Derozan interview on ESPN, Tues 10pm EST (TONIGHT!)

[Childs]

Norm's contract when signed was looked as good deal from everyone. This is his first year on the new bump up. If you watched any playoff games the past few years, you'll notice he was one of the bright spots.

Ibaka deal is junk but was kept as an asset and only has 2 years.

Carroll was traded.

Masai batting .900 .. team won 59 last season and we just got rid of Casey and Demar for Kawhi and Nurse.

Go find another GM who would do as good as he has done here. You won't because you can't.

He's done more good than harm, and the organization is better with him. But to say he is blameless for the organization's post season failures is a fallacy.

What blame would you put on him? Casey and Demar were inherited by him. He ran with them and got better every year. He didn't knee jerk. After 5 post-seasons, he identified that Casey and Demar were not good enough. Now he's made moves to correct the failures. Swapped Casey and Demar for Nurse and Kawhi. That's impressive.

I laugh at anyone who bashes masai.

This team would be back in no man's land if we had another gm

Well I guess we can define a sweep by Washington, and 2 7 game series against significantly lesser opponents, and a six game lop sided series a success in the Raptors hx. To each their own. He's done alot of good, but you have 30 million tied to dead weight with Ibaka and Powell.

Nurse is still an unknown. He did change the offence for the better but we technically don't know how he is going to do on defence. It should be fine in theory, with OG, Kawhi, Green. But you are going from Popovich to Nurse who is still a relative unknown.

[johanliebert]

I'm usually not a fence sitter, but I can understand both DeMar and Masai's actions/feelings here.

Masai knows Demar is an emotional guy, and if he told Demar "hey man, you might get traded" and then nothing materializes...then what? DeMar's gonna act like nothing happened and be cool? I honestly doubt it. Not saying DeMar would demand a trade, because he clearly loved it in Toronto, but you'd have to think his mindset would change a bit and Masai had to be worried about the fallout.

DeMar being frustrated after basically being spoken to as if he's apart of the team moving forward on multiple occasions this summer and then all of a sudden getting traded to San Antonio has to be a huge shock and pretty upsetting. I can understand his anger toward Masai.

And Haynes baited him big time in this interview, it was very one-sided. He asked some questions basically twice and just re-worded them, and then asked like 1 question about San Antonio and 1 about what DeMar will remember the most in his time in Toronto lmao. The other 8 questions were all just bait basically. DeMar even said that he still loves Toronto and the organization, city, country, ownership, etc. His only issue is seemingly with Masai, which again I can understand.


ESPN and Haynes can go **** themselves though. I know it's one of the slowest times of the year in sports, but what Ainge did to IT was way worse and Griffin with the Clippers was just as bad as DeMar/Masai, if not worse as well. Yet this move is getting just as much negativity as the IT one and more than the Griffin one. Haynes' came off like a TMZ reporter here, blatantly trying to use DeMar to get a controversial quote. Considering that DeMar is still clearly hurt and shook and that Haynes repeatedly tried to bait him, I thought DeMar handled this decently.

The LeBron quote DeMar gave reminded me about why I was 100% okay with Masai trying to upgrade on him. He views LeBron as this God-like figure who was impossible to defeat, which has been true for the Eastern conference. But I doubt the Pacers, Sixers and Celtics had that same mindset this year. Just a weak mentality to have.

I still respect DeMar and if I lived in Toronto, I'd buy tickets for his first game back and give him the ovation he deserves.

Who cares about their mind set they lost to the cavs.

Demar clearly knew the raptors needed a better supporting cast to beat the cavs. They went in underhanded every post season..Masai knew what the results were gonna be as well.

[Chandan]

Who cares about their mind set they lost to the cavs.

Demar clearly knew the raptors needed a better supporting cast to beat the cavs. They went in underhanded every post season..Masai knew what the results were gonna be as well.

have you been living under a rock? Have you not seen the playoffs ON/OFFs? Derozan is the problem, not the rest of the cast.

or is it one of those grasping at straws case where you are saying demar can't get motivated because he isnt surrounded by 3 other all stars.

[Brinbe]

LOL look at how much DeMar loved this city and people still think there's no chance Kawhi stays?

[Double Helix]

Rough interview for Masai. Good look for Toronto as a city and us as fans oddly enough. Masai’s ability to win over players and their families is absolutely going to take a hit after this. Not great timing for that with the biggest recruitment push we’ve had in years.

Derozan fought off tears when he mentioned Lowry.

Drake comes off looking good in this. Had Derozan over at his Mansion for 2 hours talking to him like a friend? Even the fact Derozan legitimately likes him and wanted to spend time with him tells us the value of him. Good look for our global ambassador.

[tb40]

Looks like Ujiri is sane after all.

He stopped doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

[Double Helix]

Super one-sided interview by the way. Zero questions about whether Toronto had to try something different after peaking. Zero talk about how an off-season trade allows for more time to get situated and prepare and shows some respect. Zero talk about how Ujiri knowing he was sending him to such a historic and strong organization may have made it easier for him to do the deal.

Haynes kept circling back to get the killer anti-Ujiri quote.

[J-Roc]

What a butcher job by Haynes. Trying to trash Toronto and get us back to being the place no one wants to play at. Like, we're a joke when we're losing in the playoffs every year. Now we make a move and we're told we should have stuck the course.

DeMar has a chance to go out with integrity. If he wants to focus on this garbage, he'll lose my respect. Hopefully this interview is the last on this.

[mirrornick]

What a butcher job by Haynes. Trying to trash Toronto and get us back to being the place no one wants to play at. Like, we're a joke when we're losing in the playoffs every year. Now we make a move and we're told we should have stuck the course.

DeMar has a chance to go out with integrity. If he wants to focus on this garbage, he'll lose my respect. Hopefully this interview is the last on this.

Welcome back

[Sakkreth]

LOL look at how much DeMar loved this city and people still think there's no chance Kawhi stays?

I was really confused when "analysts" on undisputed said that it's 99% chance he won't resign. Wonder what percentage they would give now...in a month, after regular season.

[guess_wh0]

Masai, who keeps being sold as the best smooth talker in the NBA, really **** up in that press conference.

If a backhanded apology wasn't enough this quote stings:
" I kept giving them chances."

You're pretty much putting complete blame on Casey & Derozan, and even if true there's no reason to say that about your most loyal, loved and clearly upset star, who you btw clearly lied to.

Something generic would've sufficed.

" love demar but when an opportunity like this comes...."

" we believe it was time for a change...."

Etc etc

The trade was a no brainer, not even upset about the lie(there's no reason to notify players of talks that might not turn into trades) but the press conference was cringe worthy and probably infuriated Demar to take this interview. Still, he tried to keep it classy, for the most part.

[Mikistan]

I'm usually not a fence sitter, but I can understand both DeMar and Masai's actions/feelings here.

Masai knows Demar is an emotional guy, and if he told Demar "hey man, you might get traded" and then nothing materializes...then what? DeMar's gonna act like nothing happened and be cool? I honestly doubt it. Not saying DeMar would demand a trade, because he clearly loved it in Toronto, but you'd have to think his mindset would change a bit and Masai had to be worried about the fallout.

DeMar being frustrated after basically being spoken to as if he's apart of the team moving forward on multiple occasions this summer and then all of a sudden getting traded to San Antonio has to be a huge shock and pretty upsetting. I can understand his anger toward Masai.

And Haynes baited him big time in this interview, it was very one-sided. He asked some questions basically twice and just re-worded them, and then asked like 1 question about San Antonio and 1 about what DeMar will remember the most in his time in Toronto lmao. The other 8 questions were all just bait basically. DeMar even said that he still loves Toronto and the organization, city, country, ownership, etc. His only issue is seemingly with Masai, which again I can understand.


ESPN and Haynes can go **** themselves though. I know it's one of the slowest times of the year in sports, but what Ainge did to IT was way worse and Griffin with the Clippers was just as bad as DeMar/Masai, if not worse as well. Yet this move is getting just as much negativity as the IT one and more than the Griffin one. Haynes' came off like a TMZ reporter here, blatantly trying to use DeMar to get a controversial quote. Considering that DeMar is still clearly hurt and shook and that Haynes repeatedly tried to bait him, I thought DeMar handled this decently.

The LeBron quote DeMar gave reminded me about why I was 100% okay with Masai trying to upgrade on him. He views LeBron as this God-like figure who was impossible to defeat, which has been true for the Eastern conference. But I doubt the Pacers, Sixers and Celtics had that same mindset this year. Just a weak mentality to have.

I still respect DeMar and if I lived in Toronto, I'd buy tickets for his first game back and give him the ovation he deserves.

Who cares about their mind set they lost to the cavs.

Demar clearly knew the raptors needed a better supporting cast to beat the cavs. They went in underhanded every post season..Masai knew what the results were gonna be as well.

Ya let's blame the supporting cast for demar not playing d and letting everyone he guards get open looks for 3, in transition, and off the dribble on him.

[Vlade Divac]

Wait was that a sport program or a soap opera.

[OakleyDokely]

Masai was in a tough spot because when he met with DD during summer league a deal probably wasn't close. So what's the point in mentioning it to DD? Most deals discussed never happen anyways. Masai mentioned at his presser that the Raps were like 4th on SAs list and Masai probably thought they were being leveraged so SA could get the LA teams or PHI to improve their offers. It would have been equally awkward if Masai told DD he was being shopped and then a deal didn't happen.

All this is just noise anyways. Masai shouldn't have to apologize for improving the team, especially considering he's been very patient with this group, a group that couldn't figure it out after half a decade.

[bon]

DeMar is burning bridges for no reason. It's now been a whole week; this interview comes off as immature and unprofessional considering the circumstances.

And at anyone who thinks it would all be fine if Masai had just "told him!!" DeMar is obviously an emotional dude and Masai KNOWS this. There's no way he reacts to the possibility of being traded (which was extremely low at the time) like a mature and rational adult.

[mtcan]

Lots of leading questions from Haynes...this is hard to listen to. I feel like Haynes is deliberately trying to poison the well for Kawhi...to make the Raptors organization look bad.

[Zebsterama]

Bottom line: DD consistently sucked in the playoffs and was expensive, and expendable. The Raptors upgraded, and rightfully so. The easy thing would have been to stand-pat.

DD shouldn’t have been told squat until the trade was a done deal, because that’s what smart managers do. The 27million USD annually pays for that privilege.

DD’s feelings got in the way of the facts with his representation of the conversation he had with Masai-that’s pretty much what we learned. He misrepresented what happened in social media, because IMO, he’s immature.

If DD performed to the level that his paycheque demanded, to the the level of a ‘REAL’ franchise player, in the playoffs, then he’d still be here.

DD has shown us in the last couple of weeks that he’s a nice guy, but immature, and he bought into his own hype; he can’t face reality; everything else is noise. He’s not good enough; he is a great/fantastic player, but wasn’t (and will never be) a GREAT/FANTASTIC player.

Nice guy: it was great to have you: enjoy the money: suck it up: move on.

[vaff87]

LOL, at the front page of ESPN.com.

[Son Goku 25]

ESPN is obviously out to get Toronto, sorry not sorry for trying to become a legit contender.

[maternal85]

Bottom line: DD consistently sucked in the playoffs and was expensive, and expendable. The Raptors upgraded, and rightfully so. The easy thing would have been to stand-pat.

DD shouldn’t have been told squat until the trade was a done deal, because that’s what smart managers do. The 27million USD annually pays for that privilege.

DD’s feelings got in the way of the facts with his representation of the conversation he had with Masai-that’s pretty much what we learned. He misrepresented what happened in social media, because IMO, he’s immature.

If DD performed to the level that his paycheque demanded, to the the level of a ‘REAL’ franchise player, in the playoffs, then he’d still be here.

DD has shown us in the last couple of weeks that he’s a nice guy, but immature, and he bought into his own hype; he can’t face reality; everything else is noise. He’s not good enough; he is a great/fantastic player, but wasn’t (and will never be) a GREAT/FANTASTIC player.

Nice guy: it was great to have you: enjoy the money: suck it up: move on.

Well said. That's what happens when you surround yourself with yes people. If he can't take this trade, imagine what will happen when ESPN and spurs fans start exposing him as a fraud superstar. Kyle kover lit up this guy up. OG a rookie had a better series and showed more guts than him in the playoffs. And he's surprised he got traded and claimed MU is putting the blame on him. Yes demar it's you ! Nice guy though.