it's 2015 all over again

[YogurtProducer]

The core of Siakam, FVV and OG is nice, but that's a lot of cash dedicated to what are most likely non all-stars.

If we re-sign Norm, it'll be even more so.

So with our cap space looking potentially gone or quite low, the question is what can you build around that group to be competitive?

We didn't have this type of salary pressure in 2015.

At one point we were capped out just from Lowry/Demar/Carroll/Valanciunas which is not any better than FVV/Norm/OG/Siakam.

You guys don’t understand that we aren’t going to sign anyone of value with our cap space and realistically very few teams ever do. If we ever acquire a star it’ll be through trade or a sign and trade. If Giannis requests a trade and targets Toronto, I’m pretty sure Milwaukee would be fairly excited to get back and OG or Norm rather than losing him for nothing

The 2015 core were the assets that built a championship contender so until proven otherwise that is a better core. It also had two all stars whereas this team likely has zero going forward.

And the defeatism around cap room misses what cap space can actually be used for. No, we aren't going to sign Kevin Durant or Kawhi.

But cap room gives teams the flexibility to take back players into space and to receive dead salary for picks.

Eroding that away with extensions for mid tier guys with theoretical trade value is a solid recipe for treadmilling. It's not clear to me why a trade for a Giannis type player is any less of a hail Mary hope than signing him was.

Siakam for all his faults is a Derozan level guy and has been an all-star. FVV is another guy looks destined to be an all star.

We shouldn’t just get rid of guys because it’ll cap us out. I’d rather be capped with those 4 than have cap space with lesssr, worse, players.

Everyone is so quick to forget just how good we were pre-COVID. I’m not willing to blow up a team based on how we’ve performed in a bubble environment and now in Tampa Bay

[LBJKB24MJ23]

I don't think anyone is arguing that we should Blow the entire team up & get rid of everybody. If they are suggesting we do that, then they are probably delusional.

You don't blow up the core of Fred, Pascal, and OG who have won a championship. You add to that.

Need to find a starting center and get some bench depth.

A lot of that could be acquired by trading either Kyle or Norm. Perhaps in the draft as well (Although I still don't think this team will bottom out to the lottery when all is said and done)

The people who think there are top 5 picks coming are implicitly saying that. I've had that debate on here - in a normal season, where Fred/Pascal/OG are available and Nick has league-average rotational players, this team won't bottom out.

I agree with you that you need to build on that, because the alternative is to truly gut everything, which would be stupid for a variety of reasons.

i just think Raps should just limit the play of the core guys and integrate the guy coming from the draft with the veterans going into the 2021-22 season back in Toronto. we should not trade FVV OG or Siakam unless there is an overwhelming deal you can't refuse.

there - i think i cleared it up for everyone.

[Badonkadonk]

I don't think anyone is arguing that we should Blow the entire team up & get rid of everybody. If they are suggesting we do that, then they are probably delusional.

You don't blow up the core of Fred, Pascal, and OG who have won a championship. You add to that.

Need to find a starting center and get some bench depth.

A lot of that could be acquired by trading either Kyle or Norm. Perhaps in the draft as well (Although I still don't think this team will bottom out to the lottery when all is said and done)

The people who think there are top 5 picks coming are implicitly saying that. I've had that debate on here - in a normal season, where Fred/Pascal/OG are available and Nick has league-average rotational players, this team won't bottom out.

I agree with you that you need to build on that, because the alternative is to truly gut everything, which would be stupid for a variety of reasons.

i just think Raps should just limit the play of the core guys and integrate the guy coming from the draft with the veterans going into the 2021-22 season back in Toronto. we should not trade FVV OG or Siakam unless there is an overwhelming deal you can't refuse.

there - i think i cleared it up for everyone.

I'm definitely down with that for the rest of the season. It makes sense, give where the team is now.

I just think next year, the team will be a mid/low playoff seed unless you start trading off some/all of those three, and that's the part that isn't going to happen.

Best case scenario for people who absolutely hate this core is for a Demar-like trade of Pascal when the Raps are pursuing their next superstar, but the stars have to line up and that's not happening any time soon.

[LBJKB24MJ23]

The people who think there are top 5 picks coming are implicitly saying that. I've had that debate on here - in a normal season, where Fred/Pascal/OG are available and Nick has league-average rotational players, this team won't bottom out.

I agree with you that you need to build on that, because the alternative is to truly gut everything, which would be stupid for a variety of reasons.

i just think Raps should just limit the play of the core guys and integrate the guy coming from the draft with the veterans going into the 2021-22 season back in Toronto. we should not trade FVV OG or Siakam unless there is an overwhelming deal you can't refuse.

there - i think i cleared it up for everyone.

I'm definitely down with that for the rest of the season. It makes sense, give where the team is now.

I just think next year, the team will be a mid/low playoff seed unless you start trading off some/all of those three, and that's the part that isn't going to happen.

Best case scenario for people who absolutely hate this core is for a Demar-like trade of Pascal when the Raps are pursuing their next superstar, but the stars have to line up and that's not happening any time soon.

and give Flynn, Yuta, Watson, TD3, Boucher way more minutes as well by limiting the minutes of the core players. unless Boucher is traded. hes a luxury to have but if a team wants to give us good assets for him, so be it.

[sidsid]

I think we're in a different phase than the early Lowry years and I say that mainly because the Lowryesque analogue doesn't exist on our team. Masai was fully ready to tank after the Gay trade and Knicks pulling out of the Lowry deal, but it turns out removing Gay and letting Lowry shine was all that was needed to turn things around.

Our team is pretty analogous to DeRozan, JV, Ross, etc. with the analogues being slightly better across the board, but the only thing that mattered on those teams was Lowry. Indeed all of the rest of that ended up being traded for the championship team (Ibaka, Gasol, Kawhi, Green).

The only player we currently have that can potentially have Lowry's impact ceiling is Siakam (he's currently a fitting DeRozan analogue). We're probably years away from seeing if that comes through.

OG, Norm and Fred are all pieces that can be moved at anytime. Norm makes sense right now. I'd argue so does Fred to make this year's pick even better. OG is likely our prized asset you keep for a star trade if it shows up. If not you're banking on a cap space year around the end of their contracts.

Basically to sum up: we don't have a Lowry. We should be moving our role players to try to obtain those assets and we can't really rationalize following that old blue print until we know we have a Lowry like anchor to the franchise.

We don’t have a Lowry, but if you looked at our team in 2014 we had no idea we had a Lowry either. He took massive strides over those next coupes years, strides that were unexpected ans it’s not out the question we could see FV , Siakam, OG, or Norm make some massive leaps, not to mention we potentially could nail a top 5/10 pick here or hit a home run and get back a really nice player for Lowry

I don’t wanna blow this up. I think the combo of Tampa + non existent center rotation is good enough to let us bottom out a bit and stealth tank.

Start playing the bench more for “development” and let’s just ride this season out, finish as the 5th-10th worst team, and **** who knows, maybe the lottery gods love us.

I won't say that it's impossible that Fred, Norm and OG will have a Lowry like impact in the future, but you're understating Lowry's *immediate* star level impact once we handed over usage, minutes and a bigger role to him. Again, we were already horrible before the Gay trade and instantly turned it around when Lowry was unleashed. What Lowry had to learn was how to be more effective in the playoffs, which took a couple years.

Siakam is the only player who has flashed that type of potential so far. Norm and FVV aren't young players anymore. They've had prominent roles for a while.

Now I think that we're also overvaluing the impact of the individual players of this current non-Lowry core to the old DeRozan non-Lowry core. While this team has a higher floor (I'd probably take every one of our current guys over the old guys) because of coaching and cohesive team approach (mainly on defense, while the DeRozan core had clashing pieces), that doesn't solve our ceiling problem.

And we can address our ceiling problem by trading some of our floor assets in attempts to gain that ceiling piece. There's plenty of ways to replenish floor pieces.

[johanliebert]

Not even close they had a top 5 backcourt then that was relatively young. They just needed better pieces around them, I can’t find a comparison for this team.

Maybe the Rudy gay team?

[YogurtProducer]

I think we're in a different phase than the early Lowry years and I say that mainly because the Lowryesque analogue doesn't exist on our team. Masai was fully ready to tank after the Gay trade and Knicks pulling out of the Lowry deal, but it turns out removing Gay and letting Lowry shine was all that was needed to turn things around.

Our team is pretty analogous to DeRozan, JV, Ross, etc. with the analogues being slightly better across the board, but the only thing that mattered on those teams was Lowry. Indeed all of the rest of that ended up being traded for the championship team (Ibaka, Gasol, Kawhi, Green).

The only player we currently have that can potentially have Lowry's impact ceiling is Siakam (he's currently a fitting DeRozan analogue). We're probably years away from seeing if that comes through.

OG, Norm and Fred are all pieces that can be moved at anytime. Norm makes sense right now. I'd argue so does Fred to make this year's pick even better. OG is likely our prized asset you keep for a star trade if it shows up. If not you're banking on a cap space year around the end of their contracts.

Basically to sum up: we don't have a Lowry. We should be moving our role players to try to obtain those assets and we can't really rationalize following that old blue print until we know we have a Lowry like anchor to the franchise.

We don’t have a Lowry, but if you looked at our team in 2014 we had no idea we had a Lowry either. He took massive strides over those next coupes years, strides that were unexpected ans it’s not out the question we could see FV , Siakam, OG, or Norm make some massive leaps, not to mention we potentially could nail a top 5/10 pick here or hit a home run and get back a really nice player for Lowry

I don’t wanna blow this up. I think the combo of Tampa + non existent center rotation is good enough to let us bottom out a bit and stealth tank.

Start playing the bench more for “development” and let’s just ride this season out, finish as the 5th-10th worst team, and **** who knows, maybe the lottery gods love us.

I won't say that it's impossible that Fred, Norm and OG will have a Lowry like impact in the future, but you're understating Lowry's *immediate* star level impact once we handed over usage, minutes and a bigger role to him. Again, we were already horrible before the Gay trade and instantly turned it around when Lowry was unleashed. What Lowry had to learn was how to be more effective in the playoffs, which took a couple years.

Siakam is the only player who has flashed that type of potential so far. Norm and FVV aren't young players anymore. They've had prominent roles for a while.

Now I think that we're also overvaluing the impact of the individual players of this current non-Lowry core to the old DeRozan non-Lowry core. While this team has a higher floor (I'd probably take every one of our current guys over the old guys) because of coaching and cohesive team approach (mainly on defense, while the DeRozan core had clashing pieces), that doesn't solve our ceiling problem.

And we can address our ceiling problem by trading some of our floor assets in attempts to gain that ceiling piece. There's plenty of ways to replenish floor pieces.

Maybe a Lowry trade truly unlocks FVV? No one expected what Lowry did when Gay left, and we have looked nice with Lowry out.

It’s unlikely, but no more unlikely a road to a contender than any other option IMO.

[Troubadour]

That's a really good comparison. The core of Fred, OG, and Pascal needs to stay. Everyone else can go as far as I am concerned.

[nitrous]

Completely agree.