Pulse check: Tank

[bluerap23]

Just want to see how everyone is feeling about a tank season.

[ArthurVandelay]

If young players weren’t getting experience and showing improvement, I’d be worried. But the Raptors are doing both.

The team lacks elite star talent, outside Scottie, but seems loaded with rotational and starter level talent.

The tank rolls on and I’ll be there to watch every game.

[DAcReator]

Can’t understand how one would want to see this team start winning meaningless games to find themselves middle of the pack

[Gavin_TDThree]

Looking at how the roster was built, this was inevitable. It's also exactly what we need TBH. Adding a top 3 pick in this draft to pair alongside scottie gives us the building blocks for the future.

Look at the team that just beat us. They drafted their two studs as the foundation and build around it.

#inevitable

Watch on YouTube

[Merit]

I’m about the tank.

[Potential]

I hate this part of the process. I hate tanking. **** the tank. But we gotta do what we gotta do!

[Mr Funk]

Teammates who love playing with another and never give up, who are developing and showing clear improvement, while establishing a new culture with tremendous camaraderie and learning to win. It's the perfect tank. Who could ask for anything more.

[kalel123]

I neither love nor hate the tank but at this point, might as well. The worry is when the schedule gets easier and the team gets healthier, this team will start winning more games and be middle of the pack again. What I hate the most is being in no man's land and this team is still in danger of that happening. Our harder part of the schedule just happened to coincide with the injuries. So not out of the woods yet.

[ATLTimekeeper]

Teammates who love playing with another and never give up, who are developing and showing clear improvement, while establishing a new culture with tremendous camaraderie and learning to win. It's the perfect tank. Who could ask for anything more.

But if they were actually pulling out games I think you would resent them for never giving up and resent their camaraderie. It's only because they're losing that most of you are happy. Poeltl plays well and tankers want him traded for maximum value, etc. They don't care that Poeltl is a part of this team, just that he represents a pathway to more value. The only value this team has to tankers is to provide them with a player they can apply even more hope to.

[Jcity08]

I don't care about meaningless play-in driven wins, we all know this team isn't ready to compete yet, right now we have a window where our star player is still fairly young and our core is pretty young themselves, so we have time to start winning again, but this season might be the last season we have a chance to get a high pick in a loaded draft in a very long while.

[Anticon]

It's not really tanking; this is a natural reflection of the roster. This team does a lot of things well but they aren't good enough to rack up wins.

I expect that will shift a bit in the new year if Barnes and Quickley are back and teams take the foot of the gas in March/April. So it's best to get these losses in now.

Along with the development, you see the rep Toronto is getting as a great product to watch. That's never been a situation we've been in during a down year so that's very positive and bodes well for the future.
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[djsunyc]

Just want to see how everyone is feeling about a tank season.

we started our "reset/rebuild" midway through last season making a few big trades. this is our first year on a new path.

we are collecting data on players and coaches. unfortunately we have had alot of injuries so i would like to see what this squad can look like when fully healthy.

its a process and will take a while. i, as a fan, have zero control over anything so i choose to just watch and enjoy. this has been a hard working fun team that just started a new chapter. exciting times!

[ATLTimekeeper]

It's not really tanking; this is a natural reflection of the roster. This team does a lot of things well but they aren't good enough to rack up wins.

I expect that will shift a bit in the new year if Barnes and Quickley are back and teams take the foot of the gas in March/April. So it's best to get these losses in now.

Along with the development, you see the rep Toronto is getting as a great product to watch. That's never been a situation we've been in during a down year so that's very positive and bodes well for the future.
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I think narratives change easily, though. People were excited about the Young Gunz/Ones. And the only one of them that ended up good they turned on when he matured into a non-superstar.

If you go to the ground floor of every rebuild their fans online will be happy and say, 'finally, we're doing it right." It's sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, but we don't know until it actually cashes in. What does happen, which I don't like, is that the promise of better things becomes the benchmark to judge the outcomes. When those promises aren't kept, it turns into backlash and fans get personal with the players.

I did look back at all the awful seasons from day one, and the only good ones in my memory are when we first had a team. We can't go back to that. We'll need to see steady progress, our lotto pick will have to be the best of the bunch, and it still might not be enough and fans will have to make peace with that or they will call for another and another tank.

[Anticon]

It's not really tanking; this is a natural reflection of the roster. This team does a lot of things well but they aren't good enough to rack up wins.

I expect that will shift a bit in the new year if Barnes and Quickley are back and teams take the foot of the gas in March/April. So it's best to get these losses in now.

Along with the development, you see the rep Toronto is getting as a great product to watch. That's never been a situation we've been in during a down year so that's very positive and bodes well for the future.
.

I think narratives change easily, though. People were excited about the Young Gunz/Ones. And the only one of them that ended up good they turned on when he matured into a non-superstar.

If you go to the ground floor of every rebuild their fans online will be happy and say, 'finally, we're doing it right." It's sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, but we don't know until it actually cashes in. What does happen, which I don't like, is that the promise of better things becomes the benchmark to judge the outcomes. When those promises aren't kept, it turns into backlash and fans get personal with the players.

I did look back at all the awful seasons from day one, and the only good ones in my memory are when we first had a team. We can't go back to that. We'll need to see steady progress, our lotto pick will have to be the best of the bunch, and it still might not be enough and fans will have to make peace with that or they will call for another and another tank.

It's only the beginning so for sure, we can't say where things will be in 2-3 years. There are so many things that will impact that - draft position, trades of Brown/Poeltl, players emerging/failing - that I don't think there's much point worrying about that now.

Rebuilds are likely non linear. The top picks you draft may not work out; you have to be prepared to pivot. It will probably take 3-4 years. This is still a much smarter rebuild than 2009, when there wasn't realism about the state the team was in.

Eventually patience and the novelty of the lovable losers will run out, but as long as you're realistic about what's possible, it helps to manage expectations.

[wegotthabeet]

I hate this part of the process. I hate tanking. **** the tank. But we gotta do what we gotta do!

There’s no way anyone who watched the past two seasons preferred watching those two teams when compared to this year’s team. Despite the record the viewer experience has been far more enjoyable. This team is just simply more entertaining.

[Scase]

No one loves tanking, it sucks to have to go through, but anyone who thinks this team was "above" tanking or didn't need it, is just clueless. This was multiple years late, but we're finally here and it will result in a better team in the end. Lets keep those losses comin!

[BHF]

Barnes is not that guy IQ is not that guy and neither is RJ, we need to tank and hope we draft a player with star potential. If Barnes doesnt fix his attitude he will soon look like a terrible contract. IQ misses more layups than 3s

[Airmiess]

It's going well, but Toronto sports fans just don't have the collective tolerance to withstand these type of course events. People going crazy.

[sidsid]

Let's not forget that the team is in this narrow path (heavily reliant on hitting big on this year's lotto pick to add to their existing franchise player and cadre of role players) because the faction that's adamant on becoming mediocre as quickly as possible got exactly what it wanted. Hope you all enjoyed that Bulls play-in loss.

Not trading Fred/trading for Jak in a shambles locker room trade deadline has cost us:
- a close 10% chance at Wemby or a high lotto pick
- the 2024 lotto pick (or those juicy future Wolves picks)
- a future Bucks 1st.
- if we don't trade Jak, could easily push us out of favourable draft position yet again.

This timeline is what you end up with when you make catastrophic, shortsighted decisions.

This is what team mediocre bought, and it's left the team with no shortcuts for long term improvements. Let's hope the FO has the patience this time around to not triple down on repeating the same mistakes.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

If you want to make an omelet, you need to break a few eggs.

Look, the reality is we're already out of any race other than this. And we're winning this one, so.