Grange: Former Raptors' success a reminder of the road not taken

[WuTang_CMB]

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Closer to home — literally and figuratively — Raptors fans can watch Siakam and Anunoby compete as cornerstone pieces for the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks, respectively, as they meet in the opening game of the Eastern Conference Finals on Wednesday night.

It’s hard not to think ‘what could have been.’

Instead the Raptors have won 25 and 30 games the past two seasons as part of a hasty rebuild that will be expected to bear fruit this coming season, given the club will have a projected starting lineup with a combined salary of $156.5 million — the salary cap is $154.6 million — and an average age of 27, which is ‘go time’ in NBA years.

How would a Raptors lineup featuring VanVleet, Siakam, Anunoby, Barnes and Poeltl fare in an Eastern Conference that’s hardly a murderer’s row of contenders?

Well, the spacing would still be iffy, the depth questionable, and it would not be cheap, with the mystical starting five earning $152.2 million this year, jumping (theoretically) to $188.3 million next season when Barnes’ max deal kicks in.

But you’d have to think they would have been a factor.

Why it didn’t work and why it all ultimately unravelled in the space of 16 months is both well-known and as yet still unspoken.

The broad themes as I’ve reported previously: tension between VanVleet and Barnes, Anunoby chafing at his role in the offence, Siakam frustrated and ultimately dismayed that he wouldn’t get the contract he believed he deserved, a general hesitation to compromise for the larger project, and a head coach, Nick Nurse, who wasn’t comfortable tackling the various friction points head on. Meanwhile, the roster was woefully short of talent beyond the starting lineup as management went on an uncharacteristic cold streak when it came to backfilling the roster with young rotation players on cheap contracts.

VanVleet spoke to it last season after he had signed with Houston for $83.7 million guaranteed over two seasons, rejecting a Raptors offer that was reported to be three years at $90 million with a $10 million guarantee for a fourth year.

“You could feel the shift … I know the Raptors, we feel like we're the only team in the NBA (going through this), but it's not specific to that team. There's a lot of teams going through it where you're trying to win, you're trying to build, you got young guys, you got a couple of vets and you're just trying to figure it out,” VanVleet said in Houston to a small group of reporters from Toronto. “I think you could just kind of feel the dynamic shifting a little bit (last year; 2022-23). When things kind of went a little different than what we're used to in terms of our culture and just the day-to-day, that's when I was like, 'OK, I know Masai (Ujiri) is not going to deal with this forever.' That's when you kind of knew things were going to change eventually.”

The Raptors weren’t oblivious to the talent they had. According to multiple sources, there were several efforts to find ways to keep the core group together.

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

VanVleet and Siakam turned down extensions before the season started, and the Raptors knew that Anunoby would test free agency in the summer of 2024 since his performance exceeded the market value of the most the Raptors could offer him under league rules.

[ForeverTFC]

This is telling. We'll never know the extent to which that locker room was broken. But man, it sounds rough. Also lol at Precious being there.

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

[MiamiSPX]

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

What I want to know most of all, is why the hell was Precious there lol? Did they need him to take the meeting minutes?

Thanks for sharing. My take on it is that Grange, like a lot of posters here, can't let go of that title winning team and its players. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I get it, our teams never win anything. In fact, there are posters on here who have only ever been alive for the Raps title and not the Jays. So I do get it. But it's time to move on already. Financially it wouldn't have worked anyway. This CBA is too restrictive.

[ATLTimekeeper]

This is telling. We'll never know the extent to which that locker room was broken. But man, it sounds rough. Also lol at Precious being there.

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

Who made the note? They ran it back and did nothing until Fred forced their hand.

[God Squad]

I'll always love OG/Pascal. I learned quickly that Fred is no Lowry replacement, and didn't care once he signed with Houston.


The ship has sailed, let it go ffs.

[OakleyDokely]

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

What I want to know most of all, is why the hell was Precious there lol? Did they need him to take the meeting minutes?

Thanks for sharing. My take on it is that Grange, like a lot of posters here, can't let go of that title winning team and its players. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I get it, our teams never win anything. In fact, there are posters on here who have only ever been alive for the Raps title and not the Jays. So I do get it. But it's time to move on already. Financially it wouldn't have worked anyway. This CBA is too restrictive.

OG, VV and Siakam collectively made 120M this year. All of them are either 1st or 2nd on their current team in salary.

[Scase]

This is telling. We'll never know the extent to which that locker room was broken. But man, it sounds rough. Also lol at Precious being there.

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

Who made the note? They ran it back and did nothing until Fred forced their hand.

Right? So they recognized an obvious issue, and then proceeded to trade for Jak and double down on this mess? Just more evidence that Masai hung onto these players longer than he should have.

[Ell Curry]

Feels like we needed to get one of Haliburton/Brunson when they were available. He would have been more expensive, but Haliburton feels more likely, so Haliburton for Siakam or Barnes instead of Sabonis, I guess.

Then you have a team, with that lead guard, 2 of Siakam/OG/Barnes at forward and say the same meh Poeltl trade, plug in a 3+D type at the 2 for cheap.

[ATLTimekeeper]

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

What I want to know most of all, is why the hell was Precious there lol? Did they need him to take the meeting minutes?

Thanks for sharing. My take on it is that Grange, like a lot of posters here, can't let go of that title winning team and its players. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I get it, our teams never win anything. In fact, there are posters on here who have only ever been alive for the Raps title and not the Jays. So I do get it. But it's time to move on already. Financially it wouldn't have worked anyway. This CBA is too restrictive.

I mean, the article is prepping for the ECF's, so it's extremely relevant to this market. I don't know a single Raptor fan that doesn't see this angle.

There wasn't a lot of meat in the article, though. I'll give you that.

[Basketball_Jones]

Hey I was on board for overpaying for Siakam he was the one guy that gets star money out of the 3. But end of day we reset, we probably don’t get a 9th pick with Siakam this year. Don’t have Ochai or Jakobe. It was the correct move imo. Now we need to see results.

[Fairview4Life]

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

What I want to know most of all, is why the hell was Precious there lol? Did they need him to take the meeting minutes?

Thanks for sharing. My take on it is that Grange, like a lot of posters here, can't let go of that title winning team and its players. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I get it, our teams never win anything. In fact, there are posters on here who have only ever been alive for the Raps title and not the Jays. So I do get it. But it's time to move on already. Financially it wouldn't have worked anyway. This CBA is too restrictive.

Didn't Grange argue previously that this road we are on, with the 25 and 30 wins, is the one the team needed to take? Am I misremembering?

[MiamiSPX]

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

What I want to know most of all, is why the hell was Precious there lol? Did they need him to take the meeting minutes?

Thanks for sharing. My take on it is that Grange, like a lot of posters here, can't let go of that title winning team and its players. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I get it, our teams never win anything. In fact, there are posters on here who have only ever been alive for the Raps title and not the Jays. So I do get it. But it's time to move on already. Financially it wouldn't have worked anyway. This CBA is too restrictive.

OG, VV and Siakam collectively made 120M this year. All of them are either 1st or 2nd on their current team in salary.

Even if FVV took the 30M annually, it wouldn't have worked. Siakam, OG and Barnes are still getting the max, nothing changes there. So now you are in tax hell and still no bonafide top dog and no bench.

Rather than lamenting on what-could-have-been, my view is that this only reflects well on our organization. All of them were drafted/UDFA'd and developed by us (and we also tried telling anyone that would listen how good they were).

[canada_dry]

tWo in shambles

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

[sidsid]

Nothing really new here, but I'll jump right back into my priors.

Seems if you just remove Fred from that equation early like we should have done and you fix the main issues.

- Barnes chemistry solved
- OG role for the future solved
- Siakam salary...well we didn't pay him anyway after Fred left but possibly some burnt bridges before then

Strip it down (no Trent trade, just picks) and rebuild/tank a year around that and who knows where you are in 3 years after that fateful offseason.

[ATLTimekeeper]

There was a meeting in Miami in the summer of 2022 where Barnes, Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby and Achiuwa sat down with each other and Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster in an effort to gauge how tenable it would be to push forward with the group, but a commitment wasn’t forthcoming. That the players all went their separate ways into the Miami night was noted.

What I want to know most of all, is why the hell was Precious there lol? Did they need him to take the meeting minutes?

Thanks for sharing. My take on it is that Grange, like a lot of posters here, can't let go of that title winning team and its players. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I get it, our teams never win anything. In fact, there are posters on here who have only ever been alive for the Raps title and not the Jays. So I do get it. But it's time to move on already. Financially it wouldn't have worked anyway. This CBA is too restrictive.

Didn't Grange argue previously that this road we are on, with the 25 and 30 wins, is the one the team needed to take? Am I misremembering?

He was insistent that we finish bottom 5.

Doesn't sound like he has much contact with the team if all he could get for this article was old quotes and someone noticing that the players didn't go to a second location together after not agreeing to all take paycuts or whatever. What even was that meeting?

[Tripod]

"Masai held on to those guys too long"
"Masai overrates his players"
"Look how good the guys we traded are"

Irony

[ForeverTFC]

This is telling. We'll never know the extent to which that locker room was broken. But man, it sounds rough. Also lol at Precious being there.

Who made the note? They ran it back and did nothing until Fred forced their hand.

Right? So they recognized an obvious issue, and then proceeded to trade for Jak and double down on this mess? Just more evidence that Masai hung onto these players longer than he should have.

Maybe we find out what actually happened during that period when Masai leaves. But a lot of the info that has leaked out is at odds with each other. It's pretty much been confirmed by Pascal and his camp that the Raptors had made their mind up on not giving Pascal his max long before they traded him. FVV came out and said Masai told him it might be better to go in different directions AS THEY WERE NEGOTIATING A CONTRACT. Like how does any of it make sense at this point?

[ATLTimekeeper]

Nothing really new here, but I'll jump right back into my priors.

Seems if you just remove Fred from that equation early like we should have done and you fix the main issues.

- Barnes chemistry solved
- OG role for the future solved
- Siakam salary...well we didn't pay him anyway after Fred left but possibly some burnt bridges before then

Strip it down (no Trent trade, just picks) and rebuild/tank a year around that and who knows where you are in 3 years after that fateful offseason.

Giving OG that role would have been stupid. He doesn't have that role in New York. Fred removed himself and we were awful.

[WuTang_CMB]

A lot of this was on Nick Nurse IMO. I thought in the moment he was bullet proof due to delivering a chip but as years have gone by my review of him during that time was that he was a horrid communicator, ruined our development pipeline (the core of this organization) and the style of play was too predictable and got stale.

Masai built a team with good players, yes the fit was bad cuz of lack of shooting but would have been nice if we got a true development coach, different voice to see what this team could do. But yeah none of these guys were # 1's but we should have been better IMO

[OakleyDokely]

What I want to know most of all, is why the hell was Precious there lol? Did they need him to take the meeting minutes?

Thanks for sharing. My take on it is that Grange, like a lot of posters here, can't let go of that title winning team and its players. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I get it, our teams never win anything. In fact, there are posters on here who have only ever been alive for the Raps title and not the Jays. So I do get it. But it's time to move on already. Financially it wouldn't have worked anyway. This CBA is too restrictive.

OG, VV and Siakam collectively made 120M this year. All of them are either 1st or 2nd on their current team in salary.

Even if FVV took the 30M annually, it wouldn't have worked. Siakam, OG and Barnes are still getting the max, nothing changes there. So now you are in tax hell and still no bonafide top dog and no bench.

Rather than lamenting on what-could-have-been, my view is that this only reflects well on our organization. All of them were drafted/UDFA'd and developed by us (and we also tried telling anyone that would listen how good they were).

And that core was given multiple chances to succeed. Masai was begging them to show him anything so he could justify keeping them together. But they were too mediocre to commit that much money to.