What is the plan here?

[MiamiSPX]

1) Hope like hell BI gives you 65+ games.
2) Hope like hell Scottie takes a leap.
3) Hope like hell that they nail the 9th pick.
4) Hope like hell that Gradey becomes good.
5) Hope like hell that all of last year's draftees improve noticeably.

Mainly lots of hope lol. Still better than where we were at this time last year or the year prior, IMO.

[Duffman100]

1) Hope like hell BI gives you 65+ games.
2) Hope like hell Scottie takes a leap.
3) Hope like hell that they nail the 9th pick.
4) Hope like hell that Gradey becomes good.
5) Hope like hell that all of last year's draftees improve noticeably.

Mainly lots of hope lol. Still better than where we were at this time last year or the year prior, IMO.

If all that happens, we're talking about being a 50 win team

[binjumper]

We could win a championship and people would complain that we didn't have a dynasty. The glass is half full. It's not the end of the world and don't live in misery. It's just entertainment.

[Pointgod]

The plan was always to save Masai’s job. At this point the team should just trade the #9 pick because either our ownership or front office refuses to rebuild through the draft. I’m fully on team tank btw, but there’s no point half assing things. Let’s just go for it.

[720]

1) Hope like hell BI gives you 65+ games.
2) Hope like hell Scottie takes a leap.
3) Hope like hell that they nail the 9th pick.
4) Hope like hell that Gradey becomes good.
5) Hope like hell that all of last year's draftees improve noticeably.

Mainly lots of hope lol. Still better than where we were at this time last year or the year prior, IMO.

If all that happens, we're talking about being a 50 win team

I agree, if Scottie and Gradey take leaps and BI doesn’t get injured that’s a contender in the east imo.

[Los_29]

Our plan should be to win more games next year so we can get the 1st pick like the Mavs did.

[WuTang_CMB]

talent acquisition and keep growing the young players.

[mdenny]

Our plan should be to win more games next year so we can get the 1st pick like the Mavs did.

We can't half ass this reverse tank method. We must pull out all the stops - dive for loose balls, play til the whistle on every play, out-rebound and out-hustle our opponent.

[Scase]

We're building around Scottie, is that it? I held out hope that Scottie was just a placeholder "franchise player" until we get a top 5-6 pick (pushing Scottie to a number 2 or 3 option) but now that's out the window, where does this team go from here? If Brandon freaking Ingram is our best player over the next 2-3 seasons, we are in for a very long ride. Something has to give



Sent from my Pixel 9 Pro using RealGM mobile app

Something has to give? How about we let the team play a full season as structured.

I've been hearing this same song for about 2-3 years, sometimes parts fit better than expected for sure, but playing a full season together doesn't turn non shooters into shooters, or bad defensive players into net positive defenders.

We don't really have any players that have hinted at major break outs, we have a bunch of known-ish quantities. The team is "young" but that is largely in part to a bunch of players that have low ceilings. The reality of the situation is, that for this team to have any shot of becoming a foundation legitimately worth building on, you need multiple players to take absolutely massive leaps over the next 2-3 years.

Hope all you want, the likelihood of that isn't very high.

Currently the plan for the team is for like 70% of the roster to exceed expectations, not sure how that's realistic.

[YogurtProducer]

1) Hope like hell BI gives you 65+ games.
2) Hope like hell Scottie takes a leap.
3) Hope like hell that they nail the 9th pick.
4) Hope like hell that Gradey becomes good.
5) Hope like hell that all of last year's draftees improve noticeably.

Mainly lots of hope lol. Still better than where we were at this time last year or the year prior, IMO.

Lots of hope is pretty much every team building strategy, to be fair

[YogurtProducer]

[We don't really have any players that have hinted at breaking out, we have a bunch of known quantities.

We have an incoming #9 pick, Jakobe who showed out a bit to end the year, IQ who still has not played a full season as a starting PG, Scottie Barnes who is an all-star and is 23 years old, etc.

We absolutely do not have a bunch of known quantities. Guys dont stop improving at 24 years old just because you say so.

[Godaddycurse]

[We don't really have any players that have hinted at breaking out, we have a bunch of known quantities.

We have an incoming #9 pick, Jakobe who showed out a bit to end the year, IQ who still has not played a full season as a starting PG, Scottie Barnes who is an all-star and is 23 years old, etc.

We absolutely do not have a bunch of known quantities. Guys dont stop improving at 24 years old just because you say so.

Most important of all, we have a coaching staff that's great at developing players unlike prior years under Nurse. Juries out on whether they can win in playoffs but i expect continual growth organically

[pingpongrac]

While it was incredibly unlikely — with a bit of a rigged vibe — that the Mavs would get the 1st overall pick while the Spurs and Sixers also jumped into the top 3, us dropping in the lottery was always the most likely scenario. I’m not sure why people are acting like the sky is falling now as we still have a pretty good pick to add to what looks to be a solid collection of vets and young talent. The biggest thing next season will be health. Hopefully we aren’t decimated by injuries again.

This draft is exactly why I have never been on board with putting everything up to chance. Utah and Washington both tanked hard from opening night and they wound up with the 5th and 6th picks respectively while New Orleans dropped all the way to 7th as well. Talk about wasted seasons.

[ontnut]

The plan is the same plan it has always been ever since Masai took over. Draft well, be competitive, develop from within, then consolidate assets when the pieces become available to fill areas of need.

[ontnut]

While it was incredibly unlikely — with a bit of a rigged vibe — that the Mavs would get the 1st overall pick while the Spurs and Sixers also jumped into the top 3, us dropping in the lottery was always the most likely scenario. I’m not sure why people are acting like the sky is falling now as we still have a pretty good pick to add to what looks to be a solid collection of vets and young talent. The biggest thing next season will be health. Hopefully we aren’t decimated by injuries again.

This draft is exactly why I have never been on board with putting everything up to chance. Utah and Washington both tanked hard from opening night and they wound up with the 5th and 6th picks respectively while New Orleans dropped all the way to 7th as well. Talk about wasted seasons.

Yeah we had a 48.3% chance to drop to 8 or below, 19.7% chance to stay at 7, and a 32% chance to improve our position.

[Tacoma]

The reality is whatever your perception is,

We have multiple lottery picks sprinkled all over this roster
Plenty of em are ours
We control all of our picks going fwd
Just picked up a 22 5 5 player
Under the luxury tax, plenty of good to look fwd too which is our current perception & reality instead of looking back on moves that took place 4-5 yrs ago

"Just picked up a 22 5 5 player" wow, you mean the craptors just picked up a 55 games per season player. 22/5/5 ? Every scrub can put up numbers like this nowadays. U acting like he's McGrady and were in '04. Lmao gtfoh

Every scrub can?

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?CF=PTS*GE*20:REB*GE*5:AST*GE*5&PerMode=PerGame&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=-1&sort=PTS

13 players did that last season...

Of course not every scrub can put up 22/5/5 but I think he's using hyperbole out of frustration to point out that DreamTeam09's list isn't all that. Keeping lotto picks, controlling all of our picks and being under the lux tax s/b minimum expectations for a rebuilding team. This perception of today's reality frankly doesn't paint a rosy picture and foreshadows a future that is far from clear.

I think the feeling was our future rests with this draft and we desperately needed a higher pick. So much so that we even had a hope thread called "positive thinking... part 2." And then we dropped to 9th and some are understandably venting in frustration and asking what is our plan?

The new reality now is we need to hit a home run at #9. It's a crapshoot but if anyone can do it, Masai may be the one. Ed Rogers thought Masai was overpaid when he signed that contract in 2021. Now is the time for Masai to show why he's one of the highest paid Executive.

[Godaddycurse]

"Just picked up a 22 5 5 player" wow, you mean the craptors just picked up a 55 games per season player. 22/5/5 ? Every scrub can put up numbers like this nowadays. U acting like he's McGrady and were in '04. Lmao gtfoh

Every scrub can?

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional?CF=PTS*GE*20:REB*GE*5:AST*GE*5&PerMode=PerGame&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=-1&sort=PTS

13 players did that last season...

Of course not every scrub can put up 22/5/5 but I think he's using hyperbole out of frustration to point out that DreamTeam09's list isn't all that. Keeping lotto picks, controlling all of our picks and being under the lux tax s/b minimum expectations for a rebuilding team. This perception of today's reality frankly doesn't paint a rosy picture and foreshadows a future that is far from clear.

I think the feeling was our future rests with this draft and we desperately needed a higher pick. So much so that we even had a hope thread called "positive thinking... part 2." And then we dropped to 9th and some are understandably venting in frustration and asking what is our plan?

The new reality now is we need to hit a home run at #9. It's a crapshoot but if anyone can do it, Masai may be the one. Ed Rogers thought Masai was overpaid when he signed that contract in 2021. Now is the time for Masai to show why he's one of the highest paid Executive.

the reality has always been we need our coaching staff to develop our players into all star(s) like what we did w/ Derozan, Lowry, Siakam, FVV etc. the future is never clear even if you have a top pick. Look at Pelicans and Zion for recent example

[bluerap23]

There is no plan you just keep asset building and hope for better results....Also the childish people saying in threads "Oh we laughing at team tank" As if we are the ones on this board controlling the direction of the team is going in....We have just been a bad to mid team....Masai is the one who went this direction because he himself knows we need a influx of talent to come somewhere and the draft has always and will always be the Raptors best friend regardless where we are picking...

Trades are not as easy anymore due to stars hand picking their destinations....Like Giannis he will hand pick where he wants to go....Prolly Spurs/Houston/OKC or one of the big market teams...

Raptors are very limited in ways to upgrade the roster and alot will harp on getting draft picks right...Even if we fell to 9th we just gotta hope Masai gets the pick right...

But yeah we are far away from contending still...We might be a fringe playoff team next year but theres not much to be overly excited about.

So basically do the OKC path and accumalte draft picks while going full tank mode.

Honestly for markets like Toronto that is our only hope. This current rostere is just delaying the inevitable.

Did you see the result last night? Tanking is dead.
Also - OKC did not draft their best player.

[Scase]

[We don't really have any players that have hinted at breaking out, we have a bunch of known quantities.

We have an incoming #9 pick, Jakobe who showed out a bit to end the year, IQ who still has not played a full season as a starting PG, Scottie Barnes who is an all-star and is 23 years old, etc.

We absolutely do not have a bunch of known quantities. Guys dont stop improving at 24 years old just because you say so.

Most important of all, we have a coaching staff that's great at developing players unlike prior years under Nurse. Juries out on whether they can win in playoffs but i expect continual growth organically

The same coaching staff with Nurse that resulted in FVV, Siakam, Norm, Scottie, OG and the list goes on? I like Darko, I actually have little to no issues with the coaching staff when it comes to development.

But we have the majority of the roster made up of guys that are 6-10 years into their career, one or 2 players that have a reasonable ceiling above them, and a bunch of SRPs that would be lucky if they ended their careers as solid bench players. The only player with genuine growth ahead of him is Scottie, and even he has been showing a massive lack of upper potential.

The team is going to result in a bunch of mid tier guys, which if they can be packaged and flipped into a really good player, that's a good outcome. But if you haven't noticed for the last, 10-20 years, those players don't ever want to come here, and when they are forced here, they leave at the first possible chance.

What we are building right now has an exceedingly low chance of actually panning out. What it has a high chance of, is a mid to high 40's win team that is just fodder for the real teams. This is just the Siakam/FVV era 2.0, tread water and hope for some massive star trade, except that treading of water prevented us from accumulating the required assets to be in the convo for those trades, and still have a team worth having that player on. KD, Giannis, and basically every other big name player that has been "gettable" in the last 6 or so years.

Organic growth only makes sense in a vacuum, every other team in the league gets to do that too.

[Godaddycurse]

We have an incoming #9 pick, Jakobe who showed out a bit to end the year, IQ who still has not played a full season as a starting PG, Scottie Barnes who is an all-star and is 23 years old, etc.

We absolutely do not have a bunch of known quantities. Guys dont stop improving at 24 years old just because you say so.

Most important of all, we have a coaching staff that's great at developing players unlike prior years under Nurse. Juries out on whether they can win in playoffs but i expect continual growth organically

The same coaching staff with Nurse that resulted in FVV, Siakam, Norm, Scottie, OG and the list goes on? I like Darko, I actually have little to no issues with the coaching staff when it comes to development.

But we have the majority of the roster made up of guys that are 6-10 years into their career, one or 2 players that have a reasonable ceiling above them, and a bunch of SRPs that would be lucky if they ended their careers as solid bench players. The only player with genuine growth ahead of him is Scottie, and even he has been showing a massive lack of upper potential.

The team is going to result in a bunch of mid tier guys, which if they can be packaged and flipped into a really good player, that's a good outcome. But if you haven't noticed for the last, 10-20 years, those players don't ever want to come here, and when they are forced here, they leave at the first possible chance.

What we are building right now has an exceedingly low chance of actually panning out. What it has a high chance of, is a mid to high 40's win team that is just fodder for the real teams. This is just the Siakam/FVV era 2.0, tread water and hope for some massive star trade, except that treading of water prevented us from accumulating the required assets to be in the convo for those trades, and still have a team worth having that player on. KD, Giannis, and basically every other big name player that has been "gettable" in the last 6 or so years.

Organic growth only makes sense in a vacuum, every other team in the league gets to do that too.

you see a siakam/fvv era 2.0, i see a lowry/derozan era 2.0, time will tell which direction this team goes