PG: Leagues most selfish team loses again

[Dalek]

Can we talk about Barnes getting blown by on defense at the perimeter

His lateral quicks seems to be affected

Every player is prone to blow-bys because of the need to closely contest shots. He could work on his angles to cut of drives a bit more, but it is hard to fault him too much.

That said, he does seem to be limping around at times last game. He took a gone crunching pick from Adams last game, so you have to worry they are playing this kid way too much early - but what choice do they have with this roster?

[Ref_from_hell]

no team in the league is fully healthy. Lakers missed Lebron for large portions, Celtics were without Jaylen Brown, Warriors still don't have Klay, the list is endless.
I thought the whole point of roster was that we had several switchable guys and roster depth. But our depth is unproven or frankly, pretty bad players.
Relying on Khem Birch to come save us is not an enviable position.

Okay so you just listed off a bunch of teams missing one player. I stand by what I said. Our injuries are more significant. Yes, all teams have injuries, but ours has affected us to a greater degree than other teams because we lack depth and our bench players are not performing. Say what you will about Birch, but he has been outstanding this year. When your only other big is Boucher coming off the bench, yes you do have to rely on Birch.

Jaylen Brown is more important to the Celtics than all three of our players combined.

So Brown is more important to the Celtics than OG, Trent, and Birch combined to the raptors?

[WaltFrazier]

I like Alvin but he's not that interesting or compelling to listen to. His go to bag is praise the other team or harp on "This is FVV and Pascal's team"

Alvin made an incisive comment last night, about how the offense is too much east-west, needs to go north south more, ie penetrate. Never heard Leo say something so smart in all his years.

[HumbleRen]

I like Alvin but he's not that interesting or compelling to listen to. His go to bag is praise the other team or harp on "This is FVV and Pascal's team"

Alvin made an incisive comment last night, about how the offense is too much east-west, needs to go north south more, ie penetrate. Never heard Leo say something so smart in all his years.

I mean I rather have Alvin over Leo myself lol, a bit of a low bar to measure up against.

[C_Money]

I want to see a stretch of games where FVV, Trent, OG, Barnes, Siakam all play. Its hard to fully evaluate this team when somebody is always injured. The only thing we know for sure is the bench sucks.

[ItsDanger]

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Would have had easy trade value at deadline also. Bonga sure looks impressive!

[Los_29]

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Would have had easy trade value at deadline also. Bonga sure looks impressive!

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Sam Dekker is currently a free agent, meaning not a single team in the NBA is interested in signing him. Are you trying to say that we made a mistake not keeping him?

[ItsDanger]

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Would have had easy trade value at deadline also. Bonga sure looks impressive!

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Sam Dekker is currently a free agent, meaning not a single team in the NBA is interested in signing him. Are you trying to say that we made a mistake not keeping him?

Over Bonga or luxury tax that could have been handled later? Yes. I just don't see what Bonga provides other than a McCaw replacement for Nurse. We're starving for bench offense.

[Los_29]

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Would have had easy trade value at deadline also. Bonga sure looks impressive!

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Sam Dekker is currently a free agent, meaning not a single team in the NBA is interested in signing him. Are you trying to say that we made a mistake not keeping him?

Over Bonga or luxury tax that could have been handled later? Yes. I just don't see what Bonga provides other than a McCaw replacement for Nurse. We're starving for bench offense.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Do you truly believe that Dekker would've addressed our offensive woes? Why is he still unemployed? Are we the only team in the league with offensive issues? Aren't we like middle of the pack on offense. Why aren't the 15 teams with worse offenses after Dekker if he was such a good offensive player?

Come on man, you know better than that.

Edit: Just checked, we are 12th in the league in offensive rating. Would Dekker have made our 24th ranked defense better?

[ItsDanger]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Sam Dekker is currently a free agent, meaning not a single team in the NBA is interested in signing him. Are you trying to say that we made a mistake not keeping him?

Over Bonga or luxury tax that could have been handled later? Yes. I just don't see what Bonga provides other than a McCaw replacement for Nurse. We're starving for bench offense.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Do you truly believe that Dekker would've addressed our offensive woes?

Come on man, you know better than that.

Might have helped. Bonga 1 pt in last 22 minutes played.

[Marmoset]

Over Bonga or luxury tax that could have been handled later? Yes. I just don't see what Bonga provides other than a McCaw replacement for Nurse. We're starving for bench offense.

Bonga seems to fit the "type" of player the Raptors have been looking for, and he's young. Those are two big differences from Dekker.

If you're looking long term and not trying to complete this season, I see the reasoning in choosing Bonga even though I don't agree with it. Like you I don't see anything in Bonga while Dekker might bring something (i.e. shooting).

I don't think it matters much in the grand scheme though. Neither was likely to ever have any significant impact on our team this season. If we didn't sign Svi I believe Dekker would have been given that role to start the season.

[mdenny]

Watching the game now. The large 6 minute stretch in the 2nd quarter when the team only scored 2 points was actually the longest stretch of the game where Fred didn't handle the ball. It was mostly, Banton and Barnes initially and then Malachi later on. I think the plan was mostly to get Fred off ball to do more scoring but the offense was so discombobulated he rarely got a shot. The last minute of that stretch was Fred managing the offense and included Svi and Precious missing wide open 3s badly.

Yep. It's like we need 2 freds.

Fred's been playing off the ball more since trent was out....and it's to make up for the lost scoring.

[Dalek]

It's really hard to say what this team needs at this point. Health is a major factor but there also needs to be a roster upgrade. The easy answer as others have pointed out is size but I think the Raps are committed to figuring out their switching/gambling/change up defense that unless they get back a big that's pretty mobile I'm not sure if there's a move to be made there.

They also need to upgrade their playmaking. Fred is still a work in process in that area and there are a few players currently on the roster that will contribute with more seasoning (i.e. Barnes and Banton) but if they are looking to compete this year, a PG upgrade is a necessity. Lastly, they need a go to guy. I think the system creates a lot of pressure on the players to make their shots. We need a guy that'll take that pressure off. Someone that when you put the ball in their hands, they'll create points.

I don't think those guys are on the trade market right now and I don't think this team is ultimately competing for anything significant this year. Any upgrades with Dragic and Boucher as the bait would be along the fringes, nothing significant.

This team needs to be torn down quite a bit. Siakam duplicates what we want out of Barnes and he can likely get us some nice rotational pieces. Regarding the trade market, a team like Golden State although playing well would love to add size. Watching them play Toscano Anderson shows how desperate they are especially against elite teams like Phoenix.

Moving on from FVV only makes sense. He is a similar size to Kemba Walker and he just got booted out of the Knicks rotation. FVV is a better defender, but he is not a good long-term solution. Again, he is a valuable asset to other traditional teams with proper bigs - see the Lakers, so we could get something decent back.

Basically, keep OG, Trent and Barnes and everything else needs to be rethought.

Get a real PG that will age well over time. Jaden Ivey is the best in this draft class and perfect for Toronto.

Trade Siakam to GSW for Moody and Wiseman and other filler. That's the team to add around Scottie that is more talented and can fit his timeline.

If we aren't going to pursue winning this year and guys are not buying in than why keep up this charade? We already fooled ourselves once in Tampa.

[johanliebert]

Simmons is a hack, but he's not wrong. Except for missing Leo, nobody misses Leo.

Leo is 1000 percent better than Alvin.. and we need to clean house with devlin also.

100% disagree. Alvin speaks his mind. He isn't afraid to criticize a ref or opposing player. And he doesn't talk down to viewers. Good riddance Leo.

Leo didn’t speak down to viewers that’s why half this Baird thought they knew more than a guy with his resume. Whereas Alvin calls games like we picked up a basketball yesterday,

[johanliebert]

Watching the game now. The large 6 minute stretch in the 2nd quarter when the team only scored 2 points was actually the longest stretch of the game where Fred didn't handle the ball. It was mostly, Banton and Barnes initially and then Malachi later on. I think the plan was mostly to get Fred off ball to do more scoring but the offense was so discombobulated he rarely got a shot. The last minute of that stretch was Fred managing the offense and included Svi and Precious missing wide open 3s badly.

You should have seen the game thread during that stretch lol. One guy actually suggested they give Fred a rest and start banton in the 2nd half as if they didn’t see that 2nd quarter.

They can’t get into sets effectively when Flynn runs things.

[Spates]

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Would have had easy trade value at deadline also. Bonga sure looks impressive!

His shooting is tantalizing but he was also atrocious on defense. His gives it all back up.

[C_Money]

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Would have had easy trade value at deadline also. Bonga sure looks impressive!

His shooting is tantalizing but he was also atrocious on defense. His gives it all back up.

I’d take the offensive player over the defensive player every time. But obviously Nurse feels the opposite. We’ve seen this with guys like Patrick McCaw playing heavy minutes.

[Spates]

Watch on YouTube

Would have had easy trade value at deadline also. Bonga sure looks impressive!

His shooting is tantalizing but he was also atrocious on defense. His gives it all back up.

I’d take the offensive player over the defensive player every time. But obviously Nurse feels the opposite. We’ve seen this with guys like Patrick McCaw playing heavy minutes.

If you can hide a player on defense you can potentially take advantage of their offense but Sam would set fire to Nurse's aggressive schemes. It could never work.

[OAKLEY_2]

I said the beginning of the season that I don’t trust a team led by FVV and people called me a hater. He’s just not a real leader and not a real pg.

I call you a lame arse blamer. Don't like losing then don't act like one. Team is young and injured. Go watch Lebron.

Even when healthy this team is flawed. If you can't see that then you're just a blind homer.

Flawed core man screams at Moon.

[HiJiNX]

Can we talk about Barnes getting blown by on defense at the perimeter

His lateral quicks seems to be affected

When he’s engaged and in his stance he’s a great perimeter defender, it’s just he only plays like that 25% of the time. He seems to like to operate standing up, which to me indicates either a lack of conditioning or core strength (hips/lower back) or both. An NBA offseason with real trainers will do wonders for his body. And he will get a bit more explosive as a result.