Improvement?

[ConSarnit]

Amir could be a big loss. I know he was hobbled last year but he was a key cog in the defense. PP and especially JV are going to need to take a step forward to cover that loss. Carroll will be an improvement over Ross, regardless of whether he is overpaid or not. He is a good defender but he just won't have the impact a good defensive big (Amir when healthy) can have, but it will be nice to have a guy who you can put on the other team's best wing knowing he will do a good job.

Lou and GV being gone is a weird issue for me. I don't really care that they are gone, in fact I sort of wanted them gone. But had we brought in Joseph and kept Lou I would have been ok as at least Joseph could play hard nosed D floor spacer to Lou's iso game. I think the tandem of GV and Lou made me dislike both of them more than they deserved.

[Rapcity_11]

The idiot coach is still around. We lost a power forward and have not gotten better at that position. We lost Lou's scoring and it has not been replaced. All of the rest are just marginal improvements that won't make a difference.

people need to stop talking about lou williams. we were arguably a better overall team the year before with john salmons taking lous minutes.

You're right. People who don't understand Lou's impact really should stop talking about Lou Williams.

[Rapcity_11]

We shouldn't look at this by comparing individual players to see if we improved or not. I like the fit defensively a lot better with our new team, we should be significantly better there. We may have lost out on offense, but if Lowry isn't playing like an all star that doesn't even matter. I don't know how to check the stats but I felt we were a pretty average offensive team post all star break.

It’s gonna be pretty damn hard to be significantly better when the top 3 bigs in terms of minutes are negative defenders. But maybe perimeter defense matters more than I think.

NBA.com has pretty much all your stat answers. 7th in Ortg post all-star. Not nearly as bad as the narrative would dictate.

http://stats.nba.com/league/team/#!/advanced/?Season=2014-15&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&SeasonSegment=Post%20All-Star&sort=OFF_RATING&dir=1

[triple_threat]

The idiot coach is still around. We lost a power forward and have not gotten better at that position. We lost Lou's scoring and it has not been replaced. All of the rest are just marginal improvements that won't make a difference.

people need to stop talking about lou williams. we were arguably a better overall team the year before with john salmons taking lous minutes.

ppl need to stop talking about john salmons

[Mr Gametime]

I'll do one...

Norman Powell > Landry Fields
Bismack Byombo > Chuck Hayes
Luis Scola > Greg Steimsma
DeMarre Carroll > Amir Johnson
Delon Wright < Grievas Vasquez
Corey Joseph < Lou Williams
Anthony Bennett > Tyler Hansbrough

Our front court improved but our guards got worse...

[Toni]

The addition of Scola is underrated...this is a guy that can still play...

Yup. Scola will replace some of the offence that we lost. People are quick to forget how offensively talented that guy is. He put it on display this summer.

[agentzero2010]

Would You agree with this and how much better are we than last year?

Norman Powell >Landry Fields
Bismack Byombo >Chuck Hayes
Luis Scola > Greg Steimsma
DeMarre Carroll > Amir Johnson
Delon Wright > Grievas Vasquez
Corey Joseph > Lou Williams
Anthony Bennett > Tyler Hansbrough

Remember that almost everyone that is returning is young and likely improved from last year.

In my opinion, this team got better but not by much and I understand why so many fans are disappointed because we went into the offseason with a lot of cap space and a lot of valuable young assets, contracts and picks and we walked away without a definitive star player. Carroll, Joseph, Scola, Powell, Byombo, Wright, etc are all good role players but in order to propel this team to the next level being a conference contender, we needed to add a star player and we didn't get one. The comparisons that you made are valid but some of the positions are just a little off in my opinion; for example i don't think its accurate to compare Carroll to Amir.

But the story about not "doing enough" to improve a middling team sounds a little familiar...Oh that right, the Blue Jays received similar criticisms heading into this season's spring training. They traded for Donaldson, who was very underrated; similar to Carroll?..."overpaid" for a Russell Martin; a Canadian catcher and many people felt like they didn't do enough to improve their pitching staff. But they saved up their entire farm system and enough money to make a series of blockbuster trades in the offseason. Who's to say the Raptors can't do the same this season? They have a lot of valuable young assets (Bruno, Powell, Wright, Bebe), a lot of valuable trade assets (Patterson, Scola, Biyombo), an expiring "borderline star player" in DeRozan and 4 first round picks in the next 2 drafts. I'm confident that if we get off to a poor star, Masai will use his assets to acquire a star caliber player. Carmelo Anthony? Paul George? an expiring Joe Johnson?

DeRozan + NY pick for Melo? I think a healthy Lowry/Ross/Carroll/Melo/JV lineup could challenge LeBron and Co. for the Eastern Conference Title.

[mihaic]

The bench and the 6th man will only take you as far in the playoffs, unless a smart coach exploits a mismatch (SO, YEAH, NOT THE CASE).

Therefore I would argue that the only move of substance (in the big picture) is that we have Demarre Carroll at the 3, possibly reducing the 2-PG lineup time, and eating into the time Ross sees. And that actually is an improvement as hopefully D. Carroll is less inconsistent.

The biggest improvements this team needs are in order:
- JV to be more confident and become able to play when raps are closing games, and
- Casey to be smart enough to allow for JV to grow through mistakes.
- Lowry to get back into form.

Without these it will be another disappointing 1st or 2nd round shameful exit.

I am less concerned in a playoffs about the 4-spot as it is guardable by a few people and we can roll with 1 big.

[Rapcity_11]

The addition of Scola is underrated...this is a guy that can still play...

Yup. Scola will replace some of the offence that we lost. People are quick to forget how offensively talented that guy is. He put it on display this summer.

Sure, he's talented. He's also been below average in efficiency the past 4 years.

People really gotta stop talking about the FIBA's. The competition is mostly atrocious.

[Ahmed1212]

Last year's team had a lot more offensive talent. We were able to win games on purely outscoring guys. Last year's team had A LOT more scorers. Not saying it's a good thing. I know this though if Demar or Kyle go out we don't have a guy averaging 16 coming off the bench.

Probably won't win as many regular season games as we just don't have the raw offensive talent. I can't remember how many games Kyle and Demar were cold and either GV or Lou came in and saved us. This year we don't have anyone like that.

That being said, this team is much more suited for the playoffs.

46 wins in the regular season leading to a fifth seed, however, I think they finally get the monkey of their back and make the 2nd round.

So at the end of it all it'll be a better team. This team isn't going blow teams or get blown out. All games will probably have a small margin (that's usually the case with defensive minded teams)

[Troubadour]

Lowry / Joseph
DeRozan / Ross
Carroll /
Patterson / Scola
Valanciunas / Biyombo

that is a much more balanced rotation than what we had last year. I also think the team is deeper this year, which is nice.

[Joker]

Would You agree with this and how much better are we than last year?

Norman Powell >Landry Fields
Bismack Byombo >Chuck Hayes
Luis Scola > Greg Steimsma
DeMarre Carroll > Amir Johnson
Delon Wright > Grievas Vasquez
Corey Joseph > Lou Williams
Anthony Bennett > Tyler Hansbrough

Remember that almost everyone that is returning is young and likely improved from last year.

That's debatable

yeah. Bennett has more talent but knowing your role and being consistent at it is kind of an NBA talent as well.

[jonny three time]

What's it called when homerism is used in terms of timelines? You can't really say it's homerism to over-hype this years more than last, as they're the same organization. Would it be called nowism? Currentism? Present hype-ism?

Whatever you want to call it, this thread is chalked full of it.

[mihaic]

What's it called when homerism is used in terms of timelines? You can't really say it's homerism to over-hype this years more than last, as they're the same organization. Would it be called nowism? Currentism? Present hype-ism?

Whatever you want to call it, this thread is chalked full of it.

It is called three time - ism

Seriously we are not much better or worse the only significant difference IMO is Demarre Carrol
The big question is how will CASEY utilize that.