Driving home from work today, I was listening to the radio.  I usually have it tuned to my favorite sports broadcast.  Let it be known that this particular show is a hockey news (Toronto lives and dies with the Maple Leafs) show first and foremost, then followed up with little snip-its of other sports interspersed throughout.

One of those snip-its caught my attention, which was a rumor involving talks between the Toronto Raptors and Indiana Pacers.  Basically, here's the scenario as I know it:

Toronto sends TJ Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, the 17th pick in this years draft, and likely another player (to match salary) to Indiana for Jermaine O'neal...  Maybe some of you out there who are more familiar with Jermaine O'neal can offer their opinions to me why that would be a good deal, but I think it is a horrible and terrifying thought.

O'neal's recent injury history is just as sketchy as TJ Ford's, but there is consolation in the fact that TJ makes $8 mil per season, compared to $22 mil for O'neal.  That's a lot of money to be spending (wasting) on a guy who likely won't play a full season, and is especially difficult if your team is working on a budget.  For the same amount of money, a team could easily afford 2 or 3 other players of the same caliber who will be more reliable.  Usually when one talks of overrated players, does not Jermaine O'neals name come up often?

I do not like the idea of this trade at all.

I would be remiss in my duties to just leave it at that, so I will introduce a trade idea I do like.

What I think would work better is for the Raptors to get into talks with the Charlotte Bobcats, and encourage a sign-and-trade involving Emeka Okafor.  Okafor could easily sign for about $13 or $14 mil.  The Raptors offer up TJ Ford and Rasho Nesterovic, Charlotte offers Okafor and maybe Othella Harrington.  The salaries even out (approximately).  this gives Toronto more size that they have needed, and offers another rebounding option, and it gives the Bobcats a good explosive PG in Ford, teamed up with Raymond Felton, and that makes a decent PG duo.  Also, neither team is handcuffed by outrageous salaries.

Those are my thoughts of what I don't think my Raptors should do, and what I do think they should do.  I would like to thank CurlyMo who first suggested the idea of Emeka Okafor being the type of player that would help the Raptors a while ago when discussing many ideas.

I'll keep this nice and short.

Let's be honest, who does NOT sometimes find themselves rooting for the underdog?  Did you find yourself rooting for the 76ers last night?  Are you going to be rooting for the Hawks?  A little part of me was...