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The Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs walked away from the 2011 NBA Draft with Klay Thompson and Kawhi Leonard, but both teams were looking to trade into the top-5 to select Jonas Valanciunas.

Valanciunas fell to the Toronto Raptors at No. 5 as he wasn't planning on coming over to the NBA for one more season.

Bob Myers suspected the Spurs' Plan B in trading up ahead of the Warriors at No. 11 was to select Thompson, the player they were targeting with their lottery pick.

The Milwaukee Bucks also liked Thompson and they were picking 10th, but they moved out of the spot following a trade with the Sacramento Kings, who wanted Jimmer Fredette.

Via Adrian Wojnarowski/The Vertical

Sometimes, being lucky > being good. Not that Klay is definitely better than JV, but who knows what kind of dominos would fall if that happened? We still might have Monta Ellis even, which would mean no Bogut.. which would mean no title.

At this point mutually beneficial for Toronto and JV to part ways. Toronto's not a good organization to develop bigs with the current offensive schemes and satisfied with Demar iso ball that barely edges out lower seeds in the postseason. If Lowry leaves this summer this team will return to treadmill mode.

Bullet dodged.

coopnyc74 wrote:Bullet dodged.

Jonas isn't that bad. He's a double double guy, but Klay is more valuable forsure.

The Jonas Valanciunas that presently plays for the Raptors is not the same player we'd see if he went to the Spurs and was mentored by Tim Duncan and developed/coached by the Spurs coaching staff under Popovich. Hard to say how things would have turned out with GSW considering their move to small and fast, partly because of Klay, but the Raptors seem uninterested in exploiting his skills fully. Casey's vision of a C is stuck on Tyson Chandler, who he won a title with in Dallas, and the over-reliance on Demar Derozan is not going to change as long as he's around.

I'm a Raptors fan and a JV fan and hope there's a way for his development to continue here, but with Lowry saving the Toronto based careers of Derozan and Casey, it seems those two will be around for as long as the team looks to be among the best in the East, aside from the Lebrons of Cleveland. We're just not getting the most out of his skills.

No doubt Klay and Kahwi are spectacular players, but it does make you wonder if teams as successful as the Spurs and Warriors wanted him that much, is Toronto missing out on something by developing him into a glorified Luc Longley?

Courtside wrote:The Jonas Valanciunas that presently plays for the Raptors is not the same player we'd see if he went to the Spurs and was mentored by Tim Duncan and developed/coached by the Spurs coaching staff under Popovich. Hard to say how things would have turned out with GSW considering their move to small and fast, partly because of Klay, but the Raptors seem uninterested in exploiting his skills fully. Casey's vision of a C is stuck on Tyson Chandler, who he won a title with in Dallas, and the over-reliance on Demar Derozan is not going to change as long as he's around.

I'm a Raptors fan and a JV fan and hope there's a way for his development to continue here, but with Lowry saving the Toronto based careers of Derozan and Casey, it seems those two will be around for as long as the team looks to be among the best in the East, aside from the Lebrons of Cleveland. We're just not getting the most out of his skills.

No doubt Klay and Kahwi are spectacular players, but it does make you wonder if teams as successful as the Spurs and Warriors wanted him that much, is Toronto missing out on something by developing him into a glorified Luc Longley?

In my opinion, Toronto is getting the most out of his skills. His per 36min numbers are solid, but not spectacular. He may not be the focal point of the offense, but the frontcourt begins and ends with JV. Advanced stats aren't particularly kind to him, at least on the defensive side of the ball, which is where he should be honing his skills the most, given his place on Toronto's roster. He is certainly a plus rebounder, and a decent scorer, all things considered. However, I feel like the Jonas Valanciunas we see right now is probably pretty close to what he'd be no matter where he ended up. But who knows, I could be terribly wrong, and he could flourish elsewhere at some point in his career. That being said, I see him as a 14-12 guy at the peak of his career if he gets true starter minutes, which is good enough to start on half the teams in the league.

Its almost 2017, why is this a headline? Also we already knew about the spurs many years ago

I expected a mention of the Celtics/Ainge since apparently they've tried to trade for every player ever.

I'm 99% certain that this is from Aingie. He's just trying to make respectable front offices look bad, too.