POLL: Masai Ujiri Approval Rating - Mid-Season Poll

[OakleyDokely]

You can't really argue with the moves MU has made so far. Whether it's the value signing of a guy like Pyscho T or the quality trades he made with Gay and Bargnani.

But the indecision and lack of direction halfway through this season leaves me with only 1 option, disapproval. This team is exactly where it shouldn't be -- right in the middle. Not good enough to seriously to compete, and not bad enough for a top pick. It's a team that might win a round, but they have no shot against the top teams. And with this 'success' comes a mediocre draft pick.

Getting an extra average player or another 2nd round pick in return for his players isn't worth damaging the Raptors 2014 draft pick, which once was, one of their greatest assets. Now that pick will be right in the middle, like his team.

The worst part is, even if he decides to rebuild now, it's probably too late in the season to vastly improve the Raps draft position.

The evaluation process has lasted too long. Until he makes major changes to this team, he's just getting by on BC's core, which isn't good enough.

[colonel_von]

Strongly disapprove, on the grounds of Drake being signed by this team

[dkb33]

I think this poll nees to wait until after the trade deadline though. All this wasted season talk is premature.

[dTox]

all he's done is waste a year of HIS contract.

Unfortunately with this org, and it's low expectations, all it takes is 2 first round a$$ whuppings out of 5 years to earn an extension.

[Kreamy]

The one thing I'll say is that over the years RealGM has provided great (and free) metrics for overall fanbase approval/disapproval. If our front office is smart and savvy enough to learn from previous mistakes, they should pay attention. At the end of the day, it's a business like anything else and you'd have to be pretty arrogant or stupid not to take customer sentiment into account.

If the tide starts turning against Masai, it'll be an uphill battle for him.

[TheGoodDoctor]

LOL @ the disapprove numbers going up...finally people are understanding the "wait and see" approach is fool's gold.

[JV4MVP]

Want him to move Fields and get the situation resolved with Lowry.

[Schad]

I can not think of a Colangelo team that had this much youth on it.

'07/'08: Chris Bosh (23), Andrea Bargnani (22), TJ Ford (24), Jose Calderon (26), Carlos Delfino (25), Kris Humphries (22), Joey Graham (25), Jamario Moon (27), Jason Kapono (26).

Raptors starting 5 this year:

PG - Lowry

SG - DeRozan

SF - Ross

PF - Johnson

C - Valančiūnas

07/08

PG - Calderon

SG - Parker

SF - Garbajosa

PF - Bosh

C - Bargnani

Much more youth with core members on this team.

Garbajosa didn't start a single game that year...you're thinking of '06/'07.

Six of our top seven in minutes played were 27 or younger; it would have been seven of eight, save for Ford's injury. And if the important thing is that young = future good, that team's youth went pretty well nowhere.

[cdel00]

I think he has done a great job moved Bargnani for a future 1st, hasn't traded any of our firsts and managed to grab a decent bench by trading Acy, Gay and AG.

[Tacoma]

I'm sorry to say but Masai was as fooled as some of the optimists on this board about the strength of BC's core who have led to the post-Gay wins. Due to recent successes, reports from last week had Masai deciding to keep Lowry to shoot for the playoffs. So what does he do now? Change his mind again?

It would appear that my initial fear that he doesn't really have a plan was right. What he's been doing was ad hoc planning which isn't really planning. And he does this under the guise of "evaluating" which I now see as Indecision Paralysis. He simply can't make up his mind which direction he wants to go. This is bad, very bad. An Executive who can't make up his mind is a bad one.

I had Masai as "Neither Approve Nor Disapprove" in Oct but have changed it to Disapprove today. If he continues to suffer from Indecision Paralysis leading to 7/11 no man's land, I'm afraid "Strongly Disapprove" is just a matter of time.

[pbj]

I agree it's taking a little longer than I'd like to see results, but I really can't say he's done a bad job given what he started with

[Matty]

I'm neutral. Just like the team's record.

I think a trade or 2 before the deadline is due. Whether that's for bringing in a star player, or getting rid of our star players in return for assets/picks. This team as it is will make the playoffs, but will not defeat veteran teams like the Nets/Knicks, and cannot matchup against the Bobcats. Chances are we're facing one of these 3 teams in the first round, and an exit in the first round to me is the same as 9th place; no man's land.

2nd round playoffs appearance or tanking for a top 5 pick - anything in between those two is treadmilling and will be written down in Raptors history as another wasted season.

Staying put is not an option Masai.

[22haytham22]

Wow...the early results here are pretty shocking...

With only 46 votes, there are already 21 disapproving votes....that is already more than in any previous poll.

Fans eventually will give up if the product is the same....treadmilling for life

[cdel00]

Wow...the early results here are pretty shocking...

With only 46 votes, there are already 21 disapproving votes....that is already more than in any previous poll.

Fans eventually will give up if the product is the same....treadmilling for life

Will they? Is it?

We went from horrible d to very good D.

We went from poor rebounding to avg rebounding.

Product is definitely different!

As for giving up the rating quadrupled when we gave the people a reason to watch.

As for the treadmill concept well you have to ask Harry Palmer as he coined it.
He used it to described a situation where the core is flawed, the team doesn't have a good rep because of poor style of play. Yet the GM try's to add pieces with long term impact while ignoring fixing the core.

Masai hasn't treadmilled. He ditched Bargnani for a pick and pieces and he fixed the bench without breaking the bank. Bargnani and Gay were BC's core and its been fixed

[UneducatedFan86]

What is he supose to do though? He traded away Bargnani & Gay which gives the team cap space going forward but the deals for the assests on the team have not been good enough yet to pull the trigger. This whole backwards thinking of trading away assets for garbage for some ping pong balls in the hopes of landing a star player may work in NBA2k but when have you seen a team completly trade away its good players for lottery balls? This team may be a .500 team now but it is very young and will improve over time. If this team was full of vets then I could see why everyone would be upset. It isn't.

"This team is young and will improve over time" is the mantra that was repeated through the entirety of the Colangelo era. Time + Young =/= Great in most instances.

Jonas Valančiūnas (21)

Terrence Ross (22)

DeMar DeRozan (24)

Patrick Patterson (24) RFA

Amir Johnson (26) UFA next year

Kyle Lowry (27) UFA

Greivis Vásquez (27) RFA

Tyler Hansbough (28) Team Option

John Salmons (34) Team Option

I can not think of a Colangelo team that had this much youth on it.

So basically only 4 of those guys could be back next year.

Lowry - I still have a feeling that he will be traded at the deadline, especially if the team continues to be a .500 team. If we barely get into the playoffs, then there is even less chance that Lowry will want to be here. Plus, with his play as of late and the weak FA class this year, I could easily see him given a high offer. 8-9mil is fine for me, but anything over 10mil is way too much.

Patrick Patterson - I don't want to pay him 6mil+ to be a bench player. You do not want a PF/Center to be your 6th man/spark plug and we already have a taller version of him in our starting unit with Amir. For me we need to either keep Patterson or Amir, not both.

Vasquez - has actually been a total let down for me. I was really excited to see him run the PNR with our bigs, but he's actually taken a more offensive ISO role on our team for some reason. Actually..I know the reason and that's Casey. So, unless you can get him for cheap...I don't want him back.

Salmons - is on his last legs and is only guaranteed 1 mil next season. After this hot start for us, he's fallen back into his career averages and looks to be more the guy that was on the Kings. Now, do you want to pay Salmons 7 mil next year to be your 8th-10th man? I wouldn't. I'd rather just take the cap hit of 1mil and fill the bench with a cheaper vet/younger player.

Hansbrough - 9-12th man type player on a real contending team. He brings a lot of heart and hustle, and I think he will be here next year, because of his pretty cheap contract. At the end of the day, he shouldn't be having as much of an impact as he has been for us. People are using his injury for the reason why we are losing and that's just crazy to me. We are pretty stacked at the PF spot (Patterson, Amir, Hayes, Novak) and I don't think that Hansbrough being injured should effect us as much as it has.

Edit: I hate to say this but our more high upside talent was all drafted or brought in by BC. Ross, JV, Lowry, Amir, and DD were all acquired by him. So, to say that our sudden increase in young talent was all Masai's doing is a bit off. Also, it wasn't like Gay was an old vet either.

[Matty]

'07/'08: Chris Bosh (23), Andrea Bargnani (22), TJ Ford (24), Jose Calderon (26), Carlos Delfino (25), Kris Humphries (22), Joey Graham (25), Jamario Moon (27), Jason Kapono (26).

Raptors starting 5 this year:

PG - Lowry

SG - DeRozan

SF - Ross

PF - Johnson

C - Valančiūnas

07/08

PG - Calderon

SG - Parker

SF - Garbajosa

PF - Bosh

C - Bargnani

Much more youth with core members on this team.

Garbajosa didn't start a single game that year...you're thinking of '06/'07.

Six of our top seven in minutes played were 27 or younger; it would have been seven of eight, save for Ford's injury. And if the important thing is that young = future good, that team's youth went pretty well nowhere.

Replace Bargnani with Aldridge at the C and you probably could have had a good future there.

I'm not suggesting Bargnani was a bust, but more often than not you expect the No.1 pick to pan out into a perennial All-star at the very least. Unfortunately we're the Toronto Raptors, nothing has gone smoothly in our brief history.

[22haytham22]

Wow...the early results here are pretty shocking...

With only 46 votes, there are already 21 disapproving votes....that is already more than in any previous poll.

Fans eventually will give up if the product is the same....treadmilling for life

Will they? Is it?

We went from horrible d to very good D.

We went from poor rebounding to avg rebounding.

Product is definitely different!

As for giving up the rating quadrupled when we gave the people a reason to watch.

As for the treadmill concept well you have to ask Harry Palmer as he coined it.
He used it to described a situation where the core is flawed, the team doesn't have a good rep because of poor style of play. Yet the GM try's to add pieces with long term impact while ignoring fixing the core.

Masai hasn't treadmilled. He ditched Bargnani for a pick and pieces and he fixed the bench without breaking the bank. Bargnani and Gay were BC's core and its been fixed

Product is different from previous years? Yea we are a better team, however a treadmill team is a team that ranges between 10 to 22 in terms of how good your team is. The raptors have went from 20th to 13th in a year which is an improvement, but it still is in that treadmill area. This team went from barely making the playoffs to a team that will probably lose in the first round. So in the end it is the same product but with a few enhancements.

[Inevitable]

Disapprove. Why did he put faith into Bryan Colangelo's players, they were destined to fail at some point. I bet he wishes that Lowry trade went through.

[Schad]

Replace Bargnani with Aldridge at the C and you probably could have had a good future there.

I'm not suggesting Bargnani was a bust, but more often than not you expect the No.1 pick to pan out into a perennial All-star at the very least. Unfortunately we're the Toronto Raptors, nothing has gone smoothly in our brief history.

Naturally. But the argument then as now was that we were very young, and consequently the likes of Bargnani would become very good as a matter of course (this argument continued until he was 27, for what it's worth). Having young players is a good thing, undoubtedly. But not all young players will progress significantly...DeRozan at 27 may be very similar to DeRozan at 24, as might Patterson, etc. Amir and Lowry, with eight and seven years' experience respectively, are what they are. There's little reason to project that the group as a whole is on some steep upward progression that'll take the team from the middle of the pack to contender status.

[Slim_Charles]

What if Ujiri's plan is to get Durant in the 2016 free agency?