Windhorst: Raptors making noise around the league looking for a “big fish” // Giannis & Toronto "Mutual Interest"/KD too

[greekman]

sorry not happening. giving away siakam for free and getting the 9th pick in a tank year leaves the team without enough assets.

[Tacoma]

The TheScore.com report by Jonathan Soveta is speculating based on what Doug Smith "posits" about Toronto enticing the Bucks with an unmentioned trade package. So it's a speculation about speculation. Here's what Doug said @thestar.com:

"I don’t know if it will happen but I do know there is mutual interest between Antetokounmpo and the Raptors. The wild card is the cost.

But I also think the Raptors are uniquely placed to make an attractive offer that won’t ruin their franchise or roster. I would make the case that a logjam at the wings makes them deep enough that if they had to pay even two out of Gradey Dick, Ochai Agbaji, Ja’Kobe Walter, RJ Barrett, Jonathan Mogbo would still leave enough to fill out a pretty good team with promising young players still developing. Plus, they have all their picks, so giving a first-rounder every year for, say, four years, leaves enough.

The question is if you think the remaining players will develop, just as that group of Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby and Jakob Poeltl did. Not to that level — that’s a historic young group no one’s come close to matching — but if it can come close, that’s pretty darn good.

Again, the odds of doing a Giannis deal are long but the remnants of paying a steep price isn’t too bad."

There's no substance to this at all. Unless someone can find more than this, it's much ado about nothing.

[douggood]

sorry not happening. giving away siakam for free and getting the 9th pick in a tank year leaves the team without enough assets.

siakam got ingram, jakobe and abaji.
we have dick, the rookie class from last year, 9th pick, and all our picks going forward.
our matching salaries accross the board is under 30 years old.

[WuTang_CMB]

sorry not happening. giving away siakam for free and getting the 9th pick in a tank year leaves the team without enough assets.

believe in your username

[Shakril]

Everything between now and the draft is wild speculation and based on nothing concrete. Its better for all of our health, to simply ignore it until then.

[Scase]

Giannis + Ingram would instantly be one of the best duos in the league, and if we retained IQ/RJ/Yak, that’s a very, very strong starting five.

I don’t think it’s likely Giannis comes here, but there’s definitely some reasons it would be an appealing destination.

BI has not achieved anything in his entire career to suggest that, that would be one of the best duos in the league. Not to mention even if it worked out, between the two of them they'd play like 45-50 games together. You still make the trade no doubt, but I think you guys are overhyping the players this roster has, they are nothing but castoffs from other teams that have amounted to jack squat.

Jak/Giannis/Rj all occupy the same space on the court and none of them are particularly useful outside of 5ft aside from RJ, and even then, those shots need to be wide open. Giannis is just Scottie on steroids, the same limitations with the roster persist, he's not some panacea.

I think you’re heavily underrating BI, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing I could say to persuade you otherwise. We’ll just have to wait and see him on the court this year.

But how is “Scottie on steroids” not a panacea? If Scottie became a perennial DPOY & MVP candidate [through development or by trading him for Giannis], how would that not significantly elevate the team?

I never said it wouldn't elevate the team, I said it's not a panacea. In case you are unfamiliar with the word, it's a cure all, as in fixes everything. A better Scottie still has the same gaps, obviously Giannis is leagues beyond Scottie, but he still lacks range which is a huge part of what holds back literally any team. Not to mention Lopez is what has freed up Giannis so much over the years, you know a 3p shooting centre....the thing we aren't even close to having.

And how the hell am I underrating BI, he's got 9 years of data out there, there's nothing to underrate. He's not a bad player by any stretch, he's also never shown anything more than being an AS level player, so you'll have to forgive me for thinking that I don't expect a 28 year old with 9 years under his belt to magically have some new level to show. He has been remarkably consistent the last 6 seasons, with the major question mark always being his health, if I was underrating BI, then I guess every single team out there for years has been too, since no one but our FO showed any real interest.

[sidsid]

It's obviously going to be a push for giannis, but who else could potentially be on their radar? Durant?

Booker? Ja?

Lamelo

An interesting choice of who you'd rather have: Lamelo or Trae? You can't win with either in the playoffs so it's more of an esthetic choice. I find Lamelo more fun to watch for the few times he's actually on the floor due to injuries. Just don't trade future picks.

[Shakril]

Honestly, I’m not really sure what Barnes value is across the league. He’s looking more like a #3 than he is a #1. He just came off a year where he was pretty much the worst volume scorer in the league. I could see some teams being high on him and others not. The luster is wearing off. I would think any team trading for him would have questions about his ceiling and if they would actually be getting value out of him when he’s now making $40m.

If I’m the Bucks I’m not very excited to build my future team around Barnes, Dick and the 9th pick. Given their lack of other assets it’s tough to see how the Bucks would build a competitive team around that roster. We’re having a hard enough time doing it and we’re starting from a much better position than they would be given their aging roster and low quality draft assets.

I think you are way too wrapped up in the statistical outcome. I made a post about how certain stats are being misused and over-emphasized that was locked because I was too negative about scotty. Which is very strange....because I was trying to make the point that these statistical outcomes (efficiency in particular) don't impact league wide perceptions to the degree that ppl assume.

All to say....scotty's value amongst GMs didn't take a nosedive because his efficiency nosedived last season.

Basketball isn't like baseball. In baseball you can count things that have relatively few variables. All other sports have too many variables to depend on stats alone.

How do you know this to be true?

I just don’t know how you can confidently say Barnes value is still high when it’s been 4 seasons of below average efficiency and he’s now entering his 25% max contract seasons.

There has to be some world in which some GM’s are not overly high on Barnes, at least so much as a centerpiece in a trade for an MVP.

Thats the case. Barnes had more value two years ago than today, and the reason for is that he stagnated in his development. The biggest issues he had two years ago (Maturity/Mentality on the court and 3pt shooting) are still the same he had this season. Which leads to the assumption that he is not a #1 Type player.

[Yallbecrazy]

From both a salary and value perspective I think Scottie would be outgoing, but when can he even be traded?

[mihaic]

Migbo is Scottie's friend so if Scottie goes they'll probably send Mogbo too so there is no issue. If they can get Scottie,Mogbo,Dick For Giannis (the way Doug speculates) that'd be great. That could be an East contender.

[niQ]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Did...this guy just quote RealGM as his source?

[Scase]

I'd feel more confident in the report if it didn't come from one of our local beat writers, especially Doug Smith.

Right? If anything this is like the nail in the coffin for the reports being real, next up Grange saying it's a done deal

[StopitLeo]

From both a salary and value perspective I think Scottie would be outgoing, but when can he even be traded?

July 1st per Spotrac.

[Raps in 4]

Doug Smith was clearly reading all the fake reports on Twitter last night.

[niQ]

I'd feel more confident in the report if it didn't come from one of our local beat writers, especially Doug Smith.

Right? If anything this is like the nail in the coffin for the reports being real, next up Grange saying it's a done deal

Final nail would be "Giannis has zeroed in on Raptors."

[KL78192020]

Do it! Scottie plus filler and all the picks for Giannis.

[WuTang_CMB]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Did...this guy just quote RealGM as his source?

No he's speaking to the recent report. His original report/tweet was from him which is there

[Syd-TK3]

From both a salary and value perspective I think Scottie would be outgoing, but when can he even be traded?

July 1st per Spotrac.

So you'd basically have to tamper and draft who the Bucks want for them at 9th and wait till then to make the trade lol

[niQ]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Did...this guy just quote RealGM as his source?

No he's speaking to the recent report. His original report/tweet was from him which is there

Oh, looks like he edited the tweet. When you click into it, it now shows @TorontoStar.

[Troubadour]

They brought up Pascal, it's in the podcast episode.

OK, so if Brandon Ingram was brought in to be the number two option...and the Raptors are now looking for a "big fish" on top of that...what does that make Scottie Barnes aka future face of the league?

(and Pascal Siakam is the reason the Raptors even came up on that podcast, most media people don't talk about middling lottery teams)

Scottie was likely never going to be a number 1, that's not his game. But what does this make him? A 23 year old capable of getting 20 a night on elite defense and playmaking... I mean lol

Right, we're watching Indiana roll out something very similar, where their star is a pass-first player.
Obviously, Barnes doesn't have his or Jokic's savant-like passing, but he is way further ahead on the other side of the ball.

It's actually funny. I'd love to see us go back to vision 6'9". We didn't do it right, but it definitely has merit.

Rather than watching guys get put on an island, because they aren't big enough or fast enough to keep up, we should continue to target the flexibility and switchability of the Barnes/ Ingram/ Anunoby/ Siakam of the world.

Spoiler:

Bring back Caboclo

Tyrese Haliburton can be a pass-first star because he has the live dribble skills to evade traps and the pull-up three-point shooting to bend defences. Scottie needs one of those at least and right now they're both pretty grim.