Kevin O'Connor: "There's people in that front office that want full rebuild"

[C_Money]

The decision was already made when we traded our pick next year. You don’t tank and then give your lottery pick to the Spurs lol.

[twiggy2]

This team can get real young real fast if they want.

[REJECTEDBYCLARK]

The right move is to hire Jordi. He knows what he's doing more than anyone in our entire organization does and we need his vision and leadership.

He sold me when I heard him say this about "positionless basketball" which the Raps are obsessed with:

"...positionless sounds really good, but a lot of times it gets, you know, misunderstood. You cannot be trying to do too much and at the end you do nothing."

Which to me signifies how he understands that positionless basketball is BS. You need guards with guard skills, wings with wing skills, bigs with big skills. If you can find special athletes for each position fine, but you can't force guys into doing things they struggle at or allow them to attempt it all the while vastly underproducing. They have to be able to achieve the tasks that players at the given position are required to achieve in order to be successful.

Did you see Miamis lineups last night? They had 5 perimeter players on the floor. They're in the finals.

Positions really don't matter as much as talented players with high iq. In today's nba, shooting the 3 is also a priority. Our problems have nothing to do with being positionless.... they have to do with things we've discussed ad nauseum, I.e inability to shoot the 3, inability to create off the dribble, inability to pass to the open man and create good looks... its a talent and systemic issue not a positionless issue.

"Positionless basketball" is honestly just a BS term thrown out there to refer to when teams field players who are so good they're collectively capable of doing everything on the court at a proficient level offensively and defensively while having the physical attributes to guard multiple positions defensively.

If you can assemble that, great. But priority goes to achieving that offensive and defensive proficiency (ie actual basketball skill) over "defensive versatility" because of physical attributes.

[Kingsway_fan]

They are handcuffed with Fred... waiting to see how it plays out, imo.... they need something new at starting pg... it's a problem.

[bballsparkin]

The decision was already made when we traded our pick next year. You don’t tank and then give your lottery pick to the Spurs lol.

You're probably right. Yet I allow myself to indulge in hope. Pascal, Barnes and Jakob don't fit in the modern NBA. None strike me as potential good three pointers. I'm not even a fan of the three point shots frequency and I can see this. And then look at the Raptors guards it gets worse.

In my view, Poeltl is worthy of a 10+ pick once re-signed. Making the playoffs is not paramount. Putting forth a team that is actually fun to watch and competes with a promise for the future will suffice.

They won't tank for sure. It's a retool so we'll see.

Poeltl
Pascal
Barnes
OG
?


Worst three point starting line up in the league? Pascal and Barnes better pick up their defence if that's the top 4.

[Johnny Bball]

All this rebuilding talk when we could have traded to ring someone by Pascal is sad to see.

Gonna get ugly if they trade him.

We have the pieces to compete too. The FO clearly feels they can milk the fan base off the championship

What? He literally predicted what you would all be saying and after they won a championship, most people won't care that they won a championship before and it will be what have you done for me lately. So he clearly isn't doing that.

[MoneyBall]

Hard to see this after they traded their pick for Poeltl.

[Airmiess]

Their actions say the opposite. If Masai himself said he wanted to give the guys a chance by acquiring a C then what does it matter what other people in the office think.. unless it was Bobby, in that case he would be a lame duck GM.

[will]

After the way this trash ass season ended it should be a no brainer for the last hold outs. Rebuild this ****, Siakam and Fred top 2 option experiment has went sideways. Time to move on.

Went sideways the past 2 seasons, and will go backwards next season with those 2 as the "go-to" guys.

Yuck.

[mrdressup]

We traded for Thad last year, Poetltl this year, and our first next year is only top 6 protected. We’re not going full rebound. Masai believes in this core and wants to see how we can maximize their abilities. We just need to shed one core player to remain under the tax. My bet is GTJ is most expendable.

I can think of 5-6 guys we need to shed because they aren't NBA caliber or they are extremely low IQ. If you drop just GT then that means you are keeping a short shooting guard that can't shoot as your PG. You still have a team without a top tier PG, no bench and no shooting. The worse thing is that 2 or our reputed "leaders" indulge in stat padding and the pursuing personal accolades. They're all smiles when they get their points and we lose, and they have frowns the second they realize they are on an off night from which they seem to stop fighting for wins (a trade-mark of the old Lowry led teams). At any rate, we cannot close games to save our lives, so we are hopeless. The choice is whether or not you think this team is even a playoff team that can get you some playoff game revenue. I don't think it is. It's a 9-10 team that is soon going to get surpassed by some perennial bad teams. We have to be bottom 4 this year in order to retain our pick. We have to "tank" by running hot garbage. If there are people in the way then fire them. If it's the ownership then resign and go elsewhere. If it's Masai, fire him! Stop the madness. Belief is killing us. Hire some GM with a utilitarian philosophy instead of a "savior and redeemer" type that preaches the virtue of faith.

[Shakril]

If Raptors start a rebuild, Poeltl will be gone. He stated clearly he wants to compete, its the reason why he wanted to come to Toronto in the first place.

[Truthrising]

If Raptors start a rebuild, Poeltl will be gone. He stated clearly he wants to compete, its the reason why he wanted to come to Toronto in the first place.

What Poetle wants shouldn’t dictate the future good of the Raptors. If he’s not onboard with the rebuild then let him go.

[JKiddy]

Can I get your honest opinion on Freddie VV? What do you think he has left in the tank? What type of running mate(s) would suit him best at this time of his career?

[2019nbachamps]

We traded for Thad last year, Poetltl this year, and our first next year is only top 6 protected. We’re not going full rebound. Masai believes in this core and wants to see how we can maximize their abilities. We just need to shed one core player to remain under the tax. My bet is GTJ is most expendable.

I can think of 5-6 guys we need to shed because they aren't NBA caliber or they are extremely low IQ. If you drop just GT then that means you are keeping a short shooting guard that can't shoot as your PG. You still have a team without a top tier PG, no bench and no shooting. The worse thing is that 2 or our reputed "leaders" indulge in stat padding and the pursuing personal accolades. They're all smiles when they get their points and we lose, and they have frowns the second they realize they are on an off night from which they seem to stop fighting for wins (a trade-mark of the old Lowry led teams). At any rate, we cannot close games to save our lives, so we are hopeless. The choice is whether or not you think this team is even a playoff team that can get you some playoff game revenue. I don't think it is. It's a 9-10 team that is soon going to get surpassed by some perennial bad teams. We have to be bottom 4 this year in order to retain our pick. We have to "tank" by running hot garbage. If there are people in the way then fire them. If it's the ownership then resign and go elsewhere. If it's Masai, fire him! Stop the madness. Belief is killing us. Hire some GM with a utilitarian philosophy instead of a "savior and redeemer" type that preaches the virtue of faith.

Unfortunately Masai thinks differently. During his last press conference he said younger players should’ve gotten more playing time. These younger players are going to be out of the NBA when their Raptors contracts expire.

We don’t have shooters, size at guard, a backup PG, yet Masai took it out on Nurse. Let’s also not forget we went 2.5 seasons without a starting C.

IMO it would’ve made more sense to fire Nurse if we still sucked after retooling.

[Anticon]

A couple of things:

-They can't retool because that will just create gaps in the roster, as they don't have good enough talent to fill positions of need with stopgap players. It's really embrace a full rebuild or fully compete.

-They made a mistake at the deadline, but they shouldn't let that stop them from resetting this year. If we lose the pick, we lose it, it was an error but you move on. Don't compete just because you feel like you might lose the pick.

-The biggest issue in any scenario is the front office is scared to acquire conventionally talented players. They're harder to control but they need players that can do normal things well if they hope to be more than this slightly weird team they've developed.

[refshateRaps]

All this rebuilding talk when we could have traded to ring someone by Pascal is sad to see.

Gonna get ugly if they trade him.

We have the pieces to compete too. The FO clearly feels they can milk the fan base off the championship

Woah buddy! Don’t mislead the folks.
Even Ray Charles knows a Pascal lead team can never get us to an NBA finals. This is an inevitable breakup that’s been long overdue. Rebuild the team around Scottie and OG with brand new coaching personnel. The fanbase will respect management for choosing a more realistic option. We’re tired of play-ins and boring first round exits.

Woah buddy! You misinterpreted big time.

I was saying, as I always have we needed to trade for a top scorer to slot Pascal as a 1B/2 guy. The point is we actually had those pieces to trade last season.

Pascal is an amazing talent in his prime and we both agree this team has been on a boring treadmill. I just dont see the rebuild as reasonable or exciting when you are on the doorstep of contending by going after a top scoring talent.

All for what a 'hope' Scottie can become Pascal? A hope he stays, a hope we find others to build with, a hope twe dont blow it up again in his prime when fans are sold the bag of goods again?

Naw. We are right there and shouldn't be playing the cuck role again in Toronto.

[OakleyDokely]

The answer is probably somewhere in the middle between full rebuild and bringing everyone back.

[Truthrising]

Can I get your honest opinion on Freddie VV? What do you think he has left in the tank? What type of running mate(s) would suit him best at this time of his career?

I think Fred is cooked and could have a permanent injury in the hip/back area unless he gets surgery. He’s also a lot fatter than compared to his younger years.. so he’s lost a step.

The ideal teammate you’d want beside FVV is someone that can run the PnR roll with him (Jacob Poetl) but that will clearly be snuffed out eventually .

[Rapsfan07]

Whether the FO wants to rebuild or not is irrelevant if ownership won't back it. Something tells me they won't.

You might be right but as long as Ujiri is going to continue to tell us he has full autonomy, I'm going to continue to blame him or at least hold him responsible.

Either he has full autonomy or he doesn't. Can't have it both ways.

[PhilBlackson]

People keep mentioning Poeltl as a reason a rebuild won’t happen when in reality next years draft is projected to be all time bad (hence Bronny being a projected top 10) so it’s more so they value rights over Yak than the expected garbage that majority of next year’s draft will be and/or if they make a trade it’s likely to bring in more than one young player via the trade itself nevermind our own pick in this year’s draft.

Not to mention if they were gonna run it back I think our rumoured coaching finalists would be more established NBA coaches. But for the most part it’s been new and younger candidates.