Tank World Order (2.0)

[Mehar]

Lowry coming back will be the real reason the tank gets completely sabotaged, but getting a little injury luck here with Lowry/Fred/Siakam just shows how shortsighted the Norm trade for a serviceable role player really was, instead of getting garbage you waive and a future draft pick.

Potentially missing out on a star lottery pick is the type of devastating mistake that has a ripple effect for many years.

The only real variable remains injuries and Covid for the rest of this year, or Masai forcing a tank on Nurse, which doesn't seem in the cards.

Norm trade for a serviceable role player...

How many players in this 2021 draft do you absolutely know will be better than our "serviceable role player" who by the way is 22 and is absolutely killing it. You must be a fundamentalist tanker a la trust the process. No thanks for that crap formula.

The answer to this is "I don't care about role players at the beginning stage of a rebuild". We can find a Terence Ross, FVV, Norm, Amir, JV, OG, Ibaka, etc. down the road and anywhere in the draft and out of it.

I do care about losing a shot at our best chance to get a high level, ceiling raising star. And that's what the Norm/Lowry decisions are likely to cost us. Trent isn't worth that tradeoff. I'd rather have the future pick that isn't likely to be as good as him AND the lottery pick that has the potential to be much, much, much more impactful than he ever will.

And this isn't a full tank, it's the stealth tank moves for this season that 90% of this board has finally accepted were the obvious course after we slid down the standings. Masai just blew the opportunity.

Well said. At the end of the day, we are working with a salary cap also. Sure, there is no guarantee that any top pick will pan out. There was no guarantee Lebron would turn out the player he did, or Kevin Durant the player he did drafted 2nd overall. If you are telling me, I had the chance to get Cade or Suggs at 7-8 million a year for the first three years of their rookie deal, and about 10 million in the 4th year- I would much prefer that option versus paying Gary Trent Jr. 16-20 million a year on a long-term deal.

Gary has looked good, but the tradeoff was not worth it to me also, since you could had 25-30 million in cap space to do something with it in the off-season (trading Lowry and Powell for picks and expiring contracts before the deadline), in addition to "tanking" and getting a guy like Cade or Suggs at 7-8 million in the draft.

[VinBaker6]

Screw Trent

[sidsid]

How many players in this 2021 draft do you absolutely know will be better than our "serviceable role player" who by the way is 22 and is absolutely killing it. You must be a fundamentalist tanker a la trust the process. No thanks for that crap formula.

The answer to this is "I don't care about role players at the beginning stage of a rebuild". We can find a Terence Ross, FVV, Norm, Amir, JV, OG, Ibaka, etc. down the road and anywhere in the draft and out of it.

I do care about losing a shot at our best chance to get a high level, ceiling raising star. And that's what the Norm/Lowry decisions are likely to cost us. Trent isn't worth that tradeoff. I'd rather have the future pick that isn't likely to be as good as him AND the lottery pick that has the potential to be much, much, much more impactful than he ever will.

And this isn't a full tank, it's the stealth tank moves for this season that 90% of this board has finally accepted were the obvious course after we slid down the standings. Masai just blew the opportunity.

This really isn't a rebuild it is a retool on the fly. Masai and Bobby want players for next year and the years after not five years plus from now like Sam Hinke. All these freshmen? Super high risk.Ideally we land Cade, Suggs, Mobley and Green but... we are in Poetl territory. So what they do with KL's 30 mil plus and Baynes 7 is the biggest concern and biggest opportunity going forward.

Even in a retool, you're still looking for the highest level assets because you have a "core" that can provide a floor. And specifically in our situation, getting lucky with the lottery balls could net us a player that is more impactful both immediately and in the future than Trent is now. That was the immediate calculus that should have made the trade course clear.

Even looking at it from other aspects like the cap. The #1 pick would likely cost us significantly less than what we're paying Trent this offseason. We'd have his RFA rights in 4 years which we won't for Trent, etc.

It's a different story if we were getting Giannis this offseason, but we're not.

[DatHomieYouHaTe]

Screw Trent

You can't say the team didn't try to tank man.... I'm sure they'll get a gem no matter where they pick

[WuTang_CMB]

We’ll be fine. Tough schedule up ahead.

[Badonkadonk]

Screw Trent

You can't say the team didn't try to tank man.... I'm sure they'll get a gem no matter where they pick

Agreed. They sat Pascal for no reason. Lowry immediately stopped playing right after the trade deadline for something he's had all season (I guarantee you he'd be playing for the Heat or Sixers right now).

At the end of the day, the team is too fundamentally sound (especially defensively) to out-tank the teams who play like the Raptors did in the 90s - no structure, poor decision making, systems that get blown up after the 1st action etc.

Nurse doesn't help. You can debate whether he's one of the top coaches in the league, but even his biggest critics would put him in the top 10 if they're being honest, and that's ahead of too many coaches on bad teams to accidentally help the tank.

[BBS22]

No real point scoreboard watching. But for those keeping track. Thunder, Wizards, Rockets, Pistons all got the memo and are taking the L.

Frustrating. I would have thought after having Kawhi on this team this franchise would have seen the difference a superstar makes. Of course we could get massively lucky again and trade for a superstar, maybe even end up winning the lottery or drafting.

But instead we're in that realm where we're too good to tank, too poor to be a contender. I'm not looking forward to a future where we get LeBronto'd 2.0 by a Brooklyn, Sixers or even the Bucks in the playoffs. A core with Pascal + FVV + Gary + OG + rookie + MLE big man just doesn't scream contender to me.

I want this team to have a vision. What are we? What are doing right now? What's the situation with Masai? Who is leading the team? What's their goal? Does this team believe they're a small piece away from another championship? Do they believe Pascal is actually a first option?

The way I see it is that we're basically back to the Demar-Lowry days. Possibly a decent regular season team but once we're in the playoffs we run into the real superstars of this league.

Do I believe that a top 5 rookie can walk onto this team and send us to the NBA finals instantly? Absolutely not. But it just makes more sense to me to take this core that won a championship, reach for a superstar in this draft and roll the dice as our core continues to grow with the possible talent of an elite prospect.

Instead it seems like we're reloading. Gary is the new Norm. FVV takes control of the team as a full time PG. Pascal is the first option depending who has a hot streak. OG is OG, some nights he'll give you some offense but he's steady at least on defense. And whatever MLE big man we can get. Full training camp, Toronto, covid not limiting our team's health. What I just described is basically this year's team minus Lowry and a decent center/rookie. That team just seems prime fodder for the elite squads and if nothing else is depressing.

Possible complete overreaction by me. But I truly do think this week set our franchise back. Maybe with some luck we can erase these missteps but we're making it harder than it needs to be.

[baller16]

Yeah the tank is not going as smoothly as we want it to. OG should be shut down every other game cause he's far to much of a difference maker on both ends

[Par36]

Kings are never tanking.. they just aren't a be great team.

Bulls are all in to win in post season. Kings don't tank, they just are a overall mediocre team.
OKC/Cavs might win a few games but probably are going have a worse rating. Always a chance buy doubtful.


Long and Short, team is going be 7-8th.

Not great but solid pick.

[RaptorNews]

I don’t know if there’s anything more we can do. We probably shouldn’t be as bad as we are now record wise so just hope the lotto balls fall in our favour

[LoveMyRaps]

bad night for two

[youngRAPZ]

I’m just waiting for the “I HAD A DREAM TORONTO RAPTORS WILL WIN THE DRAFT LOTTERY” thread. I remember that was an annual thing


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[Spida888]

If the Knicks show up tomorrow it'll make me feel a little better.

[tecumseh18]

Possible complete overreaction by me. But I truly do think this week set our franchise back. Maybe with some luck we can erase these missteps but we're making it harder than it needs to be.

Name a "misstep" made by the franchise this week. Just one. And, since you used the plural, then name another one.

[DatHomieYouHaTe]

Possible complete overreaction by me. But I truly do think this week set our franchise back. Maybe with some luck we can erase these missteps but we're making it harder than it needs to be.

Name a "misstep" made by the franchise this week. Just one. And, since you used the plural, then name another one.

They did everything they could to lose the game. What do you want them to do? You have to dress 8 players.

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[OAKLEY_2]

Possible complete overreaction by me. But I truly do think this week set our franchise back. Maybe with some luck we can erase these missteps but we're making it harder than it needs to be.

Name a "misstep" made by the franchise this week. Just one. And, since you used the plural, then name another one.

Nice for the Cavalry to arrive. This poster makes his points fair enough but acting like they know that their course of action, let's call it tank-much or tank 101, oh wait, they will never do more than offer an online opinion so as to make their line of reasoning wholly laughable when put in context. Another speech of good is the enemy of great becomes also not just predictable but worse, tiresome. Maybe it is trolling with paragraphs as weapon of choice. Maybe it is just somone thinking they've cornered the market on notions of perfection.

[2019nbachamps]

These recent wins are unacceptable. Hopefully we go 1-3 in this busy stretch.

[JShuttlesworth]

VanVleet / Flynn
Trent Jr. / Bembry
Anunoby / Watson
Siakam
Boucher

Plus one 1st and two 2nds.

At best we add someone like Kelly Olynyk in the offseason.

tWo is going to be in full force again next year because this looks like a lotto team.

[Badonkadonk]

Possible complete overreaction by me. But I truly do think this week set our franchise back. Maybe with some luck we can erase these missteps but we're making it harder than it needs to be.

Name a "misstep" made by the franchise this week. Just one. And, since you used the plural, then name another one.

Nice for the Cavalry to arrive. This poster makes his points fair enough but acting like they know that their course of action, let's call it tank-much or tank 101, oh wait, they will never do more than offer an online opinion so as to make their line of reasoning wholly laughable when put in context. Another speech of good is the enemy of great becomes also not just predictable but worse, tiresome. Maybe it is trolling with paragraphs as weapon of choice. Maybe it is just somone thinking they've cornered the market on notions of perfection.

I'm also curious what the misstep was - they sat Pascal, even got lucky with some suspensions on top of covid protocol and injuries etc.

Unless ppl think that players themselves should be 'tanking' on the court or Nurse should be throwing games, the week set up perfectly for losing, just other bad teams were even more terrible.

[tecumseh18]

Name a "misstep" made by the franchise this week. Just one. And, since you used the plural, then name another one.

Nice for the Cavalry to arrive. This poster makes his points fair enough but acting like they know that their course of action, let's call it tank-much or tank 101, oh wait, they will never do more than offer an online opinion so as to make their line of reasoning wholly laughable when put in context. Another speech of good is the enemy of great becomes also not just predictable but worse, tiresome. Maybe it is trolling with paragraphs as weapon of choice. Maybe it is just somone thinking they've cornered the market on notions of perfection.

I'm also curious what the misstep was - they sat Pascal, even got lucky with some suspensions on top of covid protocol and injuries etc.

Unless ppl think that players themselves should be 'tanking' on the court or Nurse should be throwing games, the week set up perfectly for losing, just other bad teams were even more terrible.

Yes, tanking is a management decision, telling the coach/medical staff when to rest players. It's certainly not a decision made by players who are showing out for their next contract. Yuta's gonna Yuta regardless.

Winning games we want to lose (and I have been recently converted to the hardcore tanker side) would be discouraging if our established pieces were playing heavy minutes. But when our youth showing up and are winning us games, I'm can't help but be happy. Gary may be something special. Portland fans were saying after the trade that he had all-star potential. Flynn's a baller, Yuta's a baller, Bembry's a baller, and who knows, maybe Freddie2 is a baller. The whole point of getting a high lottery pick is to find a real baller. But there's always a risk the guy ends up being a Thabeet or Jarobi Parker or Alex Len or Bender or ... countless other examples. Better a bird in the hand than TwO in the bush.

If Watanabe really learns to shoot in the next four weeks, and Flynn emerges as a starting calibre PG - who really is the guy who outplayed LaMelo in the first pre-season game - then that's tremendous. Hard to be down about that.