ArthurVandelay wrote:YogurtProducer wrote:ArthurVandelay wrote:
Other teams have better depth. That’s why some in the Raptors fan base use injuries as an excuse because the Raptors don’t have depth.
Not directing this at you, depth gets thrown around a lot but I’m not sure people actually understand the significance. Depth is having legit NBA players as back ups and third stringers. Guys who could legitimately start on some teams. Depth is why the Raptors actually had a higher winning percentage in 2019-2020 before season halted. Depth is why load management had little regular season impact with Kawhi in 2018-2019.
Depth gets you to the playoffs while elite talent wins you the playoffs. Right now the Raptors have neither and a long way to go to have either.
We have okay depth now, 1000% better depth than we had since 2021.
Gary started for us in 2022, and our bench was Thad/Boucher/Achiwua/Birch. That team somehow won 48 games.
The fact Gary/Olynyk/Brown/Dick are all guys we can bring off the bench now is light and day different. We could also end up bringing in 2-3 rookies and if any of them even make a slight impact as a 10th man that would be a boost.
The 2022 team winning 48 games and realistically the same team (plus Poeltl less FVV) winning like 25-30 games this year just shows that looking at a roster year over year and expecting the same results is poor analysis. Same as our 2013 team winning 34 games and 2024 winning 48.
I don’t think that Gary/KO/Brown/Dick is good depth…but that’s just me. They all have significant holes in their game in some way and the only one has a chance to improve at this point is the skinny rook. The fact they are better than recent years is more of an indictment on those recent years.
As for the 48 win season, I think it was the style of play that caught a lot of teams off guard but the counter game plan was eventually figured out. Plus it was an extremely difficult style of play to sustain and needed total buy in from players. The individual competing interests from the coaches down to the players ensured it was a short lived success.
I can't imagine most people who actually watch basketball would actually consider that depth.
GTJ is the most productive of the bunch, Dick has the most potential. But outside of that we have Brown who absolutely requires a better team to be better, and then KO who is by no stretch bad, but he's getting older and can't play defence to save his life.
GTJ is at best a 6th man off the bench, he is not a legit starter, he's way too streaky for that. Dick likely will be, but that's probably a couple years away. This team is as shallow as a puddle. We could maybe manage an injury to RJ with GTJ/Dick, but if any other starter goes down, the team is in for a world of hurt. Who the hell replaces Scottie at even 50% performance, or IQ? And even Jak who I am not super high on, is hard to replace with this roster.
We don't even have a competent bench unit, let alone the ability to have a "next man up" type of situation occur. It ain't 2017/18, or even close.
