Harry Palmer wrote:ImissJordan wrote:Harry Palmer wrote:MOAR KWIK FIKSEZ!!!!!!!!
I thought you wanted Gay?
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.