The Tank Debate Thread

[SkywalkerAC]

It was pretty obvious that Masai was taking a wait-and-see approach as soon as he retained Casey for a sink-or-swim season. He retains his option to compete and his option to tank mid-season. Win-win.

[TheRealBlizzy]

Gents,

Ignore the troll posts as much as you can. This is your thread. You'll be able to tell within a sentence if they're just tankers trolling you and if they are don't even finish reading what they wrote. Just move onto the next post until it's somebody that you want to engage with.

If the trollers become insulting or consistently off topic then report them to the mod team who'll see that as a violation of the TOS. Threads should always stay on topic and insults aren't tolerated. You should be allowed to enjoy and discuss the Raptors team that's currently constructed without having to be constantly bombarded with attacks and questions like you're posting on some other team's board.

Let me repeat again. Ignore the troll posts. Even if they quote you don't take the bait. All they want to do is engage you and get you arguing with them. If you ignore a troll long enough they'll wither off and die and go find some easier target to annoy.

So coming with facts not personal attacks is against the ToS, but coming in the pro-tank thread and saying were all morons is cool.

fk yo thread.

[CoachJReturns]

From Masai's presser yesterday I think I understand what direction he wants to take and it's a wait and see direction. Probably not what most people want to here because they want either playoffs or tanking. For him that's a win win because in either case you get something good out of it for the team. If this team makes the playoffs then our assets value will be very high and it would allow us to retool on the fly like he did with Denver and make a perennial playoff team that stays young but has room to grow. If the season goes awry then we get a high draft pick in the best draft since 2003. Giving us a shot at Wiggins, Randle, Smart, Gordon, Parker, Exum, and the Harrison twins. I'm leaning more towards tanking but I'll be on board on whatever Masai deems necessary to make the team better.

Exum may be the kind of guy we need to watch carefully. He currently isn't top 5 rated and may be available if we try to make the playoffs and come up short landing a pick in the 10-12 range.

[scopy]

The time to tank was 2 years ago, the year that we drafted Val and he played overseas... the team should have been gutted that season and we should've had a top-3 pick at the very worst. Instead we ended up with useless Terrence Ross and, later, the addition of two tier-2 talents (Gay/Lowry) acquired to save BC's job.

Now, it's clear that the best use of our assets is to play out the string and see what they can do while Gay is still under contract, because there is zero chance of us getting lotto picks for 2014 in exchange for the assets we currently have (unless, of course, JV was put on the trading block). If JV has a break-out year and the team comes together and makes a decent playoff push, I can see MU building the roster from there.... similar to what he accomplished in Denver.

And if that doesn't work out, then the preliminary work towards a re-build has already been set in motion: a tell-tale sign of the long-term vision and direction this team would be taking is of the acquisition of that 2016 1st round pick. THAT is year-2 of the re-build if JV/Gay/Lowry/DD/Amir don't show serious signs of success this coming season.

If (as the tankers claim) the roster sucks and is not good enough to compete, then MU has a top-10 pick in the 2014 draft (along with two 2nd round picks), $40 million in expiring contracts to work with in 2014/2015, a seriously tanked roster for a top-3 pick in 2015 and two 1st round picks for 2016.

Great post. This is exactly our situation in my opinion.

[DG88]

From Masai's presser yesterday I think I understand what direction he wants to take and it's a wait and see direction. Probably not what most people want to here because they want either playoffs or tanking. For him that's a win win because in either case you get something good out of it for the team. If this team makes the playoffs then our assets value will be very high and it would allow us to retool on the fly like he did with Denver and make a perennial playoff team that stays young but has room to grow. If the season goes awry then we get a high draft pick in the best draft since 2003. Giving us a shot at Wiggins, Randle, Smart, Gordon, Parker, Exum, and the Harrison twins. I'm leaning more towards tanking but I'll be on board on whatever Masai deems necessary to make the team better.

[CoachJReturns]

I think that for long term, tanking is doing more harm than good.

Harm: losing culture, bad reputation. F.A. not interested to play for the team. Players want to leave. Having to overpay. No desire to have success other than having a better next contract. Losing fans, sponsors, TV contracts, etc.

Nobody wants to play for us anyway, raptors have a losing culture already, are the butt of all jokes, TV contracts do not matter at all because the TV stations own the team, sponsors are just leafs sponsors carried over (want to advertise at leafs? pay for some raptors signage to get in) .. everyone already comes here to play for a better contract or comes because we overpay, thats it.. even stevey nash turned us down for less money!

Good: drafting a great player ??? probability of success is low

There are 5 franchise prospects in this draft. check 2003.

In order to have a successful tanking (if definition is championship contender), you need ALL the following criteria :

- be really bad, or really unlucky with injuries (would you renew your season tickets ?)

we are pretty bad.. and have been unlucky with injuries often.

- being lucky with lottery (check maths, lottery history !)

you can also finish 13th and win it, but 25% chance is just for the first pick, lets say we did have the first pick, the chance we end up maintaining our position in the top5 picks is above 90%.

- having franchise players in the draft (not even every year)

Well hey, there are FIVE this year!

- make the right choice

if you have faith in the gm to rebuild, you better have faith they can draft too? also much easier 5 prospects basically cant miss and one is a hometown superhero

- the player stays healthy (Oden, B. Roy)

our whole team could die tonight, so this is pointless

- the player wants to stay with the team (Bosh, VC, LBJ, etc)

no player on our current team would like to stay more then ANDREW WIGGINS FROM TORONTO!


So IMHO the probability of having a very successful tanking is very low.
Spurs won a championship with the franchise player they drafted (the 6 criteria were respected). But they are the exception, and this is not even the only reason they won championships.

Look what chronic 'tanking' (and injuries) have done to this franchise (not attractive for players, as you wrote too). In the unrealistic best-case scenario, a franchise player (even Wiggins) will do like LBJ did in Cleveland.

After many years of bad W-L record and high draft pics, the Raptors were still in the bottom last season. I don't think history showed us that having lottery pics was a successful long-term strategy.

Faith in GM ? Everybody had faith in BC in his first year in Toronto. 'in BC we trust'.

Since Araujo was drafted, I stopped to follow draft candidates. So I cannot disagree with you if you are suggesting that there will be five possible franchise players in next draft. But IMHO it is far from sure. Too many examples of failure of good candidates (B. Roy, Milicic, Oden, etc) and bad candidates (podkolzine was considered to be a top 3 pic, a few months before the draft).
And in the unrealistic scenario of having the first 5 teams choose a real franchise player, how many of them will win a championship with the player they drafted ? Probably ZERO. Or one.

We have rarely tanked. We have just sucked. The only year we tanked at all was the Val draft. We usually try to win and just lack any top level talent to do so. Sadly, we could have drafted Drummond, but the team was so focused on filling a need immediately that it botched what could have been a huge opporurtunity to draft the kidn of defensive anchor we have never had in the history of this franchise. But sure....Tanking is our problem, not previously terrible management.

[Double Helix]

Gents,

Ignore the troll posts as much as you can. This is your thread. You'll be able to tell within a sentence if they're just tankers trolling you and if they are don't even finish reading what they wrote. Just move onto the next post until it's somebody that you want to engage with.

If the trollers become insulting or consistently off topic then report them to the mod team who'll see that as a violation of the TOS. Threads should always stay on topic and insults aren't tolerated. You should be allowed to enjoy and discuss the Raptors team that's currently constructed without having to be constantly bombarded with attacks and questions like you're posting on some other team's board.

Let me repeat again. Ignore the troll posts. Even if they quote you don't take the bait. All they want to do is engage you and get you arguing with them. If you ignore a troll long enough they'll wither off and die and go find some easier target to annoy.

So coming with facts not personal attacks is against the ToS, but coming in the pro-tank thread and saying were all morons is cool.

fk yo thread.

Did I say that was cool? I've never even been in that thread, much less trolled it. The exact same message I posted above works in the pro-tank thread too. If people are attacking you in there or constantly taking that thread off topic and derailing it then let the Mods know with good examples of TOS violations.

[TheRealBlizzy]

If a lot of you wanted BC gone, why do you want the core to remain? That's the weird part.

[Morris_Shatford]

Well, I will say that if we AREN'T going to tank, I'm at least happy with the man who's going to do the building.

It's more than the players. Watching the Spurs waste almost 0 possessions was sad as a Raptor fan.

We've all witnessed the "Free-for-all-attack-and-fail-and-pass-and-attack-and-fail-and-pass-and-barely-beat-the-clock" offence.

Defence has been "Hope they miss!" for too long. Coaching is clutch. Put your money where your mouth is and get an experienced coach to implement a basic system.

If I'm building, I guess I would:

- Stick with Rudy as your Chucker/Defender/Highlight Producer/Final shot taker.

- Make Val gain good weight as quickly as possible.

- Force DeMar to learn the 3 or do something crazy like make him 6th-man slasher; otherwise try and get a 3+D with the assets you're gonna blow anyway

- I'm a Lowry Fanboy, so I stick with Lowry but let him run the team. Take the handcuffs off this season.

- You know what? Gotta say Amir earned that starting PF. Good things just seem to happen when he's on the court. He's got that spot now.

BUT!

If you're "going for it" you need to throw the farm at a Big Man PF and have Amir backup both spots

I don't see much more I could do with the lousy contracts still plaguing our team.

Well Said.

[TorontoRapture]

This is a copy and paste of a previous post of mine in a locked thread. I'll put it here, because it's relevant and will at least be seen:

To tank, or not to tank, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous mediocrity,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to tank, to lose
No more; and by lose, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Toronto is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To tank, to lose,
To tank, perchance to succeed; Aye, there's the rub,
For in drafting through tanking, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this losing coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long losing:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The MLSE's wrong, the proud fan's Contumely,
The pangs of despised Bargs, the BC’s delay,
The insolence of forum posters, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
Wiggins.

[Reignman]

If a lot of you wanted BC gone, why do you want the core to remain? That's the weird part.

Ok, I'm going to explain this to you for the last time so make sure you pay attention.

BC's time in Toronto consisted of throwing poop at the wall and seeing if it would stick. Sometimes it did like in 06 (but was unsustainable) and most of the time it didn't (see 07 onwards). In the process of throwing poop it seems that once again some of it is sticking as we have a young team that seems primed to make the playoffs.

Nothing is guaranteed obviously but there is a foundation here that's intriguing. Now we could've kept BC and continued down the path of throwing more poop and seeing what would stick. I'm guessing we'd have Psycho T on a guaranteed 4 year deal instead of the 1 year guarantee he got from MU. Maybe he throws Gay a massive extension pre-emptively thinking this team is it (like he believed for almost all his teams here).

Clearly, MLSE did not feel that was the best course of action and decided they want someone else to head this ship. THAT DOES NOT MEAN EVERYTHING WE HAVE HERE IS CRAP. All it means is that they want someone else making the decisions moving forward. MU might keep this thing together if it works, he might decide to retool or he might decide it's time to rebuild.

Bottom line is, MLSE did not want BC making those decisions anymore.

[TheRealBlizzy]

If a lot of you wanted BC gone, why do you want the core to remain? That's the weird part.

Ok, I'm going to explain this to you for the last time so make sure you pay attention.

BC's time in Toronto consisted of throwing poop at the wall and seeing if it would stick. Sometimes it did like in 06 (but was unsustainable) and most of the time it didn't (see 07 onwards). In the process of throwing poop it seems that once again some of it is sticking as we have a young team that seems primed to make the playoffs.

Nothing is guaranteed obviously but there is a foundation here that's intriguing. Now we could've kept BC and continued down the path of throwing more poop and seeing what would stick. I'm guessing we'd have Psycho T on a guaranteed 4 year deal instead of the 1 year guarantee he got from MU. Maybe he throws Gay a massive extension pre-emptively thinking this team is it (like he believed for almost all his teams here).

Clearly, MLSE did not feel that was the best course of action and decided they want someone else to head this ship. THAT DOES NOT MEAN EVERYTHING WE HAVE HERE IS CRAP. All it means is that they want someone else making the decisions moving forward. MU might keep this thing together if it works, he might decide to retool or he might decide it's time to rebuild.

Bottom line is, MLSE did not want BC making those decisions anymore.

Oh, so what you feel in this situation is 100% correct, and I must be an idiot for failing to see why you fire a GM and keep the 10 main pieces of his roster intact moving forward, and add middling scrubs to fill out the bench. Sounds reasonable.

He was terrible at throwing **** at the wall and making it stick, but we got this entire core built by him throwing this ****, and were gunna stick with this **** moving forward and being capped out, and just add small pieces around it and expect championship times!

[RedX]

I really think this should be locked... idk what this thread is supposed to accomplish... the team isn't tanking...

Well this team sure isn't winning any championships either. Would be lucky to get 8th and swept by Miami.

What's your point? We're not built to tank. We'll be 5-8.

[Reignman]

If a lot of you wanted BC gone, why do you want the core to remain? That's the weird part.

Ok, I'm going to explain this to you for the last time so make sure you pay attention.

BC's time in Toronto consisted of throwing poop at the wall and seeing if it would stick. Sometimes it did like in 06 (but was unsustainable) and most of the time it didn't (see 07 onwards). In the process of throwing poop it seems that once again some of it is sticking as we have a young team that seems primed to make the playoffs.

Nothing is guaranteed obviously but there is a foundation here that's intriguing. Now we could've kept BC and continued down the path of throwing more poop and seeing what would stick. I'm guessing we'd have Psycho T on a guaranteed 4 year deal instead of the 1 year guarantee he got from MU. Maybe he throws Gay a massive extension pre-emptively thinking this team is it (like he believed for almost all his teams here).

Clearly, MLSE did not feel that was the best course of action and decided they want someone else to head this ship. THAT DOES NOT MEAN EVERYTHING WE HAVE HERE IS CRAP. All it means is that they want someone else making the decisions moving forward. MU might keep this thing together if it works, he might decide to retool or he might decide it's time to rebuild.

Bottom line is, MLSE did not want BC making those decisions anymore.

Oh, so what you feel in this situation is 100% correct, and I must be an idiot for failing to see why you fire a GM and keep the 10 main pieces of his roster intact moving forward, and add middling scrubs to fill out the bench. Sounds reasonable.

He was terrible at throwing **** at the wall and making it stick, but we got this entire core built by him throwing this ****, and were gunna stick with this **** moving forward and being capped out, and just add small pieces around it and expect championship times!

Ok, let me dumb this down for you.

Big corporations change CEO's all the time. Does that mean they have to change their product as well?

As an example, if GM was replacing their CEO, do you think that would mean all their cars would change as well? Of course not, the new CEO might decide to make changes that he sees fit but it doesn't mean a change in CEO is guaranteed to change the product.

It might just mean a change in the way they do business (although changes to the product could be a part of that) or it might mean a change in philosophy.

[orangutooth]

ok anti-tank, what's the plan then?

we keep this team and finish in 8th place then we get swept? then what's the plan? we finish in 8th place two years in a row then all of a sudden top free agents are signing in toronto? or do you want to finish in 8th place twice, have our mediocre players like lowry and gay leave and then tank in 2016 when the draft class is not as good?

somebody PLEASE tell me how to make this into even a second round team if we're not gonna tank and start from beginning because i'm dying to know.

Umm, lets leave the "crystal ball" analysis to the psychics.

1. We don't even know what the rest of the team will look like to start training camp. We still have a couple of holes on the bench that need to be filled.

2. We don't know how our young players/vets will play:
- Gay gets a full training camp with the team, had lasik and seems to have added weight
- Lowry finally "gets the keys", has lost weight, in a contract year and maybe he builds on the rhythm he started showing near the end of the season
- JV is entering his soph year and we have no clue what kind of leap he'll make
- Demar gets another summer to improve and may come back with a 3 ball
- Replaced 2 complete non-factors in Bargs/Fields with Psycho/healthy Fields
- Coach now has the summer to work on his play calling. He stated that last season they started with a completely Bargs-centric offense and had to make adjustments post-Rudy trade. Now he can focus on drilling the new offense (with Nurse's help) to fit this team
- Going back to a defensive approach like we showed 2 seasons ago

3. How will this team actually play on the court together and how do they stack up against the rest of the East. Hard to tell since other teams have also made changes, some for better and some for worse.

4. Where they end up in the standings. Maybe they fall on their face and MU goes in a completely different direction at the deadline, maybe the end up 6, 7 or 8. Avoiding Miami might have huge implications as we do match up well with some of the other teams like the Pacers or Knicks.

5. What happens after the season is over, do we make more improvements? Who do we draft in this "superstar" 2014 draft (if the draft is as good as everyone says we should get some talent in the middle of the draft). Do we extend / re-sign guys or do we look for other FAs? Internal growth after gaining some playoff experience?


See, this is why MU says everything is fluid. There's so many questions that we don't have the answers to that we'll slowly figure out as the season progresses.

This notion that "Oh, we'll finish 8th, get bounced by Miami and that's the only future we have" lacks any thought behind it and is the default answer for the tankers that can't think beyond tanking and praying/hoping on lottery luck, and then praying/hoping the player they pick will be great, then praying/hoping we can build the necessary supporting cast and then praying/hoping that team is good enough to beat teams like Miami.

It's fluid, we'll make moves as we find them necessary and the moves that make sense. It's that simple.

first of all, it isn't trying to be "psychic" to make an evaluation on the talent/outlook of the team compared to other teams in the conference.

so the best answer you can come up with is that we'll just make whatever move comes up? is there ever a point where you're willing to commit to making a judgment on what talent we have or how we can improve based on our current players/cap situation? what makes you think that "moves that make sense" other than a fire sale of the players are even available?

in my opinion, there's no way that i can see that this team can get out of the first round with what they have and with what they can get through some means other than tanking and starting fresh (e.g free agency, trades). i'd respect your opinion as an anti-tank person if you had some notion of how that could be accomplished. even in that perfect storm scenario you've put forward about rudy gay being able to see and demar shooting 3's etc.; i don't see that as a team that could beat a top 4 team in the east in a playoff series. is this what you're thinking? are you just banking on the notion that it's more likely some kind of blockbuster deal will come up to push us over the top than it is that the top 5 picks in this year's draft pan out?

[dTox]

You ever walk into a party where you immediately realize you just don't belong, and start feeling uncomfortable, well this is me right now.

I'm just going to close this window now before anyone notices.

[TheRealBlizzy]

If GM Changed all of its upper-level staff (We just got a new CEO/COO/ President/ GM/ Coaching / Scouting / Office Assistants. I would expect major changes coming soon within the company, like when it recently did a huge overall during the bailout years and starting using a more euro-influence on chevy / gm and they are now taking back huge market share.

If we just change the GM, I can understand the point you make, but we changed everyone at the top of our entire organization. To not expect changes is foolish.

[TheRealBlizzy]

I really think this should be locked... idk what this thread is supposed to accomplish... the team isn't tanking...

Well this team sure isn't winning any championships either. Would be lucky to get 8th and swept by Miami.

What's your point? We're not built to tank. We'll be 5-8.

Can't wait for 9th place finish. Anti-Tankers will MIA for years.

[Reignman]

ok anti-tank, what's the plan then?

we keep this team and finish in 8th place then we get swept? then what's the plan? we finish in 8th place two years in a row then all of a sudden top free agents are signing in toronto? or do you want to finish in 8th place twice, have our mediocre players like lowry and gay leave and then tank in 2016 when the draft class is not as good?

somebody PLEASE tell me how to make this into even a second round team if we're not gonna tank and start from beginning because i'm dying to know.

Umm, lets leave the "crystal ball" analysis to the psychics.

1. We don't even know what the rest of the team will look like to start training camp. We still have a couple of holes on the bench that need to be filled.

2. We don't know how our young players/vets will play:
- Gay gets a full training camp with the team, had lasik and seems to have added weight
- Lowry finally "gets the keys", has lost weight, in a contract year and maybe he builds on the rhythm he started showing near the end of the season
- JV is entering his soph year and we have no clue what kind of leap he'll make
- Demar gets another summer to improve and may come back with a 3 ball
- Replaced 2 complete non-factors in Bargs/Fields with Psycho/healthy Fields
- Coach now has the summer to work on his play calling. He stated that last season they started with a completely Bargs-centric offense and had to make adjustments post-Rudy trade. Now he can focus on drilling the new offense (with Nurse's help) to fit this team
- Going back to a defensive approach like we showed 2 seasons ago

3. How will this team actually play on the court together and how do they stack up against the rest of the East. Hard to tell since other teams have also made changes, some for better and some for worse.

4. Where they end up in the standings. Maybe they fall on their face and MU goes in a completely different direction at the deadline, maybe the end up 6, 7 or 8. Avoiding Miami might have huge implications as we do match up well with some of the other teams like the Pacers or Knicks.

5. What happens after the season is over, do we make more improvements? Who do we draft in this "superstar" 2014 draft (if the draft is as good as everyone says we should get some talent in the middle of the draft). Do we extend / re-sign guys or do we look for other FAs? Internal growth after gaining some playoff experience?


See, this is why MU says everything is fluid. There's so many questions that we don't have the answers to that we'll slowly figure out as the season progresses.

This notion that "Oh, we'll finish 8th, get bounced by Miami and that's the only future we have" lacks any thought behind it and is the default answer for the tankers that can't think beyond tanking and praying/hoping on lottery luck, and then praying/hoping the player they pick will be great, then praying/hoping we can build the necessary supporting cast and then praying/hoping that team is good enough to beat teams like Miami.

It's fluid, we'll make moves as we find them necessary and the moves that make sense. It's that simple.

first of all, it isn't trying to be "psychic" to make an evaluation on the talent/outlook of the team compared to other teams in the conference.

so the best answer you can come up with is that we'll just make whatever move comes up? is there ever a point where you're willing to commit to making a judgment on what talent we have or how we can improve based on our current players/cap situation? what makes you think that "moves that make sense" other than a fire sale of the players are even available?

in my opinion, there's no way that i can see that this team can get out of the first round with what they have and with what they can get through some means other than tanking and starting fresh (e.g free agency, trades). i'd respect your opinion as an anti-tank person if you had some notion of how that could be accomplished. even in that perfect storm scenario you've put forward about rudy gay being able to see and demar shooting 3's etc.; i don't see that as a team that could beat a top 4 team in the east in a playoff series. is this what you're thinking? are you just banking on the notion that it's more likely some kind of blockbuster deal will come up to push us over the top than it is that the top 5 picks in this year's draft pan out?

To answer the bolded, yes. I would hope MU would look at this roster on a case by case basis. Keep the parts he likes, trades the parts he doesn't or lets them walk, etc.

If the team collectively falls on it's face then he might decide to rebuild.

And what you "see" doesn't matter to me or anyone. What matters is what the decision makers see. Even in a scenario where we finish 8th, get swept by MIA, doesn't necessarily mean we'll be rebuilding either. MU might see a team on the come-up and starts making moves to build on that.

The options are endless which is the beauty of his approach. Only morons like BC lock us in to pre-emptive decisions based on hope/projections rather than actual data. Tankers are in that same boat.

[Reignman]

If GM Changed all of its upper-level staff (We just got a new CEO/COO/ President/ GM/ Coaching / Scouting / Office Assistants. I would expect major changes coming soon within the company, like when it recently did a huge overall during the bailout years and starting using a more euro-influence on chevy / gm and they are now taking back huge market share.

If we just change the GM, I can understand the point you make, but we changed everyone at the top of our entire organization. To not expect changes is foolish.

Who said not to expect change?

I've already seen massive changes. MU isn't blowing smoke up our ass about this being a guaranteed playoff team like BC would have. MU isn't destroying our long term cap situation by signing a guy like TH to 4 years instead of the 1 year he did. MU isn't stacking our bench with journey men vets like JL3 or AA who have no value as assets. MU isn't locking in guys like Gay or Lowry longterm without seeing the results on the court (BC would've locked these guys on day 1 if he could, it was his MO).

Major changes are happening, it's up to you to see them if you want.