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Q: Hi Doug,

Hope you are getting a bit of a break with the draft done and most of the free agency dust settled. Now all we have to do is watch the kids play and figure out which ones are ready for prime time! Or not!

Some questions for you:

1) A basic Vegas Summer League question: I am considering making the trip down next year, do you have any advice on how to best enjoy the experience? Or survival tips? What are your recommended things to do in the Las Vegas area that don’t involve casinos or the NBA?

2) Delano Banton or Ben Simmons? If you are an NBA GM, which one is more appealing to you and why?

3) To date, the list of current Raptors still lacks length/size and is wing heavy. Is it likely that we’ll have to wait until the end of pre-season before this is addressed ? Again, just to confirm, we can only pick up players not signed to full or two-way contracts.

4) What do you think of acquiring ?ÌýLike Chris Boucher, he had fallen out of the rotation in Phoenix, but not due to his gameplay. Still 25 years old, still seven-foot-three tall, hits threes and blocks shots? Seriously, not deserving of a roster spot here? Thoughts?

Looking forward to Summer League action! I agree with your stance that success there doesn’t guarantee NBA success, but failure to thrive in Vegas means your NBA dreams are likely no dice!

Bernie M

A: Survival tips? Don’t come — I’m kidding, really. But it’s always in the mid-40s, searing cloudless heat and I’m not (a) built for the heat and (b) a fan of the noise and bustle of the mega-casinos. I’ve got a hotel that has no casino, it’s off the Strip and it’s just fine. But tips would be to avoid the big marquee games, if you just want to watch basketball, pick any two or three sessions, you may see promising young talent. Away from the game? Hoover Dam’s close and an interesting thing to see on a tour, if you golf there’s all kinds of great courses (play at like 6 a.m. to beat the heat).

Probably Simmons because he’s proven to be an above average defender and that’s a trait any team needs. Banton’s cheaper, though.

Aside from trades, yes, only free agents can be signed now and I would suggest this is the roster the Raptors will start the season with.

Bol Bol’s been in enough programs and around enough good coaches and played with enough good teammates and never once established himself as a long-term rotation piece. Intriguing? Maybe. Been there, done that? Most likely.

Q: This may be the shallowest question you’ll get this week, but something I have to know. I just finished watching an NBA season, probably 200 games, and in every game, every jump ball, the referee faced the same direction, with his/her back to the main play-by-play camera. Is this a rule? A rule of thumb? It’s too coincidental not to be structured this way on purpose.

Paul M

A: It’s not a rule but I have it on pretty good authority that if you look at it, the official making the toss is facing the scorer’s table where the clock operators sit. The cameras don’t matter.

Q: Hi Doug,

I’d really like to read your report of that fantastic inbounds play that assistant coach Carly Clarke drew up for the bronze-medal-winning bucket with 2.8 seconds left in double OT versus Argentina at the AmeriCup.

Lots of player movement and screens and timing to set up that game winner.

Please use your investigative journalistic chops to find out if Clarke was predicting that the Argentine player would face guard Syla Swords when she was waving her hands to imitate the upcoming face guard in the huddle before the play.

And what a pass by Delaney Gibb who threw to the correct spot even before Swords had made that gorgeous back door cut.

Have you ever seen such an open-look layup, directly from the inbounds play, for a game winner at any level?

Summer with all the national teams. Some good ball and promising players. Beauty.

Stay cool in Vegas.

Paul from Port Colborne

A: I wasn’t able to reach anyone with the Canada team because I was travelling and a bit tied up here in Vegas. Sorry.

But it was a great play call and even better execution — particularly the cross-court pass — and when I talked about it with an assistant coach friend of mine out here they pointed to the misdirection to set up the defender at the rim — “walking� her up to the line and back-cutting to the rim — was the key point.

One thing that was pointed out by a friend was their surprise that Argentina didn’t put its biggest player on the inbounds pass to make it more difficult.

Q: I know you wrote the original story about recently indicted Tim Lieweke.

I know he is only charged and not convicted of bid rigging in Texas.

However, did you ever get the feeling he was asked to leave under mysterious circumstances or similiar whispers at MLSE?

Yours truly

Adam Wetstein

A: Actually, I have nothing to do with the most recent Lieweke story; I don’t think I’ve written anything about him for years.

And there was nothing mysterious or nefarious or questionable about his departure here, it was just time for a change.

Also, I think we need to let the process play out and see what comes of these charges.

Q: Hi Doug,

³§±ð±ðÌý for the ultimate descent of sports into a tool of the new authoritarianism.

We know that professional wrestling has long been a “show” (as contrasted with the real sport of wrestling as practised by our university and Olympic athletes) but here we have something very different: a cruel and farcical version of sport harnessed to promote a deliberate political spectacle of toxic masculinity.

You have written convincingly of the positive human values sport can contain and develop. Here, we have the opposite.

Q: What can leaders of amateur and professional sport do to counter this version of sport or, conversely (and sadly), are we now on a “Gladiator Path” for sport’s future?

Charles N.

A: It’s funny, in a conversation this week in Vegas about fighting in a cage, a colleague (and I’m not going to name him because it was a private chat and I don’t want to have the social media horde descent on him) said, in so many words: “Didn’t we invent sports so we wouldn’t have to watch stuff like that?�

And aside from not amplifying it, or investing our time, words and space on it, I’m afraid it’s part of society. But you won’t see me showing the last bit interest in and trying to talk my circle of friends to give it a pass.

As for the White House? I find that demeaning, and disrespectful of what the building stands for but at the same time I’m not the least surprised that someone who lives there and traffics in disrespect and demeaning actions would promote it.