Dave Feschuk : Masai is on the clock

[Ackshun]

Good listen on the Locked On podcast last week regarding the culture.

Honestly just seems like it was a toxic work environment for everyone last year. That falls on FO and coaching, the “adults in the room”.

I’ll never understand the last two years of raptors basketball. I don’t get it. And then the culture is a mess yet we tried to bring Fred back.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/locked-on-raptors-daily-podcast-on-the-toronto-raptors/id1171754319?i=1000619385715

...2 years ago when Scottie was the ROY and we won 48 games after the Tampa tank year? Christ, I remember when that was the franchise high in wins and we were all overjoyed lol.

Naw.

[TheGeneral99]

Dude what has he done since Leonard left, more mistakes and maybe some bunt singles. His biggest error is his emotional attachments to core.

Just glad got in the way for him resigning Fred, from here he will just do nothing and we have not had a meaningful trade in years that made sense. You keep giving him more rope, sooner or later there is no more rope left

The Raps were 53-19 in 2020 when covid hit. 2nd best record in basketball. WITHOUT KAWHI.

Guess Musai should have known that Covid was going to suspend the year. Then should have known the Raps would have to play the following year in Florida resulting in no home games all season.

Almost as if context matters.

And even as awful as you feel the last 2 years have been, the Raps are 11th in wins in a 30 team league....so top third. It's almost as if winning a Championship and your best player, leads to a few steps back. Huh, who would have guessed.

Sorry he isn't perfect or as good as you would be.

They had a losing record against playoff teams that year, but whatever.

This is just factually incorrect, don't be misleading.

They were 16-15 against teams over .500 that year, which was actually better than every team in the East except for Milwaukee (17-13) and Miami (17-14). We had a positive point differential of 6.3 which was actually better than the Lakers that year and essentially tied for 2nd in the league after the Bucks.

The year before with Kawhi we were 22-20 against teams over .500, which was virtually identical to give you some perspective.

The 2020 team we had was incredible. Had COVID not happened I would not have been surprised at all if we made the finals. COVID killed us because Siakam came to the bubble completely out of shape and was god awful in the playoffs and Gasol's age finally really started to show. Even with a diminished Siakam and Gasol our team still took the Celtics to game 7 and nearly won that game.

We were 53-19 in a shortened 72 game season. We were well on pace to win 60 games that year. To this day that is my favorite Raptors season in franchise history before COVID hit...a team wanting to prove they were a championship team when Kawhi left and playing at a true elite level. Lowry was in his last year of his peak, Siakam just emerged into an all NBA level player, Ibaka was still a very high impact player, Powell had just reached his prime, Fred emerged into a very good player and riding high after his 2019 finals performance, Gasol still had some gas left in the tank, and OG also became a lethal 3+D player. Just a very balanced team at every position. Our only flaw that year was we didn't have great depth, but our top 8 that year was as good as any other top 8 in the league.

[Duffman100]

2019-20 Raptors were contenders. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to rewrite history to fit an agenda.

[REJECTEDBYCLARK]

2019-20 Raptors were contenders. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to rewrite history to fit an agenda.

They sure were - if Siakam had been held out of the playoffs.

[KL78192020]

2019-20 Raptors were contenders. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to rewrite history to fit an agenda.

Contenders for what? The playoffs, sure. But they weren't anywhere near a championship team without Kawhi. They beat a nets team without KD/Kyrie. They were starting guys like Garret Temple, Tyler Johnson, and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot. Thats a gleague team starting lineup.

[Duffman100]

2019-20 Raptors were contenders. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to rewrite history to fit an agenda.

Contenders for what? The playoffs, sure. But they weren't anywhere near a championship team without Kawhi. They beat a nets team without KD/Kyrie. They were starting guys like Garret Temple, Tyler Johnson, and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot. Thats a gleague team starting lineup.

And they took Boston to 7 games. And they probably would have beat Miami and then they're in the finals.

We had the 2nd best record in the league and we were one win away from the conference finals.

[TheGeneral99]

2019-20 Raptors were contenders. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to rewrite history to fit an agenda.

Contenders for what? The playoffs, sure. But they weren't anywhere near a championship team without Kawhi. They beat a nets team without KD/Kyrie. They were starting guys like Garret Temple, Tyler Johnson, and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot. Thats a gleague team starting lineup.

The Raptors took Boston to 7 games despite Pascal coming to the bubble out of shape and averaging 17ppg on 39% fg and 18%3fg which is a complete outlier to all his other playoff performances. The COVID layoff also hurt Gasol who was still playing at a high level during the season, but he was noticeably declining by the bubble.

This is simply revisionist history.

[KL78192020]

2019-20 Raptors were contenders. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to rewrite history to fit an agenda.

Contenders for what? The playoffs, sure. But they weren't anywhere near a championship team without Kawhi. They beat a nets team without KD/Kyrie. They were starting guys like Garret Temple, Tyler Johnson, and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot. Thats a gleague team starting lineup.

And they took Boston to 7 games. And they probably would have beat Miami and then they're in the finals.

We had the 2nd best record in the league and we were one win away from the conference finals.

Thats quite a few assumptions that they would make the finals, fact and reality is they weren't good enough to beat Celtics and did not make the finals. They were closer to the Demar/Lowry teams which were great regular season teams, but didn't make it anywhere in the playoffs. They were contenders to be a decent playoff team but not a championship level team.

[Duffman100]

Contenders for what? The playoffs, sure. But they weren't anywhere near a championship team without Kawhi. They beat a nets team without KD/Kyrie. They were starting guys like Garret Temple, Tyler Johnson, and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot. Thats a gleague team starting lineup.

And they took Boston to 7 games. And they probably would have beat Miami and then they're in the finals.

We had the 2nd best record in the league and we were one win away from the conference finals.

Thats quite a few assumptions that they would make the finals, fact and reality is they weren't good enough to beat Celtics and did not make the finals. They were closer to the Demar/Lowry teams which were great regular season teams, but didn't make it anywhere in the playoffs. They were contenders to be a decent playoff team but not a championship level team.

So all the teams that don't make the finals were not contenders to begin with. Solid logic.

[KL78192020]

And they took Boston to 7 games. And they probably would have beat Miami and then they're in the finals.

We had the 2nd best record in the league and we were one win away from the conference finals.

Thats quite a few assumptions that they would make the finals, fact and reality is they weren't good enough to beat Celtics and did not make the finals. They were closer to the Demar/Lowry teams which were great regular season teams, but didn't make it anywhere in the playoffs. They were contenders to be a decent playoff team but not a championship level team.

So all the teams that don't make the finals were not contenders to begin with. Solid logic.

Like I said they were contenders similar to the Demar years. Make the playoffs but don't get very far. The reality is you need a superstar to win a chip these days and once Kawhi left that ship sailed, so yes they were similar to the Demar years of being a contender. Great regular season team, and maybe win a round. But without a superstar like Kawhi you're not winning it the chip.

[Duffman100]

Thats quite a few assumptions that they would make the finals, fact and reality is they weren't good enough to beat Celtics and did not make the finals. They were closer to the Demar/Lowry teams which were great regular season teams, but didn't make it anywhere in the playoffs. They were contenders to be a decent playoff team but not a championship level team.

So all the teams that don't make the finals were not contenders to begin with. Solid logic.

Like I said they were contenders similar to the Demar years. Make the playoffs but don't get very far. The reality is you need a superstar to win a chip these days and once Kawhi left that ship sailed, so yes they were similar to the Demar years of being a contender. Great regular season team, and maybe win a round. But without a superstar like Kawhi you're not winning it the chip.

Or you can be an incredibly deep team and elite defensive team, ala the Detroit Pistons. Which we were that year. Nobody would have bet the Miami Heat would have made the finals that year, or this year. And yet they did.

We were predicted by everyone to be contenders that year. Again, it's revisionist history to go back in time and say with 20/20 hindsight we weren't.

[TheGeneral99]

Contenders for what? The playoffs, sure. But they weren't anywhere near a championship team without Kawhi. They beat a nets team without KD/Kyrie. They were starting guys like Garret Temple, Tyler Johnson, and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot. Thats a gleague team starting lineup.

And they took Boston to 7 games. And they probably would have beat Miami and then they're in the finals.

We had the 2nd best record in the league and we were one win away from the conference finals.

Thats quite a few assumptions that they would make the finals, fact and reality is they weren't good enough to beat Celtics and did not make the finals. They were closer to the Demar/Lowry teams which were great regular season teams, but didn't make it anywhere in the playoffs. They were contenders to be a decent playoff team but not a championship level team.

The 2020 Raptors team was better than any of the Demar/Lowry teams we had. Much more balanced team, better coached, elite defensively. It was the year that Siakam, Fred, Powell and OG really emerged into very, very productive players and you still had Lowry playing at his peak level, Ibaka was still playing at a high level, and Gasol was a very high level role player. Compare that to the Lowry/Derozan teams were both Demar and JV were defensive liabilities and Casey idiotically played Ibaka and JV together.

But this is strange. Demar and Lowry were able to reach the conference finals in 2016 and the semi's in 2017 and 2018. They only lost to Lebron in his prime who had built a super team with Love and Kyrie and a bunch of other veteran players. 2018 was the real disappointment but we were underdogs in 2016 and 2017 and supposed to lose. In case you forgot, the 2016 Cavaliers took out the 73 win Warriors.

According to your logic if you don't make the finals you aren't a contender, lol. That would mean 28 teams every year aren't contenders. I guess Boston wasn't a contender this year, Philly wasn't a contender, Milwaukee wasn't a contender, the Suns weren't a contender etc.

[KL78192020]

So all the teams that don't make the finals were not contenders to begin with. Solid logic.

Like I said they were contenders similar to the Demar years. Make the playoffs but don't get very far. The reality is you need a superstar to win a chip these days and once Kawhi left that ship sailed, so yes they were similar to the Demar years of being a contender. Great regular season team, and maybe win a round. But without a superstar like Kawhi you're not winning it the chip.

Or you can be an incredibly deep team and elite defensive team, ala the Detroit Pistons. Which we were that year. Nobody would have bet the Miami Heat would have made the finals that year, or this year. And yet they did.

We were predicted by everyone to be contenders that year. Again, it's revisionist history to go back in time and say with 20/20 hindsight we weren't.

The Pistons were a rare case, they also had one of the best all time defensive players in Ben Wallace, the Raptors lost their best defender in Kawhi. The teams before them that won had Shaq/Kobe, Duncan, MJ etc. All the teams before and after them have had at least one superstar to lead the way. Teams can have playoff success like winning a round or two, but to win a championship you need a guy like Kawhi. Who predicted them to win a championship in 2020?

[HumbleRen]

You're not a real contender if you don't have a top 10 player in the playoffs.

You're a cute team that overachieved. Ala the Atlanta Hawks in 2014-2015 when they won 60 games.

That's all I got to say on this topic lol.

[TheGeneral99]

Like I said they were contenders similar to the Demar years. Make the playoffs but don't get very far. The reality is you need a superstar to win a chip these days and once Kawhi left that ship sailed, so yes they were similar to the Demar years of being a contender. Great regular season team, and maybe win a round. But without a superstar like Kawhi you're not winning it the chip.

Or you can be an incredibly deep team and elite defensive team, ala the Detroit Pistons. Which we were that year. Nobody would have bet the Miami Heat would have made the finals that year, or this year. And yet they did.

We were predicted by everyone to be contenders that year. Again, it's revisionist history to go back in time and say with 20/20 hindsight we weren't.

The Pistons were a rare case, they also had one of the best all time defensive players in Ben Wallace, the Raptors lost their best defender in Kawhi. The teams before them that won had Shaq/Kobe, Duncan, MJ etc. All the teams before and after them have had at least one superstar to lead the way. Teams can have playoff success like winning a round or two, but to win a championship you need a guy like Kawhi. Who predicted them to win a championship in 2020?

You also need some luck every year to win a championship.

Let's look at the last few years:

2023 - Kawhi and George both got hurt rendering the Clippers useless, Giannis was hurt early in the playoffs etc.
2022 - Ja Morant gets hurt misses most of series against Warriors, Kawhi is hurt and misses the playoffs, AD and Lebron both had major injuries that year.
2021 - Kawhi is hurt, AD gets hurt in the playoffs, Kyrie gets hurt, Harden plays injured etc.
2020 - Bubble year.
2019 - Durant injured, Klay gets hurt mid-series and in game 6.
2018 - Chris Paul injures his hamstring with Rockets up 3-2 and Rockets lose the series.

So had Kawhi, George, Lebron, AD etc. been healthy the last few years, we could have possibly seen different outcomes.

To say Raptors weren't a contending team between 2016-2020 is a bit silly.

[TheGeneral99]

You're not a real contender if you don't have a top 10 player in the playoffs.

You're a cute team that overachieved. Ala the Atlanta Hawks in 2014-2015 when they won 60 games.

That's all I got to say on this topic lol.

The 2015 Hawks were a bit of an extreme outlier. This wasn't a team that was consistently an elite team. The Hawks in 2014 won 38 games and the Hawks in 2016 won 48 games and in 2017 won 43 games. By 2017 they had already lost Carroll and Horford, and Milsap was declining and getting old. This was by in large a pretty mediocore team in the mid 2010s apart from that single 2015 season where everything went right for them.

The Raptors won 49 in 2015, 56 in 2016, 51 in 2017, 59 in 2018, 58 in 2019, and 53 in 2020 (on a shortened 72 game season). They were consistently an elite team for several seasons. The team had the 2nd most wins in the NBA from 2014-2020 after the Warriors.

Really bad comparison that tells me you didn't watch the NBA back then.

[KL78192020]

Or you can be an incredibly deep team and elite defensive team, ala the Detroit Pistons. Which we were that year. Nobody would have bet the Miami Heat would have made the finals that year, or this year. And yet they did.

We were predicted by everyone to be contenders that year. Again, it's revisionist history to go back in time and say with 20/20 hindsight we weren't.

The Pistons were a rare case, they also had one of the best all time defensive players in Ben Wallace, the Raptors lost their best defender in Kawhi. The teams before them that won had Shaq/Kobe, Duncan, MJ etc. All the teams before and after them have had at least one superstar to lead the way. Teams can have playoff success like winning a round or two, but to win a championship you need a guy like Kawhi. Who predicted them to win a championship in 2020?

You also need some luck every year to win a championship.

Let's look at the last few years:

2023 - Kawhi and George both got hurt rendering the Clippers useless, Giannis was hurt early in the playoffs etc.
2022 - Ja Morant gets hurt misses most of series against Warriors, Kawhi is hurt and misses the playoffs, AD and Lebron both had major injuries that year.
2021 - Kawhi is hurt, AD gets hurt in the playoffs, Kyrie gets hurt, Harden plays injured etc.
2020 - Bubble year.
2019 - Durant injured, Klay gets hurt mid-series and in game 6.
2018 - Chris Paul injures his hamstring with Rockets up 3-2 and Rockets lose the series.

So had Kawhi, George, Lebron, AD etc. been healthy the last few years, we could have possibly seen different outcomes.

To say Raptors weren't a contending team between 2016-2020 is a bit silly.

The Raptors were a contending team that could put up a good regular season and win a round or two, but there are levels to this. Championship team is a whole other level.

In all those years of injured players you mentioned, guess what another team with a superstar won: Curry, Giannis, Jokic, Lebron and Raptors with Kawhi in 2019.

Those injuries just gave way to another team with a superstar to win. Being a good regular season team and a team that can win a round or two doesn't make you a championship team.

[TheGeneral99]

The Pistons were a rare case, they also had one of the best all time defensive players in Ben Wallace, the Raptors lost their best defender in Kawhi. The teams before them that won had Shaq/Kobe, Duncan, MJ etc. All the teams before and after them have had at least one superstar to lead the way. Teams can have playoff success like winning a round or two, but to win a championship you need a guy like Kawhi. Who predicted them to win a championship in 2020?

You also need some luck every year to win a championship.

Let's look at the last few years:

2023 - Kawhi and George both got hurt rendering the Clippers useless, Giannis was hurt early in the playoffs etc.
2022 - Ja Morant gets hurt misses most of series against Warriors, Kawhi is hurt and misses the playoffs, AD and Lebron both had major injuries that year.
2021 - Kawhi is hurt, AD gets hurt in the playoffs, Kyrie gets hurt, Harden plays injured etc.
2020 - Bubble year.
2019 - Durant injured, Klay gets hurt mid-series and in game 6.
2018 - Chris Paul injures his hamstring with Rockets up 3-2 and Rockets lose the series.

So had Kawhi, George, Lebron, AD etc. been healthy the last few years, we could have possibly seen different outcomes.

To say Raptors weren't a contending team between 2016-2020 is a bit silly.

The Raptors were a contending team that could put up a good regular season and win a round or two, but there are levels to this. Championship team is a whole other level.

In all those years of injured players you mentioned, guess what another team with a superstar won: Curry, Giannis, Jokic, Lebron and Raptor with Kawhi in 2019.

Those injuries just gave way to another team with a superstar to win. Being a good regular season team and a team that can win a round or two doesn't make you a championship team. Like the Hawks of the early 2010's.

Giannis just got demolished 4-1 by an 8 seed Heat team.

Jokic the last few years couldn't get by deep in the playoffs (apart from the bubble year) and this year they look a leap.

Now I'm not saying you don't need a superstar, I'm saying your theory that our 2020 team wasn't an elite team is simply false. This was a team that was a championship level squad, which under the right circumstances could have made the finals.

I mean look at the Bucks with Giannis. They have an MVP caliber player right?

2023 - Lost 4-1 in the 1st round to an 8 seed.
2022 - Lost in the semi's.
2021 - won chip.
2020 - Lost in the semi's.

So are you telling me that the Bucks in 2020, 2022 and 2023 are not contenders because they couldn't even get past the 2nd round!!!???

[HumbleRen]

The Pistons were a rare case, they also had one of the best all time defensive players in Ben Wallace, the Raptors lost their best defender in Kawhi. The teams before them that won had Shaq/Kobe, Duncan, MJ etc. All the teams before and after them have had at least one superstar to lead the way. Teams can have playoff success like winning a round or two, but to win a championship you need a guy like Kawhi. Who predicted them to win a championship in 2020?

You also need some luck every year to win a championship.

Let's look at the last few years:

2023 - Kawhi and George both got hurt rendering the Clippers useless, Giannis was hurt early in the playoffs etc.
2022 - Ja Morant gets hurt misses most of series against Warriors, Kawhi is hurt and misses the playoffs, AD and Lebron both had major injuries that year.
2021 - Kawhi is hurt, AD gets hurt in the playoffs, Kyrie gets hurt, Harden plays injured etc.
2020 - Bubble year.
2019 - Durant injured, Klay gets hurt mid-series and in game 6.
2018 - Chris Paul injures his hamstring with Rockets up 3-2 and Rockets lose the series.

So had Kawhi, George, Lebron, AD etc. been healthy the last few years, we could have possibly seen different outcomes.

To say Raptors weren't a contending team between 2016-2020 is a bit silly.

The Raptors were a contending team that could put up a good regular season and win a round or two, but there are levels to this. Championship team is a whole other level.

In all those years of injured players you mentioned, guess what another team with a superstar won: Curry, Giannis, Jokic, Lebron and Raptors with Kawhi in 2019.

Those injuries just gave way to another team with a superstar to win. Being a good regular season team and a team that can win a round or two doesn't make you a championship team.

We lost to a 22 year old on a team that was missing their second best player. Smh lol.

[TheGeneral99]

You also need some luck every year to win a championship.

Let's look at the last few years:

2023 - Kawhi and George both got hurt rendering the Clippers useless, Giannis was hurt early in the playoffs etc.
2022 - Ja Morant gets hurt misses most of series against Warriors, Kawhi is hurt and misses the playoffs, AD and Lebron both had major injuries that year.
2021 - Kawhi is hurt, AD gets hurt in the playoffs, Kyrie gets hurt, Harden plays injured etc.
2020 - Bubble year.
2019 - Durant injured, Klay gets hurt mid-series and in game 6.
2018 - Chris Paul injures his hamstring with Rockets up 3-2 and Rockets lose the series.

So had Kawhi, George, Lebron, AD etc. been healthy the last few years, we could have possibly seen different outcomes.

To say Raptors weren't a contending team between 2016-2020 is a bit silly.

The Raptors were a contending team that could put up a good regular season and win a round or two, but there are levels to this. Championship team is a whole other level.

In all those years of injured players you mentioned, guess what another team with a superstar won: Curry, Giannis, Jokic, Lebron and Raptors with Kawhi in 2019.

Those injuries just gave way to another team with a superstar to win. Being a good regular season team and a team that can win a round or two doesn't make you a championship team.

We lost to a 22 year old on a team that was missing their second best player. Smh lol.

What?