Fischer: Raps offered IQ + picks for Trae Young last year. Kings don’t have interest in IQ & Poeltl

[DelAbbot]

Gotta feeling Bobby is gonna pull a Dubas and make some desperate moves (i.e trade away picks).

Ownership has him on the hot seat and they want to see immediate results. Bobby needs to detach himself from this team, which is still Masai’s, and make some major changes.

you damn well know Bobby built half (if not most) of this team

[earthtone]

Definitely off to a good start but playoff revenue is what matters.

Still lots of basketball left to be played, only 2.5 games ahead of 8th, we can quite easily fall out of a top 6 spot and end up missing the playoffs.

Bobby might go after a "big" name like Morant by attaching picks to someone like IQ or RJ.

Edit: Funny enough, as soon as I say this, this report drops:

Read on Twitter

lol we should have made like 5 trades already according to the sources

Tons of fans here won't like it, but i'm expecting a thad young trade v2 with us trading back in the draft to duck the tax and add a rotation player. Something like Agbaji/Temple/2026 1st for Sharpe/2026 BRK 2nd. The difference between Temple and Martin's converted salary is enough to duck the tax

I think we'll definitely end up trading a draft pick with Ochai to duck the tax, but I highly doubt we touch our 1st round pick. Say what you will about the Thad Young trade, he was a better and more valuable player at the time than Day'Ron Sharpe is.

[earthtone]

According to the rumours, the Kings don't want IQ. That could mean:

a) Quickley has no value across the entire league and he's an anchor of a contract that will require multiple picks/assets to get rid of.

or

b) the Kings have a poorly built roster that features seven guards 6'5" or under on their main squad, and another two small guards on two-ways.

People are choosing to view the Kings not being interested in IQ as a referendum on his value across the league. One look at the Kings' roster explains why they don't want IQ, and also why we shouldn't put any stock into how the Kings are rumoured to value players. 9/17 players they have under contract are smaller guards.

[Clutch0z24]

We are always in rumors for guys....Ja Morant while not the best player to trade for....What do we even have that the Grizzlies want? Draft picks will be involved in that trade which could end up biting us in the ass....

Morant is better than Quickley though so theres that....At that point we just better hope for health and a better version of Morant.

[Tripod]

He just got lucky. But Sam Presti never did. There was zero luck in Sam Presti's teambuilding. Or something like that.

The guy who built this team isn’t even here anymore. I don’t know how people are giving Bobby credit for anything. He’s an unknown. Hell, all the reporting states that Ingram was a Masai trade.

The core of this team was built under Masai’s watch. Why is Bobby getting credit for that?

Bobby was still the GM. It's not like he was a fresh outside hire.

By all indicators, Bobby and Masai worked collaboratively. It's not like Masai was doing this all in a vacuum.

Plus Bobby could have made moves in the offseason to "make it his own" and chose not to.

[Tripod]

Anyone is movable, you'd just have to attach picks to them.

If we want to move IQ or Poeltl, we would have to attach picks with them. It's not a hard concept to understand. That's why people call it bad contracts.

Attach picks and get back what in return? Better player? Similar player? Worse player?

I doubt we'd get an upgrade on IQ or Poeltl unless we empty the picks coffers. We'd most likely get a worse player with a favorable contract situation like an expiring or something.

It's why I don't see IQ or Poeltl getting traded any time soon, Bobby wouldn't want worse players in return just to get off a bad contract. Might as well keep them.

So by that same logic, next year we can trade RJ for a better player with term.

Cool

[ForeverTFC]

SGA was a top 2 player when Sam Presti acquired him?

Your argument is Sam Presti is not that good because he was gifted SGA? By the same logic Masai was not that good either because he was gifted Kawhi?

Plenty of people made that argument, including people here.

Presti and Masai have had very similar careers, though Masai never relied on the tank the way Presti did (nor could he in a market like Toronto) and won a championship with no lottery picks on the core roster. It makes what he did much more impressive to me, but of course I'm biased.

Go back to the Russ era after KD left - plenty of questionable moves and bad picks by Presti with OKC fans and the media (bunch of articles you can search for) calling for him to be fired. And it happened very much the same way folks in Toronto lost faith in Masai - trying to win and not tanking. But Presti is in OKC and had a good relationship with his owner. And don't pretend like he chose this path; he was forced into it by PG. I'm confident if Masai had the same trust from ownership and was in a sleepy market no one cared about, he'd do just as well.

Presti has drafted or traded for FOUR MVP’s. But sure, it must just be luck.

Even in Presti’s down years (post KD) OKC averaged 48 wins a season.

Saying Masai would have done just as well is ridiculous. Presti has done maybe the best GM’ing job in NBA history.

What type of trust are you talking about from Masai? The guy said “play in for what?” and then made the Poeltl trade. When has a Presti team ever had as poor of results even when making a concerted effort to win like Masai did the last 2-3 years?

Compare relative value of Masai's draft picks vs Presti's then come talk to me.

And you guys keep throwing "play-in for what" into our face for what exactly? This team is expected to win by ownership. National US media has been talking about it for a few years now. FVV said as much in his podcast. MacMahon once our ownership is known to be very anti-tanking, similar to Pacers ownership. Rogers/Pelley came out and said they want the rebuild accelerated in the Masai firing press conference. How can everyone be so dense?

[FOB]

Are you being sarcastic? It was signed in July. Masai was fired after the draft.

Not I'm not being sarcastic at all. The extension was signed about a week after Masai was fired (June 28th to July 6th), I think it's fair to say that the process leading to such an important decision could have taken more than a week, no? Don't get me wrong, if they really rushed that through in a week without prior discussions that'd be pretty bad, but I have no indication that that's the case. Do you?

Edit: deleted the second point after realizing a different poster than I thought had replied.

Don’t matter about the work leading up man. You don’t sign that deal unless you believe it in. What you think Bobby, just shrugged and said, well, if Masai wanted to I guess we have to lock ourselves a bad decision for 4 years….

Totally agree with you, and I never said Bobby wasn't involved, not sure where you got that from. The post I initially responded to said the extension was "all Bobby", and that's what I was questioning. Without knowing specifics I'd always assume the leadership team makes more or less joint decisions.

[Jerry Lucas]

Gotta feeling Bobby is gonna pull a Dubas and make some desperate moves (i.e trade away picks).

Ownership has him on the hot seat and they want to see immediate results. Bobby needs to detach himself from this team, which is still Masai’s, and make some major changes.

There are no changes to be made I think we are checkmate. I would bet behind the scenes Bobby been trying to move off players to upgrade for a while now with no luck. Teams most likely don't like what we have to offer unless draft picks are involved and i think Bobby does not want to trade picks right now because of how injury prone this team has been.

We are most likely stuck with what we have for a few years here with no big trade in sight to save us....We don't have much moves to make atm considering our young guys outside of CMB have any real trade value, And the vets Bobby gambled on having value are sunk costs....

I think if we don't trade RJ we might lose him for nothing because we are not going into Tax for a 1st round/2nd round exit team.

lol 2nd round exit team would make them a top 8 team in the league, do you know how many teams are in the tax right now? Stop acting like it's such a rare thing to see.

Tax calculations happen at the end of the regular season, and avoidance moves would have to happen by the trade deadline, so the decision would have nothing to do with playoff performance. It would likely be more based on internal projections, similar to the massive impact trading for Kawhi had on their 2018-19 internal projections. Which remains the only season in franchise history the Raptors have been a tax team.

Keep in mind this short list of previous Raptors teams that ownership never allowed Masai's FO to spend into the tax for during the We The North era:
-47 win pace, 4th seed in the East on deadline day in 2016-17 coming off a conference finals appearance the previous season as a 56-win 2 seed, and LeBronto wasn't established yet, having only lost to his Cavs once in the playoffs in 6 games at that point (the same Cavs team that ended up beating the 73-win Warriors in the finals).
-57 win pace, 2nd seed in the East on deadline day in 2017-18 with LeBron's Cavs being the weakest on paper they ever looked after his return to Cleveland.
-59 win pace, 2nd seed in the East on deadline day in 2019-20 (better W% than they finished with in 2017-18), the season after just winning the championship.

I can't think of any realistic scenario where this roster will be able to convince ownership by the trade deadline that they are worthy of tax spending and starting the repeater clock, when those 3 other We The North era teams never got it. For this franchise, tax spending absolutely is an extremely rare thing to see. Pelley himself even admitted that ducking the tax is a goal this season.

[PushDaRock]

There are no changes to be made I think we are checkmate. I would bet behind the scenes Bobby been trying to move off players to upgrade for a while now with no luck. Teams most likely don't like what we have to offer unless draft picks are involved and i think Bobby does not want to trade picks right now because of how injury prone this team has been.

We are most likely stuck with what we have for a few years here with no big trade in sight to save us....We don't have much moves to make atm considering our young guys outside of CMB have any real trade value, And the vets Bobby gambled on having value are sunk costs....

I think if we don't trade RJ we might lose him for nothing because we are not going into Tax for a 1st round/2nd round exit team.

lol 2nd round exit team would make them a top 8 team in the league, do you know how many teams are in the tax right now? Stop acting like it's such a rare thing to see.

Tax calculations happen at the end of the regular season, and avoidance moves would have to happen by the trade deadline, so the decision would have nothing to do with playoff performance. It would likely be more based on internal projections, similar to the impact trading for Kawhi had on their 2018-19 internal projections. Which remains the only season in franchise history the Raptors have been a tax team.

Keep in mind this short list of previous Raptors teams that ownership never allowed Masai's FO to spend into the tax for during the We The North era:
-47 win pace, 4th seed in the East on deadline day in 2016-17 coming off a conference finals appearance the previous season as a 56-win 2 seed, and LeBronto wasn't established yet, having only lost to his Cavs once in the playoffs in 6 games at that point (the same Cavs team that ended up beating the 73-win Warriors in the finals).
-57 win pace, 2nd seed in the East on deadline day in 2017-18 with LeBron's Cavs being the weakest on paper they ever looked after his return to Cleveland.
-59 win pace, 2nd seed in the East on deadline day in 2019-20 (better W% than they finished with in 2017-18), the season after just winning the championship.

I can't think of any realistic scenario where this roster will be able to convince ownership by the trade deadline that they are worthy of tax spending and starting the repeater clock, when those 3 other We The North era teams never got it. For this franchise, tax spending absolutely is an extremely rare thing to see. Pelley himself even admitted that ducking the tax is a goal this season.

There were less tax paying teams back then than there are now. Bobby has said himself it's not a big deal anymore and that they have ownership support to be over if necessary.

I don't expect us to pay the tax this season when we can easily duck it. I do expect us to be paying it next season if this team is around a 50 win team pace.

If we are planning on ducking the tax at all cost, then yes I would highly question why they did the Jak extension in the first place knowing this.