Darko interview Serbian newspaper - "I have never seen a season like Toronto's"

[MoMan24]

Yeah, and Nurse had Scottie for 2 seasons prior, and OG/Siakam for like 5+. Stop acting like they are remotely the same situation, they knew his schemes, they knew his coaching style, they knew how to interact with each other. Darko was new to every player on the roster.

Darko already publicly stated they were just focusing on the offence that season. I'm not here absolving him of everything, his timeouts are weird, but make sense for a new team and a new system kinda, and his subs are suspect. By no means do I see COTY calibre right now. I'm also not so upset because again, I understand that coaches can be rookies too and need time to get into their groove.

Additionally you're just creating narratives to justify not liking him. He never said anything remotely close to "dont blame me for our terrible record". He just stated how **** up the season was, which it was very much. 2 freak injuries to starters, multiple deaths, tons of trades. Like wtf do you think he's talking about.

This is what I'm saying you already have your mind made up about him, based on a few months and nothing is going to change that.

It's not a few months, I watched an entire season of Darko making mistakes, misusing players, and the Raptors being unexpectedly poor on defence, maybe that will change in 2024-25 but I doubt it. And it's completely ridiculous for an NBA head coach to claim they are just focusing on offence for a whole season. Maybe it would make sense if the team was already a good defensive team but they aren't.

It's all good though, Darko will fill his purpose as a stopgap coach who can lead this team to good lottery picks in the next few seasons. He's expendable and he'll be replaced by a real coach when the team is serious about winning.

Ya you're being irrational. To make absolute conclusions on a coach after the season we had is illogical. Before I ever look at the players or coaches I have to look at the incompetence of our front office. Besides drafting Scottie they have failed miserably for years and those chickens came home to roast this season. Roster turnover, players checking out before trades, injuries, deaths, and finally the front office signing a bunch of bums to end the year to tank is not on Darko. He needs to be better with timeouts, rotations, and on the defensive end for sure. However the way the players speak about him, the development that was made by our most valuable assets, the culture reset was far more important than wins and loses this year. Again he tasked to value those things over wins unlike Nurse. I stand by Darko and have faith he will learn and grow especially considering next season won't nearly be as stressful.

[will]

Just wait until Darko finds out Masai traded another FRP.

[ciueli]

Yeah, and Nurse had Scottie for 2 seasons prior, and OG/Siakam for like 5+. Stop acting like they are remotely the same situation, they knew his schemes, they knew his coaching style, they knew how to interact with each other. Darko was new to every player on the roster.

Darko already publicly stated they were just focusing on the offence that season. I'm not here absolving him of everything, his timeouts are weird, but make sense for a new team and a new system kinda, and his subs are suspect. By no means do I see COTY calibre right now. I'm also not so upset because again, I understand that coaches can be rookies too and need time to get into their groove.

Additionally you're just creating narratives to justify not liking him. He never said anything remotely close to "dont blame me for our terrible record". He just stated how **** up the season was, which it was very much. 2 freak injuries to starters, multiple deaths, tons of trades. Like wtf do you think he's talking about.

This is what I'm saying you already have your mind made up about him, based on a few months and nothing is going to change that.

It's not a few months, I watched an entire season of Darko making mistakes, misusing players, and the Raptors being unexpectedly poor on defence, maybe that will change in 2024-25 but I doubt it. And it's completely ridiculous for an NBA head coach to claim they are just focusing on offence for a whole season. Maybe it would make sense if the team was already a good defensive team but they aren't.

It's all good though, Darko will fill his purpose as a stopgap coach who can lead this team to good lottery picks in the next few seasons. He's expendable and he'll be replaced by a real coach when the team is serious about winning.

Ya you're being irrational. To make absolute conclusions on a coach after the season we had is illogical. Before I ever look at the players or coaches I have to look at the incompetence of our front office. Besides drafting Scottie they have failed miserably for years and those chickens came home to roast this season. Roster turnover, players checking out before trades, injuries, deaths, and finally the front office signing a bunch of bums to end the year to tank is not on Darko. He needs to be better with timeouts, rotations, and on the defensive end for sure. However the way the players speak about him, the development that was made by our most valuable assets, the culture reset was far more important than wins and loses this year. Again he tasked to value those things over wins unlike Nurse. I stand by Darko and have faith he will learn and grow especially considering next season won't nearly be as stressful.

NBA head coach isn't a job where you get a couple of years to develop and see if you eventually have what it takes to be good at it, it's a job you need to show you're competent at quickly, or you get fired, that's just how it is. There are plenty of good coaches who get fired all the time, even coaches who have won titles like Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel, Mike Budenholzer, and Tyronn Lue, NBA coaches are by nature disposable. The only reason Darko won't get fired is there's no point because the team isn't competitive and the front office likely wants to get a high pick in 2025, plus he's owed money and they're cheap.

This bit of what you said was hilarious:

those chickens came home to roast this season

I think you meant roost, not roast. Funny stuff though. Can't wait for those chickens to come home to roast.

[MoMan24]

It's not a few months, I watched an entire season of Darko making mistakes, misusing players, and the Raptors being unexpectedly poor on defence, maybe that will change in 2024-25 but I doubt it. And it's completely ridiculous for an NBA head coach to claim they are just focusing on offence for a whole season. Maybe it would make sense if the team was already a good defensive team but they aren't.

It's all good though, Darko will fill his purpose as a stopgap coach who can lead this team to good lottery picks in the next few seasons. He's expendable and he'll be replaced by a real coach when the team is serious about winning.

Ya you're being irrational. To make absolute conclusions on a coach after the season we had is illogical. Before I ever look at the players or coaches I have to look at the incompetence of our front office. Besides drafting Scottie they have failed miserably for years and those chickens came home to roast this season. Roster turnover, players checking out before trades, injuries, deaths, and finally the front office signing a bunch of bums to end the year to tank is not on Darko. He needs to be better with timeouts, rotations, and on the defensive end for sure. However the way the players speak about him, the development that was made by our most valuable assets, the culture reset was far more important than wins and loses this year. Again he tasked to value those things over wins unlike Nurse. I stand by Darko and have faith he will learn and grow especially considering next season won't nearly be as stressful.

NBA head coach isn't a job where you get a couple of years to develop and see if you eventually have what it takes to be good at it, it's a job you need to show you're competent at quickly, or you get fired, that's just how it is. There are plenty of good coaches who get fired all the time, even coaches who have won titles like Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel, Mike Budenholzer, and Tyronn Lue, NBA coaches are by nature disposable. The only reason Darko won't get fired is there's no point because the team isn't competitive and the front office likely wants to get a high pick in 2025, plus he's owed money and they're cheap.

This bit of what you said was hilarious:

those chickens came home to roast this season

I think you meant roost, not roast. Funny stuff though. Can't wait for those chickens to come home to roast.

Thanks for the correction. I did mean roost lol. They did come to roost and the obvious examples were Fred leaving for nothing, getting a bad return on Pascal by trading him too late and losing our lottery pick in this years draft. The 2022-23 season was the worst season we've had under Masai IMHO. An absolute disaster and miscalculation by the front office. Masai himself said he did not enjoy watching that team play and there was a lot of selfishness. The brand of basketball was horrible. Coaches were getting into heated arguments. There was a divided among the players. There was no real leadership. Development crawled to a halt. Masai literally hired the anti Nurse. This season was about resetting and getting back what was lost that we built up since the Casey/Demar/Lowry 'We The North' days that culminated in the title. Those things are culture, leadership, real accountability, development and a brand of basketball we can watch and root for. I guarantee you Masai is much happier with Darko's 25 wins than he was with Nurse's 41 wins the prior season.

[ciueli]

Ya you're being irrational. To make absolute conclusions on a coach after the season we had is illogical. Before I ever look at the players or coaches I have to look at the incompetence of our front office. Besides drafting Scottie they have failed miserably for years and those chickens came home to roast this season. Roster turnover, players checking out before trades, injuries, deaths, and finally the front office signing a bunch of bums to end the year to tank is not on Darko. He needs to be better with timeouts, rotations, and on the defensive end for sure. However the way the players speak about him, the development that was made by our most valuable assets, the culture reset was far more important than wins and loses this year. Again he tasked to value those things over wins unlike Nurse. I stand by Darko and have faith he will learn and grow especially considering next season won't nearly be as stressful.

NBA head coach isn't a job where you get a couple of years to develop and see if you eventually have what it takes to be good at it, it's a job you need to show you're competent at quickly, or you get fired, that's just how it is. There are plenty of good coaches who get fired all the time, even coaches who have won titles like Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel, Mike Budenholzer, and Tyronn Lue, NBA coaches are by nature disposable. The only reason Darko won't get fired is there's no point because the team isn't competitive and the front office likely wants to get a high pick in 2025, plus he's owed money and they're cheap.

This bit of what you said was hilarious:

those chickens came home to roast this season

I think you meant roost, not roast. Funny stuff though. Can't wait for those chickens to come home to roast.

Thanks for the correction. I did mean roost lol. They did come to roost and the obvious examples were Fred leaving for nothing, getting a bad return on Pascal by trading him too late and losing our lottery pick in this years draft. The 2022-23 season was the worst season we've had under Masai IMHO. An absolute disaster and miscalculation by the front office. Masai himself said he did not enjoy watching that team play and there was a lot of selfishness. The brand of basketball was horrible. Coaches were getting into heated arguments. There was a divided among the players. There was no real leadership. Development crawled to a halt. Masai literally hired the anti Nurse. This season was about resetting and getting back what was lost that we built up since the Casey/Demar/Lowry 'We The North' days that culminated in the title. Those things are culture, leadership, real accountability, development and a brand of basketball we can watch and root for. I guarantee you Masai is much happier with Darko's 25 wins than he was with Nurse's 41 wins the prior season.

Of course Masai is much happier with Darko than Nick Nurse because Darko was hired to be a controllable yes-man head coach who will play whoever Masai tells him to play and won't complain about being handed a roster of players not ready to win now. That's what the term "developmental coach" is code for.

And if you think Darko is a coach who can bring the players together and create a winning culture we already have a season that shows he's been unable to do that. The Dennis Schroder experiment didn't work as he killed team chemistry and agitated for a trade once he wasn't a starter anymore, other players weren't happy Dennis was monopolizing the ball when he was a starter. We had an incident with Scottie Barnes leaving the bench early in a loss that was a bit of a scandal, and that's your franchise player who you're supposed to be building around, not some disposable player we can just get rid of like Dennis. It was serious enough it made some people on here question whether Scottie is really a future perennial star we can build around or these types of attitude issues will get in the way.

Nothing Darko has done to this point inspires confidence. He's installing a "0.5 offence" that has role players taking almost as many shots as the best players on the team at times, he doesn't coach defence, and he isn't a motivational guy who can get the best out of players and keep everyone happy. That doesn't sound like a person who will be head coach of an NBA team too long to me, again, he's only here next season because there's no reason to fire him if Masai's gunning for lottery balls over wins in a "development" year.

[PoundTown]

NBA head coach isn't a job where you get a couple of years to develop and see if you eventually have what it takes to be good at it, it's a job you need to show you're competent at quickly, or you get fired, that's just how it is. There are plenty of good coaches who get fired all the time, even coaches who have won titles like Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel, Mike Budenholzer, and Tyronn Lue, NBA coaches are by nature disposable. The only reason Darko won't get fired is there's no point because the team isn't competitive and the front office likely wants to get a high pick in 2025, plus he's owed money and they're cheap.

This bit of what you said was hilarious:



I think you meant roost, not roast. Funny stuff though. Can't wait for those chickens to come home to roast.

Thanks for the correction. I did mean roost lol. They did come to roost and the obvious examples were Fred leaving for nothing, getting a bad return on Pascal by trading him too late and losing our lottery pick in this years draft. The 2022-23 season was the worst season we've had under Masai IMHO. An absolute disaster and miscalculation by the front office. Masai himself said he did not enjoy watching that team play and there was a lot of selfishness. The brand of basketball was horrible. Coaches were getting into heated arguments. There was a divided among the players. There was no real leadership. Development crawled to a halt. Masai literally hired the anti Nurse. This season was about resetting and getting back what was lost that we built up since the Casey/Demar/Lowry 'We The North' days that culminated in the title. Those things are culture, leadership, real accountability, development and a brand of basketball we can watch and root for. I guarantee you Masai is much happier with Darko's 25 wins than he was with Nurse's 41 wins the prior season.

Of course Masai is much happier with Darko than Nick Nurse because Darko was hired to be a controllable yes-man head coach who will play whoever Masai tells him to play and won't complain about being handed a roster of players not ready to win now. That's what the term "developmental coach" is code for.

And if you think Darko is a coach who can bring the players together and create a winning culture we already have a season that shows he's been unable to do that. The Dennis Schroder experiment didn't work as he killed team chemistry and agitated for a trade once he wasn't a starter anymore, other players weren't happy Dennis was monopolizing the ball when he was a starter. We had an incident with Scottie Barnes leaving the bench early in a loss that was a bit of a scandal, and that's your franchise player who you're supposed to be building around, not some disposable player we can just get rid of like Dennis. It was serious enough it made some people on here question whether Scottie is really a future perennial star we can build around or these types of attitude issues will get in the way.

Nothing Darko has done to this point inspires confidence. He's installing a "0.5 offence" that has role players taking almost as many shots as the best players on the team at times, he doesn't coach defence, and he isn't a motivational guy who can get the best out of players and keep everyone happy. That doesn't sound like a person who will be head coach of an NBA team too long to me, again, he's only here next season because there's no reason to fire him if Masai's gunning for lottery balls over wins in a "development" year.

The defense killed me, but count me in as someone that appreciated the offensive style of play and ball movement. The offence lets a guy like Grady become more of a threat than he would be otherwise in say our Freddy run offences. We also don't have great iso options, and I'd say we don't even really have that great of pick and roll options. You can say that it has role players taking almost as many shots as best players, but the actions were very much encouraging BBQ to be in spots to score in my opinion. Scottie and IQ had the ball a lot and there was that specific action to get RJ downhill. However, Darko seriously needs a lead assistant that can manage the defense and let him have that level of autonomy on that end, because the team looked terrible on that end. H

[MoMan24]

NBA head coach isn't a job where you get a couple of years to develop and see if you eventually have what it takes to be good at it, it's a job you need to show you're competent at quickly, or you get fired, that's just how it is. There are plenty of good coaches who get fired all the time, even coaches who have won titles like Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel, Mike Budenholzer, and Tyronn Lue, NBA coaches are by nature disposable. The only reason Darko won't get fired is there's no point because the team isn't competitive and the front office likely wants to get a high pick in 2025, plus he's owed money and they're cheap.

This bit of what you said was hilarious:



I think you meant roost, not roast. Funny stuff though. Can't wait for those chickens to come home to roast.

Thanks for the correction. I did mean roost lol. They did come to roost and the obvious examples were Fred leaving for nothing, getting a bad return on Pascal by trading him too late and losing our lottery pick in this years draft. The 2022-23 season was the worst season we've had under Masai IMHO. An absolute disaster and miscalculation by the front office. Masai himself said he did not enjoy watching that team play and there was a lot of selfishness. The brand of basketball was horrible. Coaches were getting into heated arguments. There was a divided among the players. There was no real leadership. Development crawled to a halt. Masai literally hired the anti Nurse. This season was about resetting and getting back what was lost that we built up since the Casey/Demar/Lowry 'We The North' days that culminated in the title. Those things are culture, leadership, real accountability, development and a brand of basketball we can watch and root for. I guarantee you Masai is much happier with Darko's 25 wins than he was with Nurse's 41 wins the prior season.

Of course Masai is much happier with Darko than Nick Nurse because Darko was hired to be a controllable yes-man head coach who will play whoever Masai tells him to play and won't complain about being handed a roster of players not ready to win now. That's what the term "developmental coach" is code for.

And if you think Darko is a coach who can bring the players together and create a winning culture we already have a season that shows he's been unable to do that. The Dennis Schroder experiment didn't work as he killed team chemistry and agitated for a trade once he wasn't a starter anymore, other players weren't happy Dennis was monopolizing the ball when he was a starter. We had an incident with Scottie Barnes leaving the bench early in a loss that was a bit of a scandal, and that's your franchise player who you're supposed to be building around, not some disposable player we can just get rid of like Dennis. It was serious enough it made some people on here question whether Scottie is really a future perennial star we can build around or these types of attitude issues will get in the way.

Nothing Darko has done to this point inspires confidence. He's installing a "0.5 offence" that has role players taking almost as many shots as the best players on the team at times, he doesn't coach defence, and he isn't a motivational guy who can get the best out of players and keep everyone happy. That doesn't sound like a person who will be head coach of an NBA team too long to me, again, he's only here next season because there's no reason to fire him if Masai's gunning for lottery balls over wins in a "development" year.

The Scottie thing was completely over blown and is really a non issue.. The '0.5 offense' was never meant to be taken literally, its just a read and react ball movement offense. Problem was Siakam had no interest in anything that didn't involve him scoring. Precious, Boucher, Flynn, McDaniels and even Dennis can't play in a free flowing offense because they are low IQ or trash or both. Gradey wasn't ready and Otto was never healthy. I completely agree about Dennis though. I never liked the signing from the beginning. Before the season even started Dennis was talking about being a leader/starter and I knew it wasn't going to work. We are talking about a guy who has played on 7 different teams in 7 years and changed teams 8 times in 7 years. A career journeymen who left a few teams on bad terms. A guy whose ego is infinitely bigger than his game. His personality and skill set didn't fit and that's on the front office. This front office gave Darko the worst guard rotation in the league which was Dennis/Flynn/Gary. We also probably had the worst bench in the league which is also on the front office. I would have preferred Gary to start over Dennis but Darko truly had slim pickings. We actually agree on a lot I just think you've made a final conclusion on Darko without enough information mainly because he came into a disaster season that wasn't his doing.

[Chandan]

Darko has shown that he lacks attention to details during his first year here. Too many mental laspe and games where the team just shows up unprepared.

[ciueli]

Thanks for the correction. I did mean roost lol. They did come to roost and the obvious examples were Fred leaving for nothing, getting a bad return on Pascal by trading him too late and losing our lottery pick in this years draft. The 2022-23 season was the worst season we've had under Masai IMHO. An absolute disaster and miscalculation by the front office. Masai himself said he did not enjoy watching that team play and there was a lot of selfishness. The brand of basketball was horrible. Coaches were getting into heated arguments. There was a divided among the players. There was no real leadership. Development crawled to a halt. Masai literally hired the anti Nurse. This season was about resetting and getting back what was lost that we built up since the Casey/Demar/Lowry 'We The North' days that culminated in the title. Those things are culture, leadership, real accountability, development and a brand of basketball we can watch and root for. I guarantee you Masai is much happier with Darko's 25 wins than he was with Nurse's 41 wins the prior season.

Of course Masai is much happier with Darko than Nick Nurse because Darko was hired to be a controllable yes-man head coach who will play whoever Masai tells him to play and won't complain about being handed a roster of players not ready to win now. That's what the term "developmental coach" is code for.

And if you think Darko is a coach who can bring the players together and create a winning culture we already have a season that shows he's been unable to do that. The Dennis Schroder experiment didn't work as he killed team chemistry and agitated for a trade once he wasn't a starter anymore, other players weren't happy Dennis was monopolizing the ball when he was a starter. We had an incident with Scottie Barnes leaving the bench early in a loss that was a bit of a scandal, and that's your franchise player who you're supposed to be building around, not some disposable player we can just get rid of like Dennis. It was serious enough it made some people on here question whether Scottie is really a future perennial star we can build around or these types of attitude issues will get in the way.

Nothing Darko has done to this point inspires confidence. He's installing a "0.5 offence" that has role players taking almost as many shots as the best players on the team at times, he doesn't coach defence, and he isn't a motivational guy who can get the best out of players and keep everyone happy. That doesn't sound like a person who will be head coach of an NBA team too long to me, again, he's only here next season because there's no reason to fire him if Masai's gunning for lottery balls over wins in a "development" year.

The defense killed me, but count me in as someone that appreciated the offensive style of play and ball movement. The offence lets a guy like Grady become more of a threat than he would be otherwise in say our Freddy run offences. We also don't have great iso options, and I'd say we don't even really have that great of pick and roll options. You can say that it has role players taking almost as many shots as best players, but the actions were very much encouraging BBQ to be in spots to score in my opinion. Scottie and IQ had the ball a lot and there was that specific action to get RJ downhill. However, Darko seriously needs a lead assistant that can manage the defense and let him have that level of autonomy on that end, because the team looked terrible on that end. H

I don't deny that the offence was more fun to watch than it was with Nick Nurse as head coach, but the problem is that a heavy passing offence comes at a cost. Under Nick Nurse the team was number 1 in the NBA in taking care of the ball, they turned it over less than any other team. This past season? 20th in Turnovers per possession and 21st in turnovers per game. And I saw a lot of this during the season, once teams know you are a heavy passing team they play passing lanes and can get steals or force turnovers much more frequently, these often lead to easy dunks or layups with defenders out of position. We went from being number 1 in the NBA in opponent steals to 13th.

And sure, we improved a lot in assists per game, but we also got worse in assists per turnover ratio. Is a heavy passing offence worth it? Is it worth completely building your roster around a concept of pervasive passing? It certainly didn't work for us this past season and that's the thing that's critical about being a head coach: you can't force a particular scheme on a set of players that aren't capable of implementing it. This type of offence can work for a team like the Pacers because they can put 5 shooters on the floor, it's not going to work for the Raptors without a lot of roster changes.

[bballsparkin]

Darko has shown that he lacks attention to details during his first year here. Too many mental laspe and games where the team just shows up unprepared.

Sounds great for our 2025 FRP. He's seems good at keeping spirits up. That's good for development and for while losing. The team shares the ball and plays a more aesthetically pleasing offence than it did with NN. He also is giving players a shot. Coaches that are established like Thibs, NN, Bud will not do that. They got to win at all costs to protect their brand. Darko is in Triano territory. Didn't we got JV Jay's year? I might be off on that but I remember him being a great tanking coach. And now he's a respected assistant coach. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe Darko shares the same fate. But for now he's doing the good work of developing a team that the FO is direly rebuilding.

I personally would give him the year to develop players and to continue to establish his offence. I'm not worried about defence unless the team is winning. Sure I want them to play hard. But I also want a high pick in a seemingly good draft. Then in 2026 after hopefully securing a top 7 pick he'd be on the clock. It seems to me that when a coach is asked to be a yes man. And he does the things he's asked. Flexibility from the FO is due. To do otherwise is not good practice. Unless the said individual is truly incompetent. I think it's too early to rule that.

He definitely needs work on media training though.

[Clutch0z24]

If we get a top pick in next years draft The Raptors as a whole will be in the best position we would be in since the championship team....Thats why its crucial we have a trade Yak/Brown for draft picks/young players type offseason and let the chips fall where they fall...Prolly a top 5-7 Lotto team and if injuries happen top 1-5....

If we somehow end up with a top pick next year to pair with BBQ/Dick your looking at a really strong core with Barret/Barnes/IQ/Dick all still developing....Barnes would be a perfect co star, Barrett would be a perfect 3rd option, And IQ is the offensive nightmare, Dick The Shooter...We just need to add 1 legit Star to the team and we will be a contender in the East for years to come...

If we try and go for the playin for what next year we will just continue to be that kind of a team with no upside of contending ever.

[nikster]

Of course Masai is much happier with Darko than Nick Nurse because Darko was hired to be a controllable yes-man head coach who will play whoever Masai tells him to play and won't complain about being handed a roster of players not ready to win now. That's what the term "developmental coach" is code for.

And if you think Darko is a coach who can bring the players together and create a winning culture we already have a season that shows he's been unable to do that. The Dennis Schroder experiment didn't work as he killed team chemistry and agitated for a trade once he wasn't a starter anymore, other players weren't happy Dennis was monopolizing the ball when he was a starter. We had an incident with Scottie Barnes leaving the bench early in a loss that was a bit of a scandal, and that's your franchise player who you're supposed to be building around, not some disposable player we can just get rid of like Dennis. It was serious enough it made some people on here question whether Scottie is really a future perennial star we can build around or these types of attitude issues will get in the way.

Nothing Darko has done to this point inspires confidence. He's installing a "0.5 offence" that has role players taking almost as many shots as the best players on the team at times, he doesn't coach defence, and he isn't a motivational guy who can get the best out of players and keep everyone happy. That doesn't sound like a person who will be head coach of an NBA team too long to me, again, he's only here next season because there's no reason to fire him if Masai's gunning for lottery balls over wins in a "development" year.

The defense killed me, but count me in as someone that appreciated the offensive style of play and ball movement. The offence lets a guy like Grady become more of a threat than he would be otherwise in say our Freddy run offences. We also don't have great iso options, and I'd say we don't even really have that great of pick and roll options. You can say that it has role players taking almost as many shots as best players, but the actions were very much encouraging BBQ to be in spots to score in my opinion. Scottie and IQ had the ball a lot and there was that specific action to get RJ downhill. However, Darko seriously needs a lead assistant that can manage the defense and let him have that level of autonomy on that end, because the team looked terrible on that end. H

I don't deny that the offence was more fun to watch than it was with Nick Nurse as head coach, but the problem is that a heavy passing offence comes at a cost. Under Nick Nurse the team was number 1 in the NBA in taking care of the ball, they turned it over less than any other team. This past season? 20th in Turnovers per possession and 21st in turnovers per game. And I saw a lot of this during the season, once teams know you are a heavy passing team they play passing lanes and can get steals or force turnovers much more frequently, these often lead to easy dunks or layups with defenders out of position. We went from being number 1 in the NBA in opponent steals to 13th.

And sure, we improved a lot in assists per game, but we also got worse in assists per turnover ratio. Is a heavy passing offence worth it? Is it worth completely building your roster around a concept of pervasive passing? It certainly didn't work for us this past season and that's the thing that's critical about being a head coach: you can't force a particular scheme on a set of players that aren't capable of implementing it. This type of offence can work for a team like the Pacers because they can put 5 shooters on the floor, it's not going to work for the Raptors without a lot of roster changes.

It took a bit getting used to but the Raptors offense had around a 2 month stretch with an offensive of 118 before Pascal was traded (last years was 115) with a big downgrade at starting point guard and less reliance on transition.

More turnovers is a byproduct of more passing but it wasnt as bad as your making it seem. The first month was a rough start, but from November until Scottie went down March 1st they were 13th overall in TOV%. So there's nothing to support the previous offensive system was better.

And I don't buy that you need great shooting for a passing system to work. Again, had a better offensive rating for a good stretch than last year while losing our leading 3 point shooter and Scottie, Pascal, RJ all thrived in the system. Also Darko and the front office were installing an offense with the future in mind. No kind of offense would look good with the poor shooting we had, any retool or rebuild would involve eventually getting more shooting. What moves did they make thay suggest they were "building our roster" around these offensive principles?

[ciueli]

It took a bit getting used to but the Raptors offense had around a 2 month stretch with an offensive of 118 before Pascal was traded (last years was 115) with a big downgrade at starting point guard and less reliance on transition.

More turnovers is a byproduct of more passing but it wasnt as bad as your making it seem. The first month was a rough start, but from November until Scottie went down March 1st they were 13th overall in TOV%. So there's nothing to support the previous offensive system was better.

You can't look at the offence in a vacuum, was the offence better? Sure, but the cost was worse defence, allowing steals and committing turnovers that allow for easy runouts and scores by the opposition. Everything has to be evaluated in the context of overall team play.

And I don't buy that you need great shooting for a passing system to work. Again, had a better offensive rating for a good stretch than last year while losing our leading 3 point shooter and Scottie, Pascal, RJ all thrived in the system. Also Darko and the front office were installing an offense with the future in mind. No kind of offense would look good with the poor shooting we had, any retool or rebuild would involve eventually getting more shooting. What moves did they make thay suggest they were "building our roster" around these offensive principles?

Overall there was an enormous drop in Offensive Efficiency year to year, 13th in the last year with Nick Nurse down to 24th with Darko. Even shaving off the months when Scottie was out the Offensive Efficiency was much worse, 19th overall. So it's not like our offence was lighting the world on fire with Darko as head coach, and the defence was much worse as I have already mentioned several times.

With respect to moves, they traded Precious Achiuwa, a player who should pretty much never be allowed to do anything beyond rebound, play defence, and dunk the ball at the rim off a lob, he's the perfect example of a guy who can be a useful NBA player if used correctly, but he's never going to be a guy you want to dribble or create any sort of shot. He doesn't fit the Darko system because Darko's system wants every single player to be a passer.

Then Darko buried Chris Boucher's on the bench the whole season in spite of the fact that we were desperate for any size and were starting RJ at PF once Scottie went out, this is because Boucher, like Precious, is an outlet scorer, not a guy who is ever going to be a shot creator or passer. They tried mightily to trade him but couldn't find a taker it's virtually certain he's gone this offseason.

Finally, they traded for and signed Kelly Olynk, a veteran in his 30s because he fits with Darko's system, not even just because he's a 3 point shooting C, but because he can operate within a Darko system as a passer. Kelly should be a reasonable backup, but he's getting up there in years and I question why he was signed to a contract extension so far in advance, this could easily have been done in the offseason when we'd know more about how the draft lottery and draft played out, I also don't think Kelly does much to address this team's biggest weakness now, defence.

These type of moves can be considered minor and largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but they do indicate a preference for a certain type of player, the team is slowly being built around players who are good at offence and passing. To go a bit further Gradey Dick, RJ, and IQ are all good offence, average to bad defence players, so there's clearly an emphasis here on one side of the ball at the expense of the other side, that's not a direction I see ending well.

[nikster]

It took a bit getting used to but the Raptors offense had around a 2 month stretch with an offensive of 118 before Pascal was traded (last years was 115) with a big downgrade at starting point guard and less reliance on transition.

More turnovers is a byproduct of more passing but it wasnt as bad as your making it seem. The first month was a rough start, but from November until Scottie went down March 1st they were 13th overall in TOV%. So there's nothing to support the previous offensive system was better.

You can't look at the offence in a vacuum, was the offence better? Sure, but the cost was worse defence, allowing steals and committing turnovers that allow for easy runouts and scores by the opposition. Everything has to be evaluated in the context of overall team play.

And I don't buy that you need great shooting for a passing system to work. Again, had a better offensive rating for a good stretch than last year while losing our leading 3 point shooter and Scottie, Pascal, RJ all thrived in the system. Also Darko and the front office were installing an offense with the future in mind. No kind of offense would look good with the poor shooting we had, any retool or rebuild would involve eventually getting more shooting. What moves did they make thay suggest they were "building our roster" around these offensive principles?

Overall there was an enormous drop in Offensive Efficiency year to year, 13th in the last year with Nick Nurse down to 24th with Darko. Even shaving off the months when Scottie was out the Offensive Efficiency was much worse, 19th overall. So it's not like our offence was lighting the world on fire with Darko as head coach, and the defence was much worse as I have already mentioned several times.

With respect to moves, they traded Precious Achiuwa, a player who should pretty much never be allowed to do anything beyond rebound, play defence, and dunk the ball at the rim off a lob, he's the perfect example of a guy who can be a useful NBA player if used correctly, but he's never going to be a guy you want to dribble or create any sort of shot. He doesn't fit the Darko system because Darko's system wants every single player to be a passer.

Then Darko buried Chris Boucher's on the bench the whole season in spite of the fact that we were desperate for any size and were starting RJ at PF once Scottie went out, this is because Boucher, like Precious, is an outlet scorer, not a guy who is ever going to be a shot creator or passer. They tried mightily to trade him but couldn't find a taker it's virtually certain he's gone this offseason.

Finally, they traded for and signed Kelly Olynk, a veteran in his 30s because he fits with Darko's system, not even just because he's a 3 point shooting C, but because he can operate within a Darko system as a passer. Kelly should be a reasonable backup, but he's getting up there in years and I question why he was signed to a contract extension so far in advance, this could easily have been done in the offseason when we'd know more about how the draft lottery and draft played out, I also don't think Kelly does much to address this team's biggest weakness now, defence.

These type of moves can be considered minor and largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but they do indicate a preference for a certain type of player, the team is slowly being built around players who are good at offence and passing. To go a bit further Gradey Dick, RJ, and IQ are all good offence, average to bad defence players, so there's clearly an emphasis here on one side of the ball at the expense of the other side, that's not a direction I see ending well.

The Raptors were top 10 in opponents points of turnovers from Nov 1st to scotties injury. It's not that huge a drop. Especially when you consider our offense last year was 'let Fred handle the rock as much as possible so we don't turn it over'. He was our lead playmaker and our best 3 point shooter so any system would lead to a worse offense and more turnovers. think your kind of glossing over his loss when comparing to last season. There's a reason he had huge impact in on/off splits.

Considering our roster our offense had significant improvement on offense and its just the first year (and a year with massive roster overhaul and injuries). Just don't see how you can see the offense as a disappointment.

Achiuwa was a throw-in in a much bigger trade. If the Raptors could have kept them I'm sure they would, but who else would Knicks want? Why is that any indication in front office priorities? People were raving about how Thibs was using him correctly after the trade and he ended up racking up DNPs in the post season for a team missing their starting power foward, until their entire starting front court got injured.

The team needed a PG and wanted to get younger, what other players could the Raptors have possibly targeted besides IQ and RJ? That trade and the Olynyk acquisition would have made just as much sense in any other offensive system.

[ciueli]

The Raptors were top 10 in opponents points of turnovers from Nov 1st to scotties injury. It's not that huge a drop. Especially when you consider our offense last year was 'let Fred handle the rock as much as possible so we don't turn it over'. He was our lead playmaker and our best 3 point shooter so any system would lead to a worse offense and more turnovers. think your kind of glossing over his loss when comparing to last season. There's a reason he had huge impact in on/off splits.

Considering our roster our offense had significant improvement on offense and its just the first year (and a year with massive roster overhaul and injuries). Just don't see how you can see the offense as a disappointment.

Offensive Efficiency wasn't better even ignoring March and April, and that's the major number most will look at to gauge how good the offence is. True Shooting is better, but not to the level that I'd get excited about it, ignoring March and April it's still 21st in the NBA, that's an improvement from 28th in 2022-23, but it's still bottom 10. And that's with Barrett shooting much better from 3 than his career numbers, it's a small sample size so I'll be interested to see if that regresses to the mean this upcoming season, he said he's working on 3 point shooting in the offseason so we'll see.

The biggest problem I had with the offence post-trade was that Scottie's breakout season started looking a bit less miraculous as his 3 point percentage dipped and he looked like he was struggling with the mantle of being the number 1 guy. I think it's telling that Barrett was sort of put into the role of first option to some degree instead of Scottie, that's not what I imagined would happen when Pascal was traded. Maybe this is just a small sample size, but it's definitely concerning how Scottie ended the season compared to how he began it, I thought Scottie would thrive with Pascal out of the way and that's definitely not what happened, if anything he regressed as teams focused their defence on him.

[nikster]

The Raptors were top 10 in opponents points of turnovers from Nov 1st to scotties injury. It's not that huge a drop. Especially when you consider our offense last year was 'let Fred handle the rock as much as possible so we don't turn it over'. He was our lead playmaker and our best 3 point shooter so any system would lead to a worse offense and more turnovers. think your kind of glossing over his loss when comparing to last season. There's a reason he had huge impact in on/off splits.

Considering our roster our offense had significant improvement on offense and its just the first year (and a year with massive roster overhaul and injuries). Just don't see how you can see the offense as a disappointment.

Offensive Efficiency wasn't better even ignoring March and April, and that's the major number most will look at to gauge how good the offence is. True Shooting is better, but not to the level that I'd get excited about it, ignoring March and April it's still 21st in the NBA, that's an improvement from 28th in 2022-23, but it's still bottom 10. And that's with Barrett shooting much better from 3 than his career numbers, it's a small sample size so I'll be interested to see if that regresses to the mean this upcoming season, he said he's working on 3 point shooting in the offseason so we'll see.

The biggest problem I had with the offence post-trade was that Scottie's breakout season started looking a bit less miraculous as his 3 point percentage dipped and he looked like he was struggling with the mantle of being the number 1 guy. I think it's telling that Barrett was sort of put into the role of first option to some degree instead of Scottie, that's not what I imagined would happen when Pascal was traded. Maybe this is just a small sample size, but it's definitely concerning how Scottie ended the season compared to how he began it, I thought Scottie would thrive with Pascal out of the way and that's definitely not what happened, if anything he regressed as teams focused their defence on him.

Like I said earlier, there was a slow start to the offense. After about 10 games or so they started to figure it out and were playing pretty well offensively until Pascal was traded. They lost a starter and an All NBA caliber played while trying to incorporate 2 new guys into large roles (and IQ never had a large playmaking role before).

So your biggest issue with the offense is that an individual player struggled being the focal point of the offense? why would you think losing a guy that was putting up 24/5 while being the focal point would make it easier? How would a different system help that transition?

[ciueli]

The Raptors were top 10 in opponents points of turnovers from Nov 1st to scotties injury. It's not that huge a drop. Especially when you consider our offense last year was 'let Fred handle the rock as much as possible so we don't turn it over'. He was our lead playmaker and our best 3 point shooter so any system would lead to a worse offense and more turnovers. think your kind of glossing over his loss when comparing to last season. There's a reason he had huge impact in on/off splits.

Considering our roster our offense had significant improvement on offense and its just the first year (and a year with massive roster overhaul and injuries). Just don't see how you can see the offense as a disappointment.

Offensive Efficiency wasn't better even ignoring March and April, and that's the major number most will look at to gauge how good the offence is. True Shooting is better, but not to the level that I'd get excited about it, ignoring March and April it's still 21st in the NBA, that's an improvement from 28th in 2022-23, but it's still bottom 10. And that's with Barrett shooting much better from 3 than his career numbers, it's a small sample size so I'll be interested to see if that regresses to the mean this upcoming season, he said he's working on 3 point shooting in the offseason so we'll see.

The biggest problem I had with the offence post-trade was that Scottie's breakout season started looking a bit less miraculous as his 3 point percentage dipped and he looked like he was struggling with the mantle of being the number 1 guy. I think it's telling that Barrett was sort of put into the role of first option to some degree instead of Scottie, that's not what I imagined would happen when Pascal was traded. Maybe this is just a small sample size, but it's definitely concerning how Scottie ended the season compared to how he began it, I thought Scottie would thrive with Pascal out of the way and that's definitely not what happened, if anything he regressed as teams focused their defence on him.

Like I said earlier, there was a slow start to the offense. After about 10 games or so they started to figure it out and were playing pretty well offensively until Pascal was traded. They lost a starter and an All NBA caliber played while trying to incorporate 2 new guys into large roles (and IQ never had a large playmaking role before).

So your biggest issue with the offense is that an individual player struggled being the focal point of the offense? why would you think losing a guy that was putting up 24/5 while being the focal point would make it easier? How would a different system help that transition?

This is getting far afield from Darko, but I'll just say that post-trades on offence in half court sets I see Scottie being used most of the time in one of three ways: as a primary ball handler, off-ball standing at the 3 point line as a floor spacer, or on a post up (this is much more rare and usually only when there is a perceived mismatch with a smaller player). None of these ways of being used plays to Scotties strengths as a player in my opinion. He's not a great driver who can take his man to the basket and finish or draw a foul, he's not a great floor spacer yet, and his post up play has been somewhat disappointing even in mismatches.

What I'd like to see is Scottie being used more in pick and roll or getting him cuts to the basket for easy scores, lob opportunities, get him the ball close to the basket or in the middle of the floor where he can shoot or pass depending on what the defence does. I have seen very little offensive creativity of this type from Darko, when smart sets are run it's often with a focus on other players, it was frustrating early in the season to see pick and roll being run with Dennis and Jak while other players were standing around the perimeter. I don't think it's a controversial take that we should be running plays to get Scottie in a position where he can score effectively and efficiently, this is what every team in the NBA tries to do with their star player.

[Duffman100]

Darko has shown that he lacks attention to details during his first year here. Too many mental laspe and games where the team just shows up unprepared.

thats my issue too. hopefully we see more crispness and attention to detail.

[niQ]

Scottie is the focal point and the rebuild in two-three years and later mentions shooting as a priority.

As much as I want them to get into a better position for the 2025 draft, I still find it hard to believe we'll be that bad unless injuries take out players for long stretches again.

Though, if we draft 2 huge projects like Salaun and Chomche, it might not be that far off.

[TorontoBarneys]

Scottie is the focal point and the rebuild in two-three years and later mentions shooting as a priority.

As much as I want them to get into a better position for the 2025 draft, I still find it hard to believe we'll be that bad unless injuries take out players for long stretches again.

Though, if we draft 2 huge projects like Salaun and Chomche, it might not be that far off.

I'd rather we draft on potential even if it means higher chance of busts rather than looking to shore up weaknesses with roleplayers right away. Our #1 priority should be looking for a 2nd star with any pick we own, however unlikely. For example, it would be a mistake to use the #19 pick for a "potential piece" and the #31 pick for "bench support, maybe".