Feschuk: Masai contemplating a step back next year, Lowry trade

[FirstInkTDot]

No tank, Raptors can't draft for ****.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Definitely would be stupid at this point. You tank when you lose a stud / superstars. Not coming off the heel of the best season we've ever had. Would much rather treadmill to the playoffs every year and try to get better thru strategic trades and signings rather than crap out n hope for draft luck

Foolish teams tank after they've already lost their best players for nothing. What this is suggesting is Masai is reading the tea leafs... moving Derozan before a massive over pay extension and recognizing we don't have enough talent for sustained success. Better to tank now. We can sell assets for more draft picks and the tank will be short and sweet.

No1 on our team is approaching 30, why can't this success be sustainable. Our division remains crap, we got 0 production from two starters and our backup 1 and 3.

We can change and grow.

how old is Lowry?

[ConSarnit]

The Raps are in a precarious situation. Should they blow it up this offseason? I am more in favour of a rebuild (tanking I guess) but I can see why people would be opposed:

1. For most of their existence, the Raptors have been a joke. Stringing together multiple 45+ win seasons may help their image around league. I would think free agents (and their agents) must look at the Raps and think "why would I go there? they can never sustain success and have generally been incompetent".

2. In order for this team to make a leap next year, we will need increased production from JV and Ross. People were expecting it this year, but often times it happens in year 4. Ross could be a write off but JV is still very young and has shown good signs. If you blow it up and they make a leap you're left thinking "hmm, maybe this team could have been something decent"

These are the risks of blowing it up. I would trust Masai being in charge of a rebuild though, he seems patient.

[IMAN5]

TANK WORLD ORDER IS BACK

[protothe]

I don't blame Lowry AT ALL.

Casey lets GV and Lou chuck without repercussions. Lowry must've felt like the green light was on for him too.

[OakleyDokely]

Given the state of the East, the Raps could trade Lowry and/or DD for draft picks/prospects/young players and still make the playoffs as a lower seeded team, depending on what they get back. The Raps strength has always been their depth. If they replace Lowry/DD with younger, more efficient players, I don't think they decline all the much. Would be sort of a stealth rebuild.

[BrunoSkull]

[DUNPHY]

Trading Lowry is a HUGE mistake... Lowry was INJURED! He was literally beasting it out for a year straight before the all star break! Hell come back full force!

Casey is obviously the problem here...

Im really starting to question Masai if this rumour is true..

Ill wait until he actually makes a move before I judge though

Being overweight is an injury?

Kyle gained barely a couple pounds if that after injury.. you cant even tell he gained anything at all honestly... and the last person I would believe is someone trying to save their job.

Kyles play suffered because of his back contusion right before the playoffs not because he gained a couple pounds

[nitrous]

I can understand trading Lowry but why do we have to go all the way back to tanking?

Long-term growth bs is the same stuff we were talking about 8yrs ago, look how that turned out, P.S. we missed Wiggins & Irving by a long shot.

[Ari_Emanuel]

Definitely would be stupid at this point. You tank when you lose a stud / superstars. Not coming off the heel of the best season we've ever had. Would much rather treadmill to the playoffs every year and try to get better thru strategic trades and signings rather than crap out n hope for draft luck

Foolish teams tank after they've already lost their best players for nothing. What this is suggesting is Masai is reading the tea leafs... moving Derozan before a massive over pay extension and recognizing we don't have enough talent for sustained success. Better to tank now. We can sell assets for more draft picks and the tank will be short and sweet.

No1 on our team is approaching 30, why can't this success be sustainable. Our division remains crap, we got 0 production from two starters and our backup 1 and 3.

We can change and grow.

Umm did you just wake up from a coma? Our number 1 had the biggest drop off from the 1st half of the season to the second and had a historically poor playoff performance for someone who made the allstar team. There's nothing in Lowry's history to suggest we can rely on him getting back to "form"... we don't know what his "form" truly is. He's unpredictable and mercurial. He's had only 1 solid season from beginning to end his entire career and he's an overweight 6 foot, 30 yr old PG.

[Rejected]

"Fans that are calling for Casey's head lack prespective"

[TheDoctor]

Trading Lowry is a HUGE mistake... Lowry was INJURED! He was literally beasting it out for a year straight before the all star break! Hell come back full force!

Casey is obviously the problem here...

Im really starting to question Masai if this rumour is true..

Ill wait until he actually makes a move before I judge though

Being overweight is an injury?

Kyle gained barely a couple pounds if that after injury.. you cant even tell he gained anything at all honestly... and the last person I would believe is someone trying to save their job.

Kyles play suffered because of his back contusion right before the playoffs not because he gained a couple pounds

It's both, really. Maintaining NBA-level conditioning through a back injury would be really tough.
Kyle's February shooting woes were likely in large part the minor but playable finger injury they didn't rest until the end of the month. When he came back from his 3 games rest he shot the lights out from 3 until he got hurt again.

[TheDoctor]

Finally got around to editing the misleading title to match the far more wishy-washy statements in the transcript.

[Michael Bradley]

Masai just wasted two years great

That's the part that hurts. He could have traded Gay and Lowry to the Pistons for expiring contracts (Villanueva, Stuckey, etc) prior to the start of that season, but instead chose to "evaluate" in order to maximize value, which lead to the tank turning into the treadmill instantly.

Even a 10% chance at Wiggins would have meant more than 3 playoff wins, retaining Casey, etc.

Masai is a good GM, but his lack of aggressiveness when it came to tanking set this team back at least two years, possibly more.

[Mikestro]

Guys, a "rebuild" doesn't necessarily mean tanking.

In our situation, a rebuild is definitely needed no question. Our "core", or lack thereof, is just one of many reasons that we shouldn't move forward (aka. sign long term expensive contracts) to anyone currently on our team. Despite what many people are saying on this board, I think Masai is taking the correct path by not committing to anyone long term while keeping his options wide open.

[Rhythm043]

It was a great ride, I love the entire 17 months of it... I guess the entitled generation just wants a championship and nothing else will do.


In my opinion you can't get there by throwing tamper tantrums every time things don't go your way and changing the coaching staff. Coaching changes are the worst, those are the moves that often set a franchise back to the starting point. You can change players easier than you can change a coaching staff. (Yes I know there are exceptions, but there are few of them. We haven't been so lucky.)

I agree with this but those who argue it will say we need to find that right coach first.

We need to get a coach in here that stays for a long time like Sloan and Popoovich. Finding that guy is the hard thing but I am sick of the rotating door of coaches in and out of this place. We need a proper system that when the players come in they adapt to it or they don't play or they get sent packing.

[deeps6x]

The Raps are in a precarious situation. Should they blow it up this offseason? I am more in favour of a rebuild (tanking I guess) but I can see why people would be opposed:

1. For most of their existence, the Raptors have been a joke. Stringing together multiple 45+ win seasons may help their image around league. I would think free agents (and their agents) must look at the Raps and think "why would I go there? they can never sustain success and have generally been incompetent".

2. In order for this team to make a leap next year, we will need increased production from JV and Ross. People were expecting it this year, but often times it happens in year 4. Ross could be a write off but JV is still very young and has shown good signs. If you blow it up and they make a leap you're left thinking "hmm, maybe this team could have been something decent"

These are the risks of blowing it up. I would trust Masai being in charge of a rebuild though, he seems patient.

I'm not advocating blowing it up or pushing to get better now. I'll leave that up to MU to decide based on circumstances I'm not aware of - like what kind of return other GMs might be offering for our players, or how much we could move up in the draft by combining picks. Only MU will have that sort of inside information that we all lack.

That said, I sure as hell hope he commits fully to which ever direction he chooses to take the team. If you are blowing it up, DD, Kyle and JV are all flawed in one way or another, so you would need to be willing to move ALL of them. If you are shooting for the moon, you WILL need to trade your draft picks to move up in the draft (or for a better PF/SF) and you will likely have to resign Amir and Lou to cheap deals (cuz you'll get more talent than taking a flyer on Middleton or someone else where you'd be competing with 29 other teams to get them) and probably trade them after the hold period expires.

Move the NYK/Den pick and our 20 this year to move up to ??? 10 or so and pick up WCS or Kaminsky. Throw in 2Pat if necessary to get high enough.

OR picks, picks, picks and shoot for 1st or 2nd worst in the league next season. Gotta fire Casey to make that happen though. Remember the a$$ playing the hell out of AA and costing us Lillard in the draft? Guy has gotta go. End of story.

[UneducatedFan86]

I only want Casey back, if it's because we have totally revamped this roster and Masai isn't sure that we will be successful next season. Then it's about saving money, instead of just simply signing a new coach to "tank" next year. But, if you want a year to tank, next season is a good one. There are some AMAZING young talents going into college next year.

Any names to look out for?

Ben Simmons - LSU (SF) (my personal favorite)
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnjzoTBNwGo[/youtube]

Jaylen Brown - Cal (SG/SF)
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3T-ul7PEsk[/youtube]

Skal Labissiere - Uni. Kentucky (PF/C) (Current Number 1 prospect)
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw8CYtchms[/youtube]

Brandon Ingram - Duke (SF)
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0k46dtm_7Q[/youtube]

Malik Newman - Miss St. (PG/SG (combo guard))
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFnwCLkkNYw[/youtube]

Furkan Korkman - Int '97 (SG) (Smart player; that might be there in the 2nd round, if he declares)
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T0dhGx43gA[/youtube]

Other interesting names:
Domantas Sabonis - Gonzaga (PF) (Sophomore)
Thon Maker - Undeclared (C)
Zhou Qi - Int '96 (PF)

The aspects I like most about this class, is the fact that almost all the top prospects have size and length. Plus, for the most part, they aren't one dimensional. For example. Ben Simmons is 6'9/6'10, which is great size for a SF in this league. It is also guard/forward heavy, something that this team needs.

Now, with any draft, there is a chance guys won't declare or might decided to stay another year or two. But there is enough talent that didn't declare this year and enough talent international talent, that it should make it a pretty deep draft. I can see it being 15-20 strong. Then having some strong second round picks because of the international players that slip through the cracks.

Next years draft is probably going to be much better than this years. Top 3-4 players can be real game changers for any franchise, unlike this season.

[Death Knight]

Casey is back for tanking. Suddenly I don't mind his return anymore.

Lowry would have gotten into the all star game one way or another. Based on the Raptors record at the time and the lackluster pool of players to choose from, the coaches would have needed to vote someone from Toronto in and there was no other choice but Lowry. We need to stop padding ourselves in the back so much for his all star appearance. We got him to start, but that's about it.

[G R E Y]

next year it is 2nd round or bust, if we dont make it to the second rd with hca i dont wanna see casey at the helm or derozan/lowry on this team.

It's just that we said that very thing about THIS year, and ONCE AGAIN, we are in the not-quite tank, not-quite retool/rebuild or whatever new term they want to use for what is essentially a ten year or so **** - or - never - get - off - the - pot indecision debacle. What a joke, and MLSE is laughing at fans all the way to the bank.