The real reason Masai hasn't done much this offseason

[Johnny Bball]

I hear a lot of people complaining that MU hasn't done much this offseason to improve the team and there's an obvious reason for this.
The first 20 games of the season are going to be do or die for Dwayne Casey. MU is playing the wait and see approach. If the raps are back to being the raps of 2 seasons ago, he'll support the team and make a trade for a starting power forward if Patterson isn't cutting it and maybe some depth off the bench to make this team more playoff built. If, however, they stumble out of the gate, Casey gets fired, demar and Lowry are traded and MU rebuilds with 2 lottery picks (thanks Knicks) , cap space and young players with potential.
To me, this is obvious. This team as currently constructed is not a second round playoff team because quite frankly MU hasn't decided yet if this is a playoff team. The raps ended last season on an awful note and MU needs to be prepared that he may need to fire Casey, but he's giving him 20 games to see if no Lou or GV and better defensive players will change things; if not, he can easily hit the reset button.
The wait and see approach is classic Masai. We won't know what he does until after 20 games.

So no. This was a valid theory 2 years ago. Its not "obvious" and its not happening. He might replace Casey, but thats all.

[Berserk_Raptor]

have you realized our goal is to get the NBA Trophy, while the Front office goal is to make money I guess in the end our teams goal is to get to the second round and that's it. Lets not act like Masai has to bring superstar players, that only happens in our dreams.

[shmoosicle]

You can't just snap your fingers and get a superstar... I'm sure Masai would love to bring a star in, but it's not that easy. Look how many times Daryl Morey or Mark Cuban swung and missed for stars. A little patience please.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

He did quite a bit. I mean, like or hate the moves he made, he actually made a bunch.

There is a volume of new faces, the only player moved who in a deal was Vasquez. Other than that, he spent capspace, and used draft picks and extended JV. I guess he fired some assistant coaches and hired new ones. While there are a lot of new faces, to me it's far from an overhaul, because a lot the changes were on the fringes. Like all of our guys who were expiring, Amir and Lou and may Hansbro were the only ones with roles other than Grievas. So he had no choice, he had to make a decision to either bring them back or replace them - to me that's housekeeping. Given how he was evaluating for years and how he said Play-off performance will be paramount in evaluation, I certainly expected more of an overhaul than what we got. We made the most changes to the Bench and depth positions, starters change by swapping out Ross for Carroll, and losing Amir. Kept the same head coach.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

I hear a lot of people complaining that MU hasn't done much this offseason to improve the team and there's an obvious reason for this.
The first 20 games of the season are going to be do or die for Dwayne Casey. MU is playing the wait and see approach. If the raps are back to being the raps of 2 seasons ago, he'll support the team and make a trade for a starting power forward if Patterson isn't cutting it and maybe some depth off the bench to make this team more playoff built. If, however, they stumble out of the gate, Casey gets fired, demar and Lowry are traded and MU rebuilds with 2 lottery picks (thanks Knicks) , cap space and young players with potential.
To me, this is obvious. This team as currently constructed is not a second round playoff team because quite frankly MU hasn't decided yet if this is a playoff team. The raps ended last season on an awful note and MU needs to be prepared that he may need to fire Casey, but he's giving him 20 games to see if no Lou or GV and better defensive players will change things; if not, he can easily hit the reset button.
The wait and see approach is classic Masai. We won't know what he does until after 20 games.

If this were true Masai is a garbage gm. You think a GM is going to plan to waste a training camp and hire 3 new assistants just to give the coach he wants to can a few more weeks to see if he'll change his mind? Would it not make more sense if Masai had doubts to give a new coach his own assistants and his own training camp? Masai may still fire Casey this year, but that's would be things not going to plan. At some point we need to stop projecting what we wish Masai would do on him, and start actually assessing him for what he does. Save for the Bruno pick, which was nuts, he's been fairly conservative. He's gotten some value players with patience, he's accumulated picks, he's spent to get his targets, he's chosen Casey to be the coach, lets not pretend he wasn't given a deal by Masai. He's his coach, and he's remained largely satisfied to roll with the starters he inherited, or at least shown that he's not going to tinker much with a playoff club. Can't look at his moves and think he's not going into each season with making the playoffs as the main goal. While he preached championships for a while, and while he acknowledged the need to step back, his moves have not echoed that, at all.

[Komodo]

The problem is the core isn't good enough. Masai's offseason moves did nothing to address that.

[SomeDay]

You can't just snap your fingers and get a superstar... I'm sure Masai would love to bring a star in, but it's not that easy. Look how many times Daryl Morey or Mark Cuban swung and missed for stars. A little patience please.

To add to what you've said, he DID try to sign a friggin star. Ultimately LMA decided not to come here. What more could he have done in this instance?