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MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 32)

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How do you feel about the Raptors pursuing Rudy Gay?

Yes! Do it. He'd be our best wing by a mile.
121
47%
No way! He's overpaid, overrated.
41
16%
Meh. Only if he comes very cheap.
97
37%
 
Total votes: 259

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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#601 » by Southward1 » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:00 pm

Harry Palmer wrote:
Scraptor wrote:HP, since you and Dagger are polar opposites, and I already asked him how he'd approach the Indiana path of rebuilding, who do you think we should keep? What should we do with our numerous bad contracts? Just curious.



The painful truth is we have mediocred our way to a place where there are no Master Plans or magic bullets. We are years of patience away from a shot at contending. And the steps until then are pretty easy to see.

Ideally I'd like to get rid of our STUPID DUMB CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE DIDN'T REVOLT lottery pick debt this year. I'd be unloading everyone but JV, maybe Ed, maybe maybe Ross...trade everything for picks...take bad medium/long contracts if we have to...placeholders of one variety or another aren't the focal point for the next few years, so ride them out and pay them out if it gets us picks in the next 3 to 4 years.

And just play it out. Resist the urge to accelerate or whatever parlance for dumb you favour. Realize that the most important players on the Toronto Raptors contending team are in college or HS right now.

We've done the other forever...one definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Let's do something different.


I've been wanting that the whole year and Ross is not worth keeping. Keep Jonas, because whatever you could get for him is most likely the same or lesser value (and he's the only one on the team with legitimate upside) and hope to land a superstar by sucking and reeking and calculating picks.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#602 » by Beardman » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:03 pm

Harry Palmer wrote:
Beardman wrote:I get what you're saying but we've tried the losing approach, 5 of the last 7 years and it has gotten us mediocre talent at best whether through draft or FA. The only left is to trade for other teams talents and go from there. This is my mindset until BC is no longer involved with the Raptor organization.



But we were NOT trying to lose. We were NOT rebuilding. We were incompetent.

There IS a difference.

So making a move for Gay or w/e now in some ad-him resignation to BC is just costing us more years of mediocrity while waiting for the Right Time To Rebuild to sort of appear with coloured lights and a fan base saying 'we're on board!'

Ie, not gonna happen. It's going to hurt whenever we do it. And it will hurt until we do it.
You're saying all the right things but the problem is that I do not expect management to do it. When has MLSE and Toronto FO ever done anything that they cannot sell to the casual fan ?

and I had hope in a proper rebuild until we started chasing Nash, fortunately that fell through and I thought "Good ! back to the rebuild" and then we traded our pick for Lowry, an accelerator.. I do not trust management to rebuild.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#603 » by Harry Palmer » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:06 pm

Accepting that our management is intent on shooting themselves in the foot isn't a better option than not a accepting it, though.

And for the record, the only time we 'rebuilt' in the past decade happened when BC went to management with another KWIK FIKSEZ plan and they said no, be patient. He managed to turn that into nothing and then sold them on Nash or w/e, but the fact is the only time we know of ownership involving themselves, it was to push for patience.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#604 » by ash_k » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:13 pm

If somehow we could manage to include Jose, Demar and Fields and keep Ross, Val, Bargnani , Davis

With Lowry and Gay on the same team in the East..Playoff Guaranteed for the next 4 years.

And upsets in the playoff always happen.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#605 » by Scraptor » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:13 pm

Harry Palmer wrote:
Scraptor wrote:HP, since you and Dagger are polar opposites, and I already asked him how he'd approach the Indiana path of rebuilding, who do you think we should keep? What should we do with our numerous bad contracts? Just curious.



The painful truth is we have mediocred our way to a place where there are no Master Plans or magic bullets. We are years of patience away from a shot at contending. And the steps until then are pretty easy to see.

Ideally I'd like to get rid of our STUPID DUMB CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE DIDN'T REVOLT lottery pick debt this year. I'd be unloading everyone but JV, maybe Ed, maybe maybe Ross...trade everything for picks...take bad medium/long contracts if we have to...placeholders of one variety or another aren't the focal point for the next few years, so ride them out and pay them out if it gets us picks in the next 3 to 4 years.

And just play it out. Resist the urge to accelerate or whatever parlance for dumb you favour. Realize that the most important players on the Toronto Raptors contending team are in college or HS right now.

We've done the other forever...one definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Let's do something different.


Yep, I totally agree. I'd really hoped we would stockpile picks in the 2012 draft. Now we need to do that for 2014, and then just--let--the--kids--play. It really is unfathomable to me how we keep adding journeymen like Butler, Forbes, Pietrus, and Gray, and giving them minutes over the young talent we should be cultivating.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#606 » by Double Helix » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:14 pm

Harry Palmer wrote:
ImissJordan wrote:
Harry Palmer wrote:MOAR KWIK FIKSEZ!!!!!!!!


I thought you wanted Gay?

:wink:



Lol. Back then, with Bosh, and rebuilding yet to do, yes.

Now, with him becoming our best player and no end to the treadmill in sight?

No.

Now is always the wrong time to rebuild. Now it's always too painful. Now it's always not commercially viable.

I don't get how people who make that argument feel it will ever get to be a better time, by itself.

Short term solutions to avoid short term pain leading to long term pain leading to short term solutions to avoid short term pain leading to long term pain leading to short term solutions to avoid short term pain leading to....

This will NEVER stop itself. It will always have to happen at a time when it feels too painful. As long as we keep long term planning like 10 year olds, we'll stay as enablers to better teams in the short term and lesser teams in the long term.

Remember all the times when it was too painful to rebuild in the past? Back when the Clippers and Celtics and Grizzlies and Thunder were teams we looked down on? God, it felt good to avoid all that pain, didn't it?


Harry, this is the blueprint for Canada's only NBA team:

1) Give the fans a playoff series or two every 5 years.
2) Lose a veteran star a season or two after you're back in the lottery.
3) Attempt a mini rebuild through the draft.
4) If only one star is acquired during step 3, or if the team only has a collection of late lotto talents, Bandaid fix to ensure that step 1 is repeated.

Because we can't rely on free agency like the hottest destinations in the NBA can the only way we get off the treadmill is if we land a superstar or two during the mini-rebuild process. That didn't happen this time so now the Raptors organization is thinking bandaid fix, give the fans some playoff fun, and then we'll go back to the minirebuild phase in a couple more years.

If we miss the playoffs this year it will be the first time in franchise history we've went this long without making it. We have the largest collection of continuous lotto talent in franchise history but it's mostly late lotto talent. That doesn't change the fact that the mini-rebuild phase has ended and step 4 has begun to ensure that step 1 occurs this year or next year. MLSE doesn't trust that the corporate market, which comprises the majority of the Gold sections at the ACC and almost all of the luxury boxes, can suffer more lotto years. Corporations follow the storylines and the popularity trends in the city. If the brand starts to lose its sheen the corporations quit purchasing tickets and turn instead to some other event because clients are less interested in going. Corporate Toronto used to be a strength of the Blue Jays. Years of lackluster play eroded that (until now). MLSE undoubtedly had their most profitable years during the years the Raptors were in the playoffs and they're going to experience that again before tanking for more stars.

The tank concept is for the hardcore fan. Hardcore fans in basketball want to tank indefinitely and essentially hibernate until the ping pong balls bounce the right way and give hope. We're the fans who reset our Nintendo's to start over when we knew we didn't have enough lives to win the game. We are the minority of the millions of Raptors fans in Canada. They feel the team has been losing games for too long and are desperate for some kind of satisfaction, even if it's short-term. The largest basketball demographic is males aged 18-35. With youth comes naivete and if this city was back in the playoffs, regardless of how flawed the roster was, you can bet there would be young basketball fans across the city (who don't frequent basketball fans) and across the country who'd believe that maybe we had a chance.

Blame it on us being the only team outside of the US. Blame it on the fact that basketball is a business. Blame it on the fact that this association has more dynasties and draft-reliance than any other in NA sport. Blame it on Colangelo. But the rebuild IS over. The team now wants to sell hope to the less jaded and cynical (the anti-RealGM basketball fan). We ARE on the treadmill again. Might as well land ourselves Rudy Gay so we can at least watch something on TV while we jog.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#607 » by Dr Positivity » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:20 pm

I love that PHX trade for Memphis. Dudley is exactly the type of player MEM needs to replace Gay with at SF. He'd be a permanent version of 2011 Battier for them spacing the floor, hitting open shots and moving the ball with a high IQ. Or basically the Tayshaun Prince to their 2000s Pistons. Don't think the Raps can compete with that offer even if they put Ross in the trade, because MEM is still trying to win a title the next 2 years and nothing we can offer helps that as much as PHX giving them that Dudley glue guy piece on the wings
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#608 » by Harry Palmer » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:21 pm

A mini rebuild is a contradiction in terms.

Rebuilding means recognizing that you need star talent to win, and that we have no other realistic avenues to same. Therefore putting a time limit on it before you get the star talent is digging a hole to fill a hole.

You Re going to need luck to become a contender no matter how you get there. Rebuilding is maximizing your avenues to and control over that luck, and more...in our situation... I don't see how we go from mediocre to great with luck. Free agents superstars are not going to sign here. Not going to demand to be traded here. And if we're quick fixing we aren't building up the assets to trade for them. So rebuilding means time + luck + brainpower. Not rebuilding means luck plus underpants gnomes.

Nad if you are incompetent, it doesn't matter what way you go EXCEPT the degree to which the draft is structured to reward incompetence to some degree.

So, really, there is only one way. That it is not a guarantee is not an argument against it; the alternatives are pretty much guaranteed to not work for us.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#609 » by Hero » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:31 pm

Our weakest position is SF by far. BC should be trying his best to get Gay for Derozan + Klieza or something similar.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#610 » by Double Helix » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:32 pm

Harry Palmer wrote:A mini rebuild is a contradiction in terms.

Rebuilding means recognizing that you need star talent to win, and that we have no other realistic avenues to same. Therefore putting a time limit on it before you get the star talent is digging a hole to fill a hole.

You Re going to need luck to become a contender no matter how you get there. Rebuilding is maximizing your avenues to and control over that luck, and more...in our situation... I don't see how we go from mediocre to great with luck. Free agents superstars are not going to sign here. Not going to demand to be traded here. And if we're quick fixing we aren't building up the assets to trade for them. So rebuilding means time + luck + brainpower. Not rebuilding means luck plus underpants gnomes.

Nad if you are incompetent, it doesn't matter what way you go EXCEPT the degree to which the draft is structured to reward incompetence to some degree.

So, really, there is only one way. That it is not a guarantee is not an argument against it; the alternatives are pretty much guaranteed to not work for us.


It's almost as if you believe that winning a championship is the only reason the NBA granted Toronto a team and why its owners wanted one. Basketball in Toronto is here to allow us to see the superstar teams of the league every once and a while during the rebuild phase. It's to grow basketball as a sport across the country so that kids ask for jerseys, basketball video games, and tickets and their parents buy it for them. They put a time limit on rebuilding because profit is more important than winning a championship and they have figured out that the best way to earn profit is to compete every half-decade, and then hope for the best in the lottery again, and repeat this process indefinitely UNTIL we land the next Carter, or Lebron, or Durant.

RealGMers underestimate the power of the casual fan. Without the casual fan the ACC doesn't have the strong attendance that it does. The Raptors could care less about the vocal minority of arm chair cynics and tankologists on here who have realized how draft-reliant the process of building a contender is and how stacked the deck is for the most desirable cities in the league vs the lesser cities. The Raptors want to sell hope. They want to sell the fact that once you're in the playoffs anything can happen. They want the next generation of fans who are still young and naive to it all, not the jaded and cynical.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#611 » by YoungG » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:36 pm

Dr Positivity wrote:I love that PHX trade for Memphis. Dudley is exactly the type of player MEM needs to replace Gay with at SF. He'd be a permanent version of 2011 Battier for them spacing the floor, hitting open shots and moving the ball with a high IQ. Or basically the Tayshaun Prince to their 2000s Pistons. Don't think the Raps can compete with that offer even if they put Ross in the trade, because MEM is still trying to win a title the next 2 years and nothing we can offer helps that as much as PHX giving them that Dudley glue guy piece on the wings


but..but...Landry is a glue guy at the sf posit...damn it BC!
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#612 » by Suga2Panda » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:36 pm

For a while I was hating on BC. But he is what he is and MLSE seems fine with that. MLSE is the real problem... Id rather have jordan for an owner at this point.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#613 » by Harry Palmer » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:39 pm

Double Helix wrote:
It's almost as if you believe that winning a championship is the only reason the NBA granted Toronto a team and why its owners wanted one. Basketball in Toronto is here to allow us to see the superstar teams of the league every once and a while during the rebuild phase.


But DH, those superstars are on our schedule no matter how bad we are. And if the point is just to enjoy the game, then none of this matters. Why waste any energy over Rudy Gay or not Rudy Gay? Just roll with who brung ya and enjoy the aesthetics of it all. Wow, the athleticism.

I mean, I can dig that argument, but not the arbitrary stuff in between. Gay does not make us aesthetically better by factor 7C or whatever...it's arbitrary if you're not in it to win it. It's a made up line between bad and badder. So if it's just entertainment and we're just suckers, why bother with any of it? Get some scabs for all I care...the uniforms will look the same and the ball will still bounce up and down and the athletes on the visiting teams will still thrill.

That's where I fail to see the realism in the 'realistic' approach. It's not actually any more realistic, it's just drawing a different arbitrary line and saying 'that's what I'm ok with.'
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#614 » by RapsFanInVA » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:43 pm

I think we should all grab hands, close our eyes, and wish really really hard that all of our players become 10x better than they currently are. We have underestimated the power of positive thinking! Until we rule this method out, I don't see any other way we'll ever become more than 1st round playoff fodder this decade.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#615 » by RapsFanInVA » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:44 pm

EDIT: 2nd career double post
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#616 » by Dr Positivity » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:46 pm

I think people treat "full rebuilding" and being an ATL/IND/etc. perennial playoff team, as much more mutually exclusive paths than they are

A lot of the really long playoff droughts the last few decades like WAS, GSW, ATL, etc. happened because the team's plan was to make the 7th/8th seed. For example Atlanta got screwed up in the 2000s because they traded away a bunch of draft picks to team up Shareef, Terry, and Glenn Robinson to try and make the playoffs. Washington and GSW also dabbled in a lot of trading draft picks and overpaying players in hasty win now moves

What it really comes down to is that the bad franchises always make the same two moves, regardless of whether they're tanking or winning now. They trade away their 1st round picks and they overpay players. The good franchises do the opposite, they trade for extra 1st round draft picks and they hunt for bargains and salary cap flexibility. In all the major sports this is pretty much true. The worst franchises build around overpaid non difference makers instead of hording assets and young players.

Now look at BC: We've traded away a 1st round pick in FOUR different deals since he got here (+ the Charlie deal was made with the same mentality as if dealing a 1st for TJ), aside from the Bosh charity from MIA haven't done jack sh*t to try and get extra ones, and obviously we've overpaid middling players at every chance we get. BC even has the combo years, such as a year where he traded away a 1st for an overpaid veteran (JO), then traded another 1st so he could overpay another player in the summer (one of Hedo, Odom, Marion). He has another year where he traded away a 1st and then throw out 16 million+ a season to two mediocre wings (Derozan and Fields)
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#617 » by Harry Palmer » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:49 pm

Yeah, I wouldn't like it any more myself, but if our choices to not rebuild had meant some success, I can see where people might buy in.

But as is we've been paying for the ticket without getting the ride...AND PEOPLE WANT TO DO IT AGAIN.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#618 » by JYD » Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:56 pm

Here's how I see it:

I'd be down for Jose+DD for Gay.

Based on what we're hearing MEM wants, I'm guessing they'd prefer Jose+Ross. Not quite so hot on that one, but it could be interesting with DD and Gay.

For those who want a rebuild..well I'm not gonna argue with you either. I wouldn't worry though, even though BC probably tries to get this done to save his hide, he'll end up failing on plan A like he always does, probably get fired for missing the playoffs/doing nothing/doing something really stupid, and we'll end up with a rebuild anyway under a new GM.

Yeah I'm not disillusioned lol.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P.  

Post#619 » by Beardman » Tue Jan 8, 2013 11:00 pm

Yes hoarding prospects/assets and collecting picks is the right way to go about rebuilding but the problem is that there is no immediate gratification with that and the casual fan doesn't see the redeeming factor to having a pick(s) until it turns into something(someone) noteworthy.

MLSE will only do whats profitable and what they can sell to the casual fan, we can wish for something different but we're 17 years in the hole now. What Double Helix stated is what we should come to expect. Who knows maybe a Sam Presti like GM will come along one day and change the culture ...until then sign me up for Rudy Gay.
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Re: MEM shopping Rudy Gay (Raps interested, PHX in lead? P. 

Post#620 » by Harry Palmer » Tue Jan 8, 2013 11:02 pm

Beardman wrote:Yes hoarding prospects/assets and collecting picks is the right way to go about rebuilding but the problem is that there is no immediate gratification with that and the casual fan doesn't see the redeeming factor to having a pick(s) until it turns into something(someone) noteworthy.

MLSE will only do whats profitable and what they can sell to the casual fan, we can wish for something different but we're 17 years in the hole now. What Double Helix stated is what we should come to expect. Who knows maybe a Sam Presti like GM will come along one day and change the culture ...until then sign me up for Rudy Gay.


So, the problem is the causal fans.

And our response is to...make the same decisions they would make.

Maybe it's not just them. MAybe enough serious fans keep doing this cycle of rationale to keep that boat floating.
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