I posted
the following on my home Portland boardand I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
BNM wrote:Matt800 wrote:He would be a good fit, but I don't think it is realistic from both sides. Why would Toronto want CJ? And why would Portland want a guy who cant play for 1-2 months to start the season? Portland needs a good season and that really wouldn't help.
Why would TOR want CJ? I don't think they would. I think there would need to be a third team involved.
Toronto's had some big shortcomings which CJ addresses:
Isolation scoring:If we look at a
list of the leagues best isolation scorers from last season, using 2 isolation possesions per game as a threshold, they only had 1 player, Pascal Siakam, on the list. Nobody else was good enough at isolation scoring to even attempt it. Siakam managed .94 PPP which put him in the 62.5 percentile of all players, not just those who met my filtering criteria. CJ, on the other hand, was 5th on that list with 1.09 PPP and 88.7 percentile.
Pick-and-roll ball handling The pick-and-roll is the staple of modern NBA sets. Its prevalence has been increasing every year. The Raptors are lacking in this area. If we look at the
NBA leaders for this playtype, again using 2 possessions as pick and roll ballhandler as the minimum threshold, we see all of the Blazers guards at the top of the list. Norm Powell (when he was with the Raptors) and Dame are both top 5 with 1.12 and 1.07 PPP. CJ isn't too far down at 1.02 PPG and Ant at .99. Siakam is right below him at .98. FVV is a ways down at .92 and Dragic (whom they probably won't keep) and Flynn are quite a ways down the list.
Spot-up shooting:CJ is 5th on
the listbehind both Snell and Ant. The first current Raptor, OG Anunoby, doesn't even appear until the 2nd page. FVV and GTJ appear further down on that page.
In general FVV is not all that good. He's a really likeable guy but should be coming off the bench as the third guard and not starting.
One thing that is clear though is that Siakam is by far the Raptors best player and he does a lot of the same things well that CJ does. If they want to win now and not later they should want to add CJ to Siakam.
I would instead suggest that two Raptors roll players, OG and Boucher, would be both more attainable and better complimentary fits for our team. They are both efficient role players who don't require a lot of touches whereas Siakam is a guy who needs to be in focus.
CJ for OG and Dragic is a deal that makes both teams better and works fine under the CBA. OG slots in starting at SF for us and Dragic gives us a fantastic 3rd guard and insurance in case Dame is out for any extended period of time.
It was only a year ago that he was a major piece in helping the Heat reach the finals
