Masai: We have a Young Team and there will be Growing Pains

[xAIRNESSx]

O ye of little faith.

[Marty_Budda]

tasting pretty good right now

Crazy how easily even our own fans write our team off after 1 bad year in Tampa. All in the hopes for a lotto pick lmao

Nobody wants to seem like too much of a homer, so we all set our expectations to what we feel people think is 'realistic'.

Personally, I thought that losing Lowry was going to hit us a lot harder than it did.

I agree to an extent, I thought we’d be a play in team with a 500 record. But I just found it strange giving up on a super young team that has so much room left for development. If pascal and Fvv were like 32 I’d have been all in for a tank and hoping for a rebuild. But I mean look at our top 6 players.

Pascal - 27
Fvv -28
Barnes - 20
OG - 24
Trent - 23
Precious - 22

THIS IS the rebuild. No more tanking. Play hard, try to win games and develop the young guys we have

[Los_29]

Crazy how easily even our own fans write our team off after 1 bad year in Tampa. All in the hopes for a lotto pick lmao

Nobody wants to seem like too much of a homer, so we all set our expectations to what we feel people think is 'realistic'.

Personally, I thought that losing Lowry was going to hit us a lot harder than it did.

I agree to an extent, I thought we’d be a play in team with a 500 record. But I just found it strange giving up on a super young team that has so much room left for development. If pascal and Fvv were like 32 I’d have been all in for a tank and hoping for a rebuild. But I mean look at our top 6 players.

Pascal - 27
Fvv -28
Barnes - 20
OG - 24
Trent - 23
Precious - 22

THIS IS the rebuild. No more tanking. Play hard, try to win games and develop the young guys we have

I thought we were in that play-in range too. What I found bizarre was how people refused to acknowledge what happened last year. We had tons of injuries last year to our starters and they rarely had the chance to play with each other.

There was complete ignorance and a complete lack of critical thinking. This team might win 48 games games this year, possibly more despite the injuries and people thought this team was going to end up in the lottery and draft guys like Banchero or Chet. Come on guys. Lol.

[Marty_Budda]

Nobody wants to seem like too much of a homer, so we all set our expectations to what we feel people think is 'realistic'.

Personally, I thought that losing Lowry was going to hit us a lot harder than it did.

I agree to an extent, I thought we’d be a play in team with a 500 record. But I just found it strange giving up on a super young team that has so much room left for development. If pascal and Fvv were like 32 I’d have been all in for a tank and hoping for a rebuild. But I mean look at our top 6 players.

Pascal - 27
Fvv -28
Barnes - 20
OG - 24
Trent - 23
Precious - 22

THIS IS the rebuild. No more tanking. Play hard, try to win games and develop the young guys we have

I thought we were in that play-in range too. What I found bizarre was how people refused to acknowledge what happened last year. We had tons of injuries last year to our starters and they rarely had the chance to play with each other.

There was complete ignorance and a complete lack of critical thinking. This team might win 48 games games this year, possibly more despite the injuries and people thought this team was going to end up in the lottery and draft guys like Banchero or Chet. Come on guys. Lol.

People just didn’t want to give Fvv and mainly pascal the benefit of the doubt. When the season started people were saying Wiggins and Pascal were the same level of player. Idk what it is about some fans but they always rate other teams average players ahead of our own top players.

[Madhouse]

Raptors were a .500 team before covid last year.

[rapz**7**]

It is a retool.
Both GTJr and OG have not reached their full potential and Barnes is only 20 years old thus naturally there will be growing pains.
Masai is taking some of the pressure away with that "growing pain"

A team that was 4th seed playing all road games led by NBA Finals Champs in FVV and Siakam cannot turn around and start losing games once they are back in their arena.

At their age and with their resume, unless you trade both for "prospects", this cannot be a rebuilding. You should fully expect a playoff-run as long as Nurse, FVV, OG and Siakam are around.

Damn. Aged like fine wine.

[mdenny]

well, there were growing pains. Just not for very long.

For sure, but they will be back too. I am very happy with what the team has achieved and how they have performed but it won't all be forward from here.

I won't be anywhere near this board when we lose the last game of the season. I'm an invested fan. Thats why i come here. I have no idea why ppl are allowed to troll invested fans on this site. It's just as bad as when fans of the team who beat us were allowed to come here and gloat. For whatever reason....one of those is sanctioned and the other is not.

I didnt sign up to get made fun of by trolls after a disappointing loss. I get peeved when we lose a big game. I would never gloat on a losing team's board. Like i said....i have no idea why that's considered fair play around here. I can't bring myself to formally complain about someone doing it. I'd like to think we're all here on our honor.

[Van_Trump]

In his defence, who could have predicted the growth of GTJ and Precious, to say nothing of Scottie Barnes?

Also, where did this version of Chris Boucher come from?

[Brettfinch]

well, there were growing pains. Just not for very long.

For sure, but they will be back too. I am very happy with what the team has achieved and how they have performed but it won't all be forward from here.

I won't be anywhere near this board when we lose the last game of the season. I'm an invested fan. Thats why i come here. I have no idea why ppl are allowed to troll invested fans on this site. It's just as bad as when fans of the team who beat us were allowed to come here and gloat. For whatever reason....one of those is sanctioned and the other is not.

I didnt sign up to get made fun of by trolls after a disappointing loss. I get peeved when we lose a big game. I would never gloat on a losing team's board. Like i said....i have no idea why that's considered fair play around here. I can't bring myself to formally complain about someone doing it. I'd like to think we're all here on our honor.

Dude who cares, you can't let that **** bother you. If you believe something, why does it matter what some troll says. Ignore and block if it bothers you that much. Who gets to choose what's a troll and what's not.

Sent from my SM-N986W using RealGM mobile app

[Johnny Bball]

Quite the re-read. Read it all again for kicks.

Imagine that, all these guys posting that much, in that way, and being wrong about all of it.

And one guy calling everyone else mediocre minded while doing it.

[ruckus]

Before the season, I had the Raps right around the over/under at the time 36 or 37 wins. The only way I thought they would be better than that record was if the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

I was wrong.

The parts have been so much better than expected and the chemistry is rounding into shape at just the right time.

Pascal has been better. Fred has been better. Trent has been better. Scottie has been better. Precious, Chris, even OG despite missing time have all been better than expected.

The playoffs will be interesting.

[Backcountry]

From what Masai said, my prediction was that we would be "competitive losers". I really believed that teams like NY, Atlanta, Indiana etc. had improved in the offseason and we would be fighting for maybe a play-in spot. Didn't see Chicago or Cleveland improving like they did, but I also figured that "growing pains" meant all season long! It's been a fun ride so far.

[Raps1103]

TWO szn. The vice chairman is on our side too

How’s that tank working out for you ? Man .. you TWO guys are so knowledgeable !! Lol
Bahahaha .. so confident .. just to be wrong AGAIN! Lol

Btw.. with 6 games left .. we’re fighting for 5th .. and 2.5 games outta 3rd and only 4.5 games outta 1st
Now.. I’m not suggesting that we’ll get to 1st or even 3rd…. But .. 4 games outta 1st place… is a far cry from tanking .. not a lot of difference in a team that’s won 4 more games than us !!

I guess you didn’t know what the hell you were talking about … oops !
( growing pains doesn’t not equate to .. tanking)

Good luck with your next prediction tho

[ATLTimekeeper]

From what Masai said, my prediction was that we would be "competitive losers". I really believed that teams like NY, Atlanta, Indiana etc. had improved in the offseason and we would be fighting for maybe a play-in spot. Didn't see Chicago or Cleveland improving like they did, but I also figured that "growing pains" meant all season long! It's been a fun ride so far.

I think Masai just correctly softened expectations for fans, but it was really unlikely he was expecting them to lose, even competitively. Everything about that guy is winning this, winning that... What he tells the fans or media is just to set the tone, but Bobby Webster was talking about how they wanted this to be the 2013/14 season. And he was pretty much bang on.

[Raps1103]

For sure, but they will be back too. I am very happy with what the team has achieved and how they have performed but it won't all be forward from here.

I won't be anywhere near this board when we lose the last game of the season. I'm an invested fan. Thats why i come here. I have no idea why ppl are allowed to troll invested fans on this site. It's just as bad as when fans of the team who beat us were allowed to come here and gloat. For whatever reason....one of those is sanctioned and the other is not.

I didnt sign up to get made fun of by trolls after a disappointing loss. I get peeved when we lose a big game. I would never gloat on a losing team's board. Like i said....i have no idea why that's considered fair play around here. I can't bring myself to formally complain about someone doing it. I'd like to think we're all here on our honor.

Dude who cares, you can't let that **** bother you. If you believe something, why does it matter what some troll says. Ignore and block if it bothers you that much. Who gets to choose what's a troll and what's not.

Sent from my SM-N986W using RealGM mobile app

Isn’t that LITERALLY the MODS job? I know they don’t really do it.. but I’m pretty sure, that’s there literal purpose

[Madhouse]

I've said it before we're going to be rebuilding this year. Will be a 32-39 win team and back in the lottery and get another good young player to build with.

It's probably more of retool but he's setting expectations lower. We've been spoiled with year after year success, I think he's saying we will play our young players but try to be competitive.

Exactly. Basically enjoy watching banton, precious, scottie, etc, develop. Don't worry about our record.

A 44-32 retool isn't bad.

[TR50]

Our growing pains are going to come in this year's playoffs (as we eventually win 16 games in them)

[Madhouse]

Where all my heads that think moving from Tampa will add 20 wins this year?

Masai with that reality dose.

well, we have added 17 so far with 6 more games remaining.

[720]

Nurse had different plans and played our starters 40+ plus minutes vs injury riddled teams.

[Raps1103]

Nurse had different plans and played our starters 40+ plus minutes vs injury riddled teams.

BaHahaha … this guy is such a troll .. that he can’t even be happy about our winning record .. he’s making up bulls#%t excuses, as to WHY WE’RE DOING SO WELL !! Lol lol .. and this guy is just allowed to bait n troll .. just wow !!