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Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse

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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#81 » by ConSarnit » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:10 pm

OakleyDokely wrote:
ConSarnit wrote:
causal_fan wrote:I see posters are practicing the time tested methodology - Don't like the message, shoot the messenger :D


The premise of his article is “teams that got worse”

Please outline how you think this team got “worse” this off-season. The article isn’t “teams whose directions I don’t like” it was clearly titled “teams that got worse”. Please explain how we fit in to that category?


I guess the guy is predicting the Raps win under 30 games? That's the only way they'd be worse than last year.


Which of course would be an insane prediction unless he has the ability to foresee massive injury problems. To be worse than last year we’d pretty much need 2 of Barnes/Ingram/ Poeltl to miss almost the entire year.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#82 » by Quattro » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:13 pm

I stopped reading at "Bleacher Report".
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#83 » by CazOnReal » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:15 pm

Yeah this is stupid

Yet another "team expensive" whinging article that doesn't actually get into the Xs and Os, the talent on the team or that we were injured to hell and back last year.

Barring BI being a Top 5 worst fit mishap, there is little reason to think the team got worse.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#84 » by Raptorfan2012 » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:27 pm

Who cares how much the Raptors spend if its their money. Only issue is the tax situation, and that is only if the Raptors don't want to pay the tax. Tax only really starts affecting how a team is built upon 1st apron, and we are not there.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#85 » by dagger » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:34 pm

SharoneWright wrote:
right between the eyes wrote:
SharoneWright wrote:
Has it been a success?

If you use logic.


He had a ton of injuries and we then tanked and he pretty much sat out. Let's see what he can do in a full season and then judge the contract then.


Oh sure. Great. And I agree. And the Raptors are definitely not worse than last year. That’s not even close to true.

But, that IQ contract has so far been a failure by any objective metric. Could it become good in the future? Well it might. But even that is uncertain. So the success of that contract is tenuous at best and suffers from diminishing returns unless the player can actually outperform the back half of the contract considering he underperformed the first part.

Doesn’t mean the Raptors got worse though.


The thing with IQ's contract is that it's flat-lined, so as a year is knocked off while the cap goes up, that makes it a better contract. If that's the only thing you care about. I've cautioned people not to et wrapped up in the tax thing, so long as we aren't an above the apron team, everything else is just a financial concern for ownership
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#86 » by causal_fan » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:37 pm

Fairview4Life wrote:
causal_fan wrote:I see posters are practicing the time tested methodology - Don't like the message, shoot the messenger :D


I think your post might be the kind of pretentious **** I find the most annoying on realgm. Congrats on that.

I am happy to annoy you!
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#87 » by causal_fan » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:39 pm

Nature wrote:lol why do you guys care?

Exactly, couldn't have said it better myself.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#88 » by StopitLeo » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:41 pm

That's a low effort analysis. Got worse? Absolutely not.

Got better? That's unclear since Ingram hasn't played (and we aren't 100% sure about his ankle) and Quickley was injured most of last year. The Raptors also have several young players (Shead, Ja'Kobe, Ochai, Gradey, Mogbo) who have been showing steady improvement with no suggestion that they've hit their ceiling.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#89 » by causal_fan » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:48 pm

ConSarnit wrote:
causal_fan wrote:I see posters are practicing the time tested methodology - Don't like the message, shoot the messenger :D


The premise of his article is “teams that got worse”

Please outline how you think this team got “worse” this off-season. The article isn’t “teams whose directions I don’t like” it was clearly titled “teams that got worse”. Please explain how we fit in to that category?


First of all, I didn't say I agreed with the author, I don't but I think he has a perfectly defensible point of view that I've heard from other American media - I just don't see the point of getting overworked about it, if you don't agree just let it go and then enjoy the sweetness of the Raptors playing well next season if they do - I'm hopeful but not confident about the team heading into next season - This team has played few games together and the East is in flux, so any outcome would not surprise me.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#90 » by Quattro » Tue Jul 15, 2025 3:55 pm

causal_fan wrote:I see posters are practicing the time tested methodology - Don't like the message, shoot the messenger :D


If i want to read lazy, stupid, uninformed takes ill just come and read half the **** posted on this forum. No need to waste my time reading what some loser who watches 3 raptors games every decade thinks about the team.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#91 » by AkelaLoneWolf » Tue Jul 15, 2025 4:56 pm

Barnes, the jewel of the Raptors.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#92 » by Shaazzam » Tue Jul 15, 2025 4:58 pm

Raps in 4
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#93 » by Tacoma » Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:06 pm

ConSarnit wrote:How do some of these hacks have jobs?

I get not liking the direction of the team but does Mo Dakhil know the definition of “worse”?

There is no argument you can make that this team got worse. Criticize them all you want but at least use the English language correctly if you’re going to be a writer.


Talk about definition, so I clicked on the link provided by the OP and the author prefaced his report by defining the criteria for his analysis:

"A lot of these teams on the list have committed large amounts of their cap space and do not seem to be trending in the right direction. My main criticism [of these 5 teams] is that there is no clear plan for the team, and they are digging themselves a deeper hole in the process."

Within the context of this definition, I can see where he makes his conclusions. I may not necessarily agree with all of it, but I can see it. The core of our top 5 is around 27 with average of about 6-7 years in the NBA which means we should be performing at or near peak now.

Today's team likely peaks @ 5th seed ceiling with no trend (his criteria) to be Champion. So if Championship is the goal, there's no "clear plan" (his criteria) unless we replace this core with another younger with more upside. He ties this to us being set to be a first apron team (his criteria) with over $156M committed to this core. A quick glance and we are top 6 in the NBA in payroll and we should be a lot better, so is he that off-base?

He also didn't say we got worse in # games, rather the article's title says teams that got worse with moves (or non-moves) during the off-season. The author admits his ranking for the Raps is more for past sins than the off-season, and I will add that we are mid-July & the off-season is far from over. So while parts of his message can be criticized, I don't see the case for attacking the messenger.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#94 » by Pointgod » Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:12 pm

ConSarnit wrote:
causal_fan wrote:I see posters are practicing the time tested methodology - Don't like the message, shoot the messenger :D


The premise of his article is “teams that got worse”

Please outline how you think this team got “worse” this off-season. The article isn’t “teams whose directions I don’t like” it was clearly titled “teams that got worse”. Please explain how we fit in to that category?


I’m not agreeing with the premise of the article but one way to look at it from a broader viewpoint is that the team took on more long term contracts that could be hard to move and limited our ability to tank for a top draft pick while capping ceiling as a play-in team.

There’s no argument from a talent perspective we got better but not everyone values our talent the same way that Raptors fans do. So from the writers perspective you could say we’re in a worse situation, paying the tax for a play-in team without the ability to get a top draft pick.

That’s the argument he seems to be making.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#95 » by Los_29 » Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:31 pm

I don’t think RJ fits but putting that aside, we have a young core that is locked up with numerous young, developing, intriguing pieces on the bench. We aren’t an elite team but we are trending up and that’s all that matters. Moves can always be made and we have all of our picks. Just need to be patient.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#96 » by Morris_Shatford » Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:47 pm

Upside -
If we exceed all expectations most of the team is locked up long term.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#97 » by Mack11 » Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:48 pm

so what? are we getting a top 5 pick next year with this roster? I think these writers know how to get raptor fans riled up and that gives them the clicks.. i dont see how this team can be worse than what we saw last season..
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#98 » by kleatius_01 » Tue Jul 15, 2025 9:23 pm

https://nbaage.com/ has us as the fourth youngest team in the league for the 24-25 season mean age weighted by minutes played per team. Our peak potential may not be great but it feels like 25-26 season should be an improvement.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#99 » by ConSarnit » Tue Jul 15, 2025 9:39 pm

Tacoma wrote:
ConSarnit wrote:How do some of these hacks have jobs?

I get not liking the direction of the team but does Mo Dakhil know the definition of “worse”?

There is no argument you can make that this team got worse. Criticize them all you want but at least use the English language correctly if you’re going to be a writer.


Talk about definition, so I clicked on the link provided by the OP and the author prefaced his report by defining the criteria for his analysis:

"A lot of these teams on the list have committed large amounts of their cap space and do not seem to be trending in the right direction. My main criticism [of these 5 teams] is that there is no clear plan for the team, and they are digging themselves a deeper hole in the process."

Within the context of this definition, I can see where he makes his conclusions. I may not necessarily agree with all of it, but I can see it. The core of our top 5 is around 27 with average of about 6-7 years in the NBA which means we should be performing at or near peak now.

Today's team likely peaks @ 5th seed ceiling with no trend (his criteria) to be Champion. So if Championship is the goal, there's no "clear plan" (his criteria) unless we replace this core with another younger with more upside. He ties this to us being set to be a first apron team (his criteria) with over $156M committed to this core. A quick glance and we are top 6 in the NBA in payroll and we should be a lot better, so is he that off-base?

He also didn't say we got worse in # games, rather the article's title says teams that got worse with moves (or non-moves) during the off-season. The author admits his ranking for the Raps is more for past sins than the off-season, and I will add that we are mid-July & the off-season is far from over. So while parts of his message can be criticized, I don't see the case for attacking the messenger.


His article specifically states “got worse this offseason”

His criticisms include:

Poeltl signing: which he specifically called “not a bad deal”

Ingram signing: happened in February (not the offseason)

IQ contract: literally happened in 2024 offseason

So he’s criticizing us for not getting off of our bad contracts, which I guess includes Ingram who hasn’t even played a single game for the Raptors?

This article was a counter to his “improved the most” article which by its very definition means “got better”. Our team is clearly better than it was last year yet somehow got “worse”. His definition of better or worse makes no sense.

Here’s the biggest kicker: he literally says we are on the list for past sins. IN AN ARTICLE ABOUT WORST 2025 OFFSEASONS. He completely defeats the purpose of his own article if he’s allowed to include mistakes made prior to the summer of 2025.
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Re: Bleacher Report: Raps one of 5 teams to get worse 

Post#100 » by YogurtProducer » Tue Jul 15, 2025 10:30 pm

Madvillainy2004 wrote:
YogurtProducer wrote:Get worse? Bold take.


They won 30 games trying to tank and had IQ out all year and didn't even bother to play Ingram lmao

I swear the media doesn’t follow us at all nor does half this board :lol:
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