Toronto Raptors extend Kelly Olynyk, Scottie Barnes’ surgery & the WNBA-to-Toronto dream is alive!

Toronto Raptors extend Kelly Olynyk, Scottie Barnes’ surgery & the WNBA-to-Toronto dream is alive!

On your Tuesday episode of Locked on Raptors we break down one of the nosiest days in Toronto basketball in quite some time let’s go you are locked on Raptors your daily Toronto Raptors podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every Day hey what’s going on and welcome to another episode of lockon Raptors part of the lockon podcast Network your team every day it is Tuesday March the 5th and I’m your host Sean Woodley have been covering the Toronto Raptors now for 10 seasons on various platforms you can all

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Supporting the YouTube channel it’s much appreciated Today’s Show is brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel make every moment more right now new customers get 150 bucks in bonus Bets with any winning $5 bet that’s 150 bucks if your bet wins visit fanduel.com lockon to get started and we will get

Started we got a whole lot to get started with today there’s a million things to talk about one of the most news heavy days I can recall covering the Toronto Raptors some good news some very good news some extremely exciting news some 10day and two-way news and

Some bad injury news as well we will dig into all of that today from the W WNBA dream being alive again to Scotty Barnes having hand surgery to DJ Carton and Muhammed du gay signing two-way deals and of course Kelly oin getting that extension from the Raptors too we’ll do

That all with our pal Chelsea late from Raptors HQ the editor and chief over there Chelsea I’m out of breath how’s it going so good honestly like yeah so much news you’re right it’s very overwhelming but I’m good I’m excited to talk about it

All Yes uh so we will do our best to get through all of the stuff that came out of the Toronto basketball landscape yesterday we’ll start with Kelly o Linux signing a 2-year 26.25 million extension with the Toronto Raptors I believe the Maxi could have gotten under his current deal and the

CBA rules etc etc uh and he will be on the Toronto Raptors now through the next couple of Seasons figuring to be their backup center of the future you know playing small ball four I guess big ball four next to yaka purle once in a while

As well I would expect that down the stretch especially as they are very depleted of players as it turns out but uh Chelsea what were your first response and reactions to the Kelly linic extension uh I’ll get into what I think but let’s leave it over to you first

What you got where were you feeling how are you feeling when you saw the news come down where were you feeling that’s a weird question that’s not what I meant to say how were you feeling when the news came down that Kelly o linck would be in Toronto for two more seasons

Beyond this one I mean we’ve been expecting it for a while people have been saying that this uh extension was coming basically since he got traded so it was just kind of a matter of when I think it was funny that the Raptors decided to just like have an ad mid day

Yesterday like an adid day and just like check him off all the boxes I was like catch up on emails yeah yeah which like I need to do so respect to them but but um yeah so it was expected but um I’m glad that he got the max he could get

And I’m you know he’s been very vocal about wanting to stay here obviously he’s from for anyone who doesn’t know he’s from Toronto he’s from scar brro so um he was very excited to be traded here and very eager to get that extension so

I mean it was only a matter of time and it’s exciting and I’m excited that he is uh locked in for the future we love the Symmetry that you bring to the podcast head on a swivel it’s why you’re a great guest um yeah for me I I think this sort of affirms

That the Raptors cannot lose this trade now uh this is a an affirmation that they have in fact won this trade with the Utah Jazz kind of independent of what even happens with oai abaji and his development over the next couple Seasons you trade the 28th pick in the draft

27th pick in the draft whether it’s the Clippers or thunder it’s going to be a high pick you trade that pick and you get two plus years of Kelly oin offering extremely high-end backup center play and bringing skills to the table that are incredibly important for young Player Development around him again we

Saw this with the Jazz the last couple Seasons a team that overachieved kind of uh you know as a rule for the last couple years until Danny a pulled the plug in you know giant loser trades um but the like Kelly oen there with young players like it was a very clear effect

He had you know I talked to David lock our and boss of the locked on network who covers the Jazz does play with play for the Jazz and you know could not sing the Praises highly enough of how Kelly oin fit into that young team and helped

Everyone get better around him and we’ve seen it right he makes those second units way more viable his fit with Grady dick and Kelly and oi abaji has been pretty amazing obviously those bench units a little bit less potent now with no Scotty Barnes they got to figure out

The rotation there but uh I think it’s a no-brainer and you know the 28th pick in the draft odds up are it’s not going to become someone who offers more production than oai abaji and Kelly oen are over the next two plus Seasons so uh

Yeah a home run trade for me for the Raptors I know the sort of the the pick counters out there were like the Raptors they’re rebuilding they traded a first round pick how dare they for a 32y old uh turns out having good players on your team is important even when you’re young

In rebuilding and not all first round picks are the same um what have you enjoyed Chelsea about like the Kelly en Court EXP experience and what are you looking forward to now that he’s locked in for the next couple years as far as what he can he can bring to what the

Raptors are trying to do with their you know especially on offense right like you seem to fit really nicely within what they’re doing in Darko scheme yeah I think yeah like he’s fitting in nicely to like you said the scheme but I also think especially like just having lived

Through like the Tampa days and the the aftermath of like give this team A Center to have some depth in the front court is something that’s really exciting um to finally be like okay we have like more than one guy down there that can like do stuff that the team

Trusts because you know we’ve had some of these guys come in and out over the past couple of years but like no one has been like someone other than yakob purle of course um to like you know trust to be there for a while to trust to build

Chemistry to trust to like bring those bench minutes and so I think Kelly o linic was honestly one of the best people they could go out and get because you know that he’s committed to the team he has that like you know Hometown thing we’re all talking about lately because

The Raptors are having this like Canadian basketball moment which I love you know like anyone who follows my work knows how much I love Canada basketball so you know I that’s fun and then you also get this like depth where Kelly oin is so experienced that you can put him

Like you said doing like a a big four kind of uh moment with yakob purle you can take him off the bench play him as a center he’s going to you know Mentor these young guys a lot he’s going to um give them a lot of uh just like energy

He is good and you know you see that with Team Canada as well sometimes he’s just the guy who ends up putting the team on his back and you know getting it done when maybe some other people are um you know having rough nights um and so

He just like brings that kind of energy that an experienced vet brings um and he’s uh just you know it just adds a little little bit extra to this team that was was really lacking in the front court for a while and it’s funny because

You know we had all those years with all those like 69ine forward guys and then you know then we traded them all and now so it’s nice to to have and now with Scotty Barnes out you’re a little bit more thankful that we have a little a

Tiny bit more depth in that position no doubt I I think for me Chelsea the thing that I love about having Kelly on the team is with yaka purle and him yes they’re different play players like Yak is more of a roller roll gravity rim protector Kelly does stuff off the

Bounce he’s a three-point shooter obviously although that hasn’t quite come around you do a raptor just 26% with Toronto that’s going to come back up he’s been a very good shooter for the last couple Seasons here um but the thing I love is that over the course of

48 minutes you can just run your stuff you don’t have to sort of you know take out a chunk of the Playbook because you can’t flow through your big men the way you would when Yona purle is on the court right like it’s just those guys

Can do the same stuff as like hubs at the elbows to allow you to spend 48 minutes a night kind of instilling yourself in the offense you want to run long term and I think that’s just so valuable you know obviously I think you know elen has his issues with defensive

Rebounding those lineups are always going to being tough to uh you know def you know they’re going to have other guys have to S sort of gang rebound and play bigger than their size on the glass but overall I think having playmaking at the five reliable Center play for 48

Minutes for only 33 million bucks a year for the next little while here you could do a lot worse and I also don’t think Chelsea it precludes them from you know say there’s a really good Center Prospect in the draft that they feel great about you can still go draft that

Guy you can play Kelly at the four you can you know find space for three bigs in this front Court rotation and I I I don’t think you’ll be any worse for where either so uh all good thumbs up on the Kelly linic extension I think from

Our end we’re going to come back on the other side talk about some less inspiring news Scotty Barn had hand surgery yesterday bit of a bummer we’ll talk about that and the probable end of his season and what comes next for a bunch of guys in the team who has much

To gain from the Toronto Raptors no longer having their best player down the stretch we’ll get into that coming up in just one sec Today’s Show is sponsored by better help and look sometimes you just got to have someone to talk to it’s a very valuable thing just to have someone

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NBA and we continue on here with your first listen of the day Chelsea late from raptor HQ the wonderful wonderful website that uh you know for some reason housed me for a while they’ve moved up in the world and now Chelsea’s running the show and it’s fantastic everyone go

Subscribe to Raptor HQ subscribe just read it you don’t have to subscribe it’s just there for you to read go do it there for you to read I mean follow us on the hell site but yeah yeah follow on the hell site follow on all the other channels that are less hellish although

Sort of hellish as everything as hell these days but Raptor’s HQ is not uh all right speaking of Hell Scotty Barnes hand surgery had it yesterday in in La no timetable for his return but going off of what Jeff STS from at in street clothes laid out after Scotty Barnes

First suffered his injury and it was you know deemed a third metacarpal fracture uh the surgery option he said carries an average of 41 days absence average of 18 games absence yeah that’s probably gonna spell the end for Scotty barnes’s season and likely spell the end for him uh you

Know getting back for five games or so to make himself eligible for most improved player if he was ever going to be in the conversation for that who knows it’s a weird award the voting never makes sense to me but Chelsea this is a bummer I feel like we knew this was

Probably coming anyway I don’t think many people had much hope that he would return but now that we have the news he’s had surgery how you feeling where where you at with the sort of uh assessing and processing of the Scotty Barnes potentially season ending injury

Here yeah I mean we were there on Friday when it happened and it was funny I mean you’ve covered raptor games you know the whole deal you know we’re all sitting up there we’re watching the game and sometimes you know you’re just kind of like plugging away and stuff happens and

You’re like wait what happened and everybody’s just trying to like figure it out um so the thing with Scotty was that I was watching him and like a couple plays before the play that they said was when he did it he like got a pass and then like kind of shook out his

Hand and then took a shot and I was like oh that’s weird like I don’t know if he was just doing some sometimes he does little flashy stuff and you’re like oh okay um and then like a couple minutes later you know someone next to me is

Like oh Scotty’s going to the locker room and I was like oh okay like that’s weird and you know sometimes they just go and then they come back but you know as the time went on and he didn’t come back everybody was like uh okay and then

You start seeing the little signs you start seeing you know he’s not coming back you start seeing Bobby Webster coming out it’s like okay like something a little bit more serious is happening and so we were all we were all bracing for the the the break we were like it’s

Probably broken um and then yeah we got news after that it was broken and um I think like once the thing with like trying to assess these situations like as they’re ongoing is that there’s always kind of little signs that you learn as you like get more experienced

And the like ass like the assessment over the couple of days it was like okay surgery is probably coming that’s usually what happens when they need to assess more um and yeah and then he had surgery yesterday in La apparently um so I mean lucky for him he gets to sit in

The sun probably for a bit but um at this point you know there’s really no point of trying to rush him back like if the Raptors were a playoff team it’ be like yeah okay let’s get him back he’s our best player but at this point what

Are you losing except like you said like his most approved player prospects which I mean I would have wanted him to be in the conversation but who knows um like statistically he should be but didn’t feel like he had a lot of helium in that conversation yeah exactly so and and at

That point like you’re not going to rush him back for that you’re not going to rush him back for this team to um you know become 12th in the standings you’re not going to rush him back for this team to go in even for a playin spot like

We’re going to go back to that playin for what model that we were talking about a couple years ago here chelse we’re still a pro catch the stupid Hawks for the playin podcast okay sorry apologies apologies but at the same time you think about it like what’s the point

Of rushing him back if that might worsen it and at the end of the day you have to think of his long-term Health you have to think about the next couple of years because at the end of the day the season doesn’t really matter anymore um and you

Have to make sure that your best player is going to be okay long term and so if rushing him back is like just for I don’t know like The Superficial stuff then there’s no point to it and you have to make sure that he uh you know heals

Properly and does all that so yeah I could see him going out for the season I could see him you know making sure he gets the most rest and time possible and I mean it’s been a long season for him I I feel like if anyone has felt the

Pressure this season it it probably could have been him you have all of this hope put on you and all this stuff put on you and I could see you know any person would probably feel a little bit stressed so I think for him the best

Option is just to like let him heal the rest of the season the offse get him back slowly don’t rush and just think about next season and I mean if this season was any indicator of his like trajectory then you know hopefully he can heal up nice and good and get a nice

And good offseason in yeah for sure like if he could come back and there would be like a 15 to 20 game runway on the other side of it I think it’d be worth bringing him back because I do think you know what I was excited for down the

Stretch of this season was sort of laying foundation for next year so you’re not going in starting behind the start line you’re starting like at the start lineer with a little bit of a head start um and so you don’t get that opportunity doesn’t mean other guys

Won’t get that shot and we can talk about that a little bit but um yeah it’s at this point if it’s only going to be for you know three four five games it doesn’t feel worth it to you know push it question for you Chelsea this is just

A question about your brain works if you were a professional basketball player and your season came to an end and you were averaging 19.9 points per game would that drive you insane for the rest of your life yeah like that’s that’s how my brain 100 and it’s fun my is

Twitching looking at Scot Barn’s line right now no I was writing so yesterday I was writing my like Scotty Barnes injured s like it was before the surgery but like Scotty Barnes piece and I looked at his total and I wanted so bad to round up I was like I want to round

Up so bad this is annoying me even for me um and I was like no like that’s not how this works I can’t round up and I was so can’t have a Stolen Valor 20 point a game season oh man I was like really he couldn’t have stayed in for an

Extra like three minutes after he broke his hand and just like tried to get a couple with his other hand I mean is the difference literally one basket like I don’t know how math works I’m a writer but um yeah yeah it’s probably the differ this why I’m asking the question

Openly otherwise I would have the answer I too do not have the math brain we need kiks up in here for the for the math but KS um you get stat Muse up and not stat Muse I feel like that’s not like a very integral but you just flash some sort of

Like stats into the the sky and she’ll she’ll come and help crunch those numbers KS crunch them please no okay that poor just random side note like her and I are really good friends in real life and the times that I text her I’m like keeks please help me with these

Numbers and she like explains the stupidest stuff to me like you you’re the best I love you okay bye that’s the relationship I that’s the relationship I have with uh Daniel Hackett the cap expert over at HQ uh sometimes I’m just messaging him with like it’s like 10:30 at night I’m in the

Trade machine I maybe had an edible and I’m like all right Daniel does this work in the cap what are we doing here what is the ramifications of this fake trade that I’ve done exactly that’s the thing withs too is that like if like the girl

Will be up all night like doing work and stuff and I’ll text her at like 11:00 p.m. and be like KS she’ll be like right away and I’m like you’re my girl crunch you’re my girl I love her amazing I’m like ke one time she had to explain how

The NBA Advanced stats worked like this is early in me learning about stats again I’m a writer she’s like Chelsea all you have to do is go on NBA Advanced stats and all of this is there for you but I’ll explain it anyway and I’m like this is why you’re the best

Uh we were talking about Scotty Barnes right yeah we were 19.9 points anyway yeah maybe bring him back for one game just so he can put up 30 just so he can get to 20 in a game that his hand it’s his left hand so his shooting hand is

Still good you get him in there for like two minutes his dunk hand perfectly fine yeah perfect although if he comes back and scores under 19 points then it will ruin everything so it’s got to be yeah it’s got to be tailored somehow we need like a time traveler to go back

Into that Golden State game and someone just pulls em manual quickly away from his hand If I Could Turn Back Time see I didn’t realize it was that he bumped into quickly I thought he did the like he broke his hand in the net thing because like that is a hazard that’s a

Thing that’s yeah no that see this is the question where we’re we were all trying to figure out because like I thought it was on the P before lots of people thought he hit it on the rim then people started coming in and saying Emanuel quickly kicked him so it was a

Whole thing um yeah I don’t know maybe tonight we’ll like get a more the the Scotty Barnes hand autopsy that everyone yeah if they maybe they’ve had time to go look at the film and like see exactly like what happened but yeah even the other night apparently emanel

Quickly was like I haven’t seen the film so I don’t really know what happened but sorry yeah sorry guys please please don’t do the Raptor’s internet thing and hate me for some weird reason yeah the yeah uh with that let’s uh move into happier times Chelsea or seemingly

Happier times we’ve uh you know what this this conversation cheered me up about Scotty at least a little bit you know it’s all GNA be okay he’ll be back season healthy hopefully average more than 19.9 points a game and everything will be all good yeah you bounce back

Real quick when you’re 22 those you know yeah I I miss that I miss uh you know not stubbing my toe and feeling it the next four days those are the days um we’re going to come back on the other side Chelsea we’re going to get into the

News from Shireen ammed from CBC that Toronto WNBA back on we’ll get to that coming up in just one sec Today’s Show is brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel the number one sports book in all of North America and right now you can get buckets with

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Season’s coming up we’re going to talk about the WNBA and Toronto coming up in just a second here maybe you want to put some Futures down who going to win MVP the WNBA Championship will the aces do it again it’s all there for you on FanDuel just visit fanduel.com locked on

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Background while you do work or whatever uh all right Chelsea let’s get into it last night a bomb dropped uh via CBC and Shireen ammed the WNBA and Toronto the dream might not be dead the last time you were on this show we did a whole podcast about how Rogers is a little

Baby man and how the Tor Toronto bid for the WNBA expansion team that was along rumored going way back to before they even hosted the game last summer between Chicago and Minnesota that sold out that was an absolute rousing success uh and see it seemed as though like a couple of

You know whiny baby board members were the ones who turned down the possibility of a bid via mlsc of course things have changed and it seems as though per the reporting from sharen knet at CBC go read the piece uh that Larry tanon bomb is kind of you know we’ve know he’s

Reshaped his role within mlsc he now has his own Kilmer Investment Group I think that’s the right name for it excuse me if I’m incorrectly naming the firm with lots of money they’ll be fine uh but seemingly making a bid via his own investment company that is going to sort

Of broaden its Sports Reach from the sounds of it and uh it seems as though as early as May something could go down with Toronto in the WNBA Coca-Cola Coliseum projected to be potentially the host arena for the WNBA team in Toronto Chelsea I know this excites you uh it

Texted you right as it happened and I was like yes you’re on the Pod this is perfect we had already booked this uh this guest appearance before this uh so Serendipity it happened in real life Chelsea your feelings your thoughts your level of excitement your level of not

Quite getting too excited because you don’t want it to be taken away from you where you at WNBA to Toronto just get into your feelings please yeah I mean totally like unexpected shout out to Shireen like the perfect person to be dropping this news when I saw was her

Breaking this news I was like she is just like such a wonderful person to me to like every woman in the sports space I was thinking about our last conversation and how I kind of went on a rant about like women in sports and all this stuff and like I

Just it’s like you said I’m trying to like keep my expectations because I know how this bid thing works at the WNBA I know what their I guess stipulations are and I understand like what um Toronto and like this group may be able to offer um but I feel like what

People don’t know is that the WNBA is in a very precarious situation right now with expansion where they announced San Francisco so San Francisco is for sure coming in 2025 um and then then they had like a Portland situation which is when we kind of thought Toronto might be in the mix

But then the Pug plug got pulled and then Portland pulled out um so then they were left with like this random like 13 team situation for next year and everybody was like how’s that going to work because right like with playoffs and the WNBA doesn’t any season

Tournament like the NBA does but we did it before I love how I say we like I’m I’m not a part of the league um but uh but that would be all like very interesting an odd amount of teams and so like there is like incentive for the

WNBA to bring in a 14th team before next season um and Toronto seems like one of the only places that kind of already has the infrastructure in place to be able to quickly do that and we kind of have the benefit of seeing how quickly and

Successful the pwl just did it and so I think like all of those factors kind of played into the fact that you know not only is Toronto ready for another women’s professional sports franchise but like not only is the audience here but like we can make it work and you

Know start building the infrastructure that needs to happen for the WNBA to say okay yes we trust you um and I mean I was at that pwhl game a couple weeks ago was the same if you know energy as that WNBA game last year and people were like

Oh it’s like a one-time thing it’s but like I feel like every time Toronto has been asked to prove themselves as a women’s Sports Hub they just above and beyond Toronto pwl has been sold out since before the SE season even started these one time like big scoa bank arena

Games immediately sold out the energy the amount of people that come out and support the merch like even with the pwhl like the merch again it was the same situation as the WNBA so trying not to get my hopes up too much but like it seems like

Everything is falling in place and then you get someone like Teresa who I think everybody was really confused last week when we were kind of like oh it’s her last day like yeah for those for those who don’t know Teresa rash uh VP of basketball operations and Player

Development for the Raptors for the last little while her last day with the franchise was Friday and it didn’t seem like it was any sort of like you know bad split or anything like that it was just sort of like a copesthetic oh I’m done now and it makes a whole lot more

Sense now carry on with what you were saying yeah so yeah so that was a little confusing and so I have so I my WNBA spaces are mostly Americans obviously because we don’t have a team here so then I end up writing for like American places and it’s funny because when this

News dropped yesterday everybody so I write for a site called winsider if you’re into the WNBA it’s like one of the best places the like everyone who writes there and I’m not just saying it because I write there but great great stuff um but our entire like channel was

Like oh my God Chelsea like and that’s why my phone was going off because they were all like oh my God and they were kind of like you know like how like real is this and I was like no like Teresa was the third most important person in

The Raptor’s franchise like her being a part of this is a huge huge good step and you’ve seen with these other like big women sports franchises opening up like having these experienced women at the helm is like such a good sign and so it feels like all of the pieces are kind

Of coming together in a good way that like last time especially because it was just like all of these like men that were kind of in charge of making this happen I don’t know maybe I’m just like not very trustful of men but um this like history says uh you know

Nepo baby men not the best not the best yeah so it seems a little bit more safe this time it seems a little bit more like trustworthy a bit this time and I mean in terms of General feelings while getting a WNBA team like I can’t even like process it right now

Because it would just it would be a dream like I I know like myself included there are so many people who love this league so much and the fact that like it’s so hard to like travel to go see like the games and it’s so hard to like

To have a team here would just open up so many like things not only just in the women’s sports Community but like opportunities for people to do really impactful work and opportunities for people to come to Canada and like see how great our basketball Community is the opportunities for like young girls

To see what they could be and develop into great basketball players It could only do good things for our incredible Canada basketball program like there’s so many aspects that would just like blow up you see how it’s happening in hockey right now and I think like not to

Say like oh like the pwhl is the reason but like we’re seeing in real time how another sport is just like cracking open this whole like women’s sports community and how people are coming together to support so I just seeing that this whole time the pwl because don’t get me wrong

I love hockey and I’m really happy for all these women but like it’s not like basketball is like my sport right so I’ve kind of been like oh like I wish this was happening for us and now that it could happen I’m like this is so exciting and so yeah I’m really excited

To see how it develops I’m excited to like hopefully play some part of it in the grand scheme of things and just on a little personal note it like made me really happy because yesterday when this news broke and Shireen was you know updating and all that stuff I had so

Many people just being like Oh my God Chelsea like tweeting stuff about it and like tagging me and stuff and I was like how did I become this like Ambassador for like WNBA being in Canada like it was just this weird moment where I like realized that like my work has

Kind of made a small small impact and I’m like okay that that feels really good so yeah those are the feelings from yesterday but shout out to Shireen and shout out to everyone who’s worked like really really hard to get this um this you know news coming about it’s been

Like years and years of us working really hard to you know promote this league and show that we have like a good infrastructure structure here so it’s it’s been like the work of so so many people no doubt and like it’s it was never you know the whole argument from

The people who voted no which is only Ed Rogers and Tony staffieri over at the the board um who had enough sway to turn it down you know the the uh you know the argument against it like as like a business venture never made sense it’s absurd like it’s a $50 million expansion

Fee they are going to make that back they’re going to print money with team um considering what the demand figures to be and you know especially if it’s going to be at an 8,000 seene Arena and not scoa Bank Arena I mean it’s bad for us folk who want to buy season tickets

Probably but uh good for the league making a ton of money off of the WNBA in Toronto which is again I think a thing to sort of justify doing it um it’s going to be one of the most profitable teams in the WNBA probably from day one

Just because of the demand and because of the basketball interest it’s already here and to your point like it only will mean good things going forward Michael Bartlett the president of basketball candidate was quoted in shireen’s piece talking about sort of the two things that would really strengthen women’s

Basketball in Canada one being a WNBA team in Toronto which he says would have sort of a similar quote unquote lightning rod effect as the Raptors did for basketball um which I think is pretty undeniable and then the second thing is a domestic league for women

Which you would think a WNBA team might be something that kind of sets the stage for that right you know increased interest increased you know demand and playing and all of that you know That Could set the stage for a domestic League akin to the CBL starting up on

The women’s side of things as well which like there’s so much talent in uh obviously the NCAA and of course in US Sports as well for women’s basketball you could fill out a Canadian League pretty damn easily I would say so yeah can only mean good things going forward

It’s extremely exciting I’m also so happy for you as someone who I know has been covering this stuff and to get all those texts reminds me of when I get texts when Terrence Ross did a cool dunk uh like you’ve done way better work way more groundw work on on your stuff way

More important than my Terrence Ross propaganda but uh I know the feeling it’s a very good feeling when you’re uh when your labors are uh rewarded with lots of people jumping in your messages when big news happens um do you have thoughts on a team name Chelsea this is gonna be a

Hotly contested thing I have my thoughts on this I’ve had the same name picked out for like eight years I’m curious do you have strong feelings one way or another on a Canadian on a WNBA team in Toronto’s name yeah I mean I’ve been back and forth on this for a couple

Years on different things um my two biggest options Like My Two Front Runners would be Toronto Huskies just because the history with Toronto huskys in Toronto basketball um you know all that stuff and it would just be and like I think in women’s basketball like huskys has been um a very like important

Mascot you have the Yukon huskys you have the Washington H like there’s a lot of like history with that like uh and women’s basketball so that would be really cool to have like a professional like a WNBA team called the huskys um and then it’s like kind of Canadian and

Like you know fun you get the blue they kind of match the pwl in the way you can kind of do like cool crossover stuff and then um when the uh Toronto 6 got disbanded like the previous professional women’s hockey team before the pwl was created the women’s hockey team in

Toronto was the Toronto 6 and I thought that was like a cool name I was like this is sick and then you kind of get like the OVO kind of thing if that ends up happening you kind of get like that um in there so um yeah so I my two

Options are tonal huskys or Tona six right on uh huskys I think I have a bad connotation of H huskys because my elementary school basketball team which stunk was the huskys and so I always just Associated us with us stinking at basketball but maybe if heresh

Sort of take on it would be good for me in my uh you know 11year old basketball trauma maybe there’s that I’m still Toronto smoke uh I I think it’s the big smoke that’s a name people definitely call Toronto all the time right uh you you can like have some sort of cool

Ghoulish mascot that’s like a smoke monster like out of lost or like like a pokemones purple Vibe that’s cool yeah yeah and like you don’t want that smoke could be just like the the the the I don’t know if the kids say that anymore that maybe is like an eight-year-old uh

Phrase as well as I’ve had this name picked out for a long time um but yeah the Toronto smoke that’s my uh submission it’s not going to be that because I heard that crudes will be like but you’re talking you’re promoting smoking or something like that but you

Know that wouldn’t be what it is it’s like a cool it’s cool like ghosty either way Chelsea that feels like a pretty good place to leave this one it was a loaded episode but so glad could have you on to dig into all of the news from yesterday around Toronto hoop uh

Anything you want to promote for the good people out there check out Raptors HQ on Twitter that’s what I still call it um yeah and Raptors hq.com um check out I guess my if you want to be updated on all the WNBA stuff I guess now I can

Plug this um oh yeah check out my own account I’m Chelsea late on basically everything um and yeah got some exciting the WNBA season in general is starting soon which I will be reporting on so if you want to like get ahead of the game and start figuring out who the big

Rivals are going to be start figuring out who you want the the the Toronto pluck via expansion draft yeah yeah let’s go uh yeah so check me out for that stuff hell yeah uh thanks so much Chelsea always wonderful having you on the show thank you the listeners for

Being here and hanging out we’ll be back again tomorrow talking about Raptors Pelicans a game that might not go so hot for your local basketball team on account of no Scotty barns no Bruce Brown and no yaka purle it’s fine they’ll have so many options for guarding Zion Williamson right poor

Kello about to get cut that extension and is about to get bludgeoned by Zion it’ll be a blast I’m sure either way we’ll break it all down on tomorrow’s show thank you so much for hanging out and supporting the show we will talk to you then thanks for hanging bye-bye

In Episode 1589, Sean Woodley is joined by Chelsea Leite (Raptors HQ, Winsidr) to chat about the a very busy news day in Toronto basketball, as the Toronto Raptors signed Kelly Olynyk to a 2-year, $26.25 million extension, Scottie Barnes had surgery on his fractured hand, and Shireen Ahmed reported that the WNBA-to-Toronto dream is very much still alive. Off the top, Sean and Chelsea chat about the Olynyk extension, why it makes a lot of sense for the Raptors, and why it validates the decision to trade for the previously pending UFA at the NBA Trade Deadline. Next, they discuss Scottie Barnes’ undergoing hand surgery in Los Angeles and why it almost surely spells the end of his season. Plus, how irritating is it that he finished the year averaging 19.9 points per game? Lastly, Sean and Chelsea dig into the reporting on Larry Tanenbaum reviving the bid for a Toronto expansion franchise in the WNBA via his non-MLSE-affiliated Kilmer Group, and why the reports are so darn exciting. Eat it, Ed Rogers.

Join us over on the Locked On Raptors Discord server! https://discord.gg/V67kVZRU

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