Masai: We have a Young Team and there will be Growing Pains

[canada_dry]

You don’t even post enough to represent treadmill nation I don’t even think of you when I mention them. But aren’t you the guy that said a top 5 pick has never won a championship for the team that they were drafted in? Just stop bro I’m ignoring you.

Well he illustrated it pretty damn well. So...


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By ignoring Duncan, Wade, Lebron…

Thats y'all issue about his thread and mischaracterizing it like u do a lot of things. Thats between u guys. What he put on this thread here did a fine job of illustrating where the other side falls. Ur guy changed the topic to try n discredit him as if he doesn't have any say about the anti tank perspective...but again he did a fine job of telling u what it was.

So lets go from there rather than changing the topic and trying to poo poo his "right" to talk from the other side, eh?

Its ur boy that absolutely mischaracterized the anti tank viewpoint, as he usually does, while also exposing himself in the process as a day 1 tanker for this coming season.

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[B-Ball Freak]

Honest question, if we're a lottery team again...like last year. What's the motivation for people to watch all year?

Do people think this fan base is going to actually stick around, like the Leaf's apathetic fan base?

If you only "stick around" when the team is winning then you're a bandwagon fan....that means you'll come back when they start winning again.

[Brinbe]

yep, we gotta wait a bit for some of these guys to develop and mature, but it will be worth it in a few years. I really like the direction we're headed in. Our defense will be very good at a minimum.

[CanadaB-Ball]

Nurse will find magic in the bottle this season

FVV/Trent/OG/Siakam/Birch ->. Biggest weakness is shot creation but hopefully Trent and OG developing will help.

Our biggest issue last year was our **** bench.

Dragic / Flynn / Barnes / Boucher / Precious / Yuta

Can Boucher find the shooting stroke he had early in the year?
How good is Barnes?
How good is Precious?
Will Flynn run the offense or try and score too much?
Will Dragic play with us?
Can Yuta be consistent?

So many questions with lot of upside potential.

I just dont see how we dont win 45 games barring any injuries. This has 13/14 written all over it for me and with better coaching - that's the key. Playing at home will certainly help.

And it will be a fun year because of the developmental growth stage of so many players.

1) OG - biggest one, expect another jump
2) Trent - had a nice jump last season, expect some more
3) Precious - solid young player with a ton of upside, will have some growing pains but the potential is there.
4) Flynn - with 15-20min a night and running bench mob 2.0, he will have a jump this season
5) Barnes - last but not least ... Nurse says he'll play a lot and mix him around the lineup. Up and down year I guess but the highs will have us all oozing of what he can be in 3 years.

Nurse seems to always put it all together and outside of Miami, Brooklyn, Milwaukee and Philly, I think we can beat any other team... we just gotta manage the schedule well.

I too believe the Raptors will be far better than most believe (unfortunately), but why are people talking like Trent is on a good trajectory/is an important part of us being good? He might explode this season, but he was not good last year at all; there was no jump.

[canada_dry]

Nurse will find magic in the bottle this season

FVV/Trent/OG/Siakam/Birch ->. Biggest weakness is shot creation but hopefully Trent and OG developing will help.

Our biggest issue last year was our **** bench.

Dragic / Flynn / Barnes / Boucher / Precious / Yuta

Can Boucher find the shooting stroke he had early in the year?
How good is Barnes?
How good is Precious?
Will Flynn run the offense or try and score too much?
Will Dragic play with us?
Can Yuta be consistent?

So many questions with lot of upside potential.

I just dont see how we dont win 45 games barring any injuries. This has 13/14 written all over it for me and with better coaching - that's the key. Playing at home will certainly help.

And it will be a fun year because of the developmental growth stage of so many players.

1) OG - biggest one, expect another jump
2) Trent - had a nice jump last season, expect some more
3) Precious - solid young player with a ton of upside, will have some growing pains but the potential is there.
4) Flynn - with 15-20min a night and running bench mob 2.0, he will have a jump this season
5) Barnes - last but not least ... Nurse says he'll play a lot and mix him around the lineup. Up and down year I guess but the highs will have us all oozing of what he can be in 3 years.

Nurse seems to always put it all together and outside of Miami, Brooklyn, Milwaukee and Philly, I think we can beat any other team... we just gotta manage the schedule well.

Ur a lot more optimistic than most. Anything from 35-45 wouldn't surprise me...but to say u cant envision a situation where we dont win 45 games if healthy is kinda crazy lol

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[YogurtProducer]

Honest question, if we're a lottery team again...like last year. What's the motivation for people to watch all year?

Do people think this fan base is going to actually stick around, like the Leaf's apathetic fan base?

Holy fair weather fans

Watch maybe because, I don’t know, you like basketball?

[YogurtProducer]

I don't know if I agree. We still need a top scoring talent and we have two options,

Trade Siakam or Van Vleet + assets for a top guy
Draft someone to be that guy

Adding another lottery value player is not a bad idea at this point for either case. Either you include that pick or player in a deal to get an elite player or he becomes an elite player.

You don't take Barnes 4th if you don't think he's that with time.

I don't think anyone sees Barnes as a potential #1 option...

I think the Raptors see the potential to grow him.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/15864775-on-the-court-with-raptors-president-masai-ujiri

The quotes around 10:30 for those interested.

[WuTang_CMB]

FVV/Trent/OG/Siakam/Birch ->. Biggest weakness is shot creation but hopefully Trent and OG developing will help.

Our biggest issue last year was our **** bench.

Dragic / Flynn / Barnes / Boucher / Precious / Yuta

Can Boucher find the shooting stroke he had early in the year?
How good is Barnes?
How good is Precious?
Will Flynn run the offense or try and score too much?
Will Dragic play with us?
Can Yuta be consistent?

So many questions with lot of upside potential.

I just dont see how we dont win 45 games barring any injuries. This has 13/14 written all over it for me and with better coaching - that's the key. Playing at home will certainly help.

And it will be a fun year because of the developmental growth stage of so many players.

1) OG - biggest one, expect another jump
2) Trent - had a nice jump last season, expect some more
3) Precious - solid young player with a ton of upside, will have some growing pains but the potential is there.
4) Flynn - with 15-20min a night and running bench mob 2.0, he will have a jump this season
5) Barnes - last but not least ... Nurse says he'll play a lot and mix him around the lineup. Up and down year I guess but the highs will have us all oozing of what he can be in 3 years.

Nurse seems to always put it all together and outside of Miami, Brooklyn, Milwaukee and Philly, I think we can beat any other team... we just gotta manage the schedule well.

I too believe the Raptors will be far better than most believe (unfortunately), but why are people talking like Trent is on a good trajectory/is an important part of us being good? He might explode this season, but he was not good last year at all; there was no jump.

Incorrect. He had a massive jump last season for Portland and continued that in Toronto for a good run. Only 22… Masai publically commented he excited about his upside.

[WuTang_CMB]

FVV/Trent/OG/Siakam/Birch ->. Biggest weakness is shot creation but hopefully Trent and OG developing will help.

Our biggest issue last year was our **** bench.

Dragic / Flynn / Barnes / Boucher / Precious / Yuta

Can Boucher find the shooting stroke he had early in the year?
How good is Barnes?
How good is Precious?
Will Flynn run the offense or try and score too much?
Will Dragic play with us?
Can Yuta be consistent?

So many questions with lot of upside potential.

I just dont see how we dont win 45 games barring any injuries. This has 13/14 written all over it for me and with better coaching - that's the key. Playing at home will certainly help.

And it will be a fun year because of the developmental growth stage of so many players.

1) OG - biggest one, expect another jump
2) Trent - had a nice jump last season, expect some more
3) Precious - solid young player with a ton of upside, will have some growing pains but the potential is there.
4) Flynn - with 15-20min a night and running bench mob 2.0, he will have a jump this season
5) Barnes - last but not least ... Nurse says he'll play a lot and mix him around the lineup. Up and down year I guess but the highs will have us all oozing of what he can be in 3 years.

Nurse seems to always put it all together and outside of Miami, Brooklyn, Milwaukee and Philly, I think we can beat any other team... we just gotta manage the schedule well.

Ur a lot more optimistic than most. Anything from 35-45 wouldn't surprise me...but to say u cant envision a situation where we dont win 45 games if healthy is kinda crazy lol

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Not really when you look at the rest of the east and where we sat before team got smacked with covid. Charlotte, Knicks, Chicago etc even Hawks im not really scared of. Just gotta manage the schedule well and our key 3 guys need to be playing well. Improved bench, 2 real centres. Back home. Nurse best coach in the game now with Stevens out. Not crazy at all for this team to sit 5-6 next season, it’s probably closer to it being a reality than crazy when you really dive in.

[CanadaB-Ball]

I just dont see how we dont win 45 games barring any injuries. This has 13/14 written all over it for me and with better coaching - that's the key. Playing at home will certainly help.

And it will be a fun year because of the developmental growth stage of so many players.

1) OG - biggest one, expect another jump
2) Trent - had a nice jump last season, expect some more
3) Precious - solid young player with a ton of upside, will have some growing pains but the potential is there.
4) Flynn - with 15-20min a night and running bench mob 2.0, he will have a jump this season
5) Barnes - last but not least ... Nurse says he'll play a lot and mix him around the lineup. Up and down year I guess but the highs will have us all oozing of what he can be in 3 years.

Nurse seems to always put it all together and outside of Miami, Brooklyn, Milwaukee and Philly, I think we can beat any other team... we just gotta manage the schedule well.

I too believe the Raptors will be far better than most believe (unfortunately), but why are people talking like Trent is on a good trajectory/is an important part of us being good? He might explode this season, but he was not good last year at all; there was no jump.

Incorrect. He had a massive jump last season for Portland and continued that in Toronto for a good run. Only 22… Masai publically commented he excited about his upside.

I don’t know why I responded to you; I know your shtick. Nonetheless, I’ll bite.

Trent is not a very good basketball player based on any objective evidence, and was statistically worse this past season than the year prior. That’s not to suggest that he’ll continue to produce poorly, and he clearly has a relatively impressive level of natural talent, but he’s got a long way to go to be an important piece of a contending roster.

[Dalek]

I'm not endorsing what we are doing but the vision is pretty clear. Our goals are to try to build a winning team with young players under contract control + taking gambles on low risk, medium reward free agents. Our front office values cap flexibility than most other teams in the NBA. We have been one of the few teams in the last few years that hasn't had a single bad contract.

Obviously with low risk comes lower rewards. You need to make gambles via trades and free agency to enjoy upside benefits. We gambled by trading DeRozan + 1st for Kawhi (it was a gamble due to his unknown injury status + mercurial temperament + belief he wanted to go to LA). Fortunately, the gamble paid off.

Since then however we have been one of the most risk averse teams in the NBA which has contributed to us falling down the league's pecking order. Anyways, its clear the vision is our best shot of competing is through this model. My bet is they begin to take risks when they feel we are a couple of pieces away from being a true contender in the East.

To be honest I do not think there is a need for us to be impatient. There is almost nothing we can do now to compete with the Nets. Then you have the Bucks, and a few others clearly better than us. I think we just need to embrace at least 2-3 more years of rebuilding before fortune hopefully begins to favour us.

To me building a winning team is a team that wins and makes the playoffs as a middle seed or contender. Whatever else is just treadmilling. Toronto literally won the title two years ago, so winning culture should be there.

Considering we have several big contracts and zero flexibility, I don't see the flexibility you do. I think the way we currently are constructed we don't even have a way to re-sign Boucher next year. Yet, we have Khem Birch signed for three seasons for some reason.

There is always the option to shed more of the salaries and fully commit to the youth. I hope Toronto just doesn't sit on its assets too long as has been the case the past few years.

What flexibility are you looking for though?

They could've created a max slot this year but once Giannis re-signed they took another path because the FA class was very weak.

The Raps have no bad contracts and could easily trade anyone on the roster for young assets, picks if they decided to go in that direction. But there's no reason to do that now prior to playing a game as we still don't know how good or how bad this team is.

The flexibility could be there if Toronto chose to move on, but my point is Toronto under Masai is way too slow moving and holds onto assets for emotional reasons. Keeping Gasol and Ibaka was due to one more title run which was crazy because we no longer had the guy that brought us there. Lowry was another sentimental hold'em move. We likely had some decent to amazing offers for Siakam during the draft and FA again we did not make a move.

Current state, if we stay the course we likely don't have a way to retain Boucher and we are going down the Norman Powell trail of selling at the deadline - and likely we won't even get half as good an asset (likely a couple seconds) given his low salary.

Even a simple play to bring in a guy who had interest becomes tough. Pangos would have been a great acquisition and he was obviously interested in playing here, but we don't even have minimum dollars to do anything. Look at how cheaply he signed for in Cleveland. Toronto can't even afford that presently.

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[WuTang_CMB]

I too believe the Raptors will be far better than most believe (unfortunately), but why are people talking like Trent is on a good trajectory/is an important part of us being good? He might explode this season, but he was not good last year at all; there was no jump.

Incorrect. He had a massive jump last season for Portland and continued that in Toronto for a good run. Only 22… Masai publically commented he excited about his upside.

I don’t know why I responded to you; I know your shtick. Nonetheless, I’ll bite.

Trent is not a very good basketball player based on any objective evidence, and was statistically worse this past season than the year prior. That’s not to suggest that he’ll continue to produce poorly, and he clearly has a relatively impressive level of natural talent, but he’s got a long way to go to be an important piece of a contending roster.

I think you dont know what you're talking about. To say he's not a good basketball player is your opinion but your statement of him not having a big jump last season and a worst statistical year is clearly false.

2020 season: 9 pts, 2 threes made on 4.4 attempts, 44% from 3
2021 season: 16 pts, 3 threes made on 7 attempts, 40% from 3

[WuTang_CMB]

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/15864775-on-the-court-with-raptors-president-masai-ujiri

The quotes around 10:30 for those interested.

Thanks for sharing.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/15864775-on-the-court-with-raptors-president-masai-ujiri

The quotes around 10:30 for those interested.

Thanks for sharing.

You too, thanks!

[Dalek]

I just dont see how we dont win 45 games barring any injuries. This has 13/14 written all over it for me and with better coaching - that's the key. Playing at home will certainly help.

And it will be a fun year because of the developmental growth stage of so many players.

1) OG - biggest one, expect another jump
2) Trent - had a nice jump last season, expect some more
3) Precious - solid young player with a ton of upside, will have some growing pains but the potential is there.
4) Flynn - with 15-20min a night and running bench mob 2.0, he will have a jump this season
5) Barnes - last but not least ... Nurse says he'll play a lot and mix him around the lineup. Up and down year I guess but the highs will have us all oozing of what he can be in 3 years.

Nurse seems to always put it all together and outside of Miami, Brooklyn, Milwaukee and Philly, I think we can beat any other team... we just gotta manage the schedule well.

Ur a lot more optimistic than most. Anything from 35-45 wouldn't surprise me...but to say u cant envision a situation where we dont win 45 games if healthy is kinda crazy lol

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Not really when you look at the rest of the east and where we sat before team got smacked with covid. Charlotte, Knicks, Chicago etc even Hawks im not really scared of. Just gotta manage the schedule well and our key 3 guys need to be playing well. Improved bench, 2 real centres. Back home. Nurse best coach in the game now with Stevens out. Not crazy at all for this team to sit 5-6 next season, it’s probably closer to it being a reality than crazy when you really dive in.

I have it as:
Brooklyn - bounce-back year with additions of Millsap and Aldridge
Milwaukee - Champs
Miami - Lowry acquisition
Atlanta - Status quo
Boston - Healthy Tatum and Brown
Chicago - Demar/Vuc/Ball - huge off-season like Atlanta last year
NY - Kemba plus retained core pieces
8 is likely Pacers/Hornets/Toronto.

Pacers always bad injury luck so maybe they are not in, but they have better talent than Toronto (Sabonis, Lavert, Brogdon, Turner - maybe Warren but Duarte will fill that role)

Hornets don't have an identity, but with Ball they might take a step. He has that Trae Young type impact on the game, maybe moreso at some point in his career.

I get the confidence in having a C like Birch but he is hardly a starter level C - maybe one on a team with an elite offense. Ultimately, Toronto lost Kyle and while FVV is a great lockeroom guy, I don't think he has the KLow gene. The guys that could swing things are OG and Barnes. Those are the uncut gems that might be something great but odds are they aren't enough to swing this season around.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

Holy fair weather fans

Watch maybe because, I don’t know, you like basketball?

People who enjoyed last season might be a bit on the masochistic side.

It stops being about basketball and becomes more about the pick. That's a different game.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

If you only "stick around" when the team is winning then you're a bandwagon fan....that means you'll come back when they start winning again.

I mean, I stopped eating Leaf's tripe in the 90's and have had no regrets with that decision.

I doubt it gets to that here, but I see my time as valuable. Even if I do waste a lot of it here.

[ciueli]

Incorrect. He had a massive jump last season for Portland and continued that in Toronto for a good run. Only 22… Masai publically commented he excited about his upside.

I don’t know why I responded to you; I know your shtick. Nonetheless, I’ll bite.

Trent is not a very good basketball player based on any objective evidence, and was statistically worse this past season than the year prior. That’s not to suggest that he’ll continue to produce poorly, and he clearly has a relatively impressive level of natural talent, but he’s got a long way to go to be an important piece of a contending roster.

I think you dont know what you're talking about. To say he's not a good basketball player is your opinion but your statement of him not having a big jump last season and a worst statistical year is clearly false.

2020 season: 9 pts, 2 threes made on 4.4 attempts, 44% from 3
2021 season: 16 pts, 3 threes made on 7 attempts, 40% from 3

What? He shot 38.5% from 3 last season, the previous season he shot 41.8%. You're looking at FG%, not 3PTFG%

It's all right there at:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/trentga02.html

Looking at True Shooting he shot 53.4% in 2020-21 and 58.7% in 2019-20. That's a serious decline in scoring efficiency. And don't look at the numbers he put up on our team because he was even worse than that, his production really dropped off once he left Portland. Must be nice nice having guys like Lillard and McCollum attracting all the defensive attention, too bad he won't have that level of talent here in Toronto.

[WuTang_CMB]

I don’t know why I responded to you; I know your shtick. Nonetheless, I’ll bite.

Trent is not a very good basketball player based on any objective evidence, and was statistically worse this past season than the year prior. That’s not to suggest that he’ll continue to produce poorly, and he clearly has a relatively impressive level of natural talent, but he’s got a long way to go to be an important piece of a contending roster.

I think you dont know what you're talking about. To say he's not a good basketball player is your opinion but your statement of him not having a big jump last season and a worst statistical year is clearly false.

2020 season: 9 pts, 2 threes made on 4.4 attempts, 44% from 3
2021 season: 16 pts, 3 threes made on 7 attempts, 40% from 3

What? He shot 38.5% from 3 last season, the previous season he shot 41.8%. You're looking at FG%, not 3PTFG%

It's all right there at:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/trentga02.html

Looking at True Shooting he shot 53.4% in 2020-21 and 58.7% in 2019-20. That's a serious decline in scoring efficiency. And don't look at the numbers he put up on our team because he was even worse than that, his production really dropped off once he left Portland. Must be nice nice having guys like Lillard and McCollum attracting all the defensive attention, too bad he won't have that level of talent here in Toronto.

My mistake. He still had a big jump in his third season and argument still stands he improved last season and not a decline as mentioned before (dont just look at efficiency when his usage also increased drastically).