Jorge Garbajosa, Raptors Break Up

Typically, player contract buy-outs in the NBA come solely for financial considerations. The heaviest spate of buy-out action came in 2006, when the league instituted its limited amnesty program, allowing teams like Dallas to save some luxury tax cash by cutting overpaid men like Michael Finley loose. Rarely -- Steve Francis in Portland is the only one who comes to mind -- do teams buy out a contract because of a broken relationship or bad attitudes. It's always money.

Toronto won't be saving much cash at all in buying out Jorge Garbajosa, as the Toronto Globe & Mail reports has just happened. After last summer's saga with the Spanish national team, this break-up is solely based on hurt feelings and an incompatible relationship. For his part, team boss Bryan Colangelo pulls the old "it was mutual" bit.

"It's bittersweet," Colangelo said. "Because no matter what the financial benefits of the deal we don't have the player. We missed him last season and now we won't get him back and have to find what he brought to our lineup and that's not easy."

We're sure Garbo needs a hug, too. The G&M's Michael Grange's first guess has Jorge returning to a top Spanish club after the Olympics; dude's 31 years old, coming off a second knee surgery -- yeah, nary an NBA team's offering enough to keep Garbo stateside.

I remain wary of the dichotomy present in Toronto: the team is built on the backs of a Euro style and myriad international players, but Colangelo seems uneasy with allowing his players to be farmed out during the summer international season. (San Antonio shows the same paradox, asking Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Fabricio Oberto to forgo FIBA play last year.) The stance makes practical sense in dollars and cents, but it comes off incredibly shrewish.