Trust the process.

[YogurtProducer]

I still don't think we will. I'm seeing 5-7th right now.

I'm being realistic. We will see by season's end.

To finish 8th, one of Chicago or SA has to catch us
To finish 9th, both would have catch us.

A 5 and 7 game lead on them with not much left (despite our easy schedule). It's unlikley. Possible sure, but not realistic.

To finish 9th we would have to pass BKN CHI SA and PHI.

We are 2-8 in our last 10. 2nd worst in the league in the last 10. And yet we are melting down. My god.

[MiamiSPX]

I'm being realistic. We will see by season's end.

To finish 8th, one of Chicago or SA has to catch us
To finish 9th, both would have catch us.

A 5 and 7 game lead on them with not much left (despite our easy schedule). It's unlikley. Possible sure, but not realistic.

To finish 9th we would have to pass BKN CHI SA and PHI.

We are 2-8 in our last 10. 2nd worst in the league in the last 10. And yet we are melting down. My god.

The hilarious part to me is that the meltdowns are getting worse with each LOSS. I swear there is some inside joke on here that I am missing.

[djsunyc]

We are 2-8 in our last 10. 2nd worst in the league in the last 10. And yet we are melting down. My god.

folks that whine and complain now, will always whine and complain. i think that's for all online discussion, not just this forum.

[Duffman100]

To finish 8th, one of Chicago or SA has to catch us
To finish 9th, both would have catch us.

A 5 and 7 game lead on them with not much left (despite our easy schedule). It's unlikley. Possible sure, but not realistic.

To finish 9th we would have to pass BKN CHI SA and PHI.

We are 2-8 in our last 10. 2nd worst in the league in the last 10. And yet we are melting down. My god.

The hilarious part to me is that the meltdowns are getting worse with each LOSS. I swear there is some inside joke on here that I am missing.

Because sometimes we ALMOST win

[tsherkin]

Another L in the books. On to the next one.

[ATLTimekeeper]

Trust the process? Dude, no one wants Philly's last 10 years Choose your words more carefully.

[Mr Funk]

Detroit is balling out rn. Last season they lost 30 in a row. A lot can change in a year.

IQ/Scottie/RJ/Ingram/Gradey + the rooks (Shead, Battle, Ja'Kobe, Mogbo) + the blue chipper (Chomche).

Pair that with a top-5 pick this year? Let's say Khaman Malauch. Oh man, oh man.

We're in a good spot right now. I think we'll be battling with Detroit/Orlando for future of the East very, very soon. Probably next year.

Just need to stay the course with the tank and not fall out of the bottom-5. Ideally, we could get to #4, but I think bottom-3 is out of reach now.

Prepare some new taglines. "We the North" needs a new modern twist.

Trust what process? Detroit built their teams from sucking for several years and getting 5th picks + 1st overall pick. It's nothing like how Masai has built our team, which is refusal to bottom out and tank. Why would you expose yourself to such blatant error?

We literally have the 5th worst record in the NBA today. Do you ever even try to make sense?

It's a shame that Pensare has to troll on here, because his content and analysis on YouTube is the complete opposite of this overly negative/troll schtick.

[mdenny]

You have to add Poeltl. Currently constructed, he is the most irreplaceable player on this team by far.

I hate how much our ceiling is tied to the ping pong balls few months from now, but damn it I’m really to roll next season. Tanking sucks. Good luck to us!

Not just ping pong balls... the pick has to hit to. The odds of that happening are lower than people want to admit to.

dawg our FO took a bad draft like last year and turned 2nd rounders into future winning nba rotation pieces

we'll be fine. drafting and development are our franchise's best attributes.

This reminds me of an excerpt from the book moneyball. They had a hitter who led the league in first pitch hits. So his former team encouraged him to swing more on the first pitch. The A's understood that the REASON he was so good on first pitch hitting was precisely because he was so selective in swinging on it. He only swung when the first pitch was too good to pass on.

Ppl often say "why does our FO trade picks when they are so good at drafting?" The answer to that question is that the FO knows that picks are generally overrated. The reason they are so good at drafting is that they know how rare it is to hit on a pick. They only value the pick highly when they've zeroed in on a prospect who's too promising to pass on.

In other words....the raptors being really good at drafting is WHY they don't value some of their picks as highly as the fanbase. Being really good at drafting works both ways in terms of valuation of picks.

It's somewhat counter-intuitive because on the surface it makes sense that the best drafting team in the league should maximize the amount of picks they have. But it's the same thing with the stock market. Successful traders know when to invest AND when to short. Valuation works in both directions.

If the best drafting team in the league trades their pick....it's akin to shorting a stock. It means the best evaluating FO has decided the picks are over-valued. So if you trust them to make good picks you should also trust them to not make bad picks.

[ATLTimekeeper]

Not just ping pong balls... the pick has to hit to. The odds of that happening are lower than people want to admit to.

dawg our FO took a bad draft like last year and turned 2nd rounders into future winning nba rotation pieces

we'll be fine. drafting and development are our franchise's best attributes.

This reminds me of an excerpt from the book moneyball. They had a hitter who led the league in first pitch hits. So his former team encouraged him to swing more on the first pitch. The A's understood that the REASON he was so good on first pitch hitting was precisely because he was so selective in swinging on it. He only swung when the first pitch was too good to pass on.

Ppl often say "why does our FO trade picks when they are so good at drafting?" The answer to that question is that the FO knows that picks are generally overrated. The reason they are so good at drafting is that they know how rare it is to hit on a pick. They only value the pick highly when they've zeroed in on a prospect who's too promising to pass on.

In other words....the raptors being really good at drafting is WHY they don't value some of their picks as highly as the fanbase. Being really good at drafting works both ways in terms of valuation of picks.

I think you are overrating how easy it is to zero on on a player well ahead of the draft (when they're trading the picks).

Siakam killed a random workout and they took him over Skal. Phoenix's GM had their draft board and poached Tyler Ennis, forcing them to take Bruno early. Fred wasn't drafted at all, and they didn't even offer him the most money to try out at camp. Casey liked Norm in a workout and recommended him.

[mdenny]

dawg our FO took a bad draft like last year and turned 2nd rounders into future winning nba rotation pieces

we'll be fine. drafting and development are our franchise's best attributes.

This reminds me of an excerpt from the book moneyball. They had a hitter who led the league in first pitch hits. So his former team encouraged him to swing more on the first pitch. The A's understood that the REASON he was so good on first pitch hitting was precisely because he was so selective in swinging on it. He only swung when the first pitch was too good to pass on.

Ppl often say "why does our FO trade picks when they are so good at drafting?" The answer to that question is that the FO knows that picks are generally overrated. The reason they are so good at drafting is that they know how rare it is to hit on a pick. They only value the pick highly when they've zeroed in on a prospect who's too promising to pass on.

In other words....the raptors being really good at drafting is WHY they don't value some of their picks as highly as the fanbase. Being really good at drafting works both ways in terms of valuation of picks.

I think you are overrating how easy it is to zero on on a player well ahead of the draft (when they're trading the picks).

Siakam killed a random workout and they took him over Skal. Phoenix's GM had their draft board and poached Tyler Ennis, forcing them to take Bruno early. Fred wasn't drafted at all, and they didn't even offer him the most money to try out at camp. Casey liked Norm in a workout and recommended him.

I don't know. I assume with the amount of money they invest in scouting/evaluation that alot more substance goes into these decisions than you described here. Obviously...there is also alot of cat'n'mouse deception between scouting departments because noone wants other teams to know how they are evaluating and what prospects they like. Huge advantages can be gained in knowing how other team's scouting departments work and who they're looking at. Tons of smokescreens and such. Otherwise....a team like the Pelicans can forego all scouting expenses by hiring one guy to monitor what the raptors are doing and piggybacking off their drafting success.

So I wouldn't trust any statements coming out the FO that depict these decisions as being as flippant as you described.

It'd be interesting to see a total, all-in dollar figure for how much a team typically spends per year on prospect evaluation and scouting. I'm gonna make a wild guess of between 3 to 5 million.

[ATLTimekeeper]

This reminds me of an excerpt from the book moneyball. They had a hitter who led the league in first pitch hits. So his former team encouraged him to swing more on the first pitch. The A's understood that the REASON he was so good on first pitch hitting was precisely because he was so selective in swinging on it. He only swung when the first pitch was too good to pass on.

Ppl often say "why does our FO trade picks when they are so good at drafting?" The answer to that question is that the FO knows that picks are generally overrated. The reason they are so good at drafting is that they know how rare it is to hit on a pick. They only value the pick highly when they've zeroed in on a prospect who's too promising to pass on.

In other words....the raptors being really good at drafting is WHY they don't value some of their picks as highly as the fanbase. Being really good at drafting works both ways in terms of valuation of picks.

I think you are overrating how easy it is to zero on on a player well ahead of the draft (when they're trading the picks).

Siakam killed a random workout and they took him over Skal. Phoenix's GM had their draft board and poached Tyler Ennis, forcing them to take Bruno early. Fred wasn't drafted at all, and they didn't even offer him the most money to try out at camp. Casey liked Norm in a workout and recommended him.

I don't know. I assume with the amount of money they invest in scouting/evaluation that alot more substance goes into these decisions than you described here. Obviously...there is also alot of cat'n'mouse deception between scouting departments because noone wants other teams to know how they are evaluating and what prospects they like. Huge advantages can be gained in knowing how other team's scouting departments work and who they're looking at. Tons of smokescreens and such. Otherwise....a team like the Pelicans can forego all scouting expenses by hiring one guy to monitor what the raptors are doing and piggybacking off their drafting success.

So I wouldn't trust any statements coming out the FO that depict these decisions as being as flippant as you described.

It'd be interesting to see a total, all-in dollar figure for how much a team typically spends per year on prospect evaluation and scouting. I'm gonna make a wild guess of between 3 to 5 million.

I wouldn't say it's flippant. These are all players that were identified to begin with. What I'm saying is that yes, even the Raptors under Masai aren't lightyears ahead of every other franchise. And your premise that they are trading picks with confidence that there won't be players there they love is just weak. When they're trading picks they don't even know where they could be drafting, who will declare, etc. There's just way too many variables for your moneyball analogy.

I think what some of us that follow the draft closely discovered is that when they implemented IBM Watson, they hit a vein of success. They obviously used a statistical filter, and it only works with NCAA data as they had not drafted outside the NCAA since Bruno until last year when they took a flier on Chomche.

[mdenny]

I think you are overrating how easy it is to zero on on a player well ahead of the draft (when they're trading the picks).

Siakam killed a random workout and they took him over Skal. Phoenix's GM had their draft board and poached Tyler Ennis, forcing them to take Bruno early. Fred wasn't drafted at all, and they didn't even offer him the most money to try out at camp. Casey liked Norm in a workout and recommended him.

I don't know. I assume with the amount of money they invest in scouting/evaluation that alot more substance goes into these decisions than you described here. Obviously...there is also alot of cat'n'mouse deception between scouting departments because noone wants other teams to know how they are evaluating and what prospects they like. Huge advantages can be gained in knowing how other team's scouting departments work and who they're looking at. Tons of smokescreens and such. Otherwise....a team like the Pelicans can forego all scouting expenses by hiring one guy to monitor what the raptors are doing and piggybacking off their drafting success.

So I wouldn't trust any statements coming out the FO that depict these decisions as being as flippant as you described.

It'd be interesting to see a total, all-in dollar figure for how much a team typically spends per year on prospect evaluation and scouting. I'm gonna make a wild guess of between 3 to 5 million.

I wouldn't say it's flippant. These are all players that were identified to begin with. What I'm saying is that yes, even the Raptors under Masai aren't lightyears ahead of every other franchise. And your premise that they are trading picks with confidence that there won't be players there they love is just weak. When they're trading picks they don't even know where they could be drafting, who will declare, etc. There's just way too many variables for your moneyball analogy.

I think what some of us that follow the draft closely discovered is that when they implemented IBM Watson, they hit a vein of success. They obviously used a statistical filter, and it only works with NCAA data as they had not drafted outside the NCAA since Bruno until last year when they took a flier on Chomche.

The fans who follow the draft are literally the worst ppl in evaluating relative value. The biggest reason why this is is the case.....they are never held to account for their predictions.

If I predict that Tyrese Maxey will make all nba next year....ppl will remember my prediction if I turn out to be wrong.

Draft ppl make predictions about prospects and if they're wrong....Noone knows or cares about the name of the player if the prediction doesn't come to fruition. So you are never held to account for the wrong prediction. THAT is the allure of the "draft expert" fan and the "tank" advocate. It's a stance that minimizes vulnerability to being "publically wrong".

No poster faces any blowback for loving Scoot Henderson two years ago to this date. And that's the other allure...whatever predictions one makes about the mystery box draft prospects....the truth won't be fully revealed for like 3 to 5 years. So one can be reckless in their optimism without feeling the threat of looking dumb.

So endless optimism for teenage prospects. Dead-end cynicism for any player over the age of 23.

Pensare is the most hilarious example of this. The way this guy talks about the draft....it's so transparent in what it's really about for him. It's a stance where he can make bold claims while remaining invulnerable. So he naturally pretends to have expertise in it. The whole thing is hilarious.

Any and EVERY basketball youtuber that claims expertise in the draft that does not share with you their board and their previous year's boards is a fraud. If they publicize their board and previous boards then at least you can be sure that they are genuine in their draft interest.

It's notable that this specific dynamic is strongest amongst basketball fans compared to other sports.

In anycase...to address the meat of your reply....the fact is, the raptors ARE lightyears ahead of other teams in draft selection outcomes. Think about it. What raptor picks in recent history stick out to you as bad?

Malachi flynn wasn't a good pick. God it was annoying when a segment of the fanbase was high on him for no reason. But he can't be far off from expected outcome for the 27th pick or whatever he was. The only other one I can think of is the Brazilian guy. He was a pure bust.

Can't think of any picks we've made that resulted in lower than expected outcome. And that is extremely rare for any sports FO over a significant time period (we're talking close to a decade yah).

[Ackshun]

These lottery odds man. If we finished 5th last, there is a 55.6% chance we pick lower than 5th overall.

[mdenny]

These lottery odds man. If we finished 5th last, there is a 55.6% chance we pick lower than 5th overall.

Exactly. After scrutinizing the actual numbers....imagine paying any intangible cost (ie development, moral, chemistry) for the difference between 5th last and 7th last.

The people who worry about that are either math illiterate or percieve team development in a video game context wherein the players are robots.

They will say "its a top 4 draft". Yah we heard that before. They will pretend that the outcomes are sure things. And in 3 years we'll all agree that the best player came from the 8th slot while all the tank ppl are hyper-focused on the 2029 draft. Which will be a "top 3 draft" lol.

[TravisScott55]

Not going to be a top team in the East unless they get a legit All-NBA first/second team type player

[vini_vidi_vici]

So wait, the idea of being the Pistons is appealing?? A 5th place team in the east, which has been historically bad.

Cade has been great, but they still need alot of work to get to a contender status (the main argument of tankers, its not good enough to just be good/treadmill). And they just lost Weaver (the guy who made those picks), and replaced him with an unknown in Trajon Langdon.

Even when teams tank, whichever variant you want, they still need to make deft draft picks in the future and win trades. Tanking is just the beginning, its not some panacea.

[Duffman100]

So wait, the idea of being the Pistons is appealing?? A 5th place team in the east, which has been historically bad.

Cade has been great, but they still need alot of work to get to a contender status (the main argument of tankers, its not good enough to just be good/treadmill). And they just lost Weaver (the guy who made those picks), and replaced him with an unknown in Trajon Langdon.

Even when teams tank, whichever variant you want, they still need to make deft draft picks in the future and win trades. Tanking is just the beginning, its not some panacea.

yeah I can't see how Detroit is a 'success' story unless Ausur, Ivey or Holland take a huge step.

[MiamiSPX]

So wait, the idea of being the Pistons is appealing?? A 5th place team in the east, which has been historically bad.

Cade has been great, but they still need alot of work to get to a contender status (the main argument of tankers, its not good enough to just be good/treadmill). And they just lost Weaver (the guy who made those picks), and replaced him with an unknown in Trajon Langdon.

Even when teams tank, whichever variant you want, they still need to make deft draft picks in the future and win trades. Tanking is just the beginning, its not some panacea.

yeah I can't see how Detroit is a 'success' story unless Ausur, Ivey or Holland take a huge step.

Like I said earlier in the thread, they are being propped up by a couple of 32-year olds, who have surprisingly been amazing for them. Harris and THJ have started every game they've played. Going out and getting those guys, which is clearly taking playing time away from some of their youngsters, goes against everything the hardcode tWo guys want.

[LoveMyRaps]

Only teams that I can confidently say will be better than us next season are the Celtics, Knicks, and Cavs.

We'll be battling for fourth with the Bucks and Pacers.

Not worried about the Magic and Pistons - we're better than them.

[vini_vidi_vici]

So wait, the idea of being the Pistons is appealing?? A 5th place team in the east, which has been historically bad.

Cade has been great, but they still need alot of work to get to a contender status (the main argument of tankers, its not good enough to just be good/treadmill). And they just lost Weaver (the guy who made those picks), and replaced him with an unknown in Trajon Langdon.

Even when teams tank, whichever variant you want, they still need to make deft draft picks in the future and win trades. Tanking is just the beginning, its not some panacea.

yeah I can't see how Detroit is a 'success' story unless Ausur, Ivey or Holland take a huge step.

Like I said earlier in the thread, they are being propped up by a couple of 32-year olds, who have surprisingly been amazing for them. Harris and THJ have started every game they've played. Going out and getting those guys, which is clearly taking playing time away from some of their youngsters, goes against everything the hardcode tWo guys want.

Harris +11.9 NET on vs off.
Beasley +3.3 NET.

More than half Cades mins have come with THJ and Harris (+3.2 NET).
3/4s of his mins with Harris (+4.9 NET).

Even despite all that, they are only a +1.4 NET (14th in the L), with 12th ranked ORG, and 11th ranked DRTG, playing this version of the East . 22-10 vs <.500, and 11-16 vs >.500.