Grange: Former Raptors' success a reminder of the road not taken

[deck]

The 2022/2023 season was among my least favorite in 25 years of following the team. The team had no soul and no identity. We needed to reset.

[kalel123]

Those guys are successful where they are because they are in the role that they should be, which is secondary/tertiary role to a star. Our problem was that we didn't have that star to lead them and none of 'em were good enough to emerge as one. And s#!t job Masai Ujiri did building a team around them was the nail in the coffin because you can still have decent results by compensating with a deep roster, which is what he was able to do for DeRozan/Lowry teams but not for that core. Having failed at that, he should've pivoted quickly but held onto them too long. Also did not help that Nick Nurse grew a big head in short amount of time and thought himself above help managing all that was going on.

In the end, kinda useless looking back cause we were never going to get to where we needed to with that core.

[NinjaBro]

Even if FVV took the 30M annually, it wouldn't have worked. Siakam, OG and Barnes are still getting the max, nothing changes there. So now you are in tax hell and still no bonafide top dog and no bench.

Rather than lamenting on what-could-have-been, my view is that this only reflects well on our organization. All of them were drafted/UDFA'd and developed by us (and we also tried telling anyone that would listen how good they were).

And that core was given multiple chances to succeed. Masai was begging them to show him anything so he could justify keeping them together. But they were too mediocre to commit that much money to.

Exactly. Masai correctly understood that it was a very talented group and wanted to keep it together. People complained then that he held on for too long.

Eventually it became obvious that the personalities as a collective was not going to work

All we needed was Brunson and Hartenstein. They were available for cheap.

[wegotthabeet]

If Mobley fell to 4 they might have kept Siakam and maybe OG. Would’ve been a great front court. Fred would’ve always bounced. Mr. Me First.

[C_Money]

A lot of this was on Nick Nurse IMO. I thought in the moment he was bullet proof due to delivering a chip but as years have gone by my review of him during that time was that he was a horrid communicator, ruined our development pipeline (the core of this organization) and the style of play was too predictable and got stale.

Masai built a team with good players, yes the fit was bad cuz of lack of shooting but would have been nice if we got a true development coach, different voice to see what this team could do. But yeah none of these guys were # 1's but we should have been better IMO

Agreed. We saw it this year with Philly. Nurse is an incredibly overrated coach.

[djsunyc]

A lot of this was on Nick Nurse IMO. I thought in the moment he was bullet proof due to delivering a chip but as years have gone by my review of him during that time was that he was a horrid communicator, ruined our development pipeline (the core of this organization) and the style of play was too predictable and got stale.

Masai built a team with good players, yes the fit was bad cuz of lack of shooting but would have been nice if we got a true development coach, different voice to see what this team could do. But yeah none of these guys were # 1's but we should have been better IMO

i think if darko was the coach when we got yak, we wouldve been really good.

[RoteSchroder]

"Masai held on to those guys too long"
"Masai overrates his players"
"Look how good the guys we traded are"

Irony

wouldn't have worked out anyways. Siakam and OG were the 3rd/4th best players today.

As we are now, Scottie in his 4th year still needs offensive development. Continuing on with OG/Siakam/Scottie/Poeltl with zero dynamic three point shooters and zero depth (a lot of which we got from the OG/Siakam trades and subsequent ripple effects) would have been disastrous.

[Chuck Everett]

Those guys are successful where they are because they are in the role that they should be, which is secondary/tertiary role to a star. Our problem was that we didn't have that star to lead them and none of 'em were good enough to emerge as one. And s#!t job Masai Ujiri did building a team around them was the nail in the coffin because you can still have decent results by compensating with a deep roster, which is what he was able to do for DeRozan/Lowry teams but not for that core. Having failed at that, he should've pivoted quickly but held onto them too long. Also did not help that Nick Nurse grew a big head in short amount of time and thought himself above help managing all that was going on.

In the end, kinda useless looking back cause we were never going to get to where we needed to with that core.

They also have already won a ring, so now they want the absolute most money they can get. As was mentioned, Toronto couldn't pay those contracts to them and field a competitive team. They'd have rookie max Scottie and huge contracts for Fred, Pascal and OG. They'd be in the second apron with that team. Going nowhere.

[Tofubeque]

When you strip all the narrative away you’ve got the 2 former Raptors of this matchup both playing PF, and the rookie we kept also plays… PF. Sometimes the Xs and Os just don’t work.

OG of course could have worked as a wing here but he didn’t want to, and that I think is the main shame of the thing. He wasn’t that far from Scottie’s timeline.

[ATLTimekeeper]

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

What I want to know most of all, is why the hell was Precious there lol? Did they need him to take the meeting minutes?

Thanks for sharing. My take on it is that Grange, like a lot of posters here, can't let go of that title winning team and its players. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I get it, our teams never win anything. In fact, there are posters on here who have only ever been alive for the Raps title and not the Jays. So I do get it. But it's time to move on already. Financially it wouldn't have worked anyway. This CBA is too restrictive.

What I would want to know is, did this meeting in Miami happen before or after Brooklyn didn't go through with trading KD that summer, and started that season with him still there (the date of that being announced was August 24, 2022 IIRC).

Because everything I've heard was that the schism in the locker room becoming beyond repair was basically due to Masai deciding not to trade Scottie and salary filler for KD in the summer of 2022. The players on Siakam's side of the timeline age-wise (led by FVV not Siakam himself) wanted that trade to get made, while the players on Scottie's side of the timeline age-wise were not angling for it and obviously ended up getting their way, as Masai did not ultimately make that move.

From that moment on the (relatively) older players on the team just looked at Scottie as "could have been KD."

You think the players had influence on Masai's decision, and that's what the meeting was about?

I haven't seen any reporting on this other than Scottie was always off the table for KD.

It is interesting that they had to have a meeting to see if this would work. It was after the first round loss to Philadelphia. Scottie just won ROY and that Philly writer came out and said OG was an unhappy camper.

[Jerry Lucas]

What I want to know most of all, is why the hell was Precious there lol? Did they need him to take the meeting minutes?

Thanks for sharing. My take on it is that Grange, like a lot of posters here, can't let go of that title winning team and its players. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I get it, our teams never win anything. In fact, there are posters on here who have only ever been alive for the Raps title and not the Jays. So I do get it. But it's time to move on already. Financially it wouldn't have worked anyway. This CBA is too restrictive.

What I would want to know is, did this meeting in Miami happen before or after Brooklyn didn't go through with trading KD that summer, and started that season with him still there (the date of that being announced was August 24, 2022 IIRC).

Because everything I've heard was that the schism in the locker room becoming beyond repair was basically due to Masai deciding not to trade Scottie and salary filler for KD in the summer of 2022. The players on Siakam's side of the timeline age-wise (led by FVV not Siakam himself) wanted that trade to get made, while the players on Scottie's side of the timeline age-wise were not angling for it and obviously ended up getting their way, as Masai did not ultimately make that move.

From that moment on the (relatively) older players on the team just looked at Scottie as "could have been KD."

You think the players had influence on Masai's decision, and that's what the meeting was about?

I haven't seen any reporting on this other than Scottie was always off the table for KD.

It is interesting that they had to have a meeting to see if this would work. It was after the first round loss to Philadelphia. Scottie just won ROY and that Philly writer came out and said OG was an unhappy camper.

Masai is literally on record admitting that this has happened in at least 1 other instance, which was the Poeltl trade. He talked to the 4 other players in the starting 5 (Scottie/Pascal/FVV/OG) and they all said they needed a legit C as the 5th starter. Wasn't the only influence, but it was partially influenced by that.

But who knows when this meeting in Miami happened. Could have been before or after KD decided to start that season with Brooklyn.

[PhilBlackson]

Others have already completely dispelled this bs article by Grange because the reality is those guys were always great complimentary to a championship level squad, but they were/are not the ones to carry one -- that's Hali & Brunson and without those players those teams aren't doing sh*t.

But the article is especially annoying because Grange is a hypocrite. I want to say "to his credit" (this piece kills that) he was one of the few reporters at the time that was holding Masai's feet to the fire for acting too late and questioned his thought process many times both with his articles and as Masai would be interviewed. Now here he is for the sake of hits essentially saying "what if we kept them?". Like gtfo Grange you clown, stand on business and stay on the side you were advocating for especially when what you're saying now doesn't make sense as we had 4 seasons of those guys together and 3 those we found ourselves in the lottery which more than disproves this notion his floating out that we might've been in the same position as NY or IND right now. I swear we have some of the worst reporters in the entire league.

[Mr Funk]

A lot of this was on Nick Nurse IMO. I thought in the moment he was bullet proof due to delivering a chip but as years have gone by my review of him during that time was that he was a horrid communicator, ruined our development pipeline (the core of this organization) and the style of play was too predictable and got stale.

Masai built a team with good players, yes the fit was bad cuz of lack of shooting but would have been nice if we got a true development coach, different voice to see what this team could do. But yeah none of these guys were # 1's but we should have been better IMO

Nurse really, really screwed us and set the team back in that final season. He was toxic as hell and had no interest in developing our young guys at the time. This really needs to be recognized much more.

Anyways, good riddance as he's now Philadelphia's problem.

[Raps in 4]

The roster-building back then was atrocious. Masai's head was so far up his ass back then whatever locker room issues were present were background noise to the real problem.

Neither Siakam or FVV were handled well as assets. We could have gotten much more from each of them on the market.

We literally got nothing for Fred.

Just a master class in asset mismanagement.

[ItsDanger]

His article basically describes what many of us were saying. At some point (here it's summer '22), players started playing for themselves. That means playing for your next contract, and that means being selfish. Masai should have sold off much earlier than he did and rebuild around Barnes. Instead he got less value and in some cases, no value. But he clearly dislikes having to do a long rebuild.

The clock started ticking when he drafted Barnes, the fit was poor with the other players.

[TorontoBarneys]

The roster-building back then was atrocious. Masai's head was so far up his ass back then whatever locker room issues were present were background noise to the real problem.

Neither Siakam or FVV were handled well as assets. We could have gotten much more from each of them on the market.

We literally got nothing for Fred.

Just a master class in asset mismanagement.

I still remember the copes. "We didn't get nothing for Fred, him leaving opened up cap space, which is a good thing."

[kalel123]

Those guys are successful where they are because they are in the role that they should be, which is secondary/tertiary role to a star. Our problem was that we didn't have that star to lead them and none of 'em were good enough to emerge as one. And s#!t job Masai Ujiri did building a team around them was the nail in the coffin because you can still have decent results by compensating with a deep roster, which is what he was able to do for DeRozan/Lowry teams but not for that core. Having failed at that, he should've pivoted quickly but held onto them too long. Also did not help that Nick Nurse grew a big head in short amount of time and thought himself above help managing all that was going on.

In the end, kinda useless looking back cause we were never going to get to where we needed to with that core.

They also have already won a ring, so now they want the absolute most money they can get. As was mentioned, Toronto couldn't pay those contracts to them and field a competitive team. They'd have rookie max Scottie and huge contracts for Fred, Pascal and OG. They'd be in the second apron with that team. Going nowhere.

Yeah, the timing also didn't align financially. The only time it's ok to pay these salaries is when you are set at the top as one of the best teams and all you have to do is lock them in. We were nowhere close there. Someone at Ujiri's position should've seen it and acted on it.

[Scase]

The roster-building back then was atrocious. Masai's head was so far up his ass back then whatever locker room issues were present were background noise to the real problem.

Neither Siakam or FVV were handled well as assets. We could have gotten much more from each of them on the market.

We literally got nothing for Fred.

Just a master class in asset mismanagement.

I still remember the copes. "We didn't get nothing for Fred, him leaving opened up cap space, which is a good thing."

The brilliant "We didn't get nothing for him, we got Schroder" argument will forever live in infamy lmao

[DelAbbot]

The roster-building back then was atrocious. Masai's head was so far up his ass back then whatever locker room issues were present were background noise to the real problem.

Neither Siakam or FVV were handled well as assets. We could have gotten much more from each of them on the market.

We literally got nothing for Fred.

Just a master class in asset mismanagement.

I still remember the copes. "We didn't get nothing for Fred, him leaving opened up cap space, which is a good thing."

How can you forget that we got leadership from FVV that helped the young guys grow

[dTox]

Not sure where to post this, maybe here?

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