Did Zach Lowe identify some convincing points for being low on Raptors?

[ATLTimekeeper]

All the stuff they point to, is like "did you see this 20 game stretch". Eh.

If he comes in and brings his average level of play from the past 300 games or so (aka 23/5.5/5 on 101 TS+ with 37.2% on 4.2 3PA/g), he's going to make a MAJOR change in our offense.

This isn't really something which can be sensibly argued. He instantly becomes the best scoring force on the team. He becomes the lead playmaker on the squad. He becomes a single-handed force in changing the texture of our 3pt attack (never mind Quick's return).

This is basic stuff.

Yes, he isn't a superstar. We shouldn't expect to be a top-5 offense. We won't be contenders. But he will author a major change in our team offense if he is any kind of healthy.

I'm more skeptical there will be a leap here. Ingram works for the middle. Scottie works for the middle. That will be at the expense of the .5 offensive players like Gradey, RJ and Quick. RJ being the only guy on the team that can get deep into the paint consistently, unless he absolutely blows up and takes the ball out of people's hands, it's going to be hard to create space for Quick and Gradey to get easy looks.

I don't see this team being more than a bottom 15 offensive team.

[tsherkin]

I'm more skeptical there will be a leap here. Ingram works for the middle. Scottie works for the middle.

Stop giving Scottie shots in the middle, except out of the low post/on ORBs. Easy solve. He's not really worth it as a scoring threat unless he's spoon-fed by someone else anyhow.

That will be at the expense of the .5 offensive players like Gradey, RJ and Quick. RJ being the only guy on the team that can get deep into the paint consistently, unless he absolutely blows up and takes the ball out of people's hands, it's going to be hard to create space for Quick and Gradey to get easy looks.
I don't see this team being more than a bottom 15 offensive team.

We have more shooters now, which will help. Quick's good off-ball. We can deprecate Scottie's shooting responsibility quite easily. Gradey has some utility, especially if he learns how to shoot with any kind of pressure on him. A semi-healthy Yak helps us out a bunch.

Health will be a limiting factor. Scoring efficiency will be a limiting factor (although having Quick and BI scoring at league-average will be much better than what we had last year). RJ... well, we'll see what happens. Post-trade RJ or 2025 RJ, which one we get is a big deal because they are very different.

We definitely aren't going to be a GOOD offense with just this, but we were putrid last year, and part of that was being so bad in eFG%. BI and Quick help address that rather significantly, as does Yak being kind of healthy.

In an optimistic scenario with good health and reasonable performance, 12-14th isn't out of reach.

[ontnut]

He under performed his last contract, right?

Did he?

I mean, if he's playing 20 games or so. That's a big affirmative.

If you look at it that way, sure. I don't think that's really "underperforming" though, at least not in the way it's often meant.

[ontnut]

I'm more skeptical there will be a leap here. Ingram works for the middle. Scottie works for the middle.

Stop giving Scottie shots in the middle, except out of the low post/on ORBs. Easy solve. He's not really worth it as a scoring threat unless he's spoon-fed by someone else anyhow.

That will be at the expense of the .5 offensive players like Gradey, RJ and Quick. RJ being the only guy on the team that can get deep into the paint consistently, unless he absolutely blows up and takes the ball out of people's hands, it's going to be hard to create space for Quick and Gradey to get easy looks.
I don't see this team being more than a bottom 15 offensive team.

We have more shooters now, which will help. Quick's good off-ball. We can deprecate Scottie's shooting responsibility quite easily. Gradey has some utility, especially if he learns how to shoot with any kind of pressure on him. A semi-healthy Yak helps us out a bunch.

Health will be a limiting factor. Scoring efficiency will be a limiting factor (although having Quick and BI scoring at league-average will be much better than what we had last year). RJ... well, we'll see what happens. Post-trade RJ or 2025 RJ, which one we get is a big deal because they are very different.

We definitely aren't going to be a GOOD offense with just this, but we were putrid last year, and part of that was being so bad in eFG%. BI and Quick help address that rather significantly, as does Yak being kind of healthy.

In an optimistic scenario with good health and reasonable performance, 12-14th isn't out of reach.

I expect us to be about league average offense wise, with about the same for the defence. There's a higher potential for the offense to click and get us near the top 10, than for us to be near the top 10 defensively.

If we're in the 10-15 range on both O and D, that would be a solid season and more than likely good for at least 6th in the East, which is kind of where I've got us slotted right now - playing meaningful games in the last 2 weeks trying to fight for placement between the 5-7 seeds.

[tsherkin]

I expect us to be about league average offense wise, with about the same for the defence. There's a higher potential for the offense to click and get us near the top 10, than for us to be near the top 10 defensively.

I figure we'll be more like 16-19 on defense, and then more like 13-15 on O, if I were to be cautious in my evaluation, yeah. Enough to about even out our NetRTG and have us somewhere around .500.

[ontnut]

I expect us to be about league average offense wise, with about the same for the defence. There's a higher potential for the offense to click and get us near the top 10, than for us to be near the top 10 defensively.

I figure we'll be more like 16-19 on defense, and then more like 13-15 on O, if I were to be cautious in my evaluation, yeah. Enough to about even out our NetRTG and have us somewhere around .500.

Yeah something like that feels realistic to me. Magic were 7th seed with a .500 record. 6th was Pistons with 44 wins. If we have this team healthy in last year's East, I think our ceiling is around that 41-44 win mark between the Magic and Pistons. But the East is SHOT this year, so I think our potential ceiling is higher than 44 wins, though realistically, we're probably ending around .500 given our own injury probabilities.

[tsherkin]

Yeah something like that feels realistic to me. Magic were 7th seed with a .500 record. 6th was Pistons with 44 wins. If we have this team healthy in last year's East, I think our ceiling is around that 41-44 win mark between the Magic and Pistons. But the East is SHOT this year, so I think our potential ceiling is higher than 44 wins, though realistically, we're probably ending around .500 given our own injury probabilities.

44 seems a good top end for this team, barring some very significant evolution from the young guys or other changes in our guys, for sure.

I don't think we get north of that, even if we're really healthy. There are a lot of teams with more talent than us even with Boston and Indy down for the count.

[Tha Cynic]

Just looking at the East

Mitchell
Brunson
Giannis
Siakam
Herro/Norm
Brown
Wagner
Cade
Trae
Ball
Embiid

I’m not as worried about great offensive players killing us lol. If we can click as a team and play defense there’s some optimism there. There are a couple of great players, but that’s not exactly a legendary list and a healthy Ingram fits in there.

Darko’s offense gets you looks. Can you hit them?

[ontnut]

I'd preffer not to use them like that, tbh. Like, one pick on Ingram is enough.

You take Ingram over a mid-late pick every day.

This boards obsession with late first is hilarious. They aren't that valuable.

If we have to move him, that's at least another at this point.

Nah.
The Warriors just got Jimmy for Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, Lindy Waters and a first. Wiggins contract value was viewed as bad enough that people were also saying the Warriors needed to pay to get off it. Anderson was also bad. Schroder was essentially a rental. And they got Jimmy for it.

Everyone said Lavine was a toxic contract and he was an injury prone, empty stats guy - and they got back Zach Collins, Tre Jones, Kevin Huerter and their own 1st rounder back for him.

I'm really not that concerned about recouping our 1st if it comes down to us needing to trade Ingram down the line - with the exception of course being Ingram is injured at the time.

[Tha Cynic]

You take Ingram over a mid-late pick every day.

This boards obsession with late first is hilarious. They aren't that valuable.

If we have to move him, that's at least another at this point.

Nah.
The Warriors just got Jimmy for Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, Lindy Waters and a first. Wiggins contract value was viewed as bad enough that people were also saying the Warriors needed to pay to get off it. Anderson was also bad. Schroder was essentially a rental. And they got Jimmy for it.

Everyone said Lavine was a toxic contract and he was an injury prone, empty stats guy - and they got back Zach Collins, Tre Jones, Kevin Huerter and their own 1st rounder back for him.

I'm really not that concerned about recouping our 1st if it comes down to us needing to trade Ingram down the line - with the exception of course being Ingram is injured at the time.

I don’t think any of our players will be difficult to trade. The contract thing is just a talking point one person brought up and now everyone else repeats it. I would love for analysts to never listen to other analysts and give their own views. It will most likely show how much these guys don’t follow 80% of the teams they talk about.

Give Quickley a healthy season and he will make that contract look acceptable.

[ontnut]

If we have to move him, that's at least another at this point.

Nah.
The Warriors just got Jimmy for Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, Lindy Waters and a first. Wiggins contract value was viewed as bad enough that people were also saying the Warriors needed to pay to get off it. Anderson was also bad. Schroder was essentially a rental. And they got Jimmy for it.

Everyone said Lavine was a toxic contract and he was an injury prone, empty stats guy - and they got back Zach Collins, Tre Jones, Kevin Huerter and their own 1st rounder back for him.

I'm really not that concerned about recouping our 1st if it comes down to us needing to trade Ingram down the line - with the exception of course being Ingram is injured at the time.

I don’t think any of our players will be difficult to trade. The contract thing is just a talking point one person brought up and now everyone else repeats it. I would love for analysts to never listen to other analysts and give their own views. It will most likely show how much these guys don’t follow 80% of the teams they talk about.

Give Quickley a healthy season and he will make that contract look acceptable.

Yah. IQ's deal is probably our most negatively-perceived contract, and now looking at the deal Fox just got...I don't see how IQ is "immovable", or that we'd need to attach picks. Even as-is, we can move him for something in return - but I'm still optimistic on him having a strong season this upcoming season.

Reaves turned down a 4 year $90m deal and is looking for a $30+AAV deal. Clearly his agent thinks he's worth it. I don't think Reaves is any better than IQ....

[ATLTimekeeper]

[quote="tsherkin"]

Stop giving Scottie shots in the middle, except out of the low post/on ORBs. Easy solve. He's not really worth it as a scoring threat unless he's spoon-fed by someone else anyhow.

[quote]

That's an easy solve online, not in reality. Scottie is not going to just give up his major growth area. He's still the guy that the team is building around. He'll get that diet of shots. More to the point, neither Ingram nor Scottie are really great at creating space for others. They're pretty decent at creating space for themselves, but in areas of the floor where defenses already concede.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

If we have to move him, that's at least another at this point.

Nah.
The Warriors just got Jimmy for Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, Lindy Waters and a first. Wiggins contract value was viewed as bad enough that people were also saying the Warriors needed to pay to get off it. Anderson was also bad. Schroder was essentially a rental. And they got Jimmy for it.

Everyone said Lavine was a toxic contract and he was an injury prone, empty stats guy - and they got back Zach Collins, Tre Jones, Kevin Huerter and their own 1st rounder back for him.

I'm really not that concerned about recouping our 1st if it comes down to us needing to trade Ingram down the line - with the exception of course being Ingram is injured at the time.

I don’t think any of our players will be difficult to trade. The contract thing is just a talking point one person brought up and now everyone else repeats it. I would love for analysts to never listen to other analysts and give their own views. It will most likely show how much these guys don’t follow 80% of the teams they talk about.

Give Quickley a healthy season and he will make that contract look acceptable.

MPJ just cost the Nuggets an un-protected first. The same money we just gave BI, but BI has a player option for a third. So, it's actually worse if it goes bad.

[JB7]

Nah.
The Warriors just got Jimmy for Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, Lindy Waters and a first. Wiggins contract value was viewed as bad enough that people were also saying the Warriors needed to pay to get off it. Anderson was also bad. Schroder was essentially a rental. And they got Jimmy for it.

Everyone said Lavine was a toxic contract and he was an injury prone, empty stats guy - and they got back Zach Collins, Tre Jones, Kevin Huerter and their own 1st rounder back for him.

I'm really not that concerned about recouping our 1st if it comes down to us needing to trade Ingram down the line - with the exception of course being Ingram is injured at the time.

I don’t think any of our players will be difficult to trade. The contract thing is just a talking point one person brought up and now everyone else repeats it. I would love for analysts to never listen to other analysts and give their own views. It will most likely show how much these guys don’t follow 80% of the teams they talk about.

Give Quickley a healthy season and he will make that contract look acceptable.

MPJ just cost the Nuggets an un-protected first. The same money we just gave BI, but BI has a player option for a third. So, it's actually worse if it goes bad.

Cam Johnson cost them the 1st. MPJ was just salary filler.

[JB7]

If BI performs well, which he is incentivized to do with that contract (he has the opt out to try and get one last big deal), he should not be difficult to move.

Raps are getting him for his age 28 & 29 seasons. These should be his peak seasons.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

I don’t think any of our players will be difficult to trade. The contract thing is just a talking point one person brought up and now everyone else repeats it. I would love for analysts to never listen to other analysts and give their own views. It will most likely show how much these guys don’t follow 80% of the teams they talk about.

Give Quickley a healthy season and he will make that contract look acceptable.

MPJ just cost the Nuggets an un-protected first. The same money we just gave BI, but BI has a player option for a third. So, it's actually worse if it goes bad.

Cam Johnson cost them the 1st. MPJ was just salary filler.

Nobody's giving up an un-protected first for him.

[YogurtProducer]

MPJ just cost the Nuggets an un-protected first. The same money we just gave BI, but BI has a player option for a third. So, it's actually worse if it goes bad.

Cam Johnson cost them the 1st. MPJ was just salary filler.

Nobody's giving up an un-protected first for him.

Cam Johnson also has a great contract and is arguably as good if not better than MPJ. All that considered, you give up a first for Cam Johnson and his great contract.

There are plenty of teams who would give up a first for Cam Johnson. The unprotected part probably was the incentive to include MPJ.

None of this matters, because Ingram is miles better than MPJ is anyways lol

[tsherkin]

That's an easy solve online, not in reality. Scottie is not going to just give up his major growth area. He's still the guy that the team is building around.

Yes, the concept of the right move is very different from contractual pressure and how the team has been handling it. We are going to be dumber about it than we should be, almost guaranteed. We should not be looking to support volume from Scottie. If/when we do, it will actively undermine our offensive efficacy, no doubt.

Meantime, with respect to creating space, Ingram can C+S just fine and is a very good 3pt shooter. That alone will passively assist space for others. Same with Quick.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

Cam Johnson cost them the 1st. MPJ was just salary filler.

Nobody's giving up an un-protected first for him.

Cam Johnson also has a great contract and is arguably as good if not better than MPJ. All that considered, you give up a first for Cam Johnson and his great contract.

There are plenty of teams who would give up a first for Cam Johnson. The unprotected part probably was the incentive to include MPJ.

None of this matters, because Ingram is miles better than MPJ is anyways lol

So, I get to keep the Pacers pick...AND I get an unprotected first?

[JB7]

Nobody's giving up an un-protected first for him.

Cam Johnson also has a great contract and is arguably as good if not better than MPJ. All that considered, you give up a first for Cam Johnson and his great contract.

There are plenty of teams who would give up a first for Cam Johnson. The unprotected part probably was the incentive to include MPJ.

None of this matters, because Ingram is miles better than MPJ is anyways lol

So, I get to keep the Pacers pick...AND I get an unprotected first?

Ingram is better than MPJ. MPJ is just a spot up shooter. BI has more game than that.

Raps just bought low on him, because Pelicans couldn’t afford all of their players.

There is potential for his value to grow with the Raps. If he can perform well, and the Raps play above expectations (which is not hard), his value will increase, as I’m sure some of that progress will be attributed to BI.