Blake Murphy: Where Toronto stands after Off-Season Moves

[Ackshun]

Yeah, once again it will be a brutal bench... bottom of the league talent ... Team will go as far as the big three, plus Purtle, will take them.

Benches are inherently flawed, but I think the Raps holds up well assuming multiple starters don't get injured again.

Davion + Ochai is a menacing perimeter D combo. KO is a legitimate backup 4 or stretch 5. That's a decent foundation for a bench with large NBA sample size that can hold its own against other secondary units who will have similar flaws, may they be shotmaking, D, playmaking etc.

Of course, the team can't afford injuries, because then you start dipping into the youth (eg. Carlson) or the Chris Bouchers of the roster to hold the line.

Davion/Ochai/KO. It’s pretty sad tbh. Respectfully.

We need to dip into the young guys right away. I don’t think we have a choice. Ochai shouldn’t be in the rotation. Davion and KO both have a role to play, but at some point, but we need someone that can rank top 30 for 6th man of the year. lol

[Scase]

I like Barnes, but we have a pretty established history of trading every star we develop. It never seems likely early on, but things can change quickly. That said, I don’t get why the NBAsphere is treating this as disastrous. A lot of the critics seem to do that by lumping him in with IQ and RJ and going ‘100 million/year for that and while I get that more, imo that’s about overpaying interchangeable mid players, not the Barnes part. Either way, if they are committed to a rebuild I am automatically more patient with these kinds of details, especially this early in the process.

Yeah we do have that history, but if anything it'll be on his second contract, so the kicker most likely is meaningless on this one. Lumping him in with the IQ/RJ contracts is nuts IMO. He's a ROTY that made an ASG in his third year, every single team in the league gives that player a max rookie extension, this is pretty normal.

At best you can argue that players of his calibre aren't worth a max contract, much like Siakam isn't, but paying them that contract is a totally different story.

If he is not signing the next contract (or we don't believe we would pay him the max), we are most likely trading him at the end of this contract, meaning we are paying him 8% from the trade kicker. Not necessary, imo.

There is literally nothing that indicates we wouldnt sign him to another contract, or that we will trade him. You are concocting some imaginary scenario just to whine about a meaningless trade kicker that will likely never get exercised.