Thoughts on Birch so far?

[Alfred]

He has been way better than I thought he would be.

Definitely. Very good positionally. He clearly understands the game at the level we require from our players.

[yassillio]

Cheap and good quality .
Much better than I expected. He sets screens, rebounds and moves the ball on O. He is a good finisher , very athletic and makes good reads off the screens ( roll or swing pass ). He also had a very quick second jump , which helps on the offensive boards.
If there are no available bigs this summer then I'd be happy to have him back at a reasonable contract.

[dkb9696]

I am not sure how anyone could say something negative about the guy. He has played by far the best basketball of his career in his time with the Raptors.

[tecumseh18]

Cheap and good quality .
Much better than I expected. He sets screens, rebounds and moves the ball on O. He is a good finisher , very athletic and makes good reads off the screens ( roll or swing pass ). He also had a very quick second jump , which helps on the offensive boards.
If there are no available bigs this summer then I'd be happy to have him back at a reasonable contract.

Well, that's the issue isn't it? As I've mentioned in other threads, I was hoping we could re-sign him for the BAE (3.8.) if we signed Kyle back or otherwise used up our cap space on our Bird rights players, or for the room exception (~5 mill) if we renounced Kyle's cap hold and used our cap space on another big.

So how much will Khem be worth this summer? Lots of teams have cap space, and at least the teams we've been playing see how more than serviceable he is.

[AJ416]

Solid Solid back-up who can step up and not look lost as a starter. He shores up a position of need. If we could somehow find another quality C I would feel comfortable in the Raps talent at this position. I just cant believe how bad Baynes and Len were this year. There has to be an advanced stat or metric to figure out how many games the black hole of center cost us this year.

[Yallbecrazy]

Put this guy in the HOF already

[And1+2]

I'm glad we got him this late. We would have been treadmilling bigtime if we had him from the start of the season...

[Lord_Zedd]

I'd be more than happy to re-sign him to a long term deal. Him shooting 3s was definitely a wtf moment along with being competent in moving the ball around.

I don't see Birch being that much worse than the golden boy Richaun Holmes, who's looking at a major payday.

[DelAbbot]

Birch has looked like a 80% Ibaka.

But he struggles with size such as Drummand/Davis/Embiids

I've been very impressed. I thought he would be a good back up but he fits really well in the starting unit. Very good Bball IQ. Better shooter than expected. Better passer than expected. Solid defence. He was below average against the Lakers but played really well in every other game.

[Indeed]

Offense
- He can play PnR, good hands
- He can catch the ball in high post and take a dribble for a push shot, capable of scoring 0 - 10 feet
- He can hit the 3
- He can make the pass to the open perimeter player when he meets defender

Defense
- He can switch a bit, not as quick, but capable of defending the PnR
- He has some hops to block the weakside shots with our good perimeter defense
- He can defend the post player a bit
- He can be at the right place for help defense

A slight problem is that he is a bit undersize. Drummond would be hard for him to handle one on one, and we will need to play the team approach against giant bigs.

I think he is comparable to Ibaka. Birch will not shoot the lights out like Ibaka does, but he makes the correct pass.

[kieferli]

If Baynes never play with us this season , I will give him 7. But now I give him 10/10

[kieferli]

Also he really want to join Raptors I will give him 11/10

[JPHolling]

Hope hes our starting C next season

[Rapsalot]

I would like him as a backup going forward. Now if we draft a C then he might start next year then hand over in 22-23. 4 years $21 mil with last year team option.

[Spida888]

He's a high BBIQ player, better than expected. He's a fringe starter if we can't find a good center, and a really good backup C.

[yassillio]

Cheap and good quality .
Much better than I expected. He sets screens, rebounds and moves the ball on O. He is a good finisher , very athletic and makes good reads off the screens ( roll or swing pass ). He also had a very quick second jump , which helps on the offensive boards.
If there are no available bigs this summer then I'd be happy to have him back at a reasonable contract.

Well, that's the issue isn't it? As I've mentioned in other threads, I was hoping we could re-sign him for the BAE (3.8.) if we signed Kyle back or otherwise used up our cap space on our Bird rights players, or for the room exception (~5 mill) if we renounced Kyle's cap hold and used our cap space on another big.

So how much will Khem be worth this summer? Lots of teams have cap space, and at least the teams we've been playing see how more than serviceable he is.

Yeah, I think I read your last post about it. It'll be interesting which direction we take with KL.
Cap space and bi annual exception or keeping Lowry and getting the full MLE.

As for KB, if you ask me , I think he gets between 6 and 8M per year. Daniel Theis makes 5M year and will be a FA as well.

Heck, I'd love to sign both for 15 mill (total) and call it a day. Ibaka and Trezz both signed for MLE and everyone thought they'd get offered more ( people here were saying 50-60/3 for Ibaka ). I could be full of s**t for all I know lol.

[mack_435]

He has good hands, makes the smart play most of the time. I’m sure he is loving playing with Lowry. Guy runs the pick and roll so well with athletic bigs

[kj_]

His ability to quickly find shooters when he gets the ball in the paint on the move has been a spark the offence was greatly in need of.


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[Ell Curry]

What's the exception situation if we stay over the cap? Full MLE or it's the 5M a year room? Because that last one fits Birch like a glove. And if we deal Lowry for only future assets or he leaves, I'm less worried about trying to be a playoff team if Lowry goes.

But yeah, he'd clearly be an asset in this sort of team that's going for a playoff spot and hoping the pick brings us a wing we can develop:

Birch/THICK5/Gillespie
Siakam/Boucher
OG/#10
VanVleet/Trent
Lowry/Flynn

[hyper316]

More athletic than I thought

I'm fine with him being starting center