My Review of FO moves - 20/20 Armchair GM Hindsight

[anotherhomer]

The two biggest things you can criticize them for is they should've transitioned to a rebuild sooner and they haven't done as well around the edges of the roster, finding those valuable depth guys.

For the most part, when it's come to the big moves, like the lottery picks (Barnes/Dick), the OG/Siakam combined return, they've done well. I'm still pretty confident regarding their ability to find talent, especially in the draft.

Nurse, FVV, Poeltl were all big moves and IMO we went 0/3 on them.

I strongly disagree we got the big moves right. I’d argue deciding to double down on the flawed roster at the 2023 trade deadline was a big move that didn’t pan out (and reiterates the point you made about us perhaps not rebuilding sooner).

The true cost of delaying the rebuild:
-frustrating Nurse and resulting in the relationship breaking down
-losing FVV for nothing
-GTJ being in limbo and might be lost for nothing (TBD)
-lower draft pick in 2023
-losing control of a FRP for Poeltl and now having a C that doesn’t fit our timeline nor really contribute to winning (not Poeltl’s fault but a fair statement IMO)
-likely getting a weaker return for Siakam

The sky isn’t falling but we shot ourselves in the foot.

i disagree with nurse....Nurse maybe a good assistant, but he isn't a development guy because he plays his guys heavy minutes.....

[WaltFrazier]

You don't need hindsight to recognize those bad moves are bad the moment they happened.

Masai has fallen off that much

Masai has made some horrible moves since 2020 but I am still confident in him righting the ship as long as he's got the correct vision. It is still TBD whether he's learned anything about roster construction since 2020.

Please lean on the success that made you who you are until the championship. I need the entertainment factor lol.

How does one explain the mistakes over the past 24-36 months? I don't have much faith in him. Seems to me his approach / philosophy about rebuild is off. Never fully committed. He can't allow significant losing for more than 1 season.

Either he succeeds or fails over the next few years with this approach, it will be entertainment either way thanks to this board

His approach to rebuild is off, then in end of season remarks he says, paraphrasing, gee I've never done this before I'm talking to Weltman every other day about his experience.

Not exactly confidence inspiring.

[2019nbachamps]

The two biggest things you can criticize them for is they should've transitioned to a rebuild sooner and they haven't done as well around the edges of the roster, finding those valuable depth guys.

For the most part, when it's come to the big moves, like the lottery picks (Barnes/Dick), the OG/Siakam combined return, they've done well. I'm still pretty confident regarding their ability to find talent, especially in the draft.

Nurse, FVV, Poeltl were all big moves and IMO we went 0/3 on them.

I strongly disagree we got the big moves right. I’d argue deciding to double down on the flawed roster at the 2023 trade deadline was a big move that didn’t pan out (and reiterates the point you made about us perhaps not rebuilding sooner).

The true cost of delaying the rebuild:
-frustrating Nurse and resulting in the relationship breaking down
-losing FVV for nothing
-GTJ being in limbo and might be lost for nothing (TBD)
-lower draft pick in 2023
-losing control of a FRP for Poeltl and now having a C that doesn’t fit our timeline nor really contribute to winning (not Poeltl’s fault but a fair statement IMO)
-likely getting a weaker return for Siakam

The sky isn’t falling but we shot ourselves in the foot.

i disagree with nurse....Nurse maybe a good assistant, but he isn't a development guy because he plays his guys heavy minutes.....

Nurse is an elite coach. Top 5 in the NBA. Issue is we gave him a bad roster and then pressured him to do two things: win and develop. The team wasn’t good enough to win and Scottie was the only one worth developing. Then we fired Nurse on the grounds he didn’t promote development after our front office made the Poeltl trade clearly trying to win now. I think Nurse was put in an unfair spot and then was scapegoated. Who exactly was he supposed to develop? Malachi Flynn? It’s very telling our FO gave up on pretty much all the young guys they were asking Nurse to develop.

[DelAbbot]

You don't need hindsight to recognize those bad moves are bad the moment they happened.

Masai has fallen off that much

Masai has made some horrible moves since 2020 but I am still confident in him righting the ship as long as he's got the correct vision. It is still TBD whether he's learned anything about roster construction since 2020.

Please lean on the success that made you who you are until the championship. I need the entertainment factor lol.

How does one explain the mistakes over the past 24-36 months? I don't have much faith in him. Seems to me his approach / philosophy about rebuild is off. Never fully committed. He can't allow significant losing for more than 1 season.

Either he succeeds or fails over the next few years with this approach, it will be entertainment either way thanks to this board

His approach to rebuild is off, then in end of season remarks he says, paraphrasing, gee I've never done this before I'm talking to Weltman every other day about his experience.

Not exactly confidence inspiring.

I took that to mean the Norm, Siakam picks were under the watch of Weltman. Masai needs Weltman back to re-live the glory years

[LBJKB24MJ23]

Nurse, FVV, Poeltl were all big moves and IMO we went 0/3 on them.

I strongly disagree we got the big moves right. I’d argue deciding to double down on the flawed roster at the 2023 trade deadline was a big move that didn’t pan out (and reiterates the point you made about us perhaps not rebuilding sooner).

The true cost of delaying the rebuild:
-frustrating Nurse and resulting in the relationship breaking down
-losing FVV for nothing
-GTJ being in limbo and might be lost for nothing (TBD)
-lower draft pick in 2023
-losing control of a FRP for Poeltl and now having a C that doesn’t fit our timeline nor really contribute to winning (not Poeltl’s fault but a fair statement IMO)
-likely getting a weaker return for Siakam

The sky isn’t falling but we shot ourselves in the foot.

i disagree with nurse....Nurse maybe a good assistant, but he isn't a development guy because he plays his guys heavy minutes.....

Nurse is an elite coach. Top 5 in the NBA. Issue is we gave him a bad roster and then pressured him to do two things: win and develop. The team wasn’t good enough to win and Scottie was the only one worth developing. Then we fired Nurse on the grounds he didn’t promote development after our front office made the Poeltl trade clearly trying to win now. I think Nurse was put in an unfair spot and then was scapegoated. Who exactly was he supposed to develop? Malachi Flynn? It’s very telling our FO gave up on pretty much all the young guys they were asking Nurse to develop.

i agree with this. Nurse was put in a hard position and mixed signals from the front office. it was quite obvious what they were trying to do and forcing the matter, 'putting square pegs into round holes' analogy. the FO has been trying the force the issue since Kawhi left. Nurse was obviously frustrated with current situation but lets not joke around that the FO gave him anything to work with either. shooting and bench was pretty much gone by the wayside for about 3-4 years now.

People/organizations make mistakes. its how well they recover from them that define them.

[OakleyDokely]

The two biggest things you can criticize them for is they should've transitioned to a rebuild sooner and they haven't done as well around the edges of the roster, finding those valuable depth guys.

For the most part, when it's come to the big moves, like the lottery picks (Barnes/Dick), the OG/Siakam combined return, they've done well. I'm still pretty confident regarding their ability to find talent, especially in the draft.

Nurse, FVV, Poeltl were all big moves and IMO we went 0/3 on them.

I strongly disagree we got the big moves right. I’d argue deciding to double down on the flawed roster at the 2023 trade deadline was a big move that didn’t pan out (and reiterates the point you made about us perhaps not rebuilding sooner).

The true cost of delaying the rebuild:
-frustrating Nurse and resulting in the relationship breaking down
-losing FVV for nothing
-GTJ being in limbo and might be lost for nothing (TBD)
-lower draft pick in 2023
-losing control of a FRP for Poeltl and now having a C that doesn’t fit our timeline nor really contribute to winning (not Poeltl’s fault but a fair statement IMO)
-likely getting a weaker return for Siakam

The sky isn’t falling but we shot ourselves in the foot.

Nurse on the eve of the playoffs, unprompted, started to talk about his own contract. He already had one foot out the door. Given the direction the team was going, it was probably time for both sides to move on.

VV was never going to bring back a huge return given his age, contract status and injury situation. It sucks losing him for nothing, but even if they traded him, it would've been a minor deal and nothing close to the returns OG/Siakam brought in.

The Poeltl deal falls into the failure to transition to a rebuild earlier, which I already mentioned.

[ConSarnit]

You don't need hindsight to recognize those bad moves are bad the moment they happened.

Masai has fallen off that much



How does one explain the mistakes over the past 24-36 months? I don't have much faith in him. Seems to me his approach / philosophy about rebuild is off. Never fully committed. He can't allow significant losing for more than 1 season.

Either he succeeds or fails over the next few years with this approach, it will be entertainment either way thanks to this board

His approach to rebuild is off, then in end of season remarks he says, paraphrasing, gee I've never done this before I'm talking to Weltman every other day about his experience.

Not exactly confidence inspiring.

I took that to mean the Norm, Siakam picks were under the watch of Weltman. Masai needs Weltman back to re-live the glory years

Siakam:

-African
-started playing basketball at a late age
-participated in Basketball without Borders

Hmm, who is more likely to have scouted him? Masai or Weltman?

[ConSarnit]

The two biggest things you can criticize them for is they should've transitioned to a rebuild sooner and they haven't done as well around the edges of the roster, finding those valuable depth guys.

For the most part, when it's come to the big moves, like the lottery picks (Barnes/Dick), the OG/Siakam combined return, they've done well. I'm still pretty confident regarding their ability to find talent, especially in the draft.

Nurse, FVV, Poeltl were all big moves and IMO we went 0/3 on them.

I strongly disagree we got the big moves right. I’d argue deciding to double down on the flawed roster at the 2023 trade deadline was a big move that didn’t pan out (and reiterates the point you made about us perhaps not rebuilding sooner).

The true cost of delaying the rebuild:
-frustrating Nurse and resulting in the relationship breaking down
-losing FVV for nothing
-GTJ being in limbo and might be lost for nothing (TBD)
-lower draft pick in 2023
-losing control of a FRP for Poeltl and now having a C that doesn’t fit our timeline nor really contribute to winning (not Poeltl’s fault but a fair statement IMO)
-likely getting a weaker return for Siakam

The sky isn’t falling but we shot ourselves in the foot.

Nurse on the eve of the playoffs, unprompted, started to talk about his own contract. He already had one foot out the door. Given the direction the team was going, it was probably time for both sides to move on.

VV was never going to bring back a huge return given his age, contract status and injury situation. It sucks losing him for nothing, but even if they traded him, it would've been a minor deal and nothing close to the returns OG/Siakam brought in.

The Poeltl deal falls into the failure to transition to a rebuild earlier, which I already mentioned.

As far as I’m concerned Nurse is a big TBD on player development. In the aggregate he was probably given the lowest average draft stock to work with out of any coach over that time. Barnes didn’t really improve until year 3 so it’s tough to parse out if that was Nurse’s fault given Barnes development is not abnormal in terms of timeline. Flynn could have been a flat out bust regardless and Koloko suffered health problems. The rest of the guys were very late draft picks.

We know Nurse has Thibs-like issues of running his starters into the ground so that’s a strike against him but he’s also never had a rebuilding team so we don’t know how he’d do if winning weren’t the mandate. However it went down the front office did not like what they were seeing from Nurse in terms of player development. Some of it was probably Nurse but I’d say there were only 2 guys (Barnes and Flynn) who anything could have been reasonably expected from. Barnes turned out well, Flynn did not. Koloko had health problems and everyone else was drafted in the 90% bust zone (late 2nd round).

I don’t think we will really know if Nurse is good at development until he’s put in a development situation. Right now I’d lean towards “not” because as far as I can tell that’s the reason he got fired. It certainly wasn’t for X’s and O’s, where we know he is top notch.

[anotherhomer]

Nurse, FVV, Poeltl were all big moves and IMO we went 0/3 on them.

I strongly disagree we got the big moves right. I’d argue deciding to double down on the flawed roster at the 2023 trade deadline was a big move that didn’t pan out (and reiterates the point you made about us perhaps not rebuilding sooner).

The true cost of delaying the rebuild:
-frustrating Nurse and resulting in the relationship breaking down
-losing FVV for nothing
-GTJ being in limbo and might be lost for nothing (TBD)
-lower draft pick in 2023
-losing control of a FRP for Poeltl and now having a C that doesn’t fit our timeline nor really contribute to winning (not Poeltl’s fault but a fair statement IMO)
-likely getting a weaker return for Siakam

The sky isn’t falling but we shot ourselves in the foot.

Nurse on the eve of the playoffs, unprompted, started to talk about his own contract. He already had one foot out the door. Given the direction the team was going, it was probably time for both sides to move on.

VV was never going to bring back a huge return given his age, contract status and injury situation. It sucks losing him for nothing, but even if they traded him, it would've been a minor deal and nothing close to the returns OG/Siakam brought in.

The Poeltl deal falls into the failure to transition to a rebuild earlier, which I already mentioned.

As far as I’m concerned Nurse is a big TBD on player development. In the aggregate he was probably given the lowest average draft stock to work with out of any coach over that time. Barnes didn’t really improve until year 3 so it’s tough to parse out if that was Nurse’s fault given Barnes development is not abnormal in terms of timeline. Flynn could have been a flat out bust regardless and Koloko suffered health problems. The rest of the guys were very late draft picks.

We know Nurse has Thibs-like issues of running his starters into the ground so that’s a strike against him but he’s also never had a rebuilding team so we don’t know how he’d do if winning weren’t the mandate. However it went down the front office did not like what they were seeing from Nurse in terms of player development. Some of it was probably Nurse but I’d say there were only 2 guys (Barnes and Flynn) who anything could have been reasonably expected from. Barnes turned out well, Flynn did not. Koloko had health problems and everyone else was drafted in the 90% bust zone (late 2nd round).

I don’t think we will really know if Nurse is good at development until he’s put in a development situation. Right now I’d lean towards “not” because as far as I can tell that’s the reason he got fired. It certainly wasn’t for X’s and O’s, where we know he is top notch.

I think if the raps were to keep nurse, you have a situation where raps would be an over the cap team that max out as a playin team.

Ultimately ujiri should had picked a lane team compete or team rebuild early on

Also failure on ujiri part to fill out the margins...not addressing shooting, center, backup pg adequately...

If nurse wasn't a development coach, should had traded picks for something

Either way....raps can turn this around under ujiri

[Pointgod]

This front office needs to learn that it’s okay to zag when other teams are also zagging.

No reason to neglect shooting for years when other teams were stacking up on shooters. No reason that they had Malachi Flynn as our back up PG for 4 years when anyone could tell he wasn’t NBA caliber. Holding onto our players too long and instead losing them for nothing, putting ourselves in a position that we had to accept worse deals for Siakam and OG (although the OG trade turned out good for both teams) just a lack of clarity in what they’re doing. And for a front office that’s above average drafting I have no idea why we didn’t stack up on draft picks in the previous years instead choosing to play average vets. A lot of posters called out the bad moves and lack of moves when they happened so it doesn’t take hindsight to see obvious mistakes

[anotherhomer]

This front office needs to learn that it’s okay to zag when other teams are also zagging.

No reason to neglect shooting for years when other teams were stacking up on shooters. No reason that they had Malachi Flynn as our back up PG for 4 years when anyone could tell he wasn’t NBA caliber. Holding onto our players too long and instead losing them for nothing, putting ourselves in a position that we had to accept worse deals for Siakam and OG (although the OG trade turned out good for both teams) just a lack of clarity in what they’re doing. And for a front office that’s above average drafting I have no idea why we didn’t stack up on draft picks in the previous years instead choosing to play average vets. A lot of posters called out the bad moves and lack of moves when they happened so it doesn’t take hindsight to see obvious mistakes

Have to agree roster construction is on FO

They can turn it around

[ConSarnit]

This front office needs to learn that it’s okay to zag when other teams are also zagging.

No reason to neglect shooting for years when other teams were stacking up on shooters. No reason that they had Malachi Flynn as our back up PG for 4 years when anyone could tell he wasn’t NBA caliber. Holding onto our players too long and instead losing them for nothing, putting ourselves in a position that we had to accept worse deals for Siakam and OG (although the OG trade turned out good for both teams) just a lack of clarity in what they’re doing. And for a front office that’s above average drafting I have no idea why we didn’t stack up on draft picks in the previous years instead choosing to play average vets. A lot of posters called out the bad moves and lack of moves when they happened so it doesn’t take hindsight to see obvious mistakes

Have to agree roster construction is on FO

They can turn it around

If we can take some positive things away it's this:

The FO seems to recognize they screwed up and are willing to pivot. Other teams might have doubled down. We are getting back to the things that made us successful in the first place:

drafting (surplus draft picks over the next 3 years)
development (replacing Nurse with Darko)

The FO has proven they can be successful using this method. The big question will be if they can do it again.

[Pointgod]

This front office needs to learn that it’s okay to zag when other teams are also zagging.

No reason to neglect shooting for years when other teams were stacking up on shooters. No reason that they had Malachi Flynn as our back up PG for 4 years when anyone could tell he wasn’t NBA caliber. Holding onto our players too long and instead losing them for nothing, putting ourselves in a position that we had to accept worse deals for Siakam and OG (although the OG trade turned out good for both teams) just a lack of clarity in what they’re doing. And for a front office that’s above average drafting I have no idea why we didn’t stack up on draft picks in the previous years instead choosing to play average vets. A lot of posters called out the bad moves and lack of moves when they happened so it doesn’t take hindsight to see obvious mistakes

Have to agree roster construction is on FO

They can turn it around

They can turn it around but the question is what exactly does that mean? It’s easy to sell out to be a play-in team, we’ve seen the Bulls, Hawks and Nets all do that. Harder to amass the talent and make the hard decisions to get to a top 6 team.

[Dr Positivity]

The more I look at it, the thinner the PG position is than it used to be in mid 2010s. FVV actually kind of deserves 40 mil a year. D'Angelo is a legit asset for the Lakers. Etc. I think getting Quickley looks better in that light, especially since there is upside.

[anotherhomer]

The more I look at it, the thinner the PG position is than it used to be in mid 2010s. FVV actually kind of deserves 40 mil a year. D'Angelo is a legit asset for the Lakers. Etc. I think getting Quickley looks better in that light, especially since there is upside.

Immanuel quickley is definitely better than fvv which is a plus

[ciueli]

His approach to rebuild is off, then in end of season remarks he says, paraphrasing, gee I've never done this before I'm talking to Weltman every other day about his experience.

Not exactly confidence inspiring.

I took that to mean the Norm, Siakam picks were under the watch of Weltman. Masai needs Weltman back to re-live the glory years

Siakam:

-African
-started playing basketball at a late age
-participated in Basketball without Borders

Hmm, who is more likely to have scouted him? Masai or Weltman?

We already know the story of why Pascal Siakam was drafted at 27. Masai is on video literally saying "I'll go with the scouts on this one" right before the pick goes in. Pascal himself told his side of it, he went to a workout where he expected to play against other guys in his range (late first round early second) and found out that no serious NBA level prospects were there. He was pissed off and had an incredible workout in front of the Raptors scouts and that's why he was drafted.

[binjumper]

We didn't really 'blow it up' in the sense that's being referred to above. We made a trade to acquire a superstar.

People wanted Demar gone for a bag of chips. Masai got Kawhi instead.

There’s no question Masai was elite back then but wtf has happened since?

I don't think you under how unique Toronto winning a NBA championship is. This could literally never happen again with other Teams being a better destination for Stars to sign. Building from the bottom up is literally the hardest way to do it and very hard without superstar talent.

Just look at the last 20 nba champs

Denver
Golden State 4
San Antonio Spurs 4
LA Lakers 3
Miami Heat 3
Dallas Mavericks 1
Toronto Raptors 1
Detroit Pistons 1
Bucks 1
Boston Celtics 1
Cleveland Cavaliers 1

2024 TBD 0-0 TBD
2023 Denver Nuggets 4-1 Miami Heat
2022 Golden State Warriors 4-2 Boston Celtics
2021 Milwaukee Bucks 4-2 Phoenix Suns
2020 Los Angeles Lakers 4-2 Miami Heat
2019 Toronto Raptors 4-2 Golden State Warriors
2018 Golden State Warriors 4-0 (sweep) Cleveland Cavaliers
2017 Golden State Warriors 4-1 Cleveland Cavaliers
2016 Cleveland Cavaliers 4-3 Golden State Warriors
2015 Golden State Warriors 4-2 Cleveland Cavaliers
2014 San Antonio Spurs 4-1 Miami Heat
2013 Miami Heat 4-3 San Antonio Spurs
2012 Miami Heat 4-1 Oklahoma City Thunder
2011 Dallas Mavericks 4-2 Miami Heat
2010 Los Angeles Lakers 4-3 Boston Celtics
2009 Los Angeles Lakers 4-1 Orlando Magic
2008 Boston Celtics 4-2 Los Angeles Lakers
2007 San Antonio Spurs 4-0 (sweep) Cleveland Cavaliers
2006 Miami Heat 4-2 Dallas Mavericks
2005 San Antonio Spurs 4-3 Detroit Pistons
2004 Detroit Pistons 4-1 Los Angeles Lakers
2003 San Antonio Spurs 4-2 New Jersey Nets

[2019nbachamps]

Nurse, FVV, Poeltl were all big moves and IMO we went 0/3 on them.

I strongly disagree we got the big moves right. I’d argue deciding to double down on the flawed roster at the 2023 trade deadline was a big move that didn’t pan out (and reiterates the point you made about us perhaps not rebuilding sooner).

The true cost of delaying the rebuild:
-frustrating Nurse and resulting in the relationship breaking down
-losing FVV for nothing
-GTJ being in limbo and might be lost for nothing (TBD)
-lower draft pick in 2023
-losing control of a FRP for Poeltl and now having a C that doesn’t fit our timeline nor really contribute to winning (not Poeltl’s fault but a fair statement IMO)
-likely getting a weaker return for Siakam

The sky isn’t falling but we shot ourselves in the foot.

Nurse on the eve of the playoffs, unprompted, started to talk about his own contract. He already had one foot out the door. Given the direction the team was going, it was probably time for both sides to move on.

VV was never going to bring back a huge return given his age, contract status and injury situation. It sucks losing him for nothing, but even if they traded him, it would've been a minor deal and nothing close to the returns OG/Siakam brought in.

The Poeltl deal falls into the failure to transition to a rebuild earlier, which I already mentioned.

As far as I’m concerned Nurse is a big TBD on player development. In the aggregate he was probably given the lowest average draft stock to work with out of any coach over that time. Barnes didn’t really improve until year 3 so it’s tough to parse out if that was Nurse’s fault given Barnes development is not abnormal in terms of timeline. Flynn could have been a flat out bust regardless and Koloko suffered health problems. The rest of the guys were very late draft picks.

We know Nurse has Thibs-like issues of running his starters into the ground so that’s a strike against him but he’s also never had a rebuilding team so we don’t know how he’d do if winning weren’t the mandate. However it went down the front office did not like what they were seeing from Nurse in terms of player development. Some of it was probably Nurse but I’d say there were only 2 guys (Barnes and Flynn) who anything could have been reasonably expected from. Barnes turned out well, Flynn did not. Koloko had health problems and everyone else was drafted in the 90% bust zone (late 2nd round).

I don’t think we will really know if Nurse is good at development until he’s put in a development situation. Right now I’d lean towards “not” because as far as I can tell that’s the reason he got fired. It certainly wasn’t for X’s and O’s, where we know he is top notch.

I agree Nick Thibodeau was a problem with running guys into the ground. However to be fair he didn’t have a 10-man rotation since the bubble. Our title season he had 10 guys and minutes were more distributed. After the bubble he had maybe 7 serviceable guys and all it took was one injury to put a wrench in his plans. We went over 2 seasons without a starting C, 2 years without a backup PG, no shooting, etc. At the end of the day the FO didn’t give Nurse much to work with and then blamed him for not prioritizing development and being too aggressive with minutes. We also have to remember Nurse was viewed as a win now coach. We made him top 5 paid in the league and made the Poeltl trade, both of which showed we thought we were capable of winning then.

It is what it is. I’m just glad we’re finally rebuilding.

[anotherhomer]

Nurse on the eve of the playoffs, unprompted, started to talk about his own contract. He already had one foot out the door. Given the direction the team was going, it was probably time for both sides to move on.

VV was never going to bring back a huge return given his age, contract status and injury situation. It sucks losing him for nothing, but even if they traded him, it would've been a minor deal and nothing close to the returns OG/Siakam brought in.

The Poeltl deal falls into the failure to transition to a rebuild earlier, which I already mentioned.

As far as I’m concerned Nurse is a big TBD on player development. In the aggregate he was probably given the lowest average draft stock to work with out of any coach over that time. Barnes didn’t really improve until year 3 so it’s tough to parse out if that was Nurse’s fault given Barnes development is not abnormal in terms of timeline. Flynn could have been a flat out bust regardless and Koloko suffered health problems. The rest of the guys were very late draft picks.

We know Nurse has Thibs-like issues of running his starters into the ground so that’s a strike against him but he’s also never had a rebuilding team so we don’t know how he’d do if winning weren’t the mandate. However it went down the front office did not like what they were seeing from Nurse in terms of player development. Some of it was probably Nurse but I’d say there were only 2 guys (Barnes and Flynn) who anything could have been reasonably expected from. Barnes turned out well, Flynn did not. Koloko had health problems and everyone else was drafted in the 90% bust zone (late 2nd round).

I don’t think we will really know if Nurse is good at development until he’s put in a development situation. Right now I’d lean towards “not” because as far as I can tell that’s the reason he got fired. It certainly wasn’t for X’s and O’s, where we know he is top notch.

I agree Nick Thibodeau was a problem with running guys into the ground. However to be fair he didn’t have a 10-man rotation since the bubble. Our title season he had 10 guys and minutes were more distributed. After the bubble he had maybe 7 serviceable guys and all it took was one injury to put a wrench in his plans. We went over 2 seasons without a starting C, 2 years without a backup PG, no shooting, etc. At the end of the day the FO didn’t give Nurse much to work with and then blamed him for not prioritizing development and being too aggressive with minutes. We also have to remember Nurse was viewed as a win now coach. We made him top 5 paid in the league and made the Poeltl trade, both of which showed we thought we were capable of winning then.

It is what it is. I’m just glad we’re finally rebuilding.

i have to agree....i think the Raps wanted to keep options open, and re-tool possibly to a Scottie Barnes era but ultimately it blew up

unfortunately, Ujiri is rebuilding under the worst possible time, where he has a new boss he's talked openly about "making changes", and an owner who isn't friendly to him

at best, Ujiri got 2 years left

[mrdressup]

Hang on. MU did not trade the 7th pick for Poeltl. He calculated he was trading something like the 17-19th pick which is defensible. In his mind there's no way we were not a playoff team. The sad sack of individuals we had playing "together" couldn't hold their end of the bargain, and that's on them and the previous coach. Never was so little accomplished by so much of a Raptor's team. They've all (but one) gone on and played splendidly elsewhere where they pressure was off of them to live up to their faux championship pedigrees. Masai got burned. He's lucky he wasn't burned before by both Lowry and DeMar. In large part we can thank Dwayne Casey for that. What kept the Raptors going strong for many years was a strong culture.