Ray Donovan wrote:How did Toronto w/Siakam, OG &Barnes leading the way not do better in the playoffs the Last few seasons ? Had Trent Jr to shoot & a decent pt guard too + Nic Nurse is a damn good coach, smh
Well... they won a title in 2019. They took Boston to 7 in the Conference Semis in 2020, and they were 4th in both O and D that year. They were riddled with injuries in 2021 and missed the playoffs as a result.
Embiid and Maxey ripped us apart in 2022 as we gave up like a 121 ORTG to Philly in that series, and we weren't good on O with our wide variety of inefficient scorers. We were post-Lowry and a .500 team which missed the playoffs last year. Kind of bleh team, very bad at making shots (28th in both 3P% and 2P%), low volume from 3, weak draw rate... we were only 11th on O because we didn't cough up the ball and were quite good on the offensive glass. But we sucked major ass at making shots, and there was nothing Nurse could do about that with Masai's rosters of tall, lanky dudes with no shot-making.
And then we were a 25-win team this year with the trades and stuff, post-Nurse.
It's pretty clear. VanVleet wasn't the guy to choose, but we did. Siakam wasn't the guy to choose, but we did. Barnes is young and not there yet, though showing signs of improvement. Anunoby had health issues and a cap to his offensive contributions.
A better wonder would be "why is this a question?" Coaching isn't magic, man; there's only so much the best coaches in league history can do with some rosters, and some rosters are built better for regular season mediocrity than postseason success.