 100% true. Let’s ignore the part about Barb DiGiulio because she knows nothing about sports and the only reason she’s on the Fan 590 is because she was semi-hot 10 years ago. The part about Swirsky being a self-promoter, corporate mouthpiece and salesman cannot be more true. This is precisely the reason why it’s become so hard to watch Raptor games while Chuck Swirsky is calling them: you can’t really believe him anymore. The Vince Carter bashing is getting too much, especially when Vince is smiling at a critical point in the game. When he was with Toronto, Swirsky never called him out on that, but now that he’s with the Nets, he has no fear of degrading another team’s franchise player.

But despite Chuck being as fake as a silicon tit, he doesn’t come remotely close to being anything like Marty York. I remember a while back he used to have a show on the Fan with Stormin’ Norman Rumack (another fruitcake) where he used to pretend he was an insider, but he never managed to break a single f***ing story of interest. Then he “broke” the whole “Vince Carter beat up Sam Mitchell” fabrication which only helped seal his fate as even a remotely credible journalist. Looking at York’s record as a journalist, him slamming a fellow journalist for allegedly distorting facts is the ultimate in hypocrisy.

I even feel guilty for writing this entry because it’s giving this lowly excuse for a writer some weight. But putting harsh feelings aside, my advice to Marty is to stop writing for newspapers, go to WordPress.com, get a blog and write whatever the hell you want.

Update: Marty York threatens to sue me: RealGM Thread

A game like this is hard to stomach under any circumstances but when the pain is compounded by those stupid Oh Henry commercials, things quickly deteriorate to unbearable and eventually into unwatchable. The Law of Averages had already scheduled this game as one for the loss column but even I was surprised when the result was decided in the second quarter. The money was on the Raptors fading away in the third or possibly even the fourth quarter, so the early demise was a little startling.

What’s not surprising is what happens when you play into the hands of the Spurs by wasting possessions through lamentable shot-selection, being late on your rotational defense and playing transitional defense by jogging back. It’s no secret that the Raptors aren’t a great defensive team but seeing how easily we can be broken down by two swing passes is cause for concern. But hey, we play in the East where you can get away with not having a lot of things, the last of which is perimeter defense. The Spurs didn’t pull any surprises. The Raptors game plan was to stop the big three of Duncan, Ginobili and Parker and they went 0-3 on that assignment, at the end of the half, they had 14, 13 and 16 points respectively. Official NBA thug Bruce Bowen took Anthony Parker out of the game early and later Jorge Garbajosa limped off after colliding his knee with Ginobili’s, both playing under 15 minutes. Anybody want to take a guess how Bowen injured Parker? Yup, he planted his feet under Parker’s as he was coming down. The NBA needs to crackdown on Bruce Bowen and his no-talent sorry ass trying to injure players.

TJ Ford getting sucked into a one-on-one competition on the road against Tony Parker didn’t help the Raptors much either since more than a few possessions ended up with The TJ jacking it up “off the bounce” as Chuck Swirsky would call it. What “off the bounce” really means is he was dribbling the ball up the court and after a hard bounce, he jacked it up. The “off the bounce” usually implies nobody else saw the jumper coming so there was nobody to rebound the ill-advised shot. This is exactly where the Raptors’ modest 5 point advantage started to turn into a 10 point hole, eventually resulting in such a deficit that even the home fans were hoping they had picked a better game to come to.

I don’t really know how Duncan really does it, a spin move followed by a hard bank-shot? Those aren’t supposed to go in, but somehow he’s been doing it for years. His moves aren’t “spectacular” as per the definition of the NBA; they’re just fundamentally solid and impossible to block. If only he didn’t have a personality of a door knob and the charisma of dry paint, he’d actually be featured as the NBA’s premier player instead of Kobe or Lebron. Chris Bosh got an up-close view of where he needs to be in a couple years; Bosh never really got going in this game, the Spurs were collapsing on him every time he put the ball on the floor and the ensuing passes never came close to threatening the stingy Spurs defense.

It’s really games like these that my respect for Chasin at RealGM grows. He’s actually got to pretty much re-watch the game to put the highlights up, here’s the Game in a Flash, there’s more here:

Check the boxscore if you really care about who did what in this game, but know this, the second half was a mere formality. I don’t really understand why Bosh played 38 minutes in a blowout on the first of four games in six nights. Raptors are at Houston on Wednesday and if you ask Tracy McGrady who he’d rather beat in a game, the Toronto Raptors or the Orlando Magic, I have no doubt he’ll say Toronto.

It was Chelsea’s first team versus Arsenal’s second in the Carling Cup Final. No Henry, Lehmann, Gallas, Eboue, Adebayor, Gilberto, Rosicky or Hleb in the starting lineup for the Gunners, Arsene Wenger staying true to his word about playing his youngsters giving them what they deserve - a Cup Final. But when it was all said and done the ghost of Didier Drogba wasn’t done haunting Senderos. Drogba supplied a great header to a Robben pass and Senderos was way too late to contest Drogba. 2-1 Chelsea the final.

With a little more experience, slightly better defending and Henry instead of Baptista in there, this would’ve been Arsenal’s game. But take nothing away from Arsenal, their youngsters showed no signs of big match nerves and if anything it was the veterans that let the team down.

Equal possession early on but Arsenal playing much more confidently and creating chances for Fabregas and Baptista after carefully dissecting the Chelsea defense. Baptista unleashing a strong effort between John Terry’s legs which Czech managed to get a finger tip on. On the ensuing corner, Chelsea fans starting throwing stuff on the pitch as Fabregas is about to take the corner. Drogba can’t clear the corner and Fabregas gets the ball right before some nifty passing by Arsenal finds Walcott all alone with just Czech to beat from seven yards. The youngster makes no mistake. His first for Arsenal comes at a crucial time. The commentators were pure Chelsea supporters, they kept making excuses for John Terry everytime they had a chance.

Theo Walcott 1-0

After twenty minute Chelsea had yet to manage anything of consequence with Lampard’s effort being blocked nicely by Senderos. At this point the commentator mentions that Arsene Wenger has yet to beat Jose Mourinho which makes me very angry for some reason. Arsenal are on a 3 on 2 break when Baptista waits way too long before deciding on doing anything and ends up giving the ball away. On the counter-attack, the off-side flag incorrectly stayed down and Drogba was alone on the right with just Almunia to beat and he did so by going through his legs. Just before Chelsea scored, Arsenal had a chance to go ahead 2-0 but instead it’s 1-1. Traore having some serious trouble in the left-back position with Toure having to help out too often allowing Chelsea to create chances and Drogba and Shevchenko focusing their attacks entirely on Traore.

Didier Drogba 1-1

A nice run by Diaby on the left really showcased his skill but after an exchange of passes, his shot had no string from 10 yards out and humbly rolled to Czech. Arsenal, after regressing for about 10 minutes showed creativity and desire to go forward. But nothing on either side of any weight until Baptista is too late to connect with the header from the right and Czech collects. Later on Aliadiere breaks down John Terry and all he’s got to do is beat Carvalho but the Portugese gets a good foot on it. Arsenal with a great chance to take the lead. The commentators really love John Terry, they blame his injury instead of giving Aliadiere credit.

Second half starts out with a flurry with Arjen Robben reading the Shevchenko run but the pass is an inch too far. Abu Diaby finds open space on the left and the pass to him is perfect but his shot across goal is saved by Czech who covers the goal well. A better effort by Diaby might have beaten Czech. Diaby was running rampant in the second half, forcing free kicks and causing problems for Chelsea. This guy just made a case to be playing in the Champions League.

The contact on the John Terry injury was purely accidental - he wanted to score and Diaby wanted to prevent it from happening, nothing malicious on the part of Diaby whatsoever. Terry is substituted and Essien drops back to defense. On the other side, it appears Walcott can get past Wayne Bridge anytime he wants and Arsenal probably should have looked more to exploit that advantage but Chelsea go off the hook there. At 66 minutes, Traore replaces Eboue, the youngster was having his share of troubles on the field today, especially early on. Alexander Hleb replaced Diaby which was a little suprising, Diaby was playing well and covering the length of the field with his runs.

John Terry Knocked Out

Adebayor came in for Aliadiere who had a decent game and anytime there was service for him, he made something good of it. The Arsenal youngsters had a good overall showing, it was just moments of lapsed concentration that cost them this one.

Late in the second half is when Drogba struck for his second, a goal that would have been easily preventable had Senderos done his homework and paid even a little attention to what Drogba wanted to do. Arsenal didn’t have a single decent corner in the game with Czech collecting most of them easily. Exact same could be said for freekicks with Fabregas and Baptista’s efforts always hitting the wall, we really missed Henry here.

Didier Drogba 2-1 (These Korean commentators are awesome)

In the end, it was mayhem, red cards were everywhere. An injury time brawl ended up with Howard Webb dismissing Jon Obi, Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor. Adebayor continued to jaw at Webb and had to be hauled off the pitch. He’ll definitely be facing an FA charge. Here’s a few pictures that tell the story:

After the final whistle, I just switched it off.

The Bobcats PA announcer must be the worst in the league, his half-hearted chants of Eeevvvverybaaady clap youur haaands just weren’t cutting it for entertainment in Charlotte tonight but it did sound funny in a retarded sort of way for the TV audience. I didn’t know an expansion team must also suck in the PA department in addition to the court. The first half was very similar to the previous encounter between the two when Charlotte managed to hang around until the fourth when the Raptors put them away with a late surge. Here that surge came in the third quarter when after a mediocre and foul filled first half, the Raptors decided the Bobcats had no business being in this game.  Highlights can be seen in Chasin’s RealGM thread.

The halftime deficit would’ve been 10 instead of 3 for Charlotte if it hand’t been for Matt Carroll’s two late threes but that didn’t discourage the Raptors. A mini 10-4 run to start the third pushed the lead to 9 and after that the Bobcats were officially in catch-up mode. Injuries to Emeka Okafor and Gerald Wallace forced them to retire from the game, and that was pretty much that. Chris Bosh was scoreless in the first half mainly due to two early fouls but with Okafor out of there in the third, it was too easy for him. Calderon had 16 points but only because he missed at least 3 layups that he usually makes while TJ Ford played in-control unlike against Cleveland and took the rookie Raymond Felton to quickness class anytime the matchup presented itself.

Bargnani and Morrison got a double technical after they got tangled up but after the replay, Bargnani hardly deserved it. But this game wasn’t without controversy as Leo Rautins whipped out a very confident salami and cheese albeit without any onions with 10:02 left after Parker drained a baseline jumper. Chuck Swirsky was taken aback and couldn’t believe that this sacred territory was being plundered by Rautins, who has lately assumed the role of the main attraction by overshadowing Swirsky with his own t-shirt and general demeanor. Leo Rautins then offered a very construed and manufactured apology to Chuck for using the line. When Chuck Swirsky finally mustered up the courage to whip out the salami and cheese with 2:22 left, Leo offered a sarcastic, “going out on a limb there Chuck”. This is probably the best place to mention Chuck’s version of Yogi Berra’s saying, “It’s all over till it’s over”. It made no sense.

The Raptors TV telecast did a montage of old Raptor coaches and showed Darrell Walker, the man who thought T-Mac wasn’t good enough to start, at least that’s what I’ll remember him for. Kevin O’Neill and his raging, full-of-anger bald head, no offensive creativity and a defense based on not scoring on the other end. Butch Carter, the man who files lawsuits amidst a playoff series against an opposing player. And who can forget good ‘ol Lenny strolling on the sidelines arms folded even when the game begged for the coach to intervene. Mitchell almost seems good compared to them.

TJ Ford and Calderon got a lot of playing time together today and it really kick-started the Raptors offense in the second and third quarters, Mitchell showing some creativity with his substitutions. Juan Dixon got into the game early which was surprising and later came back during garbage time, he looked in-place and ready to play. He’s a different type of shooting guard who can cause match-up problems at times but it’ll take a little while before he finds his role on the team. I just hope he gets some playing time so he doesn’t start sulking and asks to be traded.

They told an absolutely crazy story about Walter Hermann: his mother, sister and fiancee’ were killed in an automobile accident in 2003 and his father died of a heart attack on the one-year anniversary of that event. That is beyond tragic, I really hope the guy does something good in the NBA. In this game, it didn’t really happen for him, the only time his name was mentioned was when he was involved in an And1 on a Bosh slam and later when he fouled Bosh to prevent an And1. After the latter, Chuck Swirsky gave all the newspapers a plug by saying how Herrmann didn’t “want to be on the cover of Sun, Star, Globe & Mail and National Post”. The funny part about that is he said “Sun” and then there was a brief pause where he decided that he doesn’t really work for Sun and can’t really just hand out plugs like that. That’s when the rest of the newspapers came out. Don’t think you got away with it Chuck!

So the much awaited game between Lynn University finally happened on Friday and TFC managed to win it 3-2 with Edson Buddle scoring all three goals. Assuming the TFC website’s report is correct, we can conclude that Toronto FC will leave Florida on Saturday and will resume training on Tuesday February 27th, and will be back in Florida March 5th. Next leg of camp takes them to Bradenton and the IMG Academy.

The wait for former US striker Conor Casey continues with the holdup apparently being some red tape in the MLS office but that hasn’t stopped Mo Johnsonton assuming a possessive tone while renewing his love for attacking football.

“He’s ours, there’s no doubt about that, we just have to be patient…We are team that will do a lot of attacking and Conor will fit into that plan”

There’s also a nice piece in the Globe and Mail about Ronnie O’Brien and his possible injury. The TFC MLS Blog has gathered some statistics about the pre-season so far, nice page if you’re interested in who’s been scoring the goals.

I cheered for Fred Jones every time he was in the game. I practically begged God for his jumpers to go in but even He couldn’t do much about it. The writing was on the wall and when Mitchell played Fred Jones for a whopping six minutes against Cleveland, I thought he was giving him a second chance but instead he was showcasing him for ANY possible trade, and surprisingly, it worked.

Juan Dixon will never dazzle you with anything but he’s a smart player who knows how to play. He doesn’t take wild shots, plays under control and his jumper can get hot. Besides figuring out how he’s going to get any playing time behind Ford and Calderon, there’s really not much dissecting to do here. We gave up Fred Jones for him so anything and I do mean anything he gives us, is a bonus. The great part is that he’s happy to be traded to the Raptors which is almost a first. This franchise has come a long way since another Blazer got traded to the Raptors and responded by chaining himself to his locker, yes I’m talking about Kenny Anderson.  Nice to see Bryan Colangelo admit the signing was probably a mistake and take steps to clean up his own mess.

A little irony tonight as the Raptors mauled the Pacers on the day Fred Jones got traded. Good to see the team put behind that gut-wrenching loss to Cleveland. Rasho Nesterovic played like he should have played against Anderson Varajeo two nights ago and chipped in with an efficient 14 points and 8 rebounds. We all know Rasho is soft as a spring pansy and anytime he comes up with a manly game like this, I wonder why he can’t do this more often. Hard for me to say this but he locked down Jermaine O’Neal in the first half when the game was in question. The Pacers never recovered from a 40-29 second quarter and the rest of the game was a mere formality. Here’s a short highlight video from Chasin’s RealGM thread:

Jose Calderon played better than TJ Ford and Jorge Garbajosa’s shot is starting to fall and hopefully he’s officially out of his mid-season funk. Chris Bosh is becoming a damn good fantasy player, 23 points on 8-12 FG and 12 rebounds. Can’t ask much more of your franchise player than that. Got to see Danny Granger tonight making me recall the 2005 draft when Raptor fans wanted him so bad, just after Gerald Green. I’d say Charlie Villaneuva was the better pick, someone could even argue that Babcock got an A in that draft. All NBA teams make runs and the Pacers made theirs in the fourth quarter but it far too little and way too late. You can check out the highlights for this game in the RealGM thread.

Jason Kidd returned to the lineup as the Nets beat the Kings. So the Raptors and Nets have identical records since the all-star break at 1-1 which means the lead in the Atlantic Division is still 4.5. Isaiah Thomas is trying to acquire Vince Carter so he can add him to a roster that has Marbury, Francis and Crawford. If he’s not already the worst GM in the league, this sure as hell would seal that honour. The Knicks are crazy to give up Ca

Some sad news today, Dennis Johnson passed away. I never saw him play that much but what I’ve seen on ESPN Classic, he was a tough defender who you didn’t want guarding you. Rest in Peace.

The Java Persistence API is a really neat thing but it can drive you up-the-wall when you’re trying to setup your entities and annotations to match your desired database schema. In this example, I’ll cover a seemingly simple case of having a many-to-many relationship between two entities with additional columns in the association table. In other words, the following model:

CREATE TABLE USER (
  ID BIGINT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
  USERNAME VARCHAR(255),
  PASSWORD VARCHAR(255), PRIMARY KEY (ID))

CREATE TABLE ROLE (
  ID BIGINT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
  NAME VARCHAR(255),
  PRIMARY KEY (ID))

CREATE TABLE USER_ROLE (
  USER_ID BIGINT NOT NULL,
  ROLE_ID BIGINT NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (USER_ID, ROLE_ID),
  ENABLED TINYINT(1) default 0)

ALTER TABLE USER_ROLE ADD CONSTRAINT
  FK_USER_ROLE_USER_ID FOREIGN KEY (USER_ID)
  REFERENCES USER (ID)
ALTER TABLE USER_ROLE ADD CONSTRAINT
  FK_USER_ROLE_ROLE_ID
  FOREIGN KEY (ROLE_ID) REFERENCES ROLE (ID)

It’s a fairly simple example where a USER can have many ROLEs while a ROLE may belong to many USERs. Now if it weren’t for the extra column ENABLED on the USER_ROLE table, we could’ve easily created a User and Role class and created a property called Set<Role> roles in the User class with the @ManyToMany annotation, much like the @ManyToMany JavaDoc example. However, we can’t do that here because that approach completely ignores any extra columns that you might need besides the foreign keys of User and Role.

The solution is to create an entity mapped to the association table, USER_ROLE and store a collection of this entity in the User and Role classes. So we create a @OneToMany mapping between User and UserRole (and Role and UserRole) instead of a simple @ManyToMany mapping. Since this is a bi-directional relationship, we also need to specify a @ManyToOne mapping for both User and Role in the UserRole class. Here is the complete Java code:

@Entity
@Table(name="USER")
public class User {

  @Id
  @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
  private Long id;

  @Column(name="USERNAME")
  private String username;

  @Column(name="PASSWORD")
  private String password;

  @OneToMany(mappedBy="user")
  private Set<UserRole> userRoles;

}

@Table(name="ROLE")
@Entity
public class Role {

  @Id
  @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
  private Long id;

  @Column(name="NAME")
  private String name;

  @OneToMany(mappedBy="role")
  private Set<UserRole> userRoles;
}

@Entity
@Table(name="USER_ROLE")
@IdClass(UserRolePK.class)
public class UserRole {

  @Id
  @Column(name="USER_ID",insertable=false,
                         updatable=false)
  private Long userId;

  @Id
  @Column(name="ROLE_ID",insertable=false,
                         updatable=false)
  private Long roleId;

  @ManyToOne
  @JoinColumn(name="USER_ID")
  private User user;

  @ManyToOne
  @JoinColumn(name="ROLE_ID")
  private Role role;

  @Column(name="ENABLED")
  private boolean enabled;
}

public class UserRolePK {

  private Long userId;
  private Long roleId;
}

The Java Persistence API requires you to define an @IdClass if a composite key is being used. The properties of the @IdClass must match those of the source class (the class it’s an id for) and must not have any other fields.

There is a bi-directional mapping between User and UserRole (and Role and UserRole) and that is why we need to specify a @OneToMany and a @ManyToOne in the User/Role and UserRole classes respectively. We also need to specify mappedBy=”user” (and mappedBy=”role”) in the User (and Role) classes.

An oddity here is the insertable=false and updatable=false on the userId and roleId fields in the UserRole class. If you do not specify this, TopLink will complain that these fields are writable in more than once sense, and it would be right about doing so. userId and roleId are already writable in their respective entity classes, User and Role. It would not make any sense for the values in the association table to change without the entity table being updated. Making the field read-only fixes this problem. You can read more about this specific issue.

We’ll chalk this one up to the trials and tribulations of training camp. It’s not about winning the games but seeing who will win the games for you once the real games begin. At least that’s what Mo Johnston is telling us and maybe he’s right. No matter how you put it, losing to a squad of Canadian teenagers is never a good sign for a professional team but such is the nature of an expansion team.

Luckily after the 2-1 loss which resulted in the cuts of South African Junaid Hartley, Jamaican Garfield Reid and Colombian Hector Hurtado, Mo Johnston made me feel a little better:

“This is not about results for me. The point of this camp is getting guys in here and getting a look at them.”

Whew, for a second there I thought this was the squad we plan on beating MLS teams with. Mo Johnson sure has a way of explaining the cuts pretty bluntly, here’s his opinion of Hartley:

“We gave him a last shot (yesterday) just to see what he had and obviously he had nothing”

Ouch. Harsh to say the least but at least he’s honest about it. As the report says, he’s also looking to sign some of the U-20’s, I can’t blame him, if you can’t beat ‘em, sign ‘em. He also wants Canadian players to succeed because he feels it’s important for the club to have a “local flavour”. From a fan’s perspective, I don’t really care if the player is Canadian, French or Ivorian, as long as he can play. I really hope he doesn’t give preference to a player just because he’s Canadian - that’s a recipe for disaster. Everybody who makes the club should do so based on their football merit, not their nationality.

Unfortunately, there’s almost no video available on the internet or TV so that we can actually watch some of these games and see what the exact quality of the players is. For that we’ll have to a wait a little while longer but since we have reporters like Dean McNulty who cover the game, they should start a blog or something to give a more in-depth look into training camp. It would help me pass more judgement.

This was a really painful ending much like the Dallas one and these are the losses when you sometimes feel maintaining a Toronto Raptors blog might be too much for your health since you have to revisit the game again. Make no mistake, TJ Ford cost us this one, not Anderson Varejao. Ford wasted two crucial possessions down the stretch. The most crucial one with the Raptors down one on the final possession of the game where he didn’t pass to anyone and ended up taking a wild throw-it-up-and-hope-for-the-best type shot instead of going through Bosh, a technique which has yielded some success over the season. The other Ford moment preceeded that one when he didn’t pass to anyone until with about 3 seconds left on the clock forcing Bargnani to take a bad shot. It really looks like Calderon should be the one finishing games and not the shoot-first Ford.

Lot of Lebron James hating going on early by Chuck Swirsky. He was being accused of taking possessions off, settling for shots, having a regressing game and his first overall selection in the 2003 draft was being second guessed. By the end of the game, nobody talked about these issues. Lebron’s third quarter spurt brought the Cavs back in the game and his fourth quarter streak put them in a position to win it. But he didn’t win the game, it was Anderson Varajeo. Of all the people that could beat you, it was Sideshow Bob and his nasty rebound dunk over Bosh with 19 seconds left.

But this game wasn’t exactly lost in the fourth even though it was obviously lost in the fourth. Despite knowing all about Donyell Marshall and his long-range capabilities and despite knowing about the Cavaliers reliance on offensive rebounding, the Raptors failed to stop either threat. Marshall hit several big threes to keep Cleveland in the game when the lead threatened to reach larger margins. Varejao had a monster game (16 points, 15 rebounds on 8-9 FG) in place of the missing Zydrunas Ilgauskas. In the end I was wishing Ilgauskas had played so Varejao might have had less minutes. Varjao ran the floor like a man possessed, beating Bosh to the paint a few times and contesting for offensive rebounds on literally every possession. Even when he didn’t get the board, he helped somebody on his team get it. I don’t remember ever having seen such a dominating performance by a garbage man.

There was a Fred Jones sighting, Mitchell probably thought the second half of the season might be a fresh start for Freddie, but it turned out to be another nightmare. In his six minutes, he looked unsure, out-of-place and like he didn’t belong in the NBA. Lot of talk around the Raptors about playoffs and what seed we might be and Chuck Swirsky wishing that we play the Cavaliers in the first round. It all sounds stupid and premature, especially when you end up losing at home to the team you wish you want to play. It’s better to shut your mouth until the magic number reaches something like 10.

Back to the game, in almost every post I’ve said that the Raptors defense is extremely suspect, especially when we decide that getting back on defense is of lower priority than exchanging high-fives after a score. Every time Cleveland decided to run, they found success. Either we never got back on defense or they found a way around us. In the fourth quarter Lebron scored on a couple straight possessions which showed just exactly how easy the Raptors are to expose. After Anthony Parker drew a charge on Lebron, the Raptors had a chance to seal the game but Bosh missed an open 16 footer. Hard to criticize Bosh for not driving to the rim, he had the shot, just missed it. Morris Peterson rushed his final shot, he had more time than he thought and could’ve measured the shot before firing.

Luckily for us, the Nets lost so the lead in the division didn’t change. You can check out the highlights and post game interviews for the game in the RealGM thread.