[Woj] Raptors sign Garrett Temple

[ATLTimekeeper]

Kessler gets talked up a lot on this board, but his upside is basically a Poeltl type C, a good starting centre. Both are primarily rim protectors who are efficient around the basket, but have no range. Kessler probably ends up a better defender around the rim, but he isn't nearly as mobile as Poeltl who can defend on the perimeter in a pinch. Kessler even struggles at the line like Poeltl does.

Not only that but it was clear from Bobby's comments after that they liked Koloko in that last 1st / early 2nd range anyway.

You can criticize the FO for prioritizing the higher-ceiling-lower-floor guy (Kessler sure looks better right now so that criticism is fair), but the trade down into the early 2nd isn't the dramatic move that people cry about.

It doesn't matter who they liked better, even. The idea isn't that the Raptors wouldn't pass up on a better player by trading down from 20-33. They probably acknowledge that likelihood. The idea is that the range of outcomes is relatively flat, and that it's increasingly harder to get great outcomes starting around there. Teams don't predict great outcomes from players drafted there, it's why the whole "high upside" raw athlete fallacy fools many fans here (and still fools GMs). Late in the draft, that player type rarely pans out and the ones that do hit are seemingly low ceiling by comparison. There wouldn't be too many people predicting Walker Kessler was a top 5 player in that draft, and same with Koloko. And it would still be unlikely that either ended up as such (given how one position defensive Cs RARELY grade out as top 5 players in drafts these days). Hell, even after making all-rookie first team, you can go back 5 years and find that typically you're going to get 2 non-factors out of the top 5 on the all-rookie team. That's pretty significant.

So assume that at least a few of these players will be better than Koloko, but if Koloko is still a useful rotation player and they believe they acquired some value out of Young than they can walk away without feeling like they blew an amazing chance at adding the great Walker Kessler.

Fans need to think of drafting in years of clusters, how many prospects they can integrate into the rotation over a span of 3-4 years.

[WuTang_CMB]

Temple is at the raps ucla mini camp

[Boogie_Smooth]

"The coach isn't playing us" = Darko

Just nitpicking here, but we do not yet know this one to be true. Coaches say a lot of things during their honeymoon phase. I am pretty sure this WILL happen, and will be partly mandated by Masai, but we need to see it before we claim it's happening.

I would be really surprised if we go through the season playing guys 38-40 mins a game, its kind of unheard off (outside of Nurse and Thibs). We'll see how it plays out

[aminiaturebuddha]

With Temple actually playing a few non-garbage minutes last night I went looking for his thread and found that it hadn't been added to since August. I guess that's the kind of impact he's had! Haha

But when you think about the guy, he's actually had a pretty amazing career. This is an undrafted player who never even averaged 10 ppg in any season in college. He struggled to prove himself, and took 5 10-day contracts before he finally latched onto a team. He's played stints with 12 different teams, and only once averaged more than 10 ppg in the NBA, topping out at 10.3 in 2019-2020, his 10th year in the league.

And yet, the guy has had a 14-year career in the NBA and made close to $50 million in salary over that time. That's an incredible story, and is a demonstration of some amazing perseverance. He's obviously a good locker room guy, or he wouldn't keep sticking around the league with that kind of production. So I'm glad he doesn't need to get pressed into service too often, but also glad here's there on the bench an as example to the younger players.