Darko: "This is Year 1 of our Re-build"

[ash_k]

We need Darko this year to ensure the raps pick top 10.

No way am I firing him this year or even next year.

Anything is possible with a coach that can get a 12-19 record with 2 All-Stars, DPOY-type, World Cup MVP PG and a top defensive center.
And we have still not hired some former Head Coaches as assistant coaches to help him like we should thus from a coaching perspective things are not looking good.

However, a team with such proven players (pre-Darko) pushed by an improving MVP-type talent like Scottie is just not going to lose 50 games. Too many did not understand the significance of Scottie's post-@Indiana win, right after the All-Star break.
PG IQ|Davion
SG RJ|GD
SF Ochai(or GD?)|Bruce Brown
PF Scottie|KO
C Yak | Boucher
*Vez or (GTJ?)

[ArthurVandelay]

Wen pizza party?

Week before all star

[Badonkadonk]

Nice piece on Coach Darko, largely about the massive investment in time he made building connections and how the team and staff held together during a very weird and turbulent season.

Jama probably put it best:

“It's interesting to reflect back on that season because as we lived it, especially from a coaching standpoint, we lived a lot of [positive] things,” said Raptors assistant coach Jama Mahlalela, who is returning for his second year under Rajakovic, having met him last year during the hiring process. “We grew a lot as a staff, we grew with our players a lot. … It felt like, on the exterior, there was all these crazy things happening, stuff that was completely out of our control, stuff that impacted our winning and losing, no question. But it felt exterior, the interior actually really felt solid, it never felt disrupted, it never felt like, ‘Man, what are we going to do?’

“And I think a big reason for that was Darko’s ability to sort of guide us and sort of be that sort of benchmark of like, ‘This is what we're doing today … there's these like million things happening, but this is what we're focused on,’ allowed the staff to [manage] it and all want to come back again, and for him to want to have us all back again.”

Source: https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/raptors-coach-darko-rajakovic-looking-to-reset-with-clean-slate-in-2024-25/

[Vampirate]

This is the first year where Barnes is the number 1 option best player on the team at the start of the season.

There's nothing of the old core left really aside from Yak, Boucher and Barnes himself (if you count him)

[Vampirate]

He's correct though. This year is first year of rebuild. Last 4 years were straight up failure.

In all honesty this is the correct answer, they were just delaying the inevitable for the past few years.

I'd get it more if we're in Portland's shoes with Dame, but Siakam as good as he is, is not anywhere close to Dame's level.

[mrdressup]

We're two years away from year 1. We are still on the way down. Corner gets turned at some point, but it's not this year.

[F22_Raptor]

Nice piece on Coach Darko, largely about the massive investment in time he made building connections and how the team and staff held together during a very weird and turbulent season.

Jama probably put it best:

“It's interesting to reflect back on that season because as we lived it, especially from a coaching standpoint, we lived a lot of [positive] things,” said Raptors assistant coach Jama Mahlalela, who is returning for his second year under Rajakovic, having met him last year during the hiring process. “We grew a lot as a staff, we grew with our players a lot. … It felt like, on the exterior, there was all these crazy things happening, stuff that was completely out of our control, stuff that impacted our winning and losing, no question. But it felt exterior, the interior actually really felt solid, it never felt disrupted, it never felt like, ‘Man, what are we going to do?’

“And I think a big reason for that was Darko’s ability to sort of guide us and sort of be that sort of benchmark of like, ‘This is what we're doing today … there's these like million things happening, but this is what we're focused on,’ allowed the staff to [manage] it and all want to come back again, and for him to want to have us all back again.”

Source: https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/raptors-coach-darko-rajakovic-looking-to-reset-with-clean-slate-in-2024-25/

Confirmed, Jama is being groomed for the head coach position.

[ConSarnit]

We need Darko this year to ensure the raps pick top 10.

No way am I firing him this year or even next year.

Anything is possible with a coach that can get a 12-19 record with 2 All-Stars, DPOY-type, World Cup MVP PG and a top defensive center.
And we have still not hired some former Head Coaches as assistant coaches to help him like we should thus from a coaching perspective things are not looking good.

However, a team with such proven players (pre-Darko) pushed by an improving MVP-type talent like Scottie is just not going to lose 50 games. Too many did not understand the significance of Scottie's post-@Indiana win, right after the All-Star break.
PG IQ|Davion
SG RJ|GD
SF Ochai(or GD?)|Bruce Brown
PF Scottie|KO
C Yak | Boucher
*Vez or (GTJ?)

You are vastly overrating some of our players. As we’ve seen through his entire career, Schroder is not a starting quality PG. He only got the MLE as a last ditch effort to replace Fred. He also got dumped for literally nothing. There is also a good chance Davion and Agbaji aren’t NBA level players. Mitchell was on the outs in SAC and Agbaji was terrible offensively while here (albeit in small sample size). Poeltl is also no longer a top defensive center. He was in SAS but since he’s been here none of the stats indicated he’s a top 10 defensive C anymore. Our starting lineup last year was a bunch of ill fitting pieces (lack of shot making and 3pt shooting).

The book is still out on Darko but the roster he was given was not good, especially given that the impetus was on ball-movement (less selfish play) and we had a roster that had a bunch of players who are not equipped to play a higher iq style (GTJ, Boucher, Precious and to some extent OG). It sure seems like there was a mandate from the front office in terms of sharing the ball (Masai’s selfishness comments) and if Darko was complying with that he wasn’t exactly given a bunch of high IQ players (or shooters for that matter). Nurse-ball (forcing turnovers, O rebounding, winning possession battle) covered up a lot of issues by squeezing out wins. It wasn’t sustainable though nor was it’s ceiling very high. With a higher ceiling system the flaws of this team were far more exposed.

This season should be more telling for Darko as the roster is better designed for a ball-movement style of offense. If things look bad this year I’d say that’s more of a bad sign concerning Darko than last season was.

[Raps in 4]

We need Darko this year to ensure the raps pick top 10.

No way am I firing him this year or even next year.

Anything is possible with a coach that can get a 12-19 record with 2 All-Stars, DPOY-type, World Cup MVP PG and a top defensive center.
And we have still not hired some former Head Coaches as assistant coaches to help him like we should thus from a coaching perspective things are not looking good.

However, a team with such proven players (pre-Darko) pushed by an improving MVP-type talent like Scottie is just not going to lose 50 games. Too many did not understand the significance of Scottie's post-@Indiana win, right after the All-Star break.
PG IQ|Davion
SG RJ|GD
SF Ochai(or GD?)|Bruce Brown
PF Scottie|KO
C Yak | Boucher
*Vez or (GTJ?)

[Raps in 4]

We're two years away from year 1. We are still on the way down. Corner gets turned at some point, but it's not this year.

The only way to bottom out at this point is to trade Scottie, which would obviously be monumentally stupid. That means we aren't bottoming out. The FO is going to have to figure out how to build a winner while the team treads water.

[Raps in 4]

Someone needs to just outright ask Darko, Bobby or Masai if they will be content with a bottom 5 finish this year.

I think they're all hoping for it, but I can't foresee any scenario where the team is healthy and we finish in the bottom-5.

[ash_k]

We need Darko this year to ensure the raps pick top 10.

No way am I firing him this year or even next year.

Anything is possible with a coach that can get a 12-19 record with 2 All-Stars, DPOY-type, World Cup MVP PG and a top defensive center.
And we have still not hired some former Head Coaches as assistant coaches to help him like we should thus from a coaching perspective things are not looking good.

However, a team with such proven players (pre-Darko) pushed by an improving MVP-type talent like Scottie is just not going to lose 50 games. Too many did not understand the significance of Scottie's post-@Indiana win, right after the All-Star break.
PG IQ|Davion
SG RJ|GD
SF Ochai(or GD?)|Bruce Brown
PF Scottie|KO
C Yak | Boucher
*Vez or (GTJ?)

You are vastly overrating some of our players. As we’ve seen through his entire career, Schroder is not a starting quality PG. He only got the MLE as a last ditch effort to replace Fred. He also got dumped for literally nothing. There is also a good chance Davion and Agbaji aren’t NBA level players. Mitchell was on the outs in SAC and Agbaji was terrible offensively while here (albeit in small sample size). Poeltl is also no longer a top defensive center. He was in SAS but since he’s been here none of the stats indicated he’s a top 10 defensive C anymore. Our starting lineup last year was a bunch of ill fitting pieces (lack of shot making and 3pt shooting).

The book is still out on Darko but the roster he was given was not good, especially given that the impetus was on ball-movement (less selfish play) and we had a roster that had a bunch of players who are not equipped to play a higher iq style (GTJ, Boucher, Precious and to some extent OG). It sure seems like there was a mandate from the front office in terms of sharing the ball (Masai’s selfishness comments) and if Darko was complying with that he wasn’t exactly given a bunch of high IQ players (or shooters for that matter). Nurse-ball (forcing turnovers, O rebounding, winning possession battle) covered up a lot of issues by squeezing out wins. It wasn’t sustainable though nor was it’s ceiling very high. With a higher ceiling system the flaws of this team were far more exposed.

This season should be more telling for Darko as the roster is better designed for a ball-movement style of offense. If things look bad this year I’d say that’s more of a bad sign concerning Darko than last season was.

I dont know why you are focusing on Schroeder when the rest of the roster had 2 All-Stars, a DPOY-type + one of the All-stars with DPOY potential and a talented/mobile defensive center entering his prime: That combination alone is more than enough for 45+wins in any NBA season. Udoka would have had us ahead of Orlando, with that roster, turning us into the best Defense in the league.

Too many of you are just wishing&hoping for the team to be bad this coming season. It is just a wish though. Some seems to be afraid hence asking for Brown and Jakob to be traded.

While looking at the current roster, our starting 5 has a 3rd pick|20ppg scorer|All-Star type, a 4th pick|20pts scorer|MVP-type, a 9th pick and former runner 6th man/20pts scorer as well. We have seen them all contribute to high-level winning already..AND it just happens that those 4 together are 7-7:You will downplay that record, but I am not sure you would have, had that record been 3-11!

The bench has now 3 Lotto pick developing; and 2 proven contributors to winning in KO and Bruce Brown. We are finally starting the season with a LEGIT backup Point Guard in Davion. If Vezenko&his shooting want PT then he is on the right team. I don't get where our bench is HORRIBLE coming from...Just another wish! If you want to say 'Average' at this point until further evidence, sure.

It is on Darko. He had us down 20 in way too many games to point at the players/proven winners. Has he improved? Can he have us play as hard as Memphis? Can he pull another Desmond Bane or 2 for us? Ochai & Gradey are on standby. That quick 3-1 post-all star game, before injuries struck, has given me hope.

We can all agree that all this sharing the ball don't mean anything if it just leads to the team being down 20 and to more losses.

[ConSarnit]

Anything is possible with a coach that can get a 12-19 record with 2 All-Stars, DPOY-type, World Cup MVP PG and a top defensive center.
And we have still not hired some former Head Coaches as assistant coaches to help him like we should thus from a coaching perspective things are not looking good.

However, a team with such proven players (pre-Darko) pushed by an improving MVP-type talent like Scottie is just not going to lose 50 games. Too many did not understand the significance of Scottie's post-@Indiana win, right after the All-Star break.
PG IQ|Davion
SG RJ|GD
SF Ochai(or GD?)|Bruce Brown
PF Scottie|KO
C Yak | Boucher
*Vez or (GTJ?)

You are vastly overrating some of our players. As we’ve seen through his entire career, Schroder is not a starting quality PG. He only got the MLE as a last ditch effort to replace Fred. He also got dumped for literally nothing. There is also a good chance Davion and Agbaji aren’t NBA level players. Mitchell was on the outs in SAC and Agbaji was terrible offensively while here (albeit in small sample size). Poeltl is also no longer a top defensive center. He was in SAS but since he’s been here none of the stats indicated he’s a top 10 defensive C anymore. Our starting lineup last year was a bunch of ill fitting pieces (lack of shot making and 3pt shooting).

The book is still out on Darko but the roster he was given was not good, especially given that the impetus was on ball-movement (less selfish play) and we had a roster that had a bunch of players who are not equipped to play a higher iq style (GTJ, Boucher, Precious and to some extent OG). It sure seems like there was a mandate from the front office in terms of sharing the ball (Masai’s selfishness comments) and if Darko was complying with that he wasn’t exactly given a bunch of high IQ players (or shooters for that matter). Nurse-ball (forcing turnovers, O rebounding, winning possession battle) covered up a lot of issues by squeezing out wins. It wasn’t sustainable though nor was it’s ceiling very high. With a higher ceiling system the flaws of this team were far more exposed.

This season should be more telling for Darko as the roster is better designed for a ball-movement style of offense. If things look bad this year I’d say that’s more of a bad sign concerning Darko than last season was.

I dont know why you are focusing on Schroeder when the rest of the roster had 2 All-Stars, a DPOY-type + one of the All-stars with DPOY potential and a talented/mobile defensive center entering his prime: That combination alone is more than enough for 45+wins in any NBA season. Udoka would have had us ahead of Orlando, with that roster, turning us into the best Defense in the league.

Too many of you are just wishing&hoping for the team to be bad this coming season. It is just a wish though. Some seems to be afraid hence asking for Brown and Jakob to be traded.

While looking at the current roster, our starting 5 has a 3rd pick|20ppg scorer|All-Star type, a 4th pick|20pts scorer|MVP-type, a 9th pick and former runner 6th man/20pts scorer as well. We have seen them all contribute to high-level winning already..AND it just happens that those 4 together are 7-7:You will downplay that record, but I am not sure you would have, had that record been 3-11!

The bench has now 3 Lotto pick developing; and 2 proven contributors to winning in KO and Bruce Brown. We are finally starting the season with a LEGIT backup Point Guard in Davion. If Vezenko&his shooting want PT then he is on the right team. I don't get where our bench is HORRIBLE coming from...Just another wish! If you want to say 'Average' at this point until further evidence, sure.

It is on Darko. He had us down 20 in way too many games to point at the players/proven winners. Has he improved? Can he have us play as hard as Memphis? Can he pull another Desmond Bane or 2 for us? Ochai & Gradey are on standby. That quick 3-1 post-all star game, before injuries struck, has given me hope.

We can all agree that all this sharing the ball don't mean anything if it just leads to the team being down 20 and to more losses.

You are the one saying Darko sucked while having a bunch of talent last year but now he’s a going to be a good coach on a team with less high end talent? How does any of that make sense?

How can you accuse people of wishful thinking when your projection for pretty much every single player on this team is for them to play at a high level? You are claiming this team has an MVP and all-star level players when we’ve had 1 single player make an all-star team as a replacement. If people are too far down on this team you are the opposite end of the spectrum making it seem like we have a 50+ win team (an MVP candidate surrounded by 20ppg scorers and a top defensive C). Surely you must see how overly optimistic your assessment is?

[DG88]

You are vastly overrating some of our players. As we’ve seen through his entire career, Schroder is not a starting quality PG. He only got the MLE as a last ditch effort to replace Fred. He also got dumped for literally nothing. There is also a good chance Davion and Agbaji aren’t NBA level players. Mitchell was on the outs in SAC and Agbaji was terrible offensively while here (albeit in small sample size). Poeltl is also no longer a top defensive center. He was in SAS but since he’s been here none of the stats indicated he’s a top 10 defensive C anymore. Our starting lineup last year was a bunch of ill fitting pieces (lack of shot making and 3pt shooting).

The book is still out on Darko but the roster he was given was not good, especially given that the impetus was on ball-movement (less selfish play) and we had a roster that had a bunch of players who are not equipped to play a higher iq style (GTJ, Boucher, Precious and to some extent OG). It sure seems like there was a mandate from the front office in terms of sharing the ball (Masai’s selfishness comments) and if Darko was complying with that he wasn’t exactly given a bunch of high IQ players (or shooters for that matter). Nurse-ball (forcing turnovers, O rebounding, winning possession battle) covered up a lot of issues by squeezing out wins. It wasn’t sustainable though nor was it’s ceiling very high. With a higher ceiling system the flaws of this team were far more exposed.

This season should be more telling for Darko as the roster is better designed for a ball-movement style of offense. If things look bad this year I’d say that’s more of a bad sign concerning Darko than last season was.

I dont know why you are focusing on Schroeder when the rest of the roster had 2 All-Stars, a DPOY-type + one of the All-stars with DPOY potential and a talented/mobile defensive center entering his prime: That combination alone is more than enough for 45+wins in any NBA season. Udoka would have had us ahead of Orlando, with that roster, turning us into the best Defense in the league.

Too many of you are just wishing&hoping for the team to be bad this coming season. It is just a wish though. Some seems to be afraid hence asking for Brown and Jakob to be traded.

While looking at the current roster, our starting 5 has a 3rd pick|20ppg scorer|All-Star type, a 4th pick|20pts scorer|MVP-type, a 9th pick and former runner 6th man/20pts scorer as well. We have seen them all contribute to high-level winning already..AND it just happens that those 4 together are 7-7:You will downplay that record, but I am not sure you would have, had that record been 3-11!

The bench has now 3 Lotto pick developing; and 2 proven contributors to winning in KO and Bruce Brown. We are finally starting the season with a LEGIT backup Point Guard in Davion. If Vezenko&his shooting want PT then he is on the right team. I don't get where our bench is HORRIBLE coming from...Just another wish! If you want to say 'Average' at this point until further evidence, sure.

It is on Darko. He had us down 20 in way too many games to point at the players/proven winners. Has he improved? Can he have us play as hard as Memphis? Can he pull another Desmond Bane or 2 for us? Ochai & Gradey are on standby. That quick 3-1 post-all star game, before injuries struck, has given me hope.

We can all agree that all this sharing the ball don't mean anything if it just leads to the team being down 20 and to more losses.

You are the one saying Darko sucked while having a bunch of talent last year but now he’s a going to be a good coach on a team with less high end talent? How does any of that make sense?

How can you accuse people of wishful thinking when your projection for pretty much every single player on this team is for them to play at a high level? You are claiming this team has an MVP and all-star level players when we’ve had 1 single player make an all-star team as a replacement. If people are too far down on this team you are the opposite end of the spectrum making it seem like we have a 50+ win team (an MVP candidate surrounded by 20ppg scorers and a top defensive C). Surely you must see how overly optimistic your assessment is?

Don't mind him it's his shtick that our players are superstars and if we fail it's all the coaches fault.

[Scase]

You are vastly overrating some of our players. As we’ve seen through his entire career, Schroder is not a starting quality PG. He only got the MLE as a last ditch effort to replace Fred. He also got dumped for literally nothing. There is also a good chance Davion and Agbaji aren’t NBA level players. Mitchell was on the outs in SAC and Agbaji was terrible offensively while here (albeit in small sample size). Poeltl is also no longer a top defensive center. He was in SAS but since he’s been here none of the stats indicated he’s a top 10 defensive C anymore. Our starting lineup last year was a bunch of ill fitting pieces (lack of shot making and 3pt shooting).

The book is still out on Darko but the roster he was given was not good, especially given that the impetus was on ball-movement (less selfish play) and we had a roster that had a bunch of players who are not equipped to play a higher iq style (GTJ, Boucher, Precious and to some extent OG). It sure seems like there was a mandate from the front office in terms of sharing the ball (Masai’s selfishness comments) and if Darko was complying with that he wasn’t exactly given a bunch of high IQ players (or shooters for that matter). Nurse-ball (forcing turnovers, O rebounding, winning possession battle) covered up a lot of issues by squeezing out wins. It wasn’t sustainable though nor was it’s ceiling very high. With a higher ceiling system the flaws of this team were far more exposed.

This season should be more telling for Darko as the roster is better designed for a ball-movement style of offense. If things look bad this year I’d say that’s more of a bad sign concerning Darko than last season was.

I dont know why you are focusing on Schroeder when the rest of the roster had 2 All-Stars, a DPOY-type + one of the All-stars with DPOY potential and a talented/mobile defensive center entering his prime: That combination alone is more than enough for 45+wins in any NBA season. Udoka would have had us ahead of Orlando, with that roster, turning us into the best Defense in the league.

Too many of you are just wishing&hoping for the team to be bad this coming season. It is just a wish though. Some seems to be afraid hence asking for Brown and Jakob to be traded.

While looking at the current roster, our starting 5 has a 3rd pick|20ppg scorer|All-Star type, a 4th pick|20pts scorer|MVP-type, a 9th pick and former runner 6th man/20pts scorer as well. We have seen them all contribute to high-level winning already..AND it just happens that those 4 together are 7-7:You will downplay that record, but I am not sure you would have, had that record been 3-11!

The bench has now 3 Lotto pick developing; and 2 proven contributors to winning in KO and Bruce Brown. We are finally starting the season with a LEGIT backup Point Guard in Davion. If Vezenko&his shooting want PT then he is on the right team. I don't get where our bench is HORRIBLE coming from...Just another wish! If you want to say 'Average' at this point until further evidence, sure.

It is on Darko. He had us down 20 in way too many games to point at the players/proven winners. Has he improved? Can he have us play as hard as Memphis? Can he pull another Desmond Bane or 2 for us? Ochai & Gradey are on standby. That quick 3-1 post-all star game, before injuries struck, has given me hope.

We can all agree that all this sharing the ball don't mean anything if it just leads to the team being down 20 and to more losses.

You are the one saying Darko sucked while having a bunch of talent last year but now he’s a going to be a good coach on a team with less high end talent? How does any of that make sense?

How can you accuse people of wishful thinking when your projection for pretty much every single player on this team is for them to play at a high level? You are claiming this team has an MVP and all-star level players when we’ve had 1 single player make an all-star team as a replacement. If people are too far down on this team you are the opposite end of the spectrum making it seem like we have a 50+ win team (an MVP candidate surrounded by 20ppg scorers and a top defensive C). Surely you must see how overly optimistic your assessment is?

He has had a massive hate boner for Darko since last season, I would take his comments with a monumental grain of salt. He thinks the only reason this team isnt at the top of the east is Darko, and definitely not the roster. Despite the fact that Nurse, an objectively better coach, who had an objectively better roster, only managed a 48 win season. Just no logic present at all.