Zatzman: This era of the Raptors depends massively on Brandon Ingram

[ConSarnit]

The issue is that we’ve constructed a team where there is no guarantee we make the playoffs. The play-in, sure. If Ingrams health doesn’t hold up (not a great bet) we’re a low 40’s win team fighting for the 8th seed. We’ve seemingly built a team with limited upside that feels like a team that will have to be rebuilt in 2-3 years after we’ve accomplished very little. The idea that we can be the “6th seed” is great but it’s coming at a time when the East is extremely down. Earning the 6th seed this season should not really be a feather in anyone’s cap given how the East’s upper echelon has been destroyed by injury. The core of this team feels like one of a team that will easily get supplanted in the standings once the likes of IND, BOS and PHI (a big maybe) return to health.

Now, I say this as someone who doesn’t really care about the fanbase. I want to compete for titles. I get that the organization/ownership might have other goals. If those goals are building a 1st round and out team for the sake of maintaining fan interest then I am not going to be very supportive of that model.

Sure, but at some point, we're just pissing into the wind if all we've got is bitching about the team, you know what I mean?

I don't think we have a great deal of upside right now, but I'm at least going to enjoy watching the team win more than it loses this year if things go reasonably well. That's something. I probably won't watch a TON of Raptors games when there are better teams out there to watch, but still. They can't do magic, luck is still a huge factor and I know most of us would watch a lot LESS if we set ourselves up for another 30-win season. They had to do SOMETHING, it just is how this all works.

You don't just I DREAM OF JEANIE your way into a contention-level squad because you wanna. It starts somewhere.

I am probably an outlier when it comes to what I enjoy watching. I would much rather watch high(ish) upside prospects (which we should have been gathering the past few years) over a team with a low ceiling. I am willing to suffer the pain of losses as long as there is development, even if it looks ugly at times.

Saying they “had to do something” lets them off the hook imo. The team they’ve built seems like a money/maintain the fanbase play over an actual upside play. What part of this team do you think is the start of a an actual contender?

[tsherkin]

In the past, I’d usually be down on teams like this talented but clearly not on the level of the superteams. Deep down, you just knew they had no real shot. But now more than ever, we’re seeing that even mid-tier squads can make a legit run. Look at the Pacers there’s no reason this Raptors team can’t do the same.

The lack of Pacers-level talent would generally indicate otherwise. First, the Pacers were in the ECFs the year before. Second, they have Haliburton. Tyrese led the league in APG in 2024 and was All-NBA 3rd Team this year. They have Pascal, who is a 3x All-Star and has also made an All-NBA 3rd team. Myles Turner and Benedict Mathurin were both very good, and they got loads of strong contributions from everyone else... AND they're coached by Rick Carlisle.

We are not comparable to them, even with a healthy Ingram.

We won't be getting through Cleveland, though, barring injury, so it's somewhat moot anyway. We need to focus on things which are reasonable and likely to occur, not random "if everyone along the way is injured, then maybe this" type scenarios.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

Pacers didn't have rookies as core pieces. That's our defense, just rookies.

[tsherkin]

I am probably an outlier when it comes to what I enjoy watching. I would much rather watch high(ish) upside prospects (which we should have been gathering the past few years) over a team with a low ceiling. I am willing to suffer the pain of losses as long as there is development, even if it looks ugly at times.

Saying they “had to do something” lets them off the hook imo. The team they’ve built seems like a money/maintain the fanbase play over an actual upside play. What part of this team do you think is the start of a an actual contender?

I think that we need to start winning games, and then seeing what happens. I don't think trying to Utah/Washington our way forward by losing as many games as possible is the right route. It is DEFINITELY bad for business, but like, there's no guarantee it will be of any value, and the draft is even more fickle than it used to be with most guys one-and-done'g their way out of college. Masai was showing us that there is value to be found elsewhere in the draft, and our highest pick isn't leading us anywhere special (though he has potential as a 3rd guy type of deal).

I like watching GOOD prospects develop, especially because they tend to develop quickly. If you're watching a guy spending years doing the "will he/won't he" dance, I'm not about it if they're meant to be focal pieces.

[ciueli]

No, every other team in the league isn't a tax team with no perennial All-Star level players on their roster and glaring holes in their bench.

I think at some point, we just need to accept that this is what we've got, and see where we go from here. We've been dog-ass for a while now, so we have to hope we'll be healthy for a bit. Enjoy some > .500 seasons and some playoff games. Then see what management can do to extend that run and better the team.

We can't just always be less than thrilled with everything, because we already know from years and decades of the sport that there are ebbs and flows, and that rebuilding is a process which relies heavily upon luck. And yes, sometimes you pull the trigger too quickly, but ultimately, you can't expect a fan base to back you if you just suck ass forever and pray for picks to turn out.

I wouldn't have an issue with it if I thought our team was really well constructed with players that complimented each other in a balanced roster to play in a modern style. Instead we have no floor spacing coming from the PF or C spots outside Sandro who is a poor defender and our staring 1 through 3 are mediocre defenders at best. They talked about getting and building around 2-way players and instead we have zero starters who can consistently hit an open 3 and also play above average defence at the other end. The only player in the rotation who can do that is Ochai who isn't even guaranteed to be with the team past this season.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

No, every other team in the league isn't a tax team with no perennial All-Star level players on their roster and glaring holes in their bench.

I think at some point, we just need to accept that this is what we've got, and see where we go from here. We've been dog-ass for a while now, so we have to hope we'll be healthy for a bit. Enjoy some > .500 seasons and some playoff games. Then see what management can do to extend that run and better the team.

We can't just always be less than thrilled with everything, because we already know from years and decades of the sport that there are ebbs and flows, and that rebuilding is a process which relies heavily upon luck. And yes, sometimes you pull the trigger too quickly, but ultimately, you can't expect a fan base to back you if you just suck ass forever and pray for picks to turn out.

I wouldn't have an issue with it if I thought our team was really well constructed with players that complimented each other in a balanced roster to play in a modern style. Instead we have no floor spacing coming from the PF or C spots outside Sandro who is a poor defender and our staring 1 through 3 are mediocre defenders at best. They talked about getting and building around 2-way players and instead we have zero starters who can consistently hit an open 3 and also play above average defence at the other end. The only player in the rotation who can do that is Ochai who isn't even guaranteed to be with the team past this season.

The guy who handed this contract out, just got fired. That's really all that needs to be said.

[Los_29]

Tanking for top 5 picks sounds great in theory but never works. OKC is where they are at because of SGA, Orlando is a tWo dream and what do they have to show for it? Paolo, Franz and Suggs? Washington, Charlotte, Brooklyn, Utah all stink. Houston went out and signed Fred and Brooks then traded for KD. All of their lottery picks outside of Amen have been disappointing.

The draft has changed considerably. Teams are actually worse at drafting now than before. Players are coming into the league when they are 18-19 years old. It's hard to evaluate players at that age. You can't rely on luck and can't wait for that can't miss prospect to fall into your lap because it's not going to happen.

[tsherkin]

I wouldn't have an issue with it if I thought our team was really well constructed with players that complimented each other in a balanced roster to play in a modern style. Instead we have no floor spacing coming from the PF or C spots outside Sandro who is a poor defender and our staring 1 through 3 are mediocre defenders at best. They talked about getting and building around 2-way players and instead we have zero starters who can consistently hit an open 3 and also play above average defence at the other end. The only player in the rotation who can do that is Ochai who isn't even guaranteed to be with the team past this season.

We blew things up with the trades. Not entirely clear what people thought was going to happen after that. More over, if defense is the issue, it's worth remembering that we were an ELITE defense for like half the season last year despite the roster you're describing... and we just added a guy who is likely going to come in and add major defensive value.

Yeah, we have work to do. But we were a 30-win team (perhaps a 41-win team if we were really trying to win) last year. Of course we have flaws. But we tried to do a little tank, and it didn't work out for us. You don't magically become awesome just because you want to be out of a situation like that.

[Shakril]

Not surprisingly there are still people on this board who don't realize how poorly balanced and top heavy this roster is. We're a Jak injury away from having a minimum contract player as our starting C, an Ingram injury away from being basically the same team as last season minus Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Chris Boucher. Even healthy, every player in our starting 5 has flaws, too many mediocre defenders (IQ, RJ, Ingram), too many non or inconsistent 3 point shooters (RJ, Scottie, Jak), too few quality shot creators for others.

So are you trying to tell me that injuries can have an impact on a team’s performance? Who would’ve thought?

Jakob Poeltl being the only decent NBA calibre C on the roster is not something we should feel good about, he's played 50 games and 57 games the last two seasons, had back issues last season, and literally never averaged 30MPG in his entire career.

Ingram is the guy we're banking on to completely turn this team around but he misses a lot of games every season, he's never even played enough games in a season to qualify for postseason awards as a full time starter. Without him our team is the same old cast that failed to make even the play-in the last two seasons, actually worse since the depth had to be cut in order to get Ingram in the first place (lost Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Chris Boucher).

This top heavy approach with a weak bench consistently failed in the past which is exactly what the article is about, how this team looks suspiciously like the one Masai built around the core of Siakam/VanVleet/Anunoby that was a massive disappointment. The only reason we have to optimistic at the moment is the East is extremely weak with two of the best teams taking huge steps backward thanks to injuries to superstars, that may well earn this team a clear playoff spot but it's not something that should get anyone excited about the further future of this team.

I dont understand the need to trash Poeltl with inaccurate information.

The 50 and 57 games season happened, because he was sat down. In both he could have easily played 65 at least. Also his injuries were never severe, but there was no reason to rush him back, it was better to let him recover properly.

Also Poeltl never had Problems playing 30 minutes a game. The reasons he has not averaged 30 mins, has nothing to do with him as a player, but all with the circumstances he has found himself in.

And is flat out a lie to say we failed to reach the play-in, when it was evident, that this was the goal to not reach it and they suceeded in not getting into the play-in. And our bench is not worse than the benches of other teams in the east.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

I'm questioning at this point, if this contract was just Rich Paul getting a favor done. Buy a guy who knew he was cooked.

Like, worth 28m, got 40m.

[ciueli]

I think at some point, we just need to accept that this is what we've got, and see where we go from here. We've been dog-ass for a while now, so we have to hope we'll be healthy for a bit. Enjoy some > .500 seasons and some playoff games. Then see what management can do to extend that run and better the team.

We can't just always be less than thrilled with everything, because we already know from years and decades of the sport that there are ebbs and flows, and that rebuilding is a process which relies heavily upon luck. And yes, sometimes you pull the trigger too quickly, but ultimately, you can't expect a fan base to back you if you just suck ass forever and pray for picks to turn out.

I wouldn't have an issue with it if I thought our team was really well constructed with players that complimented each other in a balanced roster to play in a modern style. Instead we have no floor spacing coming from the PF or C spots outside Sandro who is a poor defender and our staring 1 through 3 are mediocre defenders at best. They talked about getting and building around 2-way players and instead we have zero starters who can consistently hit an open 3 and also play above average defence at the other end. The only player in the rotation who can do that is Ochai who isn't even guaranteed to be with the team past this season.

The guy who handed this contract out, just got fired. That's really all that needs to be said.

Well, I would add that the contracts that guy handed out are crippling any ability to change things through trades so it's not clear the situation will change anytime soon. I don't have a lot of hope that Bobby will be able to turn this thing around simply because to a large degree the damage has been done and other teams don't value our players. Thow in the fact that we don't even know who will be running the team in the President role yet and there's a general sense that everything is in a holding pattern, I doubt Bobby even has the authority to make a big move if an opportunity became available to make a significant change.

[Pointgod]

I would say the ceiling is conference finals unless a Marc Gasol level trade is made to made this team a true contender. Right now they can make a run like Indiana.

Ceiling means best case scenario. A competitive 1st round loss is the most id expect from this team (like the Pistons this past year).

Worst case scenario we have injuries to Poeltl/Ingram and this team is top 10 lottery bound.

Most likely is we are a play-in team that either makes it to get their asses kicked in the 1st round or doesnt make it at all.

Not surprisingly there are still people on this board who don't realize how poorly balanced and top heavy this roster is. We're a Jak injury away from having a minimum contract player as our starting C, an Ingram injury away from being basically the same team as last season minus Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Chris Boucher. Even healthy, every player in our starting 5 has flaws, too many mediocre defenders (IQ, RJ, Ingram), too many non or inconsistent 3 point shooters (RJ, Scottie, Jak), too few quality shot creators for others.

I agree with you but after being accused of bringing too much negativity to the thread I’d say that Raptors success will hinge on our defence this year. If Darko can get these guys to lock in and play hard every night, we can grind out some wins against better opponents. My concern on that end is that our starting line up has 3 players with career negative DPMs. That’s why I’m in favor of stating Ochai and either moving RJ to the bench or trading him because he solves our spacing problems and is a plus defender.

[ciueli]

So are you trying to tell me that injuries can have an impact on a team’s performance? Who would’ve thought?

Jakob Poeltl being the only decent NBA calibre C on the roster is not something we should feel good about, he's played 50 games and 57 games the last two seasons, had back issues last season, and literally never averaged 30MPG in his entire career.

Ingram is the guy we're banking on to completely turn this team around but he misses a lot of games every season, he's never even played enough games in a season to qualify for postseason awards as a full time starter. Without him our team is the same old cast that failed to make even the play-in the last two seasons, actually worse since the depth had to be cut in order to get Ingram in the first place (lost Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Chris Boucher).

This top heavy approach with a weak bench consistently failed in the past which is exactly what the article is about, how this team looks suspiciously like the one Masai built around the core of Siakam/VanVleet/Anunoby that was a massive disappointment. The only reason we have to optimistic at the moment is the East is extremely weak with two of the best teams taking huge steps backward thanks to injuries to superstars, that may well earn this team a clear playoff spot but it's not something that should get anyone excited about the further future of this team.

I dont understand the need to trash Poeltl with inaccurate information.

The 50 and 57 games season happened, because he was sat down. In both he could have easily played 65 at least. Also his injuries were never severe, but there was no reason to rush him back, it was better to let him recover properly.

Also Poeltl never had Problems playing 30 minutes a game. The reasons he has not averaged 30 mins, has nothing to do with him as a player, but all with the circumstances he has found himself in.

And is flat out a lie to say we failed to reach the play-in, when it was evident, that this was the goal to not reach it and they suceeded in not getting into the play-in. And our bench is not worse than the benches of other teams in the east.

You're just making assumptions about games Jak could have played, the facts are the facts, he had injury issues the last 2 seasons of his career that limited the number of games he could play. I don't necessarily expect that to change going forward as he moves into his 30s, big men usually don't get healthier and play more minutes as they age.

As for the "flat out lie" comment, I have no idea what you're talking about. I never even mentioned the play-in in my post that you quoted.

[ConSarnit]

Tanking for top 5 picks sounds great in theory but never works. OKC is where they are at because of SGA, Orlando is a tWo dream and what do they have to show for it? Paolo, Franz and Suggs? Washington, Charlotte, Brooklyn, Utah all stink. Houston went out and signed Fred and Brooks then traded for KD. All of their lottery picks outside of Amen have been disappointing.

The draft has changed considerably. Teams are actually worse at drafting now than before. Players are coming into the league when they are 18-19 years old. It's hard to evaluate players at that age. You can't rely on luck and can't wait for that can't miss prospect to fall into your lap because it's not going to happen.

Couldn’t we say the exact same thing about teams led by Brandon Ingram?

My argument always was: our front office has one high level skill: drafting. Why not leverage that to its fullest by drafting high with our own picks and take other shots with picks acquired through selling off OG/Siakam/FVV? I mostly agree that tanking strictly on the back of ONLY your own picks isn’t the best strategy but the smart teams have been stacking picks to get multiple bites at the apple. Utah has been a clear example of a team that did not tank to its fullest potential and our now likely dealing with the repercussions of that. They ended up drafting 10th and 9th because they didn’t fully commit.

I don’t know how you can say tanking never works. The Spurs have built their entire success around tanking. I’d wager OKC is still better than us even if you remove SGA from the picture. Both us and ORL ended up as capped out teams but ORL is still clearly better than us and has higher upside. HOU ended up stacking assets that allowed them to make the KD trade while retaining almost the entire core of their team. The pick they traded for KD wasn’t even their own. It was one they acquired while tanking.

Tanking is low odds solution. It’s still likely the best solution for us, a team that never gets free agents and got incredibly lucky to hit on the 1 year we had a star (Kawhi).

I don’t know how anyone can look at the past 3 years and say “I’m glad we didn’t tank”. We’ve effectively spun our wheels to re-create a different version of the Siakam led teams.

[ConSarnit]

Ceiling means best case scenario. A competitive 1st round loss is the most id expect from this team (like the Pistons this past year).

Worst case scenario we have injuries to Poeltl/Ingram and this team is top 10 lottery bound.

Most likely is we are a play-in team that either makes it to get their asses kicked in the 1st round or doesnt make it at all.

Not surprisingly there are still people on this board who don't realize how poorly balanced and top heavy this roster is. We're a Jak injury away from having a minimum contract player as our starting C, an Ingram injury away from being basically the same team as last season minus Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Chris Boucher. Even healthy, every player in our starting 5 has flaws, too many mediocre defenders (IQ, RJ, Ingram), too many non or inconsistent 3 point shooters (RJ, Scottie, Jak), too few quality shot creators for others.

I agree with you but after being accused of bringing too much negativity to the thread I’d say that Raptors success will hinge on our defence this year. If Darko can get these guys to lock in and play hard every night, we can grind out some wins against better opponents. My concern on that end is that our starting line up has 3 players with career negative DPMs. That’s why I’m in favor of stating Ochai and either moving RJ to the bench or trading him because he solves our spacing problems and is a plus defender.

Our system is not conducive to hoping for strong defensive outcomes. We don’t have the roster for it (Poeltl missing any time still causes huge compromises for us) and our ball movement offense means that we will turn the ball over and that will hurt our defense.

We don’t have strong defensive roster (as far as starters go) and we play an offensive style that doesn’t protect the ball. We can likely carve out a mid-tier defense but I have significant doubts that we can be “good” defensively.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

Not surprisingly there are still people on this board who don't realize how poorly balanced and top heavy this roster is. We're a Jak injury away from having a minimum contract player as our starting C, an Ingram injury away from being basically the same team as last season minus Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Chris Boucher. Even healthy, every player in our starting 5 has flaws, too many mediocre defenders (IQ, RJ, Ingram), too many non or inconsistent 3 point shooters (RJ, Scottie, Jak), too few quality shot creators for others.

I agree with you but after being accused of bringing too much negativity to the thread I’d say that Raptors success will hinge on our defence this year. If Darko can get these guys to lock in and play hard every night, we can grind out some wins against better opponents. My concern on that end is that our starting line up has 3 players with career negative DPMs. That’s why I’m in favor of stating Ochai and either moving RJ to the bench or trading him because he solves our spacing problems and is a plus defender.

Our system is not conducive to hoping for strong defensive outcomes. We don’t have the roster for it (Poeltl missing any time still causes huge compromises for us) and our ball movement offense means that we will turn the ball over and that will hurt our defense.

We don’t have strong defensive roster (as far as starters go) and we play an offensive style that doesn’t protect the ball. We can likely carve out a mid-tier defense but I have significant doubts that we can be “good” defensively.

We just watched everybody's defense get worse last year, even Scotties. It's the "Darko" problem.

[ciueli]

Ceiling means best case scenario. A competitive 1st round loss is the most id expect from this team (like the Pistons this past year).

Worst case scenario we have injuries to Poeltl/Ingram and this team is top 10 lottery bound.

Most likely is we are a play-in team that either makes it to get their asses kicked in the 1st round or doesnt make it at all.

Not surprisingly there are still people on this board who don't realize how poorly balanced and top heavy this roster is. We're a Jak injury away from having a minimum contract player as our starting C, an Ingram injury away from being basically the same team as last season minus Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Chris Boucher. Even healthy, every player in our starting 5 has flaws, too many mediocre defenders (IQ, RJ, Ingram), too many non or inconsistent 3 point shooters (RJ, Scottie, Jak), too few quality shot creators for others.

I agree with you but after being accused of bringing too much negativity to the thread I’d say that Raptors success will hinge on our defence this year. If Darko can get these guys to lock in and play hard every night, we can grind out some wins against better opponents. My concern on that end is that our starting line up has 3 players with career negative DPMs. That’s why I’m in favor of stating Ochai and either moving RJ to the bench or trading him because he solves our spacing problems and is a plus defender.

It definitely makes sense to do what you are saying (move Ochai into the starting lineup) but I don't see it happening with RJ on the roster because sending him to the bench would further kill his value and make him completely untradable if he isn't already. They just can't afford to do that, they are all in on moving him by the trade deadline to get out of the tax and that means doing whatever it takes to increase his value. Throw in the fact that they will want to depress Ochai's value in a contract year and I don't see a change like that happening.

The defence this year will probably be fairly bad. Only two good defenders in the starting lineup and neither is an All-Defence team level defender, there are some good defenders off the bench in Ochai and Shead, maybe a little bit of CMB or Mogbo, but rookies are rarely good right away and we will also see Sandro in the top 8 rotation who is negative defensive Box +/- every season of his career, we can't expect a good defensive bench without sacrificing a lot on the offensive end. Maybe this team won't be bottom 10 defence, though I would guess it will be at least close, maybe the numbers will be skewed simply because the East is really weak and they will look better against soft competition.

[tsherkin]

Not surprisingly there are still people on this board who don't realize how poorly balanced and top heavy this roster is. We're a Jak injury away from having a minimum contract player as our starting C, an Ingram injury away from being basically the same team as last season minus Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Chris Boucher. Even healthy, every player in our starting 5 has flaws, too many mediocre defenders (IQ, RJ, Ingram), too many non or inconsistent 3 point shooters (RJ, Scottie, Jak), too few quality shot creators for others.

I agree with you but after being accused of bringing too much negativity to the thread I’d say that Raptors success will hinge on our defence this year. If Darko can get these guys to lock in and play hard every night, we can grind out some wins against better opponents. My concern on that end is that our starting line up has 3 players with career negative DPMs. That’s why I’m in favor of stating Ochai and either moving RJ to the bench or trading him because he solves our spacing problems and is a plus defender.

It definitely makes sense to do what you are saying (move Ochai into the starting lineup) but I don't see it happening with RJ on the roster because sending him to the bench would further kill his value and make him completely untradable if he isn't already. They just can't afford to do that, they are all in on moving him by the trade deadline to get out of the tax and that means doing whatever it takes to increase his value. Throw in the fact that they will want to depress Ochai's value in a contract year and I don't see a change like that happening.

The defence this year will probably be fairly bad. Only two good defenders in the starting lineup and neither is an All-Defence team level defender, there are some good defenders off the bench in Ochai and Shead, maybe a little bit of CMB or Mogbo, but rookies are rarely good right away and we will also see Sandro in the top 8 rotation who is negative defensive Box +/- every season of his career, we can't expect a good defensive bench without sacrificing a lot on the offensive end. Maybe this team won't be bottom 10 defence, though I would guess it will be at least close, maybe the numbers will be skewed simply because the East is really weak and they will look better against soft competition.

Our defense is going to be very important, unquestionably.

The idea that our defense is guaranteed to be "fairly bad" doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense. I'm sure we won't be a top-5 D, but we were really good on D for over half the season this past year. That doesn't project to us suddenly turning into a bottom-third defense, even accounting for some teams not tanking any longer and all that.

[sbsat]

RJ doesn't fit this roster and he will need to be moved. But it seems like he has little value

[ConSarnit]

So are you trying to tell me that injuries can have an impact on a team’s performance? Who would’ve thought?

Jakob Poeltl being the only decent NBA calibre C on the roster is not something we should feel good about, he's played 50 games and 57 games the last two seasons, had back issues last season, and literally never averaged 30MPG in his entire career.

Ingram is the guy we're banking on to completely turn this team around but he misses a lot of games every season, he's never even played enough games in a season to qualify for postseason awards as a full time starter. Without him our team is the same old cast that failed to make even the play-in the last two seasons, actually worse since the depth had to be cut in order to get Ingram in the first place (lost Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Chris Boucher).

This top heavy approach with a weak bench consistently failed in the past which is exactly what the article is about, how this team looks suspiciously like the one Masai built around the core of Siakam/VanVleet/Anunoby that was a massive disappointment. The only reason we have to optimistic at the moment is the East is extremely weak with two of the best teams taking huge steps backward thanks to injuries to superstars, that may well earn this team a clear playoff spot but it's not something that should get anyone excited about the further future of this team.

I dont understand the need to trash Poeltl with inaccurate information.

The 50 and 57 games season happened, because he was sat down. In both he could have easily played 65 at least. Also his injuries were never severe, but there was no reason to rush him back, it was better to let him recover properly.

Also Poeltl never had Problems playing 30 minutes a game. The reasons he has not averaged 30 mins, has nothing to do with him as a player, but all with the circumstances he has found himself in.

And is flat out a lie to say we failed to reach the play-in, when it was evident, that this was the goal to not reach it and they suceeded in not getting into the play-in. And our bench is not worse than the benches of other teams in the east.

Please outline the reasons Poeltl has not played over 30mpg in a SINGLE SEASON.

Poeltl has never shown he can play 30mpg+. Even when playing under Nurse, a guy whose philosophy was “drive our starters into the ground”, Poeltl still only played 27mpg. If Nick Nurse doesn’t have the confidence to play you 30+ mpg you know there must be very real reasons as to why Poeltl is incapable of higher minutes.

With the Raptors Poeltl has effectively played with no capable backup C yet he still played under 30mpg.

Poeltl has been a locked in starter for 5 years and he’s never averaged over 30mpg. He’s been on teams with extremely questionable backup centers AND played under 2 championship level coaches (one of whom’s key mandate is “play starters 38mpg”) yet no one has ever had the confidence to play him 30+ mpg over the course of a season.

Poeltl cannot handle playing 30+ mpg. We have all the evidence in front of us yet you continue to turn a blind eye due to your homerism.