Bill Simmons RIPS the Raptors roster and salaries. (UPDATE Zach Lowe & Rob Mahoney go in on Raptors)

[OakleyDokely]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons

Is the Kawhi Leonard Trade a Triumph for the Spurs?

Bill Simmons: Tell me this take is wrong—the Spurs just traded the fifth- or sixth-best player in the league, who didn’t play last year, for somebody who played crunch time in the All-Star Game in February, who was eighth in the MVP balloting, who is in his prime, who is somewhere between the 10th- and 13th-best player in the league. And they got Jakob Poeltl, and they got a protected first-round pick. I feel like this was a huge win for the Spurs. Plus, [DeMar] DeRozan is under contract for three years. Is this the best they could do?

The internet is forever.

[ForeverTFC]

Just listened to it, he was great and the criticism was fair. At least he went down the roster and most importantly addressed how the pieces fit. He actually had decent things to say about most of the pieces themselves, particularly Scottie.

Bobby used the term "talent acquisition mode", which is a strong signal to me that the roster will look pretty different a year from now. They're clearly building up to a consolidation trade, and obviously have precedent for this action. This is largely why I'm not concerned about how things currently fit, especially given how Darko runs his offense.

The segment (it was short, less than 10 mins I think?) also reinforced my belief that the Raptors have one of the widest range-of-probabilities for wins/losses this year in the whole league.

I worry that they built up to a move no longer possible - or much harder to make - under the current CBA.

We went into our rebuild at an awful time. The league has changed substantially in the last 2 years. Whatever your priors are, I think they have to be thrown out the window at this point. Unfortunately, it might mean another re-set and a step back is necessary for us.

Can you elaborate? I think the apron rules will actually lead to MORE transaction volatility as team fortunes change more dramatically season to season. Like the Celtics would've been sitting on their roster heading into 2026 if not for the apron rules imo.

There are more severe constraints for overall spending, but if you can avoid triggering the 2nd apron I think there's decent flexibility. You can still do salary match on trades under the 1st with various combinations, just not over 100%. TPE's from the prior season can't be used, but those are edge cases (and TPEs often go unused).

If you trigger the 2nd apron, you can't aggregate 2+ players for the purposes of salary matching headed out the door. My reading of the rules is that You CAN still trade 1 player who has the highest salary out for a package of lesser contracts that do not exceed the one guy's larger salary. There are other restrictions as well.

So basically even under the 2nd apron, you'd still be able to move RJ if you could find a package of players that's close to his salary.

I'm not to worried tbh.

I was more so commenting on the attractiveness of the contracts. We have a lot of good not great and not max but well paid players in that $20-$30m range. The value of these guys, on their own, seems to be really diminishing - whether as players or expiring.

Powell was essentially salary dumped coming off his best season when he got all-star consideration. Cam Johnson went for a pick and a bad contract. Teams just seem to not want these types of contracts anymore. The whole thesis around our rebuild is to parlay some combo of RJ/IQ/Ingram + assets into something. But it seems like teams are treating their contract setup as toxic in the current cap environment.

[Rapsalot]

If you are a tax team and all 5 starters are on multi year deals and you have not even made a playin let alone a playoff. Your team has to prove them wrong.

To me IQ and BI were over pays that has lead to tax issue.

People hate every single contract Raptors sign. Go back and see how people thought Derozan, Lowry and Tross were overpaid. One of those people could even be you.

No on KLow, maybe DD, Yes on coin toss Ross see in don’t blindly kiss up to players or Org. Do a poll and see if folks think IQ is overpriced? Most folks think New Orleans has not been run well for the last 5 years. If they won’t extend BI for $40 why would we?

Some people dislike SB contract. I’m willing to see how it goes? His first 4 years he way outplayed his contract but now he will need to move more to Scottie Pippin after his jump at about 25 to out play contract. Last year I was happy with 12/ 15 contracts only IQ and BB we too much. KO was maybe a little concern but feel if healthy it would have been OK.

[HoopAndTheHarm]

Bill Simmons RIPS his pants bending over to pick up a donut that he dropped, and then RIPS a fart.
Just as informative.

[YogurtProducer]

Last year was an extremely bad year for trying to predict the future of this team.

We had the weakest SOS over the last 2 months of the season that has ever been recorded. We can’t derive anything from the last 2 months of the season given how terrible our competition was.

Unfortunately we can’t really derive much from the start of the season because of our injury problems. Only WAS played more total rookie minutes and most of our rookies were 2nd round picks or undrafted.

This team is one of the harder teams to try and predict this season.

The SOS is the SOS though. If they played all the easy games during the middle season instead and the harder games came at the end, they still likely end up around the same win total, if strategy/injuries don't change. You need to play all the teams at some point. But I agree, it's hard to read much into last years stats because the lineups being played were so different than what we will see this year.

But it wasn’t just a weak SOS, it was the weakest SOS ever. If I’m remembering correctly it was the easiest stretch any team has ever had over the course of 2 months (23 games). I just don’t know how much it balances things out when it was an outlier compared to every other team. The 2nd easiest SOS during that period was closer to the 12th hardest schedule than they were to us, that’s how easy our schedule was.

Okay but we also had an insanely hard SOS to begin the season, so it balances out is why Oakley is saying.

[YogurtProducer]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons

Is the Kawhi Leonard Trade a Triumph for the Spurs?

Bill Simmons: Tell me this take is wrong—the Spurs just traded the fifth- or sixth-best player in the league, who didn’t play last year, for somebody who played crunch time in the All-Star Game in February, who was eighth in the MVP balloting, who is in his prime, who is somewhere between the 10th- and 13th-best player in the league. And they got Jakob Poeltl, and they got a protected first-round pick. I feel like this was a huge win for the Spurs. Plus, [DeMar] DeRozan is under contract for three years. Is this the best they could do?

The internet is forever.

Simmons calling Derozan "He’s somebody who can play in crunch time." when that is his biggest flaw is hilarious

[Boogie!]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons

Is the Kawhi Leonard Trade a Triumph for the Spurs?

Bill Simmons: Tell me this take is wrong—the Spurs just traded the fifth- or sixth-best player in the league, who didn’t play last year, for somebody who played crunch time in the All-Star Game in February, who was eighth in the MVP balloting, who is in his prime, who is somewhere between the 10th- and 13th-best player in the league. And they got Jakob Poeltl, and they got a protected first-round pick. I feel like this was a huge win for the Spurs. Plus, [DeMar] DeRozan is under contract for three years. Is this the best they could do?

The internet is forever.

I think any logical fan knew the raptors won that trade, especially considering the raptors playoff failures year after year. The only question mark was kawhis health, but in terms of talent it was obvious that we won that trade. Demar has still been a consistent scorer and even more efficient scorer since the trade, but he still hasn’t done **** in the playoffs. What a steal. Even the year after kawhi left, we were competitive against the Celtics without Demar… didn’t need him and a few breaks here and there and we could’ve been back in the finals.

[CPT]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons

Is the Kawhi Leonard Trade a Triumph for the Spurs?

Bill Simmons: Tell me this take is wrong—the Spurs just traded the fifth- or sixth-best player in the league, who didn’t play last year, for somebody who played crunch time in the All-Star Game in February, who was eighth in the MVP balloting, who is in his prime, who is somewhere between the 10th- and 13th-best player in the league. And they got Jakob Poeltl, and they got a protected first-round pick. I feel like this was a huge win for the Spurs. Plus, [DeMar] DeRozan is under contract for three years. Is this the best they could do?

The internet is forever.

Simmons is such a prisoner of the moment that it’s kind of endearing.

My favorite in recent memory is how Ayton was in his top 20 during the Suns’ finals run.

He wholeheartedly believes All-NBA represents the best 15 players in the league at all times.

I appreciate how he makes all of it feel important, even if he is not right a lot of the time.

[ArthurVandelay]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons

Is the Kawhi Leonard Trade a Triumph for the Spurs?

Bill Simmons: Tell me this take is wrong—the Spurs just traded the fifth- or sixth-best player in the league, who didn’t play last year, for somebody who played crunch time in the All-Star Game in February, who was eighth in the MVP balloting, who is in his prime, who is somewhere between the 10th- and 13th-best player in the league. And they got Jakob Poeltl, and they got a protected first-round pick. I feel like this was a huge win for the Spurs. Plus, [DeMar] DeRozan is under contract for three years. Is this the best they could do?

The internet is forever.

Referring to DD as the 10-13th best player in the league shows how winning impacts the perception of players. Raptors coming off three 50+ win seasons and 59 win season when that statement was made.

I believe we’ll see a much different narrative around the Raptors players value/worth/ability by the new year, especially Scottie, BI, Poeltl, and IQ.

[CazOnReal]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons

Is the Kawhi Leonard Trade a Triumph for the Spurs?

Bill Simmons: Tell me this take is wrong—the Spurs just traded the fifth- or sixth-best player in the league, who didn’t play last year, for somebody who played crunch time in the All-Star Game in February, who was eighth in the MVP balloting, who is in his prime, who is somewhere between the 10th- and 13th-best player in the league. And they got Jakob Poeltl, and they got a protected first-round pick. I feel like this was a huge win for the Spurs. Plus, [DeMar] DeRozan is under contract for three years. Is this the best they could do?

The internet is forever.

Bill "If they're stupid they'll take Dwight Howard" Simmons

Bill "The crowds in Memphis suck because of MLK's assassination" Simmons

Bill "I thought [the trade that landed the Celtics the Js and Marcus Smart] was pennies on the dollar for the Celtics" Simmons

Bill "The Warriors are not a dynasty" Simmons

Bill "I hated the Rudy Gobert trade more for Minnesota than any trade for the last 30 years that I’ve hated for a team" Simmons

Bill "I would take Gabe Vincent over Kyrie" Simmons

Bill Simmons is white Kendrick Perkins. Outrageous soundbites that, however entertaining one may find them as a personality, is altogether poison for actual discourse in the sport and is f*cking terrible when it comes to the commentary potion of the job.

[Thaddy]

BS spewing BS.

We don't get free agents so we took calculated risks with a few players. IQ and Ingram will need to prove themselves and we can manage the load they have with our depth.

We have a ton of good role players and a few dogs that haven't gotten a lot of opportunities before. Ingram, IQ, Barnes and RJ are all capable of taking a step into stardom.

As a franchise that's all you can do. You get those players and give them a chance with support. I think RJ will be the surprise player this year and we'll need to make a difficult decision when it comes to him.

[MoneyBall]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons

Is the Kawhi Leonard Trade a Triumph for the Spurs?

Bill Simmons: Tell me this take is wrong—the Spurs just traded the fifth- or sixth-best player in the league, who didn’t play last year, for somebody who played crunch time in the All-Star Game in February, who was eighth in the MVP balloting, who is in his prime, who is somewhere between the 10th- and 13th-best player in the league. And they got Jakob Poeltl, and they got a protected first-round pick. I feel like this was a huge win for the Spurs. Plus, [DeMar] DeRozan is under contract for three years. Is this the best they could do?

The internet is forever.

I actually think that was a reasonable take at the time, definitely not anything egregious. If he really wanted to diss the Raptors, he would have said DeRozan and Poeltl are garbage. I recall him saying he liked the trade for the Raptors too, so what exactly is he wrong about?

[MoneyBall]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons

Is the Kawhi Leonard Trade a Triumph for the Spurs?

Bill Simmons: Tell me this take is wrong—the Spurs just traded the fifth- or sixth-best player in the league, who didn’t play last year, for somebody who played crunch time in the All-Star Game in February, who was eighth in the MVP balloting, who is in his prime, who is somewhere between the 10th- and 13th-best player in the league. And they got Jakob Poeltl, and they got a protected first-round pick. I feel like this was a huge win for the Spurs. Plus, [DeMar] DeRozan is under contract for three years. Is this the best they could do?

The internet is forever.

Bill "If they're stupid they'll take Dwight Howard" Simmons

Bill "The crowds in Memphis suck because of MLK's assassination" Simmons

Bill "I thought [the trade that landed the Celtics the Js and Marcus Smart] was pennies on the dollar for the Celtics" Simmons

Bill "The Warriors are not a dynasty" Simmons

Bill "I hated the Rudy Gobert trade more for Minnesota than any trade for the last 30 years that I’ve hated for a team" Simmons

Bill "I would take Gabe Vincent over Kyrie" Simmons

Bill Simmons is white Kendrick Perkins. Outrageous soundbites that, however entertaining one may find them as a personality, is altogether poison for actual discourse in the sport and is f*cking terrible when it comes to the commentary potion of the job.

Maybe one day AI will be able to summarize our worse hot takes here on real GM and hopefully give us a bit of humility.

[AkelaLoneWolf]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons






The internet is forever.

Bill "If they're stupid they'll take Dwight Howard" Simmons

Bill "The crowds in Memphis suck because of MLK's assassination" Simmons

Bill "I thought [the trade that landed the Celtics the Js and Marcus Smart] was pennies on the dollar for the Celtics" Simmons

Bill "The Warriors are not a dynasty" Simmons

Bill "I hated the Rudy Gobert trade more for Minnesota than any trade for the last 30 years that I’ve hated for a team" Simmons

Bill "I would take Gabe Vincent over Kyrie" Simmons

Bill Simmons is white Kendrick Perkins. Outrageous soundbites that, however entertaining one may find them as a personality, is altogether poison for actual discourse in the sport and is f*cking terrible when it comes to the commentary potion of the job.

Maybe one day AI will be able to summarize our worse hot takes here on real GM and hopefully give us a bit of humility.

we don't make money off our hot takes. a higher standard applies.

[DreamTeam09]

RJ 36.4% on C&S 3s
RJ 1.09 ppp in the PnR

[MoneyBall]

Bill "If they're stupid they'll take Dwight Howard" Simmons

Bill "The crowds in Memphis suck because of MLK's assassination" Simmons

Bill "I thought [the trade that landed the Celtics the Js and Marcus Smart] was pennies on the dollar for the Celtics" Simmons

Bill "The Warriors are not a dynasty" Simmons

Bill "I hated the Rudy Gobert trade more for Minnesota than any trade for the last 30 years that I’ve hated for a team" Simmons

Bill "I would take Gabe Vincent over Kyrie" Simmons

Bill Simmons is white Kendrick Perkins. Outrageous soundbites that, however entertaining one may find them as a personality, is altogether poison for actual discourse in the sport and is f*cking terrible when it comes to the commentary potion of the job.

Maybe one day AI will be able to summarize our worse hot takes here on real GM and hopefully give us a bit of humility.

we don't make money off our hot takes. a higher standard applies.

Lol he makes money because many people find his content entertaining, not because he's got remarkable insight.

[ItsDanger]

Watch on YouTube

[Randle McMurphy]

Bill Simmons on the Kawhi trade.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/07/18/nba/kawhi-leonard-spurs-podcast-bill-simmons

Is the Kawhi Leonard Trade a Triumph for the Spurs?

Bill Simmons: Tell me this take is wrong—the Spurs just traded the fifth- or sixth-best player in the league, who didn’t play last year, for somebody who played crunch time in the All-Star Game in February, who was eighth in the MVP balloting, who is in his prime, who is somewhere between the 10th- and 13th-best player in the league. And they got Jakob Poeltl, and they got a protected first-round pick. I feel like this was a huge win for the Spurs. Plus, [DeMar] DeRozan is under contract for three years. Is this the best they could do?

The internet is forever.

Bill "If they're stupid they'll take Dwight Howard" Simmons

Bill "The crowds in Memphis suck because of MLK's assassination" Simmons

Bill "I thought [the trade that landed the Celtics the Js and Marcus Smart] was pennies on the dollar for the Celtics" Simmons

Bill "The Warriors are not a dynasty" Simmons

Bill "I hated the Rudy Gobert trade more for Minnesota than any trade for the last 30 years that I’ve hated for a team" Simmons

Bill "I would take Gabe Vincent over Kyrie" Simmons

Bill Simmons is white Kendrick Perkins. Outrageous soundbites that, however entertaining one may find them as a personality, is altogether poison for actual discourse in the sport and is f*cking terrible when it comes to the commentary potion of the job.

Don’t forget that Simmons literally hated the KG/Pierce trade to the Nets that set up the Celtics for the next decade and allowed them to win their next championship. Was close to tears at the draft about it on live TV.

He’s entertaining but he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

[AkelaLoneWolf]

Maybe one day AI will be able to summarize our worse hot takes here on real GM and hopefully give us a bit of humility.

we don't make money off our hot takes. a higher standard applies.

Lol he makes money because many people find his content entertaining, not because he's got remarkable insight.

Idk. I do laugh at a lot of the posts here.