Rick Brunson .com artist's rendering of Mengke Bateer in Antonio Davis disguise

Team officials reportedly staked out opponents arenas on the West Coast recently in an effort to intercept any possible defection attempts by the Raptors Antonio Davis. Suspicions were greatly aroused during the road games in Portland, L.A. and Sacramento when Davis didn't bother to show up for any of these games.

The visit to Portland was considered particularly high risk, given the trade rumours that continue to circulate about the Raptors and Trailblazers. Antonio did make a brief appearance during warm-ups, but was caught "accidentally" returning to the wrong locker room, in a desperation move to force what is obviously a financially impossible exchange.

Given AD's absence, the NBA has been struggling to explain the 6.0 points per game that, according to the box scores, he apparently averaged during that time. However Toronto's Mengke Bateer stepped forward today and confessed to changing his haircut and donning Antonio's number 33 as a way to crack the starting lineup. By quickly switching jerseys during timeouts, he had access to an invaluable 12 fouls when guarding Shaq, and still managed to use them all in the space of 4 minutes, a new NBA record.

With the infamous 'Piz-za Piz-za' chant of past year's Raptors games now replaced by the 'z-z z-z' chant already familiar to the Leafs, MLSE knew it was time to start a courageous new initiative aimed at Toronto's neediest, hungriest, and sleepiest people: hoops fans.

The city's "forgotten residents" don't really have a team worth cheering for and are broke and starving thanks to rising ticket and concession stand prices. Shockingly, these disenfranchised souls have begun to stay away from the ACC. But MLSE has their finger on the pulse of this great town and knew what it would take to bring the crowds back: admit the games suck, and reward the fans for enduring it!

The new gimmick is to "randomly" determine the target score for the pizza give-away, but what the crowd doesn't know is that the only possible number is "57". Team officials used complex statistical modeling to determine this ideal score: a number that the Raptors will typically be approaching in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, and which provides roughly 50:50 odds of being surpassed.

The chants return, the excitement builds, and the stomachs are filled! What more could we as fans ask for?

The Orlando Magic's Tracy McGrady, to the delight of Raptor's fans everywhere, has suffered through one of the worst starts ever for a player who was the winner of the scoring championship the previous year. Now, with the coach fired and the team in utter disarray, experts and pundits have predictably abandoned their crucifixion of Vince Carter to capitalize on his cousin's struggles, starting rampant speculation on why his performance has suffered.

Chad Ford was quoted in a recent forum chat as saying: "It's obvious that coaching was the heart of the problem. Everybody knows that your star baller needs to be properly burped between dunks. Doc Rivers didn't get fired because of the team's record, but because he refused to keep a fresh towel over his shoulder, take McGrady firmly in his arms during timeouts, and pat that nasty gas out!"

David Aldridge took a different perspective: "With shorts as baggy as they are in today's NBA it's pretty hard to tell, but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that Doc was asking Tracy to penetrate those zone defenses on a full diaper! No wonder he got canned. Players just don't have full range of motion in those regulation pull-ups, and it's got to affect your confidence when you're constantly thinking about what's running down your leg!"

Rick Brunson .com recommends a different approach for interim coach Johnny Davis when communicating with T-Mac: "Does wittle Twacy wan som hewp to put da baw in da basket? huh? Does he? Yes he does! Wew, dat's too bad. Wittle baby Twacy gots to do it awwww by his self. Or maybe he shouwd just retiwe? Shouwd he? Yes he shouwd! Awwwwww."