Masai Was Saved From Himself - All 3 of the Siakam/OG/Fred Trio are Overpaid Right Now

[Los_29]

I would have loved to have brought these guys back, but only if they agreed on a 5 year, 5M per year contract (I.e., what they are actually worth).

I still remember when some people thought Fred was worth 10 million a year. lol.

[SFour]

If they're all overpaid crap, why did we waste time building around them?

Masai can't be wrong twice in a row, I guess.

Barnes, RJ, and IQ are also overpaid crap to some....and if they draft Ace with the 3rd pick he'll join that club soon enough.

That would be the 3rd, 3rd, and 4th pick being overpaid crap

[Indeed]

Every non S-tier all-star / borderline all-star is overpaid. I dislike Fred, but Houston signing him for 2+1 (if it was 3 years guaranteed, yuck, but it wasn't) and Brooks because they had to use their cap space has worked out pretty damn well. Obviously Sengun is their best player, but those signings were positive moves at the right time. The money doesn't matter.

OG fits every team like a glove and looks better offensively on the Knicks than he ever has here. Knicks fans adore him. Who cares what the contract is turning into? This is the best many Knicks fans have felt about a team in their lifetime.

I don't know about Siakam. That feels like the worst contract of the three.

FVV is overpaid if you look at it as a AAV amount, but that's exactly the contract they wanted, a very short term one. Works out for both, FVV gets to sign another one after it, and they get the vet presence they were looking for.

Siakam was absolutely overpaid. OG you could argue is overpaid, but championship windows are only open for so long, they needed to put the team together to have a shot.

All three are thriving on their new teams. But it’s also true, we needed to move on.

Lol what?

Houston/Knicks are the 4th/5th best teams in the league. Pacers are 2 games above .500, 2 of them are thriving, the other is treadmilling as usual.

The Rockets are terrible offensively. (Sengun and Barnes are a wash here).

They get by by defense and offensive rebounding, they have the 3rd worst TS in the league. (FVV is having a horrible year offensively). They aren't doing anything in the playoffs until their offense gets much better, and they don't have a Paolo on the way to bail them out.

So FVV wouldn't count.

As for the Pacers, their issue is basically Hali. Do to Siakam's age, they likely have a small window to do any actual competing. While Hali is better than what we had, the Pacers also just never had an OG on their team. So Siakam went from one treadmil situation to another unless Hali from the first half of last year shows up.

Siakam has been good, but isn't going to pull that team up, and is 30 years old now.

OG on the Knicks is the only thing that's thriving for both player and team imo.

Pacers failed to develop another good player as well. When you have Turner as the big 3, that means they are limited. Much like we have Poeltl as our big 3, that would not be enough. But Hali and Siakam are still better than BBQ, even Hali isnt playing well, so I am unsure they are overpay, as we will be paying more for our core 3 for worse record, lol

[PhilBlackson]

Saved himself?! lol nah THEY did it for him.

Fred walked away, OG wanted out and Pascal was demanding a contract that made no sense given the team’s lack of success. Masai was all but FORCED to finally move off of them, let’s not try to skew the narrative.

[Shakril]

that's a classic win-win (Mgobo, RJ and IQ) for OG is a great move

pascal trade is not as bad as it looks (Jakobe Walter, Bruce Brown, Ochai, KO) + 2026 pick is not bad at all

The Siakam trade will likely age well. The Pacers are 16th in the tankathon standings and they'll fall further next year. If they end up losing Turner they will be pretty screwed with a huge gap in the front court. Walker, Mathurin, Nembhard, and their other young guys haven't emerged at all. If we can move off Poeltl's salary and let a few others expire we could throw a big contract at Turner similar to how Houston did with Fred. This would give us a stretch C rim protector while making our rival worse and securing a higher first round pick.

Honestly aggressively pursueing Turner would be a great move. He fits what we wanna do, and makes Indiana worse.

I wonder if we could fit Turner and Poeltl on our cap sheet. I think they would be a great 2 man pairing to get 48 minutes of high level C play, and in some situations could fit beside each other if you wanna get bigger.

Like IQ/Dick/RJ/Barnes/Turner is a ton of shooting. IQ/RJ/Barnes/Turner/Poeltl is shooting and huge.

If they play together i agree. if one of them is only backup i disagree. Still, turner may be capable of the 3, but he isnt a sharpshooter either. So i am unsure.

[Shakril]

Turner is so overrated on this board. He was a big part of the reason the Pacers sucked at the start of the season. Yes, the Pacers have had a lot of injuries to C's, but those C's are James Wiseman & Isaiah Jackson. Turner has played 35 of the Pacers 37 games.

Turner isn't worth 30M but we need to overpay to pry him away. It would definitely make us better and the Pacers worse.

A bad pacers team means a better pick

If the Raps and Pacers swapped C’s, the Pacers would be a much improved team.

Turner would not make the Raps a better team.

I think if the Pacers get a competent C, that actually plays the role, they would be a much better team, then trying to retain Turner.

When i understand correctly you mean swapping Poeltl with Turner.

Yeah then i agree, Poeltl would give them much needed Defense and Turner is more likely to get injured. Agewise, turner is just a year younger than Poeltl and is not an upgrade. So unless we get something extra, i dont see it.

[Shakril]

If they're all overpaid crap, why did we waste time building around them?

Masai can't be wrong twice in a row, I guess.

Cause it was strange times, with Covid, Tampa and the year after. So you could get tempted to wait a little longer.
FVV, OG and Siakam are not bad players and they were realtivly young still, so hope was they get better.

[Mak]

Saved himself?! lol nah THEY did it for him.

Fred walked away, OG wanted out and Pascal was demanding a contract that made no sense given the team’s lack of success. Masai was all but FORCED to finally move off of them, let’s not try to skew the narrative.

Ugh huh , here comes a guy telling us not to skew the narrative with the false narrative.

[JN]

FVV's deal made plenty of sense for Houston (that contract though made zero sense for Toronto and the departure was necessary)-- they had plenty of cap space 2 years back (that would partially go away by end of 2024 if not used), need for a veteran, and the third year team option would make him a good trade filler option in 2024/2025 season if they decided to explore the superstar route via consolidating some young pieces and picks.

I don't think an attractive consolidation package will come up for Houston before the deadline -- maybe Butler I guess.
If there stuck with a guy in 2024/2025 that is leading the team in minutes on a very good team, its not that bad of a thing.

But I get a few people here still have to get off on bashing everything FVV even in his departure.

[Johnny Bball]

Yep not only is Masai just generally stupid and saved from himself, Rose is stupid, Stone is horrible for frontloading a deal, and Buchanan is especially stupid paying what has probably been his best player that.

Yep it's everyone else.

[Los_29]

All three are thriving on their new teams. But it’s also true, we needed to move on.

Lol what?

Houston/Knicks are the 4th/5th best teams in the league. Pacers are 2 games above .500, 2 of them are thriving, the other is treadmilling as usual.

24-19, ECF appearance last year and Pascal as a Pacer is averaging 21/8/4 on a TS% of 61%. But yeah he’s not thriving. Considering he’s the worst shooter of all-time he’s been doing fantastic. Stop letting your feelings get in the way of evaluating basketball players.

[HumbleRen]

Saved himself?! lol nah THEY did it for him.

Fred walked away, OG wanted out and Pascal was demanding a contract that made no sense given the team’s lack of success. Masai was all but FORCED to finally move off of them, let’s not try to skew the narrative.

[Merit]

Who the heck has argued that we should have paid to keep that core intact? The logical argument was that it took Masai too long to figure that out himself.

The rebuild needed to happen the year we traded for Poeltl. We'd be in a much better position with more assets at our disposal if we did.

I would change one word here:

The TANK needed to happen the year we traded for Poeltl. We could’ve traded for him in the offseason and also had a much higher lotto pick.

Then we see what happens.

[Merit]

OG’s contract is gonna age like milk.

Overpay in every way, shape, and form.

Will it ever age long enough to become cheese and therefore so much more valuable than milk alone?

Nah…

You’re probably right. But the Knicks don’t care if they make the finals and even less if they win a chip. As constructed - when fully healthy - they can give Boston a run for their money.

[Merit]

Saved himself?! lol nah THEY did it for him.

Fred walked away, OG wanted out and Pascal was demanding a contract that made no sense given the team’s lack of success. Masai was all but FORCED to finally move off of them, let’s not try to skew the narrative.

Masai was forced to trade them in that it was the best course of action once Fred left. He still tried to make it work, (imo to maintain leverage) and that’s what we keep crapping on him for.

[Merit]

we all knew that they were going to get paid big at the same time, we also knew that them as a core wasn't good enough. Masai waited too long to move on, got pennies on the dollar and delayed the rebuild that is happening. Had he not stuck it out with them we would be in year 3 of the rebuild with better assets from the trade + draft and had scottie actually develop his on ball ability. A lot of people saw this coming and this was a big reason for the contention the board had.

Not good enough for a championship? Okay. Definitely good enough to be a perennial contender to get out of the east.

Pennies on the dollar? Not sure. The Siakam trade has question marks in that we could probably have moved him a year earlier for more. We did well with OG.

Scottie is still developing.

So we didn’t tank for Wemby. Okay - but the types of moves we made haven’t screwed us and we have all our first round picks moving forward, plus one extra. Prime time for the current rebuild.

[Scase]

All three are thriving on their new teams. But it’s also true, we needed to move on.

Lol what?

Houston/Knicks are the 4th/5th best teams in the league. Pacers are 2 games above .500, 2 of them are thriving, the other is treadmilling as usual.

24-19, ECF appearance last year and Pascal as a Pacer is averaging 21/8/4 on a TS% of 61%. But yeah he’s not thriving. Considering he’s the worst shooter of all-time he’s been doing fantastic. Stop letting your feelings get in the way of evaluating basketball players.

The irony of one of the biggest Masai glazers the board has ever seen saying this.

Funny how you didn't respond when they were barely over .500 but only now. But yeah the fact that you think the pacers are "thriving" explains so much about your acceptance and constant defence of the mediocrity we've seen this team thrive at.

At least you're consistent, I'll give you that.

[Wargreymon]

Yeah i agree with OP with all my heart and willpower. I would much rather have 10 wins halfway through January than 3 borderline all star players who are all in playoff contention and playing significant roles to winning.

[agkagk]

Masai got his boys paid and set up 3 of his rivals.


Lowry makes four.

[WaltFrazier]

Lol @ their overpaid:
ECF
2nd place in the West
Best defender in the league , 3rd in the east

Enough of this - they are great players and the team went in a different direction. Most of this board was wrong about all three - maybe just own it for once?

Yeah it's comical for some Raptors fans to look at playoff contenders and think they're better off. Every team in the new cap has only a short window, someone in the NBA thread said how even OKC will face cap issues in a couple of years. So you try to compete when you can.

Meanwhile Raps are waiting for some magical time in a couple years where they contend. Even though Scottie's ceiling is still in doubt, it's uncertain at best if RJ and IQ are starters on a contender, and still waiting for a lucky ping pong ball and for lightning to strike again in a Kawhi type windfall trade. But sure maybe Miles Turner will sign here as someone posted, after all free agents are dying to come to Canada.