Masai’s plan moving forward

[Johnny Bball]

Unless your a Siakam fanboy everyone knows he needs to be traded, these clowns still believe Siakam is some superstar and better then Barnes. They loved it when Barnes was only getting 10 or less shots some nights because the two ball pigs Siakam and his good buddy Fred were playing your turn my turn offence and made sure Barnes never ate. So yes, the plan should be trading Pascal this month and just move ahead with retooling around OG/Barnes.

Ah the Siakam 'fanboys' that post 'somewhere' on 'other' social media sites that allow you to vent about things that don't actually exist.

Not sure what you talking about? other social media sites. Yes there are Siakam fanboys that don't want to let go, no different then Fred. They prefer watching Siakam continue putting up empty stats and the team going no where because they have no bench and depth at the guard position. Yes it makes perfect sense to trade Siakam and use his salary to address those areas of weakness.

Inventing people in order to be superior to them. Totally sane.

[canada_dry]

Build a competitive team around scottie. The trades should be to get guys that are ready to compete now that also fit around scottie. Actually good 3 and d players. A good guard that can also play off ball to scottie as well as with the ball. Young enough to be able to build with but not too young that its a project and not ready right now.

We need scottie to be The Guy in games that are competitive and mean something. The more reps the better.

Current roster construction could be better and more balanced obviously.

The 2nd path could be continuing to star hunt. Maybe that fit is the next star available and its 2 birds with 1 stone (mitchell for example).



Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

[ItsDanger]

Key part of the plan is what he does with Siakam. Extend or trade?

The top 15 and superstar talk on this board as little as ONE YEAR ago has disappeared. Shall we bring up some bad takes from those threads? Couldn't even admit the guy was playing selfishly chasing stats.

Masai himself pointed the finger at Pascal for playing selfish and chasing stats, it was not just Fred.

I called it out last season and was routinely attacked here for it. Yet, look who was right. Should have traded him last season or at latest, this offseason. Now, they really backed themselves into a corner. Masai should outsource negotiations because this has been terrible deal making.

[Duffman100]

Unless your a Siakam fanboy everyone knows he needs to be traded, these clowns still believe Siakam is some superstar and better then Barnes. They loved it when Barnes was only getting 10 or less shots some nights because the two ball pigs Siakam and his good buddy Fred were playing your turn my turn offence and made sure Barnes never ate. So yes, the plan should be trading Pascal this month and just move ahead with retooling around OG/Barnes.

Ah the Siakam 'fanboys' that post 'somewhere' on 'other' social media sites that allow you to vent about things that don't actually exist.

Not sure what you talking about? other social media sites. Yes there are Siakam fanboys that don't want to let go, no different then Fred. They prefer watching Siakam continue putting up empty stats and the team going no where because they have no bench and depth at the guard position. Yes it makes perfect sense to trade Siakam and use his salary to address those areas of weakness.

Last time you were asked for evidence of these posters, you said it existed "elsewhere" on other sites.

Anyone who follows your posts know your slant on Masai and Siakam and what is the driving force behind it.

[Rapsfan07]

The plan moving forward involves Scottie replacing Pascal as the number one option, Gradey will replace GTJ, OG will be resigned. Schroeder as the back up point guard long term.


And then we need to find a star guard, who can shoot and is a playmaker. We also need a stretch 5 to pair with Poeltl, similar to the Gasol-Ibaka combo at Centre.

That’s a solid 7 player rotation, if we can find that star point guard as our number 2 option.

Essentially we need to copy the 2019 championship team, here's what I propose
PG Davion Mitchell very similar game to Lowry same body type, and has a dog mentality
SG Malcolm Brogdon veteran guard that can shoot and run some point
SF Scottie Barnes, he's our Kawhi
PF OG, he will replace Siakam
C Jakob Poetl and Miles Turner, Gasol and Ibaka 2.0

And how exactly do we execute these deals and/or acquire players of this mold when we don't have a draft pick this year and the only players everyone wants to trade is Trent, Siakam, Boucher and our expirings?

I've said this before in many other threads but I think all of these attempts to build around anyone on this team other than Scottie Barnes is putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound.

What we need/needed to do was what every other smart team has done - move guys at the top of their value, acquire picks and young players and build around that. As luck would have it, it seems we've already gotten at least one of our cornerstone guys in Barnes. But if we're serious about contending again, we need to either :

A) go back to the draft and/or acquire picks and young players via the trade of our veterans to put more around Barnes and build for the future

or

B) trade everyone and future picks (except for Barnes and OG) for a star (we weren't able to close on any of the last few that have become available) or as close as we can get to that kind of player and hope for the best (which is also part of the approach we took to building that championship team)

As far as I'm concerned, these are really the only two options. Everything or anything else in between is wasting time. And mind you, being "in between" is okay if you are on the way to doing either one of these two things. But just straddling the fence for an extended period wastes the players time, the fans time, the term on the players contract and lessens the value you get should you decide to trade players, thus keeping you on the fence potentially longer than you need to be.

I'd prefer option A, as I believe the payoff is far greater and is logistically easier to pull off than trying to build a contender out of trading Siakam, Boucher, Trent and picks but I know most are looking for the instant gratification.

[sidsid]

Don't know what the plan is, but here's how things should go and might go:

Immediate concerns to address:

- Trading Jak: there is no Scottie hub with an offense-less C in the way. Priority is to move him before the deadline to find players that fit. You can't have a C that can't hit a corner 3 moving forward on this team.

- Boucher's cap hit next year: there's a wide scale of outcomes cap wise with the amount of unrestricteds on the team. He doesn't fit the style of play and overlaps negatives with Precious. Need to move the money by deadline.

Near term concerns:

- Trent's contract. See above and below. Money might be tight. If he doesn't have a reasonable number now to extend, might have to move at deadline.

Variable:

Siakam trade or sign. Like last year, Masai is very unlikely to accept less than what he wants, which means Siakam has a high likelihood of staying. That's guaranteed money that impacts everything above next year.

[Scase]

Key part of the plan is what he does with Siakam. Extend or trade?

The top 15 and superstar talk on this board as little as ONE YEAR ago has disappeared. Shall we bring up some bad takes from those threads? Couldn't even admit the guy was playing selfishly chasing stats.

There's more than a handful of people I keep seeing refer to him as an all star and all NBA player, as if those aren't things that you kind of need to keep up consistently. At best I'd accept him as an all star level player.

[Dexjackson]

I'm OK with moving Siakam just because from what I've seen, his role on the team doesn't align with the money he probably is looking to make. With Scottie take on more of the offensive load, Pascal's usefulness on that end is limited.

I'd like to see Pascal lean into year 1/2/3 Siakam and be a disruptor on defense and just outrunning everyone all over the place. But even that role probably doesn't justify a $40-50+ million contract.

Exactly, unless he is willing to resign for around 30-35 mllion by 4 seasons then they need to trade him now to help use his cap money to better balance the roster.

Agreed. It's one thing to retain him as an asset management move. Problem is if you max him, I don't think he's an asset anymore but rather someone you need to take back a least one bad contract to make a deal work.

[Dude-niagara]

Ah the Siakam 'fanboys' that post 'somewhere' on 'other' social media sites that allow you to vent about things that don't actually exist.

Not sure what you talking about? other social media sites. Yes there are Siakam fanboys that don't want to let go, no different then Fred. They prefer watching Siakam continue putting up empty stats and the team going no where because they have no bench and depth at the guard position. Yes it makes perfect sense to trade Siakam and use his salary to address those areas of weakness.

Last time you were asked for evidence of these posters, you said it existed "elsewhere" on other sites.

Anyone who follows your posts know your slant on Masai and Siakam and what is the driving force behind it.

My driving force is winning and getting back to being a successful team that is fun to watch. Yes I hate Masai for what he has done to this team since Leonard left ( living off of that chip). As for Siakam, hard working guy who helped us win our first chip but as the top option he has reached his ceiling .

I think just like Fred he has had empty stats and team has not had any real success with him as the top guy. All about being a sports fan

Where either person came from has nothing to do with sports and how I feel about them and being part of the Raptors.

[mademan]

Not even really trying to hot take here, but is there any evidence that Masai has a plan?

I think there's a vague idea of staying "competitive" (re: not tanking) while stockpiling assets and accumulating value (even certain trades everyone hates are usually reasonable "value"), but I don't know what the next step is.

I have a feeling the Pascal trade will be one of those weird ones where the guys involved are kind of surprising. An old school player for player swap, not one of these star for cap space and picks deals. Something like the Sabonis for Haliburton/Hield deal.

The same plan he has had for a decade.

1) Bring in defense first players. Majority of draft picks we have ever made were guys who were defense first or projects who projected as best case defensively sound players and try to develop their offense. (Bruno, Delon, Poeltl, Siakam, OG, Flynn (outlier), Barnes, Dick, Koloko, Powell, Banton, etc. --- ALL were defensive players when drafted). Arguably our 2 best pieces right now (Barnes and OG) were two guys who projected as high level defenders who some offensive question marks.

2) Retain players. Outside of when deals absolutely need to be made (Gay, Powell, Demar, etc.), Masai has always been a patient guy who does not make knee jerk moves and prefers to build within. We might be approaching a necessary move with Siakam just to re-stock our depth shelves and/or due to salary constraints.

So there is a plan, it just is not the plan a lot of people on this board agree with despite a decades worth of results to suggest maybe the guy is on to something.

This. The only difference today and the 2014-2020 golden era is that we hit on basically every pick. Thats not real and not sustainable. If Flynn and Koloko were hits and we found an undrafted guy and our 2nd rounders were rotation level players (like 2014-2020), then we'd be a HCA type team right now dangling Siakam and looking like a team ready to take a championship jump. But we didnt hit. Thats the NBA

[Dude-niagara]

I'm OK with moving Siakam just because from what I've seen, his role on the team doesn't align with the money he probably is looking to make. With Scottie take on more of the offensive load, Pascal's usefulness on that end is limited.

I'd like to see Pascal lean into year 1/2/3 Siakam and be a disruptor on defense and just outrunning everyone all over the place. But even that role probably doesn't justify a $40-50+ million contract.

Exactly, unless he is willing to resign for around 30-35 mllion by 4 seasons then they need to trade him now to help use his cap money to better balance the roster.

Agreed. It's one thing to retain him as an asset management move. Problem is if you max him, I don't think he's an asset anymore but rather someone you need to take back a least one bad contract to make a deal work.

I agree, if Bobby/Masai extend Pascal with a Max that could be a tough contract for them to trade later because he will be older and playing in a reduced role.

[Dude-niagara]

Key part of the plan is what he does with Siakam. Extend or trade?

The top 15 and superstar talk on this board as little as ONE YEAR ago has disappeared. Shall we bring up some bad takes from those threads? Couldn't even admit the guy was playing selfishly chasing stats.

Masai himself pointed the finger at Pascal for playing selfish and chasing stats, it was not just Fred.

I called it out last season and was routinely attacked here for it. Yet, look who was right. Should have traded him last season or at latest, this offseason. Now, they really backed themselves into a corner. Masai should outsource negotiations because this has been terrible deal making.

I said before that if he does not trade him in Nov/Dec this will not end well and maybe Masai just wants to be forced into having to give him a max extension to avoid losing an asset for nothing.

[brownbobcat]

This is not NBA Live. This is real life. You have to pivot when it makes sense as a GM. Remember, getting KL2 was directionless according to you. KL2 was not on his radar until he demanded a trade. Ujiri and team had to pivot, and offer a package the Spurs would like.

Barnes seems to be living up to expectations. Ujiri and co now have to pivot again. Meaning building around him, and getting players that'd compliment his game. It's not being directionless. It's adapting to your situation, players, and the league as you go. Again this is not NBA live. It's real life.

If throwing out random proposals for KD and Dame are not the very definition of the NBA Live approach, I don't know what is.
Trading lotto picks for a decent but non-star C while the team is struggling and you're also entertaining offers to blow up the core?
Absolutely something stupid a GM does in a video game or fantasy league.

I am in favour of a measured and purposeful accumulation of assets. Draft well, make trades to find future core pieces, stay flexible. I was OK with most of the overall direction through the post-championship era. Don't tank for no reason, see if you can pivot around some solid pieces like Siakam, FVV and OG.

2020-21: Bubble season. Some individual players having OK seasons, but losses adding up. They adopt a mini-tank strategy, make sensible moves as they give up on playoffs and trade FAs like Lowry & Norm.

2021-22 comes around and let's see how the team performs. Ah, great success - very nice! But, mistake! First delusions of grandeur appear as they trade down to get Thad. I'm not going to rehash everything, but it was way too early to waste picks for vets at this point, asset accumulation should not have been abandoned. Not a disastrous mistake, but a strategic misstep nonetheless.

2022-23 By the trade deadline, it was 100% clear that the prior year was an overachievement. None of the young guys have taken huge steps forward, the vets have regressed, coaching situation becomes very fragmented, selfishness is abounding. Offers are pouring in for OG and Masai is listening and making counter-offers. Nobody knows which way the Raptors are leaning. What does he do in the end? Trade away lotto picks for an adequate center. How does he sound at the post-trade press conference? Unenthused, frustrated. Certainly doesn't sound like a guy who just won big. Play-in happens and a 9-yr old girl breaks the team's back like she's Bane reincarnate. Coach fired, Van Vleet leaves, extensions unresolved as key players set to hit FA next year.

How does any of that sound like the team is ready to pivot to contention by trading for an extremely disgruntled 33yr old guard with $215M left on his contract? It's not real life, it's real stupid.

At no point did I ever call the Kawhi trade directionless, it was a reasonable gamble based on the old core having plateaued. That team was loaded with assets. Even if Kawhi didn't play a single game, they would've won close to 50ish games and had many more pieces to explore trades and find their star. Building around Barnes (or the hope of Barnes) was already obvious 2 seasons ago, it's the very reason you don't go around trading away lottery picks. You need other young promising players around him that fit the timeline - they have ZERO.

It was already obvious that maxing Siakam would've been a terrible idea given his age and playing style. That's why they didn't extend him, but then you can't just leave the situation as-is. If you don't want him, trade him, commit to a direction. Trading for Lillard is not "pivoting", it's a Hail Mary.

[alienchild]

Key part of the plan is what he does with Siakam. Extend or trade?

The top 15 and superstar talk on this board as little as ONE YEAR ago has disappeared. Shall we bring up some bad takes from those threads? Couldn't even admit the guy was playing selfishly chasing stats.

Masai himself pointed the finger at Pascal for playing selfish and chasing stats, it was not just Fred.

Oh, stop! Masai never pointed a finger at any player. He said "at times the team played selfish". You're inserting your OPINION of Masai's comments as if they were fact. Then, you want people to take your opinion like it was true. It isn't.

[Scase]

Not even really trying to hot take here, but is there any evidence that Masai has a plan?

I think there's a vague idea of staying "competitive" (re: not tanking) while stockpiling assets and accumulating value (even certain trades everyone hates are usually reasonable "value"), but I don't know what the next step is.

I have a feeling the Pascal trade will be one of those weird ones where the guys involved are kind of surprising. An old school player for player swap, not one of these star for cap space and picks deals. Something like the Sabonis for Haliburton/Hield deal.

The same plan he has had for a decade.

1) Bring in defense first players. Majority of draft picks we have ever made were guys who were defense first or projects who projected as best case defensively sound players and try to develop their offense. (Bruno, Delon, Poeltl, Siakam, OG, Flynn (outlier), Barnes, Dick, Koloko, Powell, Banton, etc. --- ALL were defensive players when drafted). Arguably our 2 best pieces right now (Barnes and OG) were two guys who projected as high level defenders who some offensive question marks.

2) Retain players. Outside of when deals absolutely need to be made (Gay, Powell, Demar, etc.), Masai has always been a patient guy who does not make knee jerk moves and prefers to build within. We might be approaching a necessary move with Siakam just to re-stock our depth shelves and/or due to salary constraints.

So there is a plan, it just is not the plan a lot of people on this board agree with despite a decades worth of results to suggest maybe the guy is on to something.

This. The only difference today and the 2014-2020 golden era is that we hit on basically every pick. Thats not real and not sustainable. If Flynn and Koloko were hits and we found an undrafted guy and our 2nd rounders were rotation level players (like 2014-2020), then we'd be a HCA type team right now dangling Siakam and looking like a team ready to take a championship jump. But we didnt hit. Thats the NBA

The fact that it's not realistic just goes to show how poorly planned out this path was then. There is literally a zero percent chance that Covid and a top 4 pick was in the plans, if not for that pick, we'd still be middling AF with no real future.

The Scottie pick bailed them out, and hard.

[ForeverTFC]

Once again, a thread getting derailed by the same people posting the same thing over and over.

Back on topic: I believe the direction has become much more clear since the season started. For me, a few things have become very clear:
1. Scottie can definitely be your primary creator
2. OG is very complementary to Scottie on both sides and belongs as a core piece moving forward
3. We need a lead guard that can be the primary scoring option beside Barnes; if not, we need a stretch 4/5 and a "quarterback" at the 1
4. Pascal is the odd man out; the offense is not dictating to him at all which is depressing his numbers but he just doesn't fit long term with how we want to play and his trade value is higher for us than his player value at his current role in this system; he should be moved within the next year, ideally by the deadline to help us with bullet 3
4. Prioritize vets off the bench; we need smart players that can play with Scottie and adopt Darko's schemes
5. More shooting please

Outside of owing a pick next year, I think we are in a pretty good position as a franchise. What we do with Pascal is key to this though.

[YogurtProducer]

The same plan he has had for a decade.

1) Bring in defense first players. Majority of draft picks we have ever made were guys who were defense first or projects who projected as best case defensively sound players and try to develop their offense. (Bruno, Delon, Poeltl, Siakam, OG, Flynn (outlier), Barnes, Dick, Koloko, Powell, Banton, etc. --- ALL were defensive players when drafted). Arguably our 2 best pieces right now (Barnes and OG) were two guys who projected as high level defenders who some offensive question marks.

2) Retain players. Outside of when deals absolutely need to be made (Gay, Powell, Demar, etc.), Masai has always been a patient guy who does not make knee jerk moves and prefers to build within. We might be approaching a necessary move with Siakam just to re-stock our depth shelves and/or due to salary constraints.

So there is a plan, it just is not the plan a lot of people on this board agree with despite a decades worth of results to suggest maybe the guy is on to something.

This. The only difference today and the 2014-2020 golden era is that we hit on basically every pick. Thats not real and not sustainable. If Flynn and Koloko were hits and we found an undrafted guy and our 2nd rounders were rotation level players (like 2014-2020), then we'd be a HCA type team right now dangling Siakam and looking like a team ready to take a championship jump. But we didnt hit. Thats the NBA

The fact that it's not realistic just goes to show how poorly planned out this path was then. There is literally a zero percent chance that Covid and a top 4 pick was in the plans, if not for that pick, we'd still be middling AF with no real future.

The Scottie pick bailed them out, and hard.

Or maybe that team (that won 60-ish games the year prior) was not actually a 27-win team and we still make the playoffs the year after with a Lowry/FVV/Powell/OG/Siakam led team. Baynes was bad, but he was not 32 wins worse than Gasol bad.

He did not say the plan was not realistic, he is saying that sometimes things do not work out. You can have perfect "process" and not see the best results. That is just the reality of how the NBA works.

Three GMs could all follow the exact same plan/strategy, and have 3 wildly different outcomes.

[YogurtProducer]

Ah the Siakam 'fanboys' that post 'somewhere' on 'other' social media sites that allow you to vent about things that don't actually exist.

Not sure what you talking about? other social media sites. Yes there are Siakam fanboys that don't want to let go, no different then Fred. They prefer watching Siakam continue putting up empty stats and the team going no where because they have no bench and depth at the guard position. Yes it makes perfect sense to trade Siakam and use his salary to address those areas of weakness.

Inventing people in order to be superior to them. Totally sane.

Also the mental gymnastics you gotta pull off to think here are posters that actually want Barnes to be bad or something? Makes no sense.

[Scase]

This. The only difference today and the 2014-2020 golden era is that we hit on basically every pick. Thats not real and not sustainable. If Flynn and Koloko were hits and we found an undrafted guy and our 2nd rounders were rotation level players (like 2014-2020), then we'd be a HCA type team right now dangling Siakam and looking like a team ready to take a championship jump. But we didnt hit. Thats the NBA

The fact that it's not realistic just goes to show how poorly planned out this path was then. There is literally a zero percent chance that Covid and a top 4 pick was in the plans, if not for that pick, we'd still be middling AF with no real future.

The Scottie pick bailed them out, and hard.

Or maybe that team (that won 60-ish games the year prior) was not actually a 27-win team and we still make the playoffs the year after with a Lowry/FVV/Powell/OG/Siakam led team. Baynes was bad, but he was not 32 wins worse than Gasol bad.

He did not say the plan was not realistic, he is saying that sometimes things do not work out. You can have perfect "process" and not see the best results. That is just the reality of how the NBA works.

Three GMs could all follow the exact same plan/strategy, and have 3 wildly different outcomes.

It also was absolutely not a 60 win team either. I'm not sure what you are trying to argue here. The suggestion made was that had we had our low firsts high seconds pan out to be productive players, we'd be ECF bound. Take a look at our current team, and tell me the only reason we aren't is because we didn't get wildly lucky on low value picks.

No the team wasn't a 27 win team, but without Scottie the next year, we likely wouldn't even have been .500, Scottie that year contributed 6.6 WS, round it up to 7 cause partial games don't exist, and tada, 41-41.

Be realistic man.

[Johnny Bball]

Lets just be real. If the Raptors aren't tanking or trading away their stars/good players, the majority of this forum says they have no direction. Because its not their idea of a chosen direction, and because ironically, they are impatient as hell.