Masai has lost the plot

[Steelo Green]

I am sure a plethora of people will vilify me but after watching the last few months, the truth of Masai and his mediocre skills as general manager are coming to fruition day by day.

I thought he had actually picked a direction and was fine with the fact he had decided to make this year a tough watch with the purposeful sitting of Quickley and smart stealth tanking, but was I ever wrong.

Winning 6 out of 7 games just goes to show that Quickley actually is badly hurt and if Masai has it his way, we will make the play in.

Smart teams like Utah and Portland are purposefully sitting their players so they can get a chance at an elite prospect, however we are playing our hearts out for what? The 8th pick in the draft?

Reminiscent of 2023 when we traded for Jakob Poeltl when there was a deep draft, we drafted Gradey, who is fine, but now looking not just at Wemby but Miller, Amen, Ausar, Cason Wallace, Taylor Hendricks (was looking great pre-injury), Lively and recently Scoot, you can see how bad he keeps missing the mark.

Hell, Collier already looks better than Ochai.

The Thunder, Celtics, Rockets, Grizzlies, Knicks are the best teams and minus the Knicks who are an interesting but eclectic way to build a team, all the players are via the draft and smart trades for more picks. That isn't even mentioning the Bucks, Nuggets, Spurs or even the Kings who Fox trade demand and all still have way more talent than we do (and are still that mediocre).

We are genuinely in no man's land, a 7 - 11 team with Scottie at the helm and no one who can get their own bucket.

Genuine question - is Scottie, Quickley, RJ, Gradey and what will likely be a 6-8 pick the core of a contender?

[Duffman100]

I was wondering where you were ...

[dagger]

I am sure a plethora of people will vilify me but after watching the last few months, the truth of Masai and his mediocre skills as general manager are coming to fruition day by day.

I thought he had actually picked a direction and was fine with the fact he had decided to make this year a tough watch with the purposeful sitting of Quickley and smart stealth tanking, but was I ever wrong.

Winning 6 out of 7 games just goes to show that Quickley actually is badly hurt and if Masai has it his way, we will make the play in.

Smart teams like Utah and Portland are purposefully sitting their players so they can get a chance at an elite prospect, however we are playing our hearts out for what? The 8th pick in the draft?

Reminiscent of 2023 when we traded for Jakob Poeltl when there was a deep draft, we drafted Gradey, who is fine, but now looking not just at Wemby but Miller, Amen, Ausar, Cason Wallace, Taylor Hendricks (was looking great pre-injury), Lively and recently Scoot, you can see how bad he keeps missing the mark.

Hell, Collier already looks better than Ochai.

The Thunder, Celtics, Rockets, Grizzlies, Knicks are the best teams and minus the Knicks who are an interesting but eclectic way to build a team, all the players are via the draft and smart trades for more picks. That isn't even mentioning the Bucks, Nuggets, Spurs or even the Kings who Fox trade demand and all still have way more talent than we do (and are still that mediocre).

We are genuinely in no man's land, a 7 - 11 team with Scottie at the helm and no one who can get their own bucket.

Genuine question - is Scottie, Quickley, RJ, Gradey and what will likely be a 6-8 pick the core of a contender?

WTF are you losing you s**T about. Nothing has changed except a bunch of guys got healthy. We are eight days from the trade deadline, and a bunch of guys will go. We have the same talent base as we had during training camp. We added no one via the mid-level exception, and did one trade to acquire a couple of second round picks and Mitchell, who is likely one guy heading out the door by 3 pm Thursday Feb 6. We were projected to be about 24-30 wins, and now in the second half of the season are on track for the lower end of that range. There are a bunch of rumours about Brandon Ingram, and tankers are absolutely losing it, as if this is something real. And again, for the umpteenth time, only one recent champion has been built with a top 5 pick they selected - Boston. Not Milwaukee, not the Lakers, not Denver, not the Raptors in 2019. There are multiple ways to build contenders, which is obvious to anyone not suffering from severe tunnel vision.

[WaltFrazier]

Raps looking to add significant piece next to Barnes, per wiretap. Does this mean Masai is competing not tanking?

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/raptors-holding-a-lot-of-cards-with-nbas-trade-deadline-two-weeks-away/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Edit - I see it's a Grange article, but the wiretap heading was what I said. Raptors look to add significant piece to Scottie Barnes

[artsncrafts]

He is cooked, but I am guessing he is moving on soon.

[HangTime]

What if we're like Atlanta last year?
Play our hearts out, lose in the play-in, and win the lottery.

I always thought the rebuilding talk was a mirage, becasue of the pre-media day injuries.

If we we're healthy from the start, were probably .500 or above.

[Shakril]

Tank Thread #389 - This time we are shooting at masai

[Los_29]

A Steelo thread was not on my Bingo card. Pooh and Steelo were a good 2-man team for awhile. Caris Levert’s biggest fans.

Didn’t read his post but I will say, I’m starting to sweat a bit. This team needs to get back to its losing ways or this would be a disappointing year.

[tdotrep2]

he's definitely fumbled, we could of been in a significantly better place right now had he done what he needed to earlier.

[DreamTeam09]

Wan Wan wan boo hoo hoo, we are not as crap as the other crap teams, what a travesty, fire everyone for players not totally sucking for an 82 game season....

[DelAbbot]

This core has even lower ceiling than the old treadmill team of FVV+PS+OG, and yet Masai is building around it and doing the same half measure rebuild 2021-2023 and expecting different results.

[gerrit4]

Yeah, if only we got Taylor Hendricks, our outlook would be much better. He was "looking great" pre-injury? He was literally shooting 22% from the field. I wasn't watching those three games, but even if he was playing great, so was Gradey for the first part of the season in a much larger sample size.

IQ is 25 years old - why would we be sitting him intentionally? Why would he be okay with that?

[mihaic]

Wan Wan wan boo hoo hoo, we are not as crap as the other crap teams, what a travesty, fire everyone for players not totally sucking for an 82 game season....

A good manager needs to put his team in a position to succeed. Basketball or any other business.

We thought Masai was doing that but apparently it was just a coincidence

I suspect they do nothing (codeword: evaluating), probably just wait for trade deadline to pass so they can go to a trip to Africa, and Hawai'i respectively. Business trip, of course.

[JB7]

Yeah, if only we got Taylor Hendricks, our outlook would be much better. He was "looking great" pre-injury? He was literally shooting 22% from the field. I wasn't watching those three games, but even if he was playing great, so was Gradey for the first part of the season in a much larger sample size.

IQ is 25 years old - why would we be sitting him intentionally? Why would he be okay with that?

Because he got paid this summer, and is in the 1st year of a 5 year deal. If a player is going to be comfortable sitting, it is in that financial situation.

Compare that to Brown, Boucher and Mitchell, who are playing for their next contracts.

[Raps in 4]

Mediocrity was always going to be the direction we go in. We just got lucky with injuries to start the season. Now that almost everyone is healthy, the wins will start to add up.

[PhilBlackson]

Raps looking to add significant piece next to Barnes, per wiretap. Does this mean Masai is competing not tanking?

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/raptors-holding-a-lot-of-cards-with-nbas-trade-deadline-two-weeks-away/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Edit - I see it's a Grange article, but the wiretap heading was what I said. Raptors look to add significant piece to Scottie Barnes

Between this and Stein, I think there’s a very real chance that we end up with Ingram this deadline. A very buy low situation in an ever financially tightening future. If you’re just swapping out BI for RJ & vet, I think Ingram would not only be the much better long term fit BUT may also make for a very low key way to tank out the season if you ask him & IQ to just shut it down and come back blazing next season (and obv we lose RJ’s scoring this season, we can nosedive).

While I don’t think this somehow catapults us into contenders, the team could add BI, top 10 pick and essentially IQ lol and sky rocket up the standings to like around midway (like around the Pacers or better) and now you sell the fan base on an upward trajectory based on the development of the young players (particularly the top 10 pick and subsequent 26’picks) being the “upside” to “grow us into contention”…you don’t think Masai would be motivated to make a move that generates a buzz around the team when it comes time to negotiate his next contract (whether that’s here or elsewhere)?! Yeah I think there’s a real chance unless someone else happens to swoop in.

[ArthurVandelay]

Wan Wan wan boo hoo hoo, we are not as crap as the other crap teams, what a travesty, fire everyone for players not totally sucking for an 82 game season....

When you sucked for the first 41, you might as well stick with it for the second 41.

[Dalek]

The reality is they haven't seen the core together so I can see from Masai's end that he wants to see what works before picking a direction.

I do think if they are serious about building a winner they need more reliable scoring because they have some serious dry spells and the 1a and 1b scorers in RJ and Scottie aren't good enough to carry the load. They rely on Chris Freakin Boucher to carry them...

If Masai makes a big trade to add around Scottie it isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is mid season and adding a guy like that can derail things as they integrate him.

They like to play a long game and still get a high pick. This is a team that is not one piece away, but any way they add better talent is welcome. Just don't trade either of our firsts over the next few years.

[ArthurVandelay]

For years rival teams whined that they couldn't read Masai. They didn't know if he was buying or selling when it came to OG/Siakam/FVV core. I'm wondering if these 'reports' are more of the same.

One could make an argument when everyone expects you to be selling that the proposals could be lowballed. I don't know, I'm just trying to make sense of things. The last little bit makes no sense to what we've been told since the summer.

[tsherkin]

Wan Wan wan boo hoo hoo, we are not as crap as the other crap teams, what a travesty, fire everyone for players not totally sucking for an 82 game season....

Getting better in the NBA is quite difficult. It requires a good deal of luck and patience, or INCREDIBLE luck and less patience.

At some point, you pretty much have to suck in order to acquire assets. And then that has to happen at the right time, with the right prospects, and you need to draft well. Not everyone can pull a Jokic out of the second round, after all. Or an MVP-caliber player from the 15th pick. So you sometimes need to look at a lost season like this one and just let it stay lost to maximize your chances.

Now, if you're doing that 3, 4 years in a row, something's wrong. Draft depth is variable, but you have to be doing SOMETHING wrong if you can't acquire enough talent over a couple seasons to become a more interesting team via trades and signing and picks.

People like to reference our run of success, so let's talk about that.

We were a .500 team in 2008. We were a 33-win team in 09, then drafted Demar. We were subsequently a 40, 22, 23, and 34-win team.

Then we hit the 2014 season. We won 48 games starting Demar, Lowry, Amir Johnson, Jonas V and Terrence Ross, after largely having missed in the draft for several seasons. We'd been trash in the draft from 2004 until Demar in 09. Missed with Ed Davis. Jonas was all right, but low return for a top 5 pick. Still, a solid vet. Ross was a miss but that draft was weak and I don't think any of us were really expecting Middleton or Green to become what they did (both were 2nd rounders). 2014 and 2015 were all misses. 2016 was a good draft. Poltl top 10 was a little rough, but he's a solid vet, we got Pascal later, and the only real miss was not taking Sabonis. We did fine with OG in 2017. 2020 sucked but we had the 29th pick. Barnes has been okay, but not life-changing. We're hoping he'll keep improving, and everything else is a little too recent.

But if you track the progress after 08, it took us several years of sucking and acquiring assets, coupled to development of what we had, before we got ourselves on track.

We were a .500 team back in 2023. We have had ONE bad season so far, and have walked away with Walter and Mogbo. This is definitely not the moment to shoot for the play-in, not with significant potential assets on the table in this draft.