I'm done with Masai

[Capn'O]

Honestly it's looking more likely that he got lucky that one time. Have never been impressed, he's seemed overly egotistical and lacking bball IQ in interviews.


He's more suited to a commercial role with NBA-Africa to be honest. Help build that thing up.

Raptors just won't rip the band-aid. They need one more Barnes and a bigger Dick literally and figuratively.

Nah, Masai's track record was impeccable for over a decade. He did a great job building the Nuggets and then Raptors even before the Kawhi trade.

Now, one could argue that like John Paxson before him his greatest skill was ripping off the Knicks. The Melo trade and Bargs trade changed the course for both franchises. But his body of work was great.


Which is why his recent work confuses me so. I often wonder if we've reached the point where the analytics managers have officially passed all the ideas guys. I.e. he can't get the upper hand in negotiations the way he used to because everyone else can quantitatively assess value now.

[Johnston]

Masai has had a great season - team is in the thick of the Flagg race yet has lots of young talent.

Who is this young talent? Like are any ever going to be a top 10 player? Not close. I really think the Raptors have some of the worst young players in the league, and most aren’t even that young anymore.

I recall when Cleveland and Toronto were bad and drafted Mobley and Barnes. I thought to myself Toronto is sitting on multiple guys who would fetch like 2 or 3 firsts. I wish we had that type of arsenal as a Cavs fan. Instead you started trading picks for scrubs and held onto guys way too long. It’s amazing how the Raptors parlayed having a good rookie and bunch of guys with serious value into absolute trash and very few assets. You don’t have a player I’d want outside Barnes, and even he I wouldn’t go crazy to get. He’s a piece if surrounded by better players. Instead he’s the best player on a bad team and that’s amazing mismanagement.

How many top 10 players did the Raps have in the 2018 season?

[nikster]

Raptors actually look low key nice, what’s your deal

Do we?

Our D is still in trouble, we've got players with health issues, guys with efficiency issues... we look like a potential play-in team, sure, but we're heavily relying on Ingram being healthier than he's ever been to prop up our season.

I actually think we are. We have solid players in their prime or about to enter the prime at every position. We have decent depth at the bench that's all young talent. We are getting at least a top 10 pick this year. We own all our own first rounders and have some extra 2nd rounders. We are going to be under the luxury tax.

I think Ingram has about 4 seasons that have been healthy enough when you factor in the lockout shortened seasons. It's still a gamble but there is no way you get a talent like his for just a mid to late 1st rounder without there being some risk.

I think top 6 is reasonable next season and the roster still has enough flexibility to make changes moving forward.

[tsherkin]

I think Ingram has about 4 seasons that have been healthy enough when you factor in the lockout shortened seasons. It's still a gamble but there is no way you get a talent like his for just a mid to late 1st rounder without there being some risk.

I think top 6 is reasonable next season and the roster still has enough flexibility to make changes moving forward.

Interesting.

What's the strength of our offense?

How will we arrange our defense?

[anotherhomer]

The contract to IQ was puzzling

Market value, unfortunately. Cap is going up. Even guys like Suggs are making over 30 million. lol.

i rather take Suggs

[Blacksheep25]

Masai has had a great season - team is in the thick of the Flagg race yet has lots of young talent.

Who is this young talent? Like are any ever going to be a top 10 player? Not close. I really think the Raptors have some of the worst young players in the league, and most aren’t even that young anymore.

I recall when Cleveland and Toronto were bad and drafted Mobley and Barnes. I thought to myself Toronto is sitting on multiple guys who would fetch like 2 or 3 firsts. I wish we had that type of arsenal as a Cavs fan. Instead you started trading picks for scrubs and held onto guys way too long. It’s amazing how the Raptors parlayed having a good rookie and bunch of guys with serious value into absolute trash and very few assets. You don’t have a player I’d want outside Barnes, and even he I wouldn’t go crazy to get. He’s a piece if surrounded by better players. Instead he’s the best player on a bad team and that’s amazing mismanagement.

Kind of ridiculous to hear a Cavs fan talking about top 10 players when they are at the top of the East without a top 10 player. Closest thing the Cavs have to a top 10 player is Donovan Mitchell, a player they traded away all their 1sts for. The Raptors are in prime position to trade picks for a star player. Until then, they have an extremely solid supporting cast of players, and lots of young players who have shown promise (just five rookies from this year alone).

Yeah Donovan is close or there, he’s certainly top 12 or 13 and would be viewed higher if he wasn’t sacrificing minutes and points in his prime, but the reality is that’s what makes it hard. We needed to go out and trade for our BI in Deandre. An injury prone player who can be good, just to give ourselves a shot. But we sent some seconds for him. Not a first round pick. You have sent a first round pick for Poetl right at the time you should be in full rebuild. You took on crap like Quickley and RJ rather than ship your guy for multiple firsts. Multiple firsts are risky but have huge upside. Both those dudes are second unit guys.

But why in the world would you trade anything away to grab some alpha dog to play with the garbage roster that’s the Raps? We have 4 guys better than your best guy. Quickley, RJ, BI? That is not the framework for a good team. That’s not we just now need a piece. None have any value and you keep trading firsts to grab guys who aren’t very good at all.

What’s the point of a first for BI? All it possibly does best case is make you some playin prayer and you’ll be paying his so much he won’t be worth anything? Plus it has a high upside of being disaster with his health.

I just don’t get Masai. I like the dude, but his best skill is finding undervalued talent from around the world. He’s the first guy who should have been looking to parlay Siakam and OG into like 4 or 5 firsts. Instead he ignored his one skill at finding undervalued talent and went the route of finding guys who were already mired in being NBA disappointments and it just hasn’t worked out and has turned into an expensive team with a win total every year of like 35-40 wins max.



I don’t get how you get the rookie of the year, have a number of guys with serious value, and decide to go for underperforming current NBA guys over taking a shot and trusting your one best skill of finding gems? He got OG at 23 and Siakam at 27. Why would you want a much more expensive Poetl and BI by giving away picks slightly better than that? I mean he could have gave himself like 7 or 8 shots at picks in that range between Siakam, OG, FVV would have got 1 maybe, and even Lowry at the end might have got one had they moved on earlier with those dudes. I’d rather have picks any day over guys like IG and RJ. That’s the makings of nothing. Maybe you miss, but how does a dude who got OG and Siakam deep first all of a sudden not take a half dozen shots at that range? All his hidden gems are better than anyone on the Raps not named Scotty. Just literally taking away the chance of greatness to settle for 35 wins. I don’t get that. I’d hate cheering for that. If everything breaks right we have this expensive team who if they’re healthy, might be able to sniff the 6 seed at the very best and none of the guys have any real value to move outside Scotty, who is the one you should have kept 3 years ago and gave him a shot at a draft haul where maybe you hit a pick. As constructed, why bother?

[lebron stopper]

Honestly it's looking more likely that he got lucky that one time. Have never been impressed, he's seemed overly egotistical and lacking bball IQ in interviews.


He's more suited to a commercial role with NBA-Africa to be honest. Help build that thing up.

Raptors just won't rip the band-aid. They need one more Barnes and a bigger Dick literally and figuratively.

Nah, Masai's track record was impeccable for over a decade. He did a great job building the Nuggets and then Raptors even before the Kawhi trade.

Now, one could argue that like John Paxson before him his greatest skill was ripping off the Knicks. The Melo trade and Bargs trade changed the course for both franchises. But his body of work was great.


Which is why his recent work confuses me so. I often wonder if we've reached the point where the analytics managers have officially passed all the ideas guys. I.e. he can't get the upper hand in negotiations the way he used to because everyone else can quantitatively assess value now.

That's possible, but it doesn't fully explain how he himself got ripped off three years in a row: Norm for Grent, 1st for Thad who was about to be waived, and Poeltl. First trade was him throwing away a valuable asset for a fringe mystery box NBA player who is still grossly overrated. Next two are expensive yet marginal win-now moves for a team that had no chance of winning a playoff series, made by a GM/POBO who was obsessed with building around the 4th and 5th best players on the title team.

1. Trading Norm also helped tank the team's chemistry and ensured that the ensuing flawed core would no longer be viable. He did a lot of things that Pascal/OG/Fred couldn't do, and he had not even peaked yet. Three years after the trade, when Grent was gone, everyone could see that Norm was still the flat-out better player in the end. (As a side note: The same crowd that compares trading for picks to trading for a mystery box still continues to defend trading Norm for someone who had far less upside than a mystery box. I suspect this crowd grossly undervalued Norm because he wasn't a breakout playoff hero like their beloved 4th and 5th best players on the title team, tbh.)

2. Part of the rationale for trading a first for Thad was that the Raptors' preferred draft target was Koloko, regardless of first or second round. Turns out that drafting Koloko with a second round pick instead of a first round pick helped ensure that he left the Raptors in free agency - so yet another case of asset deprivation at the hands of Masai, out of many such cases.

3. The Poeltl trade also helped VanVleet put up better numbers and earn a bigger contract from the Rockets in the offseason, leaving the Raptors with nothing once again. It also helped accelerate the Spurs' rebuild which culminated in Wembenyama a few months later, while the Raptors are still stuck. Right now, Poeltl has yet to be moved in this nascent second apron era due to his $19.5m/yr contract, while the lottery pick he got traded for would be a much better asset. (Masai would most likely draft someone like Buzelis or Edey instead of Dillingham.)

The main thing about these three trades is that the trades were just flat out dumb. They had little to do with analytics making it harder to fleece GMs nowadays, and more to do with Masai grossly overvaluing the 4th and 5th best players on the title team, while grossly undervaluing some other players, and thinking he is still too clever for the rest of the league to handle. Also conveniently, all three trades helped contribute significantly to the Raptors' asset drain.

[vado]

He’s responsible for the only relevant season in Toronto basketball history. Toronto is otherwise a useless city for basketball. Masai deserves a statue for the Kawhi Leonard 1-year rental trade as it gave them the only title the franchise will ever sniff.

Lmao the Raps were one of the top teams of the 2010s.

Masai isn't a top 5 exec, but he's at least a top 15 exec. He got lucky winning a championship but he can draft and build a playoff team

[nikster]

I think Ingram has about 4 seasons that have been healthy enough when you factor in the lockout shortened seasons. It's still a gamble but there is no way you get a talent like his for just a mid to late 1st rounder without there being some risk.

I think top 6 is reasonable next season and the roster still has enough flexibility to make changes moving forward.

Interesting.

What's the strength of our offense?

How will we arrange our defense?

Strength of our offense is scoring and playmaking threats from basically every position. 4 guys you can reasonably expect to put up 20 points and/or 5+ assists any given night, and with Poeltl an elite finisher and good passing from the C position. Fits not perfect but it'd be interested to see how Ingram fits in Darkos system.

Defense will be a concern with starters as they will rely on Scottie and Poeltl as the only good to great defenders. But at the very least they have length at every position, and defenders they can bring off the bench in Shead, Ogbaji and Mogbo.

[tsherkin]

Strength of our offense is scoring

Mmm. No really compelling scorers on the team, though. Not one. That's the first worry. Lots of guys who put up numbers, but not a lot of competitive advantage for creating quality offense, even before health concerns. Better 3pt shooting, though, and an efficiency bump moving from the disaster of Scottie volume scoring to Ingram when he's there, though, for sure. Might help RJ even more, which would be nice.

Kind of screams "mediocre, below average offense while healthy" unless we get some remarkable results from BI.

Defense will be a concern with starters as they will rely on Scottie and Poeltl as the only good to great defenders. But at the very least they have length at every position, and defenders they can bring off the bench in Shead, Ogbaji and Mogbo.

That should be interesting to see, yes.

[Johnny Bball]

Cya. Its been real.

People don't even understand the move and get bent out of shape by it. Weird.

[Ssj16]

You mean you aren't a raptors fan and you bandwagon jump to whatever team is contending at this moment? Damn. I would have never guessed.

I'm betting you started cheering for the raptors in, say, 2018ish?

Lol, I've been with the Raptors since their inception in 95. I live beside the ACC and have probably been to over 20 games, including over 10 playoff games.

But when they put out a trash product, I don't need to waste my time following them. That's like continuing to watch a TV show in it's 6th season when the story line is bad and the actors have changed to less quality actors.

Am I a die hard fan, definitely not but I've have the jerseys, the games I've attended and the memories of the raptors throughout their history.

And I'm fully entitled to not spend time or money on a low quality product.

Ironically, you’ve been so spoiled as a fan due to Masai’s success for nearly a decade that you’re now unable to go through even a couple rough years. You’re not a die hard fan, you’re a spoiled fan.

You're entitled to your opinion but I don't get how it can be called being spoiled when you don't understand what your management has been doing for the past 3 years.

As I've mentioned, I've been fairly patient waiting to see the plan come to fruition and now I'm confused again.

I'm in the business world, if I underperformed for 3 years, you best believe I would be fired. I hold the Raptors or any team I root for to a similar standard in terms of players, coaches, management, ownership and their performance.

[realball]

Who is this young talent? Like are any ever going to be a top 10 player? Not close. I really think the Raptors have some of the worst young players in the league, and most aren’t even that young anymore.

I recall when Cleveland and Toronto were bad and drafted Mobley and Barnes. I thought to myself Toronto is sitting on multiple guys who would fetch like 2 or 3 firsts. I wish we had that type of arsenal as a Cavs fan. Instead you started trading picks for scrubs and held onto guys way too long. It’s amazing how the Raptors parlayed having a good rookie and bunch of guys with serious value into absolute trash and very few assets. You don’t have a player I’d want outside Barnes, and even he I wouldn’t go crazy to get. He’s a piece if surrounded by better players. Instead he’s the best player on a bad team and that’s amazing mismanagement.

Kind of ridiculous to hear a Cavs fan talking about top 10 players when they are at the top of the East without a top 10 player. Closest thing the Cavs have to a top 10 player is Donovan Mitchell, a player they traded away all their 1sts for. The Raptors are in prime position to trade picks for a star player. Until then, they have an extremely solid supporting cast of players, and lots of young players who have shown promise (just five rookies from this year alone).

Yeah Donovan is close or there, he’s certainly top 12 or 13 and would be viewed higher if he wasn’t sacrificing minutes and points in his prime, but the reality is that’s what makes it hard. We needed to go out and trade for our BI in Deandre. An injury prone player who can be good, just to give ourselves a shot. But we sent some seconds for him. Not a first round pick. You have sent a first round pick for Poetl right at the time you should be in full rebuild. You took on crap like Quickley and RJ rather than ship your guy for multiple firsts. Multiple firsts are risky but have huge upside. Both those dudes are second unit guys.

But why in the world would you trade anything away to grab some alpha dog to play with the garbage roster that’s the Raps? We have 4 guys better than your best guy. Quickley, RJ, BI? That is not the framework for a good team. That’s not we just now need a piece. None have any value and you keep trading firsts to grab guys who aren’t very good at all.

What’s the point of a first for BI? All it possibly does best case is make you some playin prayer and you’ll be paying his so much he won’t be worth anything? Plus it has a high upside of being disaster with his health.

I just don’t get Masai. I like the dude, but his best skill is finding undervalued talent from around the world. He’s the first guy who should have been looking to parlay Siakam and OG into like 4 or 5 firsts. Instead he ignored his one skill at finding undervalued talent and went the route of finding guys who were already mired in being NBA disappointments and it just hasn’t worked out and has turned into an expensive team with a win total every year of like 35-40 wins max.



I don’t get how you get the rookie of the year, have a number of guys with serious value, and decide to go for underperforming current NBA guys over taking a shot and trusting your one best skill of finding gems? He got OG at 23 and Siakam at 27. Why would you want a much more expensive Poetl and BI by giving away picks slightly better than that? I mean he could have gave himself like 7 or 8 shots at picks in that range between Siakam, OG, FVV would have got 1 maybe, and even Lowry at the end might have got one had they moved on earlier with those dudes. I’d rather have picks any day over guys like IG and RJ. That’s the makings of nothing. Maybe you miss, but how does a dude who got OG and Siakam deep first all of a sudden not take a half dozen shots at that range? All his hidden gems are better than anyone on the Raps not named Scotty. Just literally taking away the chance of greatness to settle for 35 wins. I don’t get that. I’d hate cheering for that. If everything breaks right we have this expensive team who if they’re healthy, might be able to sniff the 6 seed at the very best and none of the guys have any real value to move outside Scotty, who is the one you should have kept 3 years ago and gave him a shot at a draft haul where maybe you hit a pick. As constructed, why bother?

Okay, number one, Mitchell would not be viewed higher if he played more minutes. He's simply not a top 10 guy period. Nor is anyone else on the Cavs, and none of them have that kind of potential either.

Secondly, DeAndre Hunter is nowhere near Ingram. Ingram at his peak is ~24 ppg guy, he's closer to Mitchell than he is to Hunter.

Thirdly, Poetl and Barrett and have been great for us. RJ is averaging 22/7/6 this year, he very much is not a second unit guy. IQ has not been good, but then again he's been injured. He's looked like a solid starter when he's healthy.

Fourth, You have one guy better than Barnes, and that's Mitchell. Garland and Mobley is in the same tier as Barnes, debatably. Mobley is an 18/9/3 guy as a 3rd option, Barnes averages 20/7/6 as a first option.
Fifth, we're not winning 35 games this year, we are tanking for top pick this year.
And lastly, who exactly was offering lottery picks for Pascal and OG? You're overrating those guys quite a bit. Did you guys give up lotto picks for Mitchell? Our offer for OG was a bunch of 1sts from Memphis. RJ and IQ are infinitely more valuable than a bunch of late 1sts for us.

You are clearly not familiar with our team at all, you have no clue what you're talking about. We've got five solid starters now (four of whom are entering their prime, and have room to grow), and lots of promising young players off the bench. We just need the team to be healthy now.

[Ssj16]

Who is this young talent? Like are any ever going to be a top 10 player? Not close. I really think the Raptors have some of the worst young players in the league, and most aren’t even that young anymore.

I recall when Cleveland and Toronto were bad and drafted Mobley and Barnes. I thought to myself Toronto is sitting on multiple guys who would fetch like 2 or 3 firsts. I wish we had that type of arsenal as a Cavs fan. Instead you started trading picks for scrubs and held onto guys way too long. It’s amazing how the Raptors parlayed having a good rookie and bunch of guys with serious value into absolute trash and very few assets. You don’t have a player I’d want outside Barnes, and even he I wouldn’t go crazy to get. He’s a piece if surrounded by better players. Instead he’s the best player on a bad team and that’s amazing mismanagement.

Kind of ridiculous to hear a Cavs fan talking about top 10 players when they are at the top of the East without a top 10 player. Closest thing the Cavs have to a top 10 player is Donovan Mitchell, a player they traded away all their 1sts for. The Raptors are in prime position to trade picks for a star player. Until then, they have an extremely solid supporting cast of players, and lots of young players who have shown promise (just five rookies from this year alone).

Yeah Donovan is close or there, he’s certainly top 12 or 13 and would be viewed higher if he wasn’t sacrificing minutes and points in his prime, but the reality is that’s what makes it hard. We needed to go out and trade for our BI in Deandre. An injury prone player who can be good, just to give ourselves a shot. But we sent some seconds for him. Not a first round pick. You have sent a first round pick for Poetl right at the time you should be in full rebuild. You took on crap like Quickley and RJ rather than ship your guy for multiple firsts. Multiple firsts are risky but have huge upside. Both those dudes are second unit guys.

But why in the world would you trade anything away to grab some alpha dog to play with the garbage roster that’s the Raps? We have 4 guys better than your best guy. Quickley, RJ, BI? That is not the framework for a good team. That’s not we just now need a piece. None have any value and you keep trading firsts to grab guys who aren’t very good at all.

What’s the point of a first for BI? All it possibly does best case is make you some playin prayer and you’ll be paying his so much he won’t be worth anything? Plus it has a high upside of being disaster with his health.

I just don’t get Masai. I like the dude, but his best skill is finding undervalued talent from around the world. He’s the first guy who should have been looking to parlay Siakam and OG into like 4 or 5 firsts. Instead he ignored his one skill at finding undervalued talent and went the route of finding guys who were already mired in being NBA disappointments and it just hasn’t worked out and has turned into an expensive team with a win total every year of like 35-40 wins max.



I don’t get how you get the rookie of the year, have a number of guys with serious value, and decide to go for underperforming current NBA guys over taking a shot and trusting your one best skill of finding gems? He got OG at 23 and Siakam at 27. Why would you want a much more expensive Poetl and BI by giving away picks slightly better than that? I mean he could have gave himself like 7 or 8 shots at picks in that range between Siakam, OG, FVV would have got 1 maybe, and even Lowry at the end might have got one had they moved on earlier with those dudes. I’d rather have picks any day over guys like IG and RJ. That’s the makings of nothing. Maybe you miss, but how does a dude who got OG and Siakam deep first all of a sudden not take a half dozen shots at that range? All his hidden gems are better than anyone on the Raps not named Scotty. Just literally taking away the chance of greatness to settle for 35 wins. I don’t get that. I’d hate cheering for that. If everything breaks right we have this expensive team who if they’re healthy, might be able to sniff the 6 seed at the very best and none of the guys have any real value to move outside Scotty, who is the one you should have kept 3 years ago and gave him a shot at a draft haul where maybe you hit a pick. As constructed, why bother?

100% agreed.

[Roco14]

Lets be real, there was no timeline in which Wemby would be a raptor. The league was barely able to stomach Kawhi being in Canada for 1 year

This makes no sense. European players don't care about playing in major markets let alone America. Toronto is very multi cultural, we have French embedded in our country and we are closer to France than Texas.

You're fooling yourself if you think Wemby wouldn't be content on the Raptors, provided they made smart moves to build around him.

When did I mention anything about Wemby or players not wanting to go there? I clearly insinuated the LEAGUE wouldn't be happy about it, which they wouldn't be. Wemby playing in Canada would literally cost the NBA hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of an entire career. TV ratings, sponsorship opportunities, ticket sales, merchandise, everything. If you don't see this you might not understand economics.

Also, many non-American players would easily choose Texas over Toronto just because of the weather and taxes alone (French "culture" and multiculturalism isn't exactly at the top of the list of important things for a high testosterone early 20's male that just escaped poverty).

[LascelleL]

he's always been a fraud. He inherited a loaded and ascending Raptors team that already had Lowry, DeRozan, Gay and Valanciunas in a very weak Eastern Conference. All those years the Raptors got out of the 2nd round just once until they were gifted MVP candidate Kawhi and they were able to beat an injured Warriors team. Since then, they've gone back to being pretenders if not altogether irrelevant for the foreseeable future unless he's gifted Flagg.

A lot of Raptors fans didnt watch the team during the Babcock or BC years and only from our Playoff run. Some of the older ones think they know basketball better than Masai. Yes he's deserving of critcism because of "asset management" but his philosphy has been Servant Leadership and doing right by his guys in the terms of giving them a chance to succeed and fail and then he can move on with no qualms. He did it with DD and he did it with the FVV/Pascal/OG core and when it was absolutely clear it wasnt working he broke it down.

This trade doesn't deserve this kind of vitirol too. Who did we give up of value for BI? It's literally a low risk-high reward scenario and we still keep or chances at a high draft pick in a loaded draft. The last time Masai had a Top 5 pick he got the ROY despite the Fanbase cursing him for not choosing Suggs.

Lastly, The Bryan Colangelo Raptors he inherited with Bargnani as a centerpiece was NOT LOADED or Ascending. They were basically where the Hornets are now without LaMelo or Brandon Miller.

[tsherkin]

This trade doesn't deserve this kind of vitirol too. Who did we give up of value for BI? It's literally a low risk-high reward scenario and we still keep or chances at a high draft pick in a loaded draft. The last time Masai had a Top 5 pick he got the ROY despite the Fanbase cursing him for not choosing Suggs.

I think the concern with the trade is that we're about to give him a $35+ mil/yr extension for a guy who misses 20+ games a season and is a league-average efficiency scorer. So the concern is that if he comes back this year, he'll interfere with the tank when we need a high-pick asset pretty badly. Missing on that would land us squarely in low-order treadmill territory.

Lastly, The Bryan Colangelo Raptors he inherited with Bargnani as a centerpiece was NOT LOADED or Ascending. They were basically where the Hornets are now without LaMelo or Brandon Miller.

Masai joined us ahead of the 13-14 season. That was a 48-win team and Bargs was already gone.

[Big J]

You guys are lucky to have Masai. He brought a title to a team that no one ever thought would win one in a million years. He should get at least 10 years of grace for that.

[Kurtz]

Masai has had a great season - team is in the thick of the Flagg race yet has lots of young talent.

Who is this young talent? Like are any ever going to be a top 10 player? Not close. I really think the Raptors have some of the worst young players in the league, and most aren’t even that young anymore.

I recall when Cleveland and Toronto were bad and drafted Mobley and Barnes. I thought to myself Toronto is sitting on multiple guys who would fetch like 2 or 3 firsts. I wish we had that type of arsenal as a Cavs fan. Instead you started trading picks for scrubs and held onto guys way too long. It’s amazing how the Raptors parlayed having a good rookie and bunch of guys with serious value into absolute trash and very few assets. You don’t have a player I’d want outside Barnes, and even he I wouldn’t go crazy to get. He’s a piece if surrounded by better players. Instead he’s the best player on a bad team and that’s amazing mismanagement.

How many times have you watched the Raptors this year? I wager only when they played your team. So if I start listing all of the young players on the team who have shown the talent to be good to excellent players in the near future, would that even have any meaning to you?

[nikster]

Strength of our offense is scoring

Mmm. No really compelling scorers on the team, though. Not one. That's the first worry. Lots of guys who put up numbers, but not a lot of competitive advantage for creating quality offense, even before health concerns. Better 3pt shooting, though, and an efficiency bump moving from the disaster of Scottie volume scoring to Ingram when he's there, though, for sure. Might help RJ even more, which would be nice.

Kind of screams "mediocre, below average offense while healthy" unless we get some remarkable results from BI.

Defense will be a concern with starters as they will rely on Scottie and Poeltl as the only good to great defenders. But at the very least they have length at every position, and defenders they can bring off the bench in Shead, Ogbaji and Mogbo.

That should be interesting to see, yes.

In the 27 games we have with RJ and Scottie this year we have a 113 offensive rating with at least one on the floor, which would be 16th right now. That's with only 6 games of Quickley where he actually hurt the offense, so i don't think its crazy to think they can get in the 10-15 range with healthy quick and BI. That could be enough for a 6th seed.

Right now Heat is in 6th with 18th offense and 9th defense, Pistons in 7th with 17th offense, 12th D