UneducatedFan86 wrote:Double Helix wrote:The NBA is dominated by Americans. We are the only team outside of their home country and we are also one of the coldest. You saw Zach LaVine's reaction to going to the cold in Minnesota? **** me, indeed. If given the choice to live in Miami or LA for the exact same money as what we're offering, who but a Canadian with ties here, would choose to stay up here? Few would. What LA currently lacks in championship likelihood it makes up for with its lifestyle, media market and prestige. Any time when Lebron James and company are begging you to come live down in beach country, Miami for millions of dollars you have to listen. Comparing our franchise history and weather to what they could offer would be like comparing a job at the Source with one for Google or Apple. We have to overpay to keep good people. That's just how it works.
We have committed to a compete window of a few years already. We would have tanked otherwise. Give it up with all the idealistic talk about how what we're doing is holding us back from gearing up to be NBA Champions. Our path toward NBA Champions is so utterly reliant on being lucky, and landing the right, humble superstar who wants to stay in the cold when all the other teams come calling, and building the perfect supporting cast, and doing all of this in a time period where there isn't 2-3 other, more dominant superstars out there better than our guy recruiting people to team up with him in more desirable climates. I'm not saying we won't tank again and hope for the best. We will. We ALWAYS will. And it's probably going to happen again within the next 3-4 seasons but until then we're competing one way or another.
Pay Kyle Lowry. These are his prime years. We haven't had anybody decide to stay up here during their prime years that was better than Kyle Lowry in the history of this franchise. Bosh, VC and TMac all left as their prime years were getting started. I'm sick of us acting like an NCAA stepping stone for good players. The only Raptors who put forth better seasons in the ACC than Kyle this past year were Vince and Bosh. We need to keep guys like this one way or another and a couple extra million more than what's ideal is not gonna become some unmovable nightmare. If everybody is willing to pay him 11 than 13 is only an 18% raise above that. You guys are REALLY going to let the best player on the team walk over 18%? How else were you hoping the team might spend that 2 million per year? Even at 13 per year we'd have Demar, Kyle and JV all combining for less than 30 million combined. That's nothing to be embarrassed about.
We need to come out of the gate strong tonight with an offer that makes Miami and LA back off. I don't care if it's 13 or 14. It has to happen. I'm sick of watching players rise up and leave. Let's make this situation different. Let's actually sign a two-way player that's top 8 at his position IN HIS PRIME FOR ONCE. Let's not be a stepping stone for something greater. Let's watch the best Raptors core in franchise history do something better than what Vince Carter's team did 12 years ago. Then, we can rebuild afterward and start dreaming of championships. One step at a time. We're one of the most futile franchises in terms of winning % in the entire NBA. We can't even joke about treadmilling playoffs because we've been treadmilling mid-to-late lottos.
Our window is basically this year and next. That isn't much of a window.
People on here are making it sound like Lowry was born and raised here, and has been our savour for the past 5 years. He's played here for TWO seasons. One season was a complete wash and the other he played above anything he's ever done before. So, let's not starting giving the guy the keys to the city already. Teams take risks all the time on overpaying their "guys" and a good 80% of the time it doesn't work out. Especially when you have a guy who has never played at that type of level before the contract year. You have to compare the contracts around the league to other PGs at or above Lowry's level and go from there. I'd put him in the 9-10mil range and 11mil would be the top. Anything over that and he's basically getting overpaid by a lot of standards.
I do believe Lowry was our best player last year, but there has to be a limit to how much we are going to give a guy who isn't going to put us over the hump. Everything went right for us last year and we were still a first round exit. Think about that for a second..EVERYTHING went right....and we still weren't even close to contending. So, without some major moves elsewhere, you'd have to think that we might be a second round exit AT BEST with just retaining our FAs and staying the course.
Sometimes you have to take a step back to really move forward. Losing Lowry isn't going to be the worst thing to happen to this franchise. Overpaying Lowry to just fall flat next year would probably be worse than losing him because I'm sure we could workout a S&T if he does decide to leave. Him leaving opens up a lot of other options for this team and gives us a lot more flexibility going forward with a lot of options on the horizon (trades, FAs, draft, etc).
We had 2 sophomores starting in the playoffs and after two years they will be finishing up their rookie deal. I don't see how we're in a dire situation. You sign Kyle obviously in his prime with Demar in a couple years at 26 just about to start his. We have plenty to look forward to. 11 mil for Lowry isn't cripijg this franchise. You act as though Lebron and Durant are knocking at the door to come here.
The problem is we always sit with this flexibility garbage. What does that matter if we can't keep our own FA's? If guys who have been here and succeeded wanna leave, what does that say to a FA. We have a very young team with a leader in his prime. Things could be a lot worse and I'm gonna take it in stride instead of 5 years of nothing.
You saying the rest of the East just got better, not now, maybe in 3-4 years when Wiggins and Parker finally set their feet and by then who knows what happens.
I honestly don't understand, I actually believe the majority would tank for 30 straight years just to go after a HOFer. Why watch then?
The tankers keep saying we screwed up, who the hell knows where we would have drafted even if we did tank?
Think about it this way, we tank and Val and Ross' years with Demar are also being wasted and we don't even end up with a good pick, Kyle is gone and hell we're more treadmill in that scenario then we are at the moment.
