PG System and Usage Angst again

[ATLTimekeeper]

One thing that was really encouraging is that Barnes was creating from that "Gasol" spot, and iirc both his 3s came from there, too. He had some trouble from the line and couldn't score in the paint, but this was a good offensive game for him. If he made his FTs and played some D, it wouldn't have been a blowout. Also love that he started to give Draymond those dirty forearms that Draymond gives to everyone else, to the point where Green was losing it on the refs. He learns his lessons quickly.

[fbalmeida]

First multi-3pt game from Barnes. If he acquires the taste for a solid perimeter game... look out.

[vulture]

If we are gonna lose then at least get something out of it, we have to trade Pascal and FVV and let the young boys get their playtime and touches. It's so hard to watch FVV play hero ball, he's not Kyle, and Pascal, where do I start.

So who are we trading them for? You guys have these crazy plans to be Philly 76ers level bad without the assets without thinking out the consequences.

Siakam was our best player yesterday also so like, the ****? Coincidentally, Barnes was our worst (edit: I take that back, GTJ was bad). But somehow we make this FVV/Siakams fault.

The Siakam/FVV hate is mostly irrational. Regardless of how they play, the same group of posters attacks their game. When FVV put up 32/6/7 on 67 TS% with 1 TOV against the Sixers, there were complaints about how he was high-jacking the offence and when he put up 16/6/17 against the Bulls (though he had 8 TOV), the issue again was that he was chucking and not creating enough offence for the team. When Siakam put up 25/12/7 on 70 TS% with 2 TOV against the Pistons in a loss and 32/8/1 on 98 TS% with 4 TOV against the Kings, it was a lot of "but he can't do it against good teams and he doesn't make the team better." He had good games against the Blazers (20/6/6 on 60 TS% with 2 TOV) and Warriors (21/6/2 on 55 TS% with 1 TOV), but the haters picked other aspects of his game and focused more on his stinker against the Jazz.

Last night FVV was pretty awful on the offensive end for the first ~30 minutes, but he caught fire a bit late and his defence on Steph was incredible. Similarly, Siakam started pretty poorly but wound up having a solid game on both ends of the floor. Outside of the activity of Achiuwa/Boucher, we had really nothing going all game. FVV and Siakam were still 2 of our top 3 players last night lol.

And some posters wonder why we are defending these players. It has less to do with being "fanboys" and a heck of lot more to do with finding the truth. It is becoming unbearable reading all of these "trashfleet" and "Siakam sucks" posts. Without FVV and Siakam, this team would be absolutely brutal.

This is a development year, but you don't develop players by giving them freedom to do whatever they want and without guidance from veterans. There is a reason why teams like San Antonio, Miami, Toronto, Denver and Golden State have been considered the top teams at developing talent in the past ~10 years while teams like Sacramento, Orlando, Detroit and Minnesota have been near the bottom when it comes to developing their youth...and it has nothing to do with where the picks are being made.

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Some fans are constantly running to the General Board and talking about how we are the best development team in the league, but yet they say we are ruining Scottie's development. It's like they don't believe what they are saying, but they choose to complain.

I chalk that up to just being emotional and there is nothing rational about it at all.

Siakam and Fred have actually played well, but expecting them to carry this young team to wins against really good teams is not having realistic expectations.

[ruckus]

So who are we trading them for? You guys have these crazy plans to be Philly 76ers level bad without the assets without thinking out the consequences.

Siakam was our best player yesterday also so like, the ****? Coincidentally, Barnes was our worst (edit: I take that back, GTJ was bad). But somehow we make this FVV/Siakams fault.

The Siakam/FVV hate is mostly irrational. Regardless of how they play, the same group of posters attacks their game. When FVV put up 32/6/7 on 67 TS% with 1 TOV against the Sixers, there were complaints about how he was high-jacking the offence and when he put up 16/6/17 against the Bulls (though he had 8 TOV), the issue again was that he was chucking and not creating enough offence for the team. When Siakam put up 25/12/7 on 70 TS% with 2 TOV against the Pistons in a loss and 32/8/1 on 98 TS% with 4 TOV against the Kings, it was a lot of "but he can't do it against good teams and he doesn't make the team better." He had good games against the Blazers (20/6/6 on 60 TS% with 2 TOV) and Warriors (21/6/2 on 55 TS% with 1 TOV), but the haters picked other aspects of his game and focused more on his stinker against the Jazz.

Last night FVV was pretty awful on the offensive end for the first ~30 minutes, but he caught fire a bit late and his defence on Steph was incredible. Similarly, Siakam started pretty poorly but wound up having a solid game on both ends of the floor. Outside of the activity of Achiuwa/Boucher, we had really nothing going all game. FVV and Siakam were still 2 of our top 3 players last night lol.

And some posters wonder why we are defending these players. It has less to do with being "fanboys" and a heck of lot more to do with finding the truth. It is becoming unbearable reading all of these "trashfleet" and "Siakam sucks" posts. Without FVV and Siakam, this team would be absolutely brutal.

This is a development year, but you don't develop players by giving them freedom to do whatever they want and without guidance from veterans. There is a reason why teams like San Antonio, Miami, Toronto, Denver and Golden State have been considered the top teams at developing talent in the past ~10 years while teams like Sacramento, Orlando, Detroit and Minnesota have been near the bottom when it comes to developing their youth...and it has nothing to do with where the picks are being made.

Sent from my Pixel 4 using RealGM mobile app

Some fans are constantly running to the General Board and talking about how we are the best development team in the league, but yet they say we are ruining Scottie's development. It's like they don't believe what they are saying, but they choose to complain.

I chalk that up to just being emotional and there is nothing rational about it at all.

Siakam and Fred have actually played well, but expecting them to carry this young team to wins against really good teams is not having realistic expectations.

Its funny cause I don't see Pascal, Fred or OG as finished products. They're still developing as well and need game time reps to take their games to the next level. Scottie and Delano will get theirs eventually. Outside of Dragic and maybe Khem, I don't see anyone on the team as a finished product.

[Dr Positivity]

I still think we have a chance to be pretty good this year.

[vulture]

The Siakam/FVV hate is mostly irrational. Regardless of how they play, the same group of posters attacks their game. When FVV put up 32/6/7 on 67 TS% with 1 TOV against the Sixers, there were complaints about how he was high-jacking the offence and when he put up 16/6/17 against the Bulls (though he had 8 TOV), the issue again was that he was chucking and not creating enough offence for the team. When Siakam put up 25/12/7 on 70 TS% with 2 TOV against the Pistons in a loss and 32/8/1 on 98 TS% with 4 TOV against the Kings, it was a lot of "but he can't do it against good teams and he doesn't make the team better." He had good games against the Blazers (20/6/6 on 60 TS% with 2 TOV) and Warriors (21/6/2 on 55 TS% with 1 TOV), but the haters picked other aspects of his game and focused more on his stinker against the Jazz.

Last night FVV was pretty awful on the offensive end for the first ~30 minutes, but he caught fire a bit late and his defence on Steph was incredible. Similarly, Siakam started pretty poorly but wound up having a solid game on both ends of the floor. Outside of the activity of Achiuwa/Boucher, we had really nothing going all game. FVV and Siakam were still 2 of our top 3 players last night lol.

And some posters wonder why we are defending these players. It has less to do with being "fanboys" and a heck of lot more to do with finding the truth. It is becoming unbearable reading all of these "trashfleet" and "Siakam sucks" posts. Without FVV and Siakam, this team would be absolutely brutal.

This is a development year, but you don't develop players by giving them freedom to do whatever they want and without guidance from veterans. There is a reason why teams like San Antonio, Miami, Toronto, Denver and Golden State have been considered the top teams at developing talent in the past ~10 years while teams like Sacramento, Orlando, Detroit and Minnesota have been near the bottom when it comes to developing their youth...and it has nothing to do with where the picks are being made.

Sent from my Pixel 4 using RealGM mobile app

Some fans are constantly running to the General Board and talking about how we are the best development team in the league, but yet they say we are ruining Scottie's development. It's like they don't believe what they are saying, but they choose to complain.

I chalk that up to just being emotional and there is nothing rational about it at all.

Siakam and Fred have actually played well, but expecting them to carry this young team to wins against really good teams is not having realistic expectations.

Its funny cause I don't see Pascal, Fred or OG as finished products. They're still developing as well and need game time reps to take their games to the next level. Scottie and Delano will get theirs eventually. Outside of Dragic and maybe Khem, I don't see anyone on the team as a finished product.

Absolutely. The kyle and demar era didn't start off swimmingly as well and it got better once they traded Rudy Gay to get more vet depth.
this is a learning curve for Fred and Pascal, but expecting them to beat 2 of the best teams in the league on the road is just being delusional.

[fbalmeida]

I still think we have a chance to be pretty good this year.

Yes we do.

If Precious improves his finishing and the defense "clicks"... This is going to be a fun season.

[Danny1616]

Team obviously has its flaws and injuries have not helped, but being 8-10 with Siakam hurt for 11 games is honestly probably a bit above where most thought we would be.

Our next 10 games:

Grizzlies
Indiana
Celtics
Grizzlies
Bucks
Wizards
Thunder
Knicks
Kings
Nets

Not a hard schedule and 7 of those 10 games will be at home. Will be a crucial part of the season to see what direction this team should take.

[Los_29]

Team obviously has its flaws and injuries have not helped, but being 8-10 with Siakam hurt for 11 games is honestly probably a bit above where most thought we would be.

Our next 10 games:

Grizzlies
Indiana
Celtics
Grizzlies
Bucks
Wizards
Thunder
Knicks
Kings
Nets

Not a hard schedule and 7 of those 10 games will be at home. Will be a crucial part of the season to see what direction this team should take.

Crucal stretch. If they can figure things out at home then I can see them winning 6-7 games here. Nets, Bucks and possibly the road game against the Grizzlies are the ones I see them losing.

[HiJiNX]

I still think we have a chance to be pretty good this year.

Yes we do.

If Precious improves his finishing and the defense "clicks"... This is going to be a fun season.

With each passing game (except Utah) you can see us getting closer and closer. I thought we actually played quite well versus the Warriors, they’re just way better than us and two years ahead of us on the development timeline. But we defended their offence really well except for the preponderance of threes from Jordan Poole. Normally we let Wiggins shoot himself out of the game but was hot. It happens. I thought that Siakam really carried the offence from the middle of the first q to the 4th which is when Fred and Barnes picked it up. I thought Boucher and Precious were great together defensively (Precious in particular was really good).

What didn’t work for me this game was the lack of intensity to start which got us down big, which I knew would be a loss because we don’t score well enough to comeback against teams that score well. The other negative for me was Birch’s defence of the pnr. Otherwise, we missed three wide open shots early that woulda kept us close but we didn’t and that was sort of the ball game. I don’t understand these internet takes where people are saying we sucked last night. Nah, we just got beat by a better team.

As for our defensive scheme, nobody was complaining on our five game win streak when the same scheme was exhausting opponents by the third Q. But then there was roster shuffling and we haven’t regained the chemistry yet (well we were great against Sac).

Just gotta be patient guys. We still gonna win 47 games give or take in my opinion, especially when the schedule evens up in our favour a bit. This experience against good teams is gonna translate to slaughtering bad teams and playing other good teams well in the second half of the season.

Just gotta give it time.

[SFour]

It's time to accept that the Raptors are a lottery team....

4-9 against above .500 teams
4-1 against sub .500 teams

LOL, that doesn't make you a lotto team. Especially if you're taking care of business against the bad teams. If anything, that would make you a playoff contender but a fraud playoff contender. A lottery team would not only need to be bad against the good teams but also bad against the bad teams. Like a Houston or Detroit.

Come on Sfour, you know better than that

A lottery pick is considered a top 14 pick....you're looking at it as top 3.

No the Raptors don't have to be as bad as a Houston or Detroit to be considered a lottery team.

The worst 14 teams in the league are entered in the lottery for a chance to win the #1 pick....that's why it's called the lottery

[mdenny]

If we are gonna lose then at least get something out of it, we have to trade Pascal and FVV and let the young boys get their playtime and touches. It's so hard to watch FVV play hero ball, he's not Kyle, and Pascal, where do I start.

So who are we trading them for? You guys have these crazy plans to be Philly 76ers level bad without the assets without thinking out the consequences.

Siakam was our best player yesterday also so like, the ****? Coincidentally, Barnes was our worst (edit: I take that back, GTJ was bad). But somehow we make this FVV/Siakams fault.

The Siakam/FVV hate is mostly irrational. Regardless of how they play, the same group of posters attacks their game. When FVV put up 32/6/7 on 67 TS% with 1 TOV against the Sixers, there were complaints about how he was high-jacking the offence and when he put up 16/6/17 against the Bulls (though he had 8 TOV), the issue again was that he was chucking and not creating enough offence for the team. When Siakam put up 25/12/7 on 70 TS% with 2 TOV against the Pistons in a loss and 32/8/1 on 98 TS% with 4 TOV against the Kings, it was a lot of "but he can't do it against good teams and he doesn't make the team better." He had good games against the Blazers (20/6/6 on 60 TS% with 2 TOV) and Warriors (21/6/2 on 55 TS% with 1 TOV), but the haters picked other aspects of his game and focused more on his stinker against the Jazz.

Last night FVV was pretty awful on the offensive end for the first ~30 minutes, but he caught fire a bit late and his defence on Steph was incredible. Similarly, Siakam started pretty poorly but wound up having a solid game on both ends of the floor. Outside of the activity of Achiuwa/Boucher, we had really nothing going all game. FVV and Siakam were still 2 of our top 3 players last night lol.

And some posters wonder why we are defending these players. It has less to do with being "fanboys" and a heck of lot more to do with finding the truth. It is becoming unbearable reading all of these "trashfleet" and "Siakam sucks" posts. Without FVV and Siakam, this team would be absolutely brutal.

This is a development year, but you don't develop players by giving them freedom to do whatever they want and without guidance from veterans. There is a reason why teams like San Antonio, Miami, Toronto, Denver and Golden State have been considered the top teams at developing talent in the past ~10 years while teams like Sacramento, Orlando, Detroit and Minnesota have been near the bottom when it comes to developing their youth...and it has nothing to do with where the picks are being made.

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Out of all the games this season...there's only been maybe 2 or 3 where fred was not one of our top 2 players. The hate is beyond ridiculous.

If the goal is to tank than i would understand...because without fred i think we would be guaranteed a top 10 pick. But blaming him for our record? That's the wrong guy to blame. He's been essentially carrying the team all season. Blaming him for ruining a tank? Sure.

[Indeed]

I don't get our strategy of doubling Green or Looney on the perimeter when they cannot shoot, and instead making good passes out of our double.

[LoveMyRaps]

I still think we have a chance to be pretty good this year.

Nurse has some figuring out to do.
The lineup of FVV/Trent/OG/Barnes/Siakam won't cut it.
Nurse is just forcing the 5 best players on this team to play together regardless of their position and it won't work.

Time to try out some different combinations.

[bboyskinnylegs]

I still think we have a chance to be pretty good this year.

Nurse has some figuring out to do.
The lineup of FVV/Trent/OG/Barnes/Siakam won't cut it.
Nurse is just forcing the 5 best players on this team to play together regardless of their position and it won't work.

Time to try out some different combinations.

I think trying out 'old' vs 'new' Raptor lineups might work.

FVV/GTJ/OG/Pascal/Birch
Flynn/Dalano/Svi/Barnes/Precious or Dalano/Svi/Barnes/Boucher/Precious

while ending up with the lineup we have tried starting a few times, FVV/GTJ/OG/Pascal/Barnes. The 'old' lineup has good chemistry to start games IMO, and I think the 'new' one can develop some good chemistry as well. Scottie coming into the game a bit later gives him more opportunities to change the tempo and create with the ball in his hands, without getting as tired as he is now by the end of the game.

[YogurtProducer]

I still think we have a chance to be pretty good this year.

Nurse has some figuring out to do.
The lineup of FVV/Trent/OG/Barnes/Siakam won't cut it.
Nurse is just forcing the 5 best players on this team to play together regardless of their position and it won't work.

Time to try out some different combinations.

Other than that lineup has worked really well.

[GLF]

I still think we have a chance to be pretty good this year.

Nurse has some figuring out to do.
The lineup of FVV/Trent/OG/Barnes/Siakam won't cut it.
Nurse is just forcing the 5 best players on this team to play together regardless of their position and it won't work.

Time to try out some different combinations.

I think trying out 'old' vs 'new' Raptor lineups might work.

FVV/GTJ/OG/Pascal/Birch
Flynn/Dalano/Svi/Barnes/Precious or Dalano/Svi/Barnes/Boucher/Precious

while ending up with the lineup we have tried starting a few times, FVV/GTJ/OG/Pascal/Barnes. The 'old' lineup has good chemistry to start games IMO, and I think the 'new' one can develop some good chemistry as well. Scottie coming into the game a bit later gives him more opportunities to change the tempo and create with the ball in his hands, without getting as tired as he is now by the end of the game.

Love this except I think Yuta should be in either Chris' or Svi's place. Preferably Chris because I truly can't stand his horrible team defence anymore. He also isn't young and isn't new to the team so he doesn't have that excuse like many others do. Yuta's defence and energy along with his shooting will help the bench a lot.

[WaltFrazier]

I still think we have a chance to be pretty good this year.

Nurse has some figuring out to do.
The lineup of FVV/Trent/OG/Barnes/Siakam won't cut it.
Nurse is just forcing the 5 best players on this team to play together regardless of their position and it won't work.

Time to try out some different combinations.

Simple solution is to start Birch with 4 of those, and also have Precious oncourt when Birch isn't. Simple, but with the tough decision of who to move out of the starting 5, either Gary or Scottie.

[tecumseh18]

I still think we have a chance to be pretty good this year.

Nurse has some figuring out to do.
The lineup of FVV/Trent/OG/Barnes/Siakam won't cut it.
Nurse is just forcing the 5 best players on this team to play together regardless of their position and it won't work.

Time to try out some different combinations.

Simple solution is to start Birch with 4 of those, and also have Precious oncourt when Birch isn't. Simple, but with the tough decision of who to move out of the starting 5, either Gary or Scottie.

I think Gary made the decision easier with last night's non-performance. Nurse has already been adjusting the rotation to play him with the bench. That's probably a sign that he wants Gary to get used to playing with them. Having Yuta back should make that a strong two-way unit.

Raps also probably want Scottie to get the catch and shoot opportunities that Fred and Pascal can set up for him, and not have Gary hog them all.

[WaltFrazier]

Nurse has some figuring out to do.
The lineup of FVV/Trent/OG/Barnes/Siakam won't cut it.
Nurse is just forcing the 5 best players on this team to play together regardless of their position and it won't work.

Time to try out some different combinations.

Simple solution is to start Birch with 4 of those, and also have Precious oncourt when Birch isn't. Simple, but with the tough decision of who to move out of the starting 5, either Gary or Scottie.

I think Gary made the decision easier with last night's non-performance. Nurse has already been adjusting the rotation to play him with the bench. That's probably a sign that he wants Gary to get used to playing with them. Having Yuta back should make that a strong two-way unit.

Raps also probably want Scottie to get the catch and shoot opportunities that Fred and Pascal can set up for him, and not have Gary hog them all.

Agreed. And I also want to see Scottie create catch and shoot opportunities for Fred and Pascal. because he is the best passer we have.