PG #67 Pistons: Jeopardy

[DelAbbot]

It's interesting that so many people want to tank but nobody wants to watch when it's happening, it's dead in here.

half the team is injured, are you going to blame people who didn't waste their precious free time watching this?

I'm saying this is what tanking looks like. Your best players often not being available and mostly unwatchable basketball.

so? tanking is about having a better / more watchable team in the future. No one should be watching the current garbage on the court, since the core young players are held out

[raincityraptors]

It's interesting to see what this team looks like with RJ taking first option heat without Barnes and IQ and now to see what the team looks like with IQ taking first option heat.

I like both players and hope both are Raptors a long time but I think RJ looked a lot better in that role against the champions than IQ did against the worst team in the league.

After watching this game, I appreciate RJ driving at Joker even more.

I think we know that Brown, McDaniels and Nwora aren't fitting the system. (With McDaniels I question if he belongs in this league)

But I'm really disappointed in Agbaji. He is supposed to be a defender working on being a positive on offence but his defense was terrible tonight along with going 0 - 3 on offense.

We have some cap space and picks next year. I think we will add more depth. I'm already looking forward to training camp lol.

1 game sample size analysis. A realGM classic.

This is a forum about where we talk about what we are seeing.

And I appreciate anyone engaging these days because I have never seen this forum so dead (though I can understand why).

I hope your one line of trolling helped you feel better about yourself Barney.

[Potential]

Read on Twitter

[Scase]

how does that work bro? how does developing the scotties, RJ, iQ and losing at the same time? How is developing our future and losing? tf you smoking

So, basically people want to have their cake and eat it too. Play our best players and lose games at the same time.

High potential =/= best. People just want to see basketball with growth, not meaningless players that won't likely be on the roster in 2-3 years.

Calm down.

It's done, by not making trades 3-4 months into the season, and rather in the off season. And please tell me how Scottie is developing now during this tank, by having a broken hand?

This blatant tank job only STARTED after Barnes went down. So your argument is nonsensical.

[Dalek]

It's interesting to see what this team looks like with RJ taking first option heat without Barnes and IQ and now to see what the team looks like with IQ taking first option heat.

I like both players and hope both are Raptors a long time but I think RJ looked a lot better in that role against the champions than IQ did against the worst team in the league.

After watching this game, I appreciate RJ driving at Joker even more.

I think we know that Brown, McDaniels and Nwora aren't fitting the system. (With McDaniels I question if he belongs in this league)

But I'm really disappointed in Agbaji. He is supposed to be a defender working on being a positive on offence but his defense was terrible tonight along with going 0 - 3 on offense.

We have some cap space and picks next year. I think we will add more depth. I'm already looking forward to training camp lol.

1 game sample size analysis. A realGM classic.

This is a forum about where we talk about what we are seeing.

And I appreciate anyone engaging these days because I have never seen this forum so dead (though I can understand why).

I hope your one line of trolling helped you feel better about yourself Barney.

I actually feel like McDaniels has shown signs of life on both ends over the past few games.

Portland 10 boards / 2 steals and 1 block
Denver 12 points / 3 steals
Detroit 8 points / +5 on court

It is not enough for me to say it is good to have him signed for next season, but he is super tall on court and the wingspan gets deflections and helps him get contested boards. Hopefully another summer and camp help him get the system. I just don't want him ever dribbling more than one bounce.

Agbaji looks lost, and maybe it is a case where he needs to have a ton of talent and a refined role of sitting in the corner to succeed.

Brown and Nwora are selfish to me. They always have the option to make the pass, and they always seem to hesitate the swing. Brown especially loves to drive and misses 2 layups per game or if he does pass he passes it out of the shooting pocket and throws the sequence off - that is maddening. Nwora just sucks and is a chucker - worst combo.

[Scase]

So, basically people want to have their cake and eat it too. Play our best players and lose games at the same time.

High potential =/= best. People just want to see basketball with growth, not meaningless players that won't likely be on the roster in 2-3 years.

sure but our best players also have the most potential in this case

No, potential mean's potential.

When Siakam was here, he was our best player, Barnes had the highest potential.

Right now, we're watching Brown, Olynk, Ochai, and McDaniels play a combined 91 minutes in a game. None of them are either our best or highest potential players. IQ and Dick were the only 2 players last night that fit that category.

I'm willing to bet most people would have no issues watching Scottie/Rj/IQ/Dick play and lose. Watching a bunch of players that are at the tail end of their career, are on 2 way contracts, or shouldn't even be in the league, is far from the same.

[Scase]

let's not pretend this is intentional until maybe when Barnes got injured.

"This is what you pro tankers wanted"

Pretty sure most people advocating for a tank, wanted to start it with more than 20ish games left in the season lol

Most sensible posters were ambivalent, seeing the value in surrendering the pick this year and keeping it for a much deeper draft next year. Of course, we don't know how the Raptors have scouted both drafts, so there's no point in being dogmatic about either approach.

But since it became clear we weren't gonna catch the Hawks even without Trae, then we're all on board with losing every game.

This year or next year, we'd need to tank to get a pick worth having. If we were bad enough to have a real chance at keeping this years pick, then we'd be bad enough to keep it the year after. You don't jump from bottom 3 to bottom 10 in a single year.

Deciding what to do after seeing how bad your competition is, is just a terrible way to run a team. You make a plan, and you move forward with it, and only deviate when something major happens.

I could maybe, believe this was all planned, except it's a tough pill to swallow considering they only leaned into the tank after Barnes got injured, which I will assume they didn't plan for. This is just the FO being opportunistic, which isn't bad per se, but it's a "too little, too late" scenario, barring some lotto luck.

None of us naturally know how badly RJ is actually injured, or if IQ needed to miss some games etc. so, it's hard to say if we could still manage to string together enough wins to guarantee giving up the pick this year. But that would need to mean we'd be making even further changes to tank hard next year, and seeing the current makeup of this team, I don't think we can be that bad.

So what this looks to be is likely one of two outcomes :

A) We luck into the pick this year, and it conveys in a much better (in terms of draft quality) year in 2025.
B) We lose the pick this year despite "tanking" at the end of the season, and next year Barnes etc. are back healthy, and we get a pick in the 10-17 range next year.

Neither of which I think most people would be particularly enthused with. I would be EXTREMELY shocked if we somehow managed to be bottom 6 bad again next year without any more major trades/coaching philosophies. And quite frankly, if that does happen, that's a really bad sign for this roster.

[PushDaRock]

High potential =/= best. People just want to see basketball with growth, not meaningless players that won't likely be on the roster in 2-3 years.

sure but our best players also have the most potential in this case

No, potential mean's potential.

When Siakam was here, he was our best player, Barnes had the highest potential.

Right now, we're watching Brown, Olynk, Ochai, and McDaniels play a combined 91 minutes in a game. None of them are either our best or highest potential players. IQ and Dick were the only 2 players last night that fit that category.

I'm willing to bet most people would have no issues watching Scottie/Rj/IQ/Dick play and lose. Watching a bunch of players that are at the tail end of their career, are on 2 way contracts, or shouldn't even be in the league, is far from the same.

"in this case" as in the current roster

[Mikistan]

"This is what you pro tankers wanted"

Pretty sure most people advocating for a tank, wanted to start it with more than 20ish games left in the season lol

Most sensible posters were ambivalent, seeing the value in surrendering the pick this year and keeping it for a much deeper draft next year. Of course, we don't know how the Raptors have scouted both drafts, so there's no point in being dogmatic about either approach.

But since it became clear we weren't gonna catch the Hawks even without Trae, then we're all on board with losing every game.

This year or next year, we'd need to tank to get a pick worth having. If we were bad enough to have a real chance at keeping this years pick, then we'd be bad enough to keep it the year after. You don't jump from bottom 3 to bottom 10 in a single year.

Deciding what to do after seeing how bad your competition is, is just a terrible way to run a team. You make a plan, and you move forward with it, and only deviate when something major happens.

I could maybe, believe this was all planned, except it's a tough pill to swallow considering they only leaned into the tank after Barnes got injured, which I will assume they didn't plan for. This is just the FO being opportunistic, which isn't bad per se, but it's a "too little, too late" scenario, barring some lotto luck.

None of us naturally know how badly RJ is actually injured, or if IQ needed to miss some games etc. so, it's hard to say if we could still manage to string together enough wins to guarantee giving up the pick this year. But that would need to mean we'd be making even further changes to tank hard next year, and seeing the current makeup of this team, I don't think we can be that bad.

So what this looks to be is likely one of two outcomes :

A) We luck into the pick this year, and it conveys in a much better (in terms of draft quality) year in 2025.
B) We lose the pick this year despite "tanking" at the end of the season, and next year Barnes etc. are back healthy, and we get a pick in the 10-17 range next year.

Neither of which I think most people would be particularly enthused with. I would be EXTREMELY shocked if we somehow managed to be bottom 6 bad again next year without any more major trades/coaching philosophies. And quite frankly, if that does happen, that's a really bad sign for this roster.

Maybe if siakam put in some effort he would be the best player but nah

[Scase]

sure but our best players also have the most potential in this case

No, potential mean's potential.

When Siakam was here, he was our best player, Barnes had the highest potential.

Right now, we're watching Brown, Olynk, Ochai, and McDaniels play a combined 91 minutes in a game. None of them are either our best or highest potential players. IQ and Dick were the only 2 players last night that fit that category.

I'm willing to bet most people would have no issues watching Scottie/Rj/IQ/Dick play and lose. Watching a bunch of players that are at the tail end of their career, are on 2 way contracts, or shouldn't even be in the league, is far from the same.

"in this case" as in the current roster

That doesn't really change much though, since we're still watching Brown, Olynk, Ochai, and McDaniels for significant minutes, despite none of them being either best or highest potential on the team. And that's kinda my point, none of them are likely to be here another couple of years (maybe Ochai), so watching them is pretty uninteresting/not entertaining.

No one is expecting championship calibre basketball, but watching bad basketball with prospects would be tolerable or even enjoyable, or hell, if we even had our own pick. Tanking usually has an end goal of a good pick, I could support that, but as of right now, it's more likely we lose it, than not.

[ArthurVandelay]

Read on Twitter

I’m asking for more time to call my loved ones and say goodbye

[LarSiN]

I haven't been watching a lot of late. I get we've been missing a lot of players due to injuries and are most likely tanking at this point, but how much of the losing is attributed to Darko being an awful coach? To lose to Detroit twice is truly something special.

You answered your own question. He was brought in as a development coach, they're developing.

[YogurtProducer]

No, potential mean's potential.

When Siakam was here, he was our best player, Barnes had the highest potential.

Right now, we're watching Brown, Olynk, Ochai, and McDaniels play a combined 91 minutes in a game. None of them are either our best or highest potential players. IQ and Dick were the only 2 players last night that fit that category.

I'm willing to bet most people would have no issues watching Scottie/Rj/IQ/Dick play and lose. Watching a bunch of players that are at the tail end of their career, are on 2 way contracts, or shouldn't even be in the league, is far from the same.

"in this case" as in the current roster

That doesn't really change much though, since we're still watching Brown, Olynk, Ochai, and McDaniels for significant minutes, despite none of them being either best or highest potential on the team. And that's kinda my point, none of them are likely to be here another couple of years (maybe Ochai), so watching them is pretty uninteresting/not entertaining.

No one is expecting championship calibre basketball, but watching bad basketball with prospects would be tolerable or even enjoyable, or hell, if we even had our own pick. Tanking usually has an end goal of a good pick, I could support that, but as of right now, it's more likely we lose it, than not.

Man.. you just really have no idea how a tanking team looks.

No tanking team is playing high potential players. typically, any team with a roster full of good players with potential are probably still good enough to not be anywhere near the bottom of the league. Go look at the 2020-21 Thunder and tell me how many guys from that team are even relevant for OKC anymore.

Typical - the ones who call for the tank the hardest are the first to disappear or complain when tanking happens.

[ArthurVandelay]

I haven't been watching a lot of late. I get we've been missing a lot of players due to injuries and are most likely tanking at this point, but how much of the losing is attributed to Darko being an awful coach? To lose to Detroit twice is truly something special.

You answered your own question. He was brought in as a development coach, they're developing.

That is absolutely true. The guys who should be back next year are getting better.

scottie
IQ and RJ in short amount of time
Dick
Porter

Fingers crossed on Agbaji

[TGM]

Poeple wanted the tanking and giving that Scottie and Jakob are out we got to embrace the tank. Not winning another game till the rest of the season would be what you want. Let Dick, IQ, Ochai get all the shots they need.

Next season you get back Barnes and Jakob and a full time healthy Barrett. Its completely two different teams.

At the rate we are going we get a top 6 pick as well and a good amount of cap space. The rebuild will be quick and swift.