PG: Raps lose to the Nets

[Mr Fitzhume]

Difference in expectations, yes...but context also matters.

First 22 games last season
- 9-13 (10 home / 12 away; 10 games vs lottery teams / 12 games vs playoff-level teams)
- 23 combined games missed from starters and 12 combined games missed from key bench players (Achiuwa, Birch, Boucher)
- 13th ranked ORTG and 24th ranked DRTG

First 22 games this season
- 11-11 (10 home / 12 away; 5 games vs lottery teams / 17 games vs playoff-level teams)
- 22 combined games missed from starters and 28 combined games missed from key rotation players (Achiuwa, Boucher, Porter)
- 16th ranked ORTG and 7th ranked DRTG

I get that these last two games have been embarrassing, but that shouldn't take away from how we played through the first 20 games. Overall, we're still playing fairly well considering our injury issues and tough schedule to this point. We are within .5 games (ahead or behind) of Philadelphia, Miami, Golden State, Minnesota and Dallas – all of which were expected to be closer to contending than us this season. Coincidentally, most of those teams are having similar issues as we are on the road; we are 3-9 on the road and Miami is 3-8 while Dallas (1-8) and Golden State (2-10) have been two of the worst teams in the entire league on the road.

Great post, but how about the opposing team’s (especially the 17 playoff-level team) injured players who missed the games against us?

Just for the context that matters.

You think this response was genious, eh?

Well of course the context matters. Read the post you respond to. Some of those teams mentioned also have underachieved and have a lower than expected record and results.

Sadly just a few quality and insightful posters remained here nowadays - one of them is pingpongrac -, so it wasn’t an ironic or “genious” response, I was curious if he knows the answer for that.

[JShuttlesworth]

I didn't watch the game last night, but this thread is hilarious

People keep pointing to last season as if we did something special, we didn't. We overachieved in last years regular season and got slapped in the 1st Round. I'm not sure why last season keeps getting brought up like it was some massive success.

[Gold Dragon]

20 minutes into the game giving up 67 and only scoring 32 takes a pretty team wide effort (or lack thereof) to accomplish. Of course our leaders Pascal, Fred, OG and Scottie carry the burden of the blame, whatever the reason may be. We need energy and urgency right from the start of the game. We won’t be beating the tanking teams with that kind of effort and execution.

I think we will look back on these two games as a wake up call and turning point for this season.

[JPriest]

Tonight was the 10th game in a row we have used a different set of starters. Unsurprisingly, we have been outscored by a total of 74 points (!!!) in the first quarter in those 10 games and we have had to fight back from early double-digit deficits numerous times. I know we've been dealing with a bunch of injuries and whatnot, but we need to stick to one starting lineup or these games where we just look completely disconnected for the first 6-12 minutes are going to keep happening.

Outside of that, both Scottie and FVV are going through a rough patch the last few games while Boucher has also been a non-factor off the bench. On the plus side, Siakam has been good since returning (22/8/4 in somewhat limited minutes at 32 MPG) even though it's clear he isn't at 100% while GTJ has been hooping off the bench. OG is still doing OG things and Juancho has been playing well over the last few weeks.

These last two games have been ugly and it's definitely concerning that we've fallen so far behind so early in the game due to our non-existent defence and effort. A complete team win/blowout against Orlando tomorrow then at the very least a competitive game against the Celtics would make me feel a bit better, but our lack of consistency this season is frustrating.

more than a rough patch man. he'll have a good shooting game once in a blue moon and loyalists will call for an apology, but his shooting numbers have been atrocious way more often than not and he brings pretty much nothing else if he's not hitting 3's. rather management actually follow through with their positionless plan and roll with a 6'7+ line up. it was beautiful basketball without FVV against the 76ers in the 2 games they won. likely would've been swept with him if he played all the games.

FVV doesn't need to shoot a high percentage every game to be very impactful though. I don't know why people still don't understand that he is generally going to shoot in the ~40% range as three-point variance and his poor finishing inside is always going to hold his percentages back. Still, he has been a pretty decently efficient scoring guard and not turnover-prone over the last few seasons while being a very high impact player on both ends.

Also, it is just a little rough patch the last few games. FVV literally had 26/7/6 on good efficiency against the Mavs last week and as a whole averaged 24/3/6 on 55 TS% in the 7 games he played without Siakam through most of November, which is very good offensive production. He then played a very good floor game against the Cavs before missing everything in the last two games (1/14 on 3FGA) as part of blowout losses. He has been bad the last two games, but so has most of the team. He's not the only reason we've been blown out in back-to-back games.

check his shooting percentages since the all star break. he doesn't need to shoot a high percentage but it's preferable that he shoot a respectable percentage and he's just been awful way more often than not. as the self proclaimed leader, he needs to set the tone and do what needs to be done to spark the team and bring energy. he doesn't at all. he's a slow chucker who bogs down the offense, gets shut down by length and gets cooked by quicker guards. the games played without Siakam were mostly against poor quality teams and that's really been his calling card, putting him stats against trash teams. you could pick out good games here and there but who the **** cares if the team is going nowhere. he certainly doesn't help the team grow.

[orbesnet]

I was in attendance and that was the worst game I have ever witnessed live.

Refs were total trash all night, Raps were even worse.

It's one of the few times I found myself thinking NN is an idiot.

[will]

I didn't watch the game last night, but this thread is hilarious

People keep pointing to last season as if we did something special, we didn't. We overachieved in last years regular season and got slapped in the 1st Round. I'm not sure why last season keeps getting brought up like it was some massive success.

People always love to bring up the past here on this board.

How many time I have been reminded of Freddy Allstar.
How many times I have been reminded of what fvv did against the Bucks and Warriors.
How many times I have been reminded of the Raptors in the bubble playoffs against the Celtics.
How many times we get reminded at what a great deal it was for DAD YOUNG.

Bottom line is that this team is not good enough to compete for the 'chip. tWo, baybeeeeeee!!!

[Andreas Orphan]

I didn't watch the game last night, but this thread is hilarious

People keep pointing to last season as if we did something special, we didn't. We overachieved in last years regular season and got slapped in the 1st Round. I'm not sure why last season keeps getting brought up like it was some massive success.

It was successful relative to where we're at as a franchise. It was the first year of a "rebuild" and we won 48 games and made the playoffs. It's relative. There are franchises that haven't won 48 games in years.

Was it a "massive success"? No. But it signaled an upswing. It was a good starting point for a franchise coming off its worst season in 8 years.

[Andreas Orphan]

I was in attendance and that was the worst game I have ever witnessed live.

Refs were total trash all night, Raps were even worse.

It's one of the few times I found myself thinking NN is an idiot.

Nothing worse than getting excited and amped up for a game, especially a road game, only to watch the crew get stomped. Been there too many times.

[sbsat]

Difference in expectations, yes...but context also matters.

First 22 games last season
- 9-13 (10 home / 12 away; 10 games vs lottery teams / 12 games vs playoff-level teams)
- 23 combined games missed from starters and 12 combined games missed from key bench players (Achiuwa, Birch, Boucher)
- 13th ranked ORTG and 24th ranked DRTG

First 22 games this season
- 11-11 (10 home / 12 away; 5 games vs lottery teams / 17 games vs playoff-level teams)
- 22 combined games missed from starters and 28 combined games missed from key rotation players (Achiuwa, Boucher, Porter)
- 16th ranked ORTG and 7th ranked DRTG

I get that these last two games have been embarrassing, but that shouldn't take away from how we played through the first 20 games. Overall, we're still playing fairly well considering our injury issues and tough schedule to this point. We are within .5 games (ahead or behind) of Philadelphia, Miami, Golden State, Minnesota and Dallas – all of which were expected to be closer to contending than us this season. Coincidentally, most of those teams are having similar issues as we are on the road; we are 3-9 on the road and Miami is 3-8 while Dallas (1-8) and Golden State (2-10) have been two of the worst teams in the entire league on the road.

This team does not look very different from last year (high variance, fvv has stunk, offensive struggles, hyper active defense). In expectation we should see a first round exit again which is disheartening. I actually think like last year we will finish with a decent record but does anyone actually think we can be successful in the playoffs? Doesnt look like any player has elevated their game modulo pascal and in my opinion thats a good reason to be frustrated as a fan. Hoping for a needle moving trade at the deadline.

Again, we're barely a quarter of the way through the season and we haven't been healthy since the first 5 or so games while we've played a very tough schedule overall. Did many people foresee us winning nearly 50 games and Siakam looking like a top 10-15 player last season after we started 9-13? Because that's what happened. We went on to win about 2/3 of our games the rest of the way (~55-wins over a full season) even with pretty big injuries to FVV/OG because we started to get a bit more consistent good health and play less inexperienced players (Banton, Bonga, Champagnie, Flynn, etc.) while gaining chemistry on both ends as the year went on. I expect something similar will happen this season with Koloko getting less minutes in the new year while newer guys (like Porter and Juancho) become more acclimated and our top rotation players become more and more cohesive together defensively. So far, our defence has been a mixed bag, just like it was earlier in the season last year. We'll look elite one night (like against the Cavs on Monday) then completely discombobulated the next.

Also, I think it's safe to say OG has elevated his game too. He is playing at a DPOY level (or at the very least All-Defence) while putting up 19/6/2 on 57 TS% so far.

You keep reverting back to their record -- i am not paying attention to that at all because as you said we are a quarter of the way in. Im looking at the product on the floor. In expectation--based on what you see--do you honestly think this team can get passed the first round. The team is similar enough to last year based on what i see that we can use last season as a sample size too. Fair point on og.

[JShuttlesworth]

I didn't watch the game last night, but this thread is hilarious

People keep pointing to last season as if we did something special, we didn't. We overachieved in last years regular season and got slapped in the 1st Round. I'm not sure why last season keeps getting brought up like it was some massive success.

It was successful relative to where we're at as a franchise. It was the first year of a "rebuild" and we won 48 games and made the playoffs. It's relative. There are franchises that haven't won 48 games in years.

Was it a "massive success"? No. But it signaled an upswing. It was a good starting point for a franchise coming off its worst season in 8 years.

Not really, last year we looked like a play-in team and a 1st Round exit. Instead we over achieved and finished 5th, with a 1st Round exit

The result was the exact same, and we wore out FVV chasing that 5th seed, he couldn't even play when it mattered

The East is also better this year, and we're the same old team

[Andreas Orphan]

I didn't watch the game last night, but this thread is hilarious

People keep pointing to last season as if we did something special, we didn't. We overachieved in last years regular season and got slapped in the 1st Round. I'm not sure why last season keeps getting brought up like it was some massive success.

It was successful relative to where we're at as a franchise. It was the first year of a "rebuild" and we won 48 games and made the playoffs. It's relative. There are franchises that haven't won 48 games in years.

Was it a "massive success"? No. But it signaled an upswing. It was a good starting point for a franchise coming off its worst season in 8 years.

Not really, last year we looked like a play-in team and a 1st Round exit. Instead we over achieved and finished 5th, with a 1st Round exit

The result was the exact same, and we wore out FVV chasing that 5th seed, he couldn't even play when it mattered

The East is also better this year, and we're the same old team

I disagree, plus that doesn't make a lot of sense. How is over-achieving not successful? If they over-achieved that means they were even more successful than people thought they would be.

I'd say the majority of people were optimistic after last years showing, with good reason. The biggest disappointment of the season thus far has been the play of Scottie Barnes, a second year player, and I'm pretty confident he'll turn things around.

[Agimat]

So we were down big NN opted to play FVV for 41 minutes and only scored 10 points (28% FG and 14% from 3).

Not a single minute on either Banton, Flynn, Dowtin smh

[JShuttlesworth]

It was successful relative to where we're at as a franchise. It was the first year of a "rebuild" and we won 48 games and made the playoffs. It's relative. There are franchises that haven't won 48 games in years.

Was it a "massive success"? No. But it signaled an upswing. It was a good starting point for a franchise coming off its worst season in 8 years.

Not really, last year we looked like a play-in team and a 1st Round exit. Instead we over achieved and finished 5th, with a 1st Round exit

The result was the exact same, and we wore out FVV chasing that 5th seed, he couldn't even play when it mattered

The East is also better this year, and we're the same old team

I disagree, plus that doesn't make a lot of sense. How is over-achieving not successful? If they over-achieved that means they were even more successful than people thought they would be.

I'd say the majority of people were optimistic after last years showing, with good reason. The biggest disappointment of the season thus far has been the play of Scottie Barnes, a second year player, and I'm pretty confident he'll turn things around.

Depends on what you care about I suppose. Regular season wins or playoff series wins.

Winning a few extra regular season games at the expense of trading down in the draft and losing in the 1st Round doesn't excite me. If we did the same thing this year I would begin to question Masai's direction.

I was optimistic last year, but that was because of Scottie Barnes. It had nothing to do with our regular season performance, we could have finished in the play-in and it wouldn't have made a difference to me.

[Tha Cynic]

Should we do the numbers?

Before we count them i bet the dengrating fred posts outnumber the denigrating scotty posts by a factor of 10 to 1. What do you think the ratio is? Want to make a gentlemen's bet?

Why are you attempting to draw a clearly false equivalence?

And let's be clear about what constitutes a "denigrating post": calling someone a name, being overly negative without nuance, being dismissive, calling into question their character, using childish puns of their govt name, etc.

I bet it's more like 20 to 1.

Yup, kind of like making up faking injuries. Talking about their character by saying they're immature using that strawman to make that distinction. Again, all this is completely different from what any player on the team has said and strangely about the one player on the team that teammates have actually had glowing things to say about. Very bizzare.

I never said anything about the number of posters on both sides being equal. Barnes is 21, and FVV is 28 and a veteran so I would expect FVV to get way more criticism, as we already know what the player is by now and it's not getting better. The point is there are posters on both sides, and it's kind of ironic that you're the one commenting here about this because quoting you alone is enough to make my point.

Lol at this "both sides" false equivalence. If it's a 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 ratio it's clearly not a "both sides" issue as you asserted.

If you are conceding that it's a 10 to 1 ratio or greater....then reread your post and correct what you said.

Whatever i said that annoyed u about scotty. Imagine a group of 10 to 15 ppl making 50 posts about it EVERY day....and then referring to you as a "boy" or a "stan" if you disagree.

And note...I have not referred to you as such and I have not spammed this board with 100s of posts per day trashing a player ever. My assertion abput scotty was not overly negative. I gave him props for playing with heart and guts when we were down big.

You are making a false equivalence. Straight up and down.

Noone is a hater or a troll because they say something negative abput a player. They are haters and trolls by function of frequency and compulsive spamming. If you make denigrating posts about a player more than 20 or 30 or 50 times per day...you are an internet troll and you're here to derail the board and play the whole tired "u mad bro" game that little boys enjoy.

This is a message board. I expect people to make outlandish claims, get all worked up over bad stretches of games and even make things up to fit a narrative lol. I was simply quoting a post earlier where a poster made an ironic post about how we should be equal with the criticism towards other players when they are fans of Barnes but completely missed the part where there are FVV "stans" who do the same thing.

Like I said, you're one of those posters who proves my point lol. It doesn't matter what the ratio of FVV haters vs Barnes haters is - we simply don't know. If you look through twitter and other social media platforms there have been plenty of Barnes hatred. Maybe it's 10-1, maybe it's 1-10 and maybe it's 1-1. The point is there is definitely a group of FVV stans (like you have admitted yourself to be) who have a history of making slanted posts. When you can't call out FVV equally for having numerous bad games but can make a point to always say something negative about Barnes in every game, even the good ones, then the posts contain a similar trajectory. I'm not even sure why the ratio matters lol. Both sides do exist and both sides have plenty of posters. Claiming you make positive posts and then call out the negative does not change the fact that you pretty much never have a bad thing to say about FVV and there is definitely a group of posters here who do that.

Again, it's a message board - there's a lot of volatility here. When someone goes out of their way to make up things or make insinuating claims about a player, you're pretty much attacking their actual persona and moving into actual hatred territory which you have started doing.
At the end of the day, I expect it and people can keep doing it. I'm just calling it out because it's funny when posters think they're being impartial but have a clear history of being way more passionate defending one side and criticizing the other.

[WaltFrazier]

This team will hover along at .500 for the next two months. Many wars will be fought on this board. tWo threads will appear daily. Raptors media will find a scapegoat like GTJ and keep ragging on him. Vanvleet haters will become an army on RealGM and Twitter. Masai will eventually hold a press conference stating that he still believes in Nurse, believes in the team, but also that he is constantly evaluating and will only make a deal that makes sense. We start hearing rumours around the trade deadline that the Raptors are major players and ‘all players’ are on the table. Momentum starts building up daily.

Finally, on the eve of the deadline, we get an explosive Woj bomb:

The Raptors have traded Gary Trent Jr and a first round pick for Dorian-Finney Smith, Frank Ntilikina, and cash considerations.

I laughed. Written like a prophecy of doom, with the fizzle at the end . Well done

[Tha Cynic]

Lost a road game to KD and Kyrie in early December. Trade everyone, fire the coaching staff and front office.

The Sky is falling!

Seriously. Do people not remember last season when we lost to KD and a bunch of role players to fall 2 games below .500 in mid-December? We've been even less healthy to this point in the season and we've been playing better than last year when we nearly won 50 games. This season is far from over.

Difference in expectations though. Last season was a welcome surprise as expectations were low but we got ROTY Barnes, All Star FVV, and All NBA Siakam along with a 6 seed. Most optimistic fans thought play ins with many thinking a late lotto pick was more probable

Now the expectation is another top 6 Berth at minimum with the players building on their seasons from last year, but there's so much regression across the board besides Siakam and surprisingly OG.

Barnes massive struggling, FVV physically cooked, GTJ with a drop in defections/steals and in Nurses doghouse, Precious reverting to bad habits before suffering Injury.

Team as a whole is bottom 5 in jump shooting etc just a hard watch this year

There has also been no continuity this season. Players have been injured throughout this early stretch, and the starting lineup has been all over the place. Nurse hasn't even settled on a bench rotation yet with his healthy players.

History shows that this team gets better as the season goes on. All it takes is some patience. I expect the Raptors to finish this season strong, and unless there are injuries that really hamper them going forward, this team will be fighting for homecourt in the latter part of the season.

FVV and GTJ are both streaky shooters and at some point they'll catch a hot streak. What you're seeing right now from them is what they have always been. They just happened to start slow this season rather than have this stretch in the middle of the season.

Barnes, and Aichuwa are both very young and have struggled early with their games and injuries, but that's part of being young players who learn to adapt to changing defenses. They'll figure it out and get better.

Siakam and OG drive this team and they will keep this team afloat while the others get better and catch up.

The one person who is starting to kind of annoy me is Nick Nurse with his stubbornness. For a guy who makes a lot of adjustments and experiments a lot, a lot of his experiments are more player personnel rather than overall team structure. He really does try hard to fit a square peg into a round hole.

[Tha Cynic]

Should we do the numbers?

Before we count them i bet the dengrating fred posts outnumber the denigrating scotty posts by a factor of 10 to 1. What do you think the ratio is? Want to make a gentlemen's bet?

Why are you attempting to draw a clearly false equivalence?

And let's be clear about what constitutes a "denigrating post": calling someone a name, being overly negative without nuance, being dismissive, calling into question their character, using childish puns of their govt name, etc.

I bet it's more like 20 to 1.

Yup, kind of like making up faking injuries. Talking about their character by saying they're immature using that strawman to make that distinction. Again, all this is completely different from what any player on the team has said and strangely about the one player on the team that teammates have actually had glowing things to say about. Very bizzare.

I never said anything about the number of posters on both sides being equal. Barnes is 21, and FVV is 28 and a veteran so I would expect FVV to get way more criticism, as we already know what the player is by now and it's not getting better. The point is there are posters on both sides, and it's kind of ironic that you're the one commenting here about this because quoting you alone is enough to make my point.

Fred is an undrafted player. Scottie is the 4th overall pick. You can't compare the two.

Barnes is in his second year having played 93 regular season games in his NBA career and FVV is a 6 year veteran who is looking to make nearly $30 million annually. You're right, you can't compare the two. Draft position is simply where your team picks you, so not sure what that has to do with the player. If our issue is draft position then the criticism should be on Masai I guess. Personally I think the pick was great and the player has shown why he was picked there.

[Son Goku 25]

IMO both Scottie and FVV are to blame but yes, one is a 2nd year player whereas the other is a vet who has been named an all star as of last year. You can't just duck when things aren't going great and then claim to be someone when things are going your way. This year definitely isn't it. Injuries and inexperience is showing plus lack of talent and IQ perhaps but it's on the team leadership to address this. Tbh; this isn't a fun team to watch not sure what it is, I missed last game and glad I did.

[TravisScott55]

Sat right behind the Raptors bench last night, Barnes body language is terrible. Always yelling at his teammates and sulking

[ATLTimekeeper]

No one can shoot now, so we're seeing the opposition just have 3 bodies in the paint and sitting on drives. That leads to a lot of run outs, and a team like the Nets with dead-eye shooters is going to feast. Some lazy D on Claxton, for sure, by a bunch of guys.

Fred's shot isn't even close right now. And Scottie had 3 amateur hour ballhandling turnovers. This is uncharacteristic of both players and so it's either injury-related, fatigue or low confidence.

It's encouraging that Siakam is scoring at will. He took a few lazy jumpers at the wrong time, but he's still looking really composed out there. OG looks really worn out from all his defensive assignments. He needs a game off.

Other than that, I think Koloko was better as the game wore on, but early on he was just overwhelmed again. Not sure why he got he start, given that he's had two bad games against Claxton already.

Anyway, as Alvin said they are probably due a team-meeting.