Ryan Wolstat: If Valanciunas can

[Death Knight]

I'm talking in general Jonas is not playing like an elite big man. He's good a ways to go before he'd be considered elite. A good big man? Ya I can agree with that.

He's the only big we have! Is Steimsma even on the team anymore? You wonder why Amir has broken down so fast. Always forced to guard guys much bigger than him. Keep going down that path.

Now you're all over the place. What my post have anything to with what you just typed? Seriously you're unbearable sometimes.

What I typed is supposed to add to what you said, not to pick your post apart. You said JV is a good big. I add that he is also the only big on the team. He should be used more. When this team has been forced to play someone like Amir at C for so long to guard guys much bigger than him for so many years, and his health has broken down as a result, suddenly we have a good true big man on the team, we should use him more to take the load off of Amir's shoulders, back, legs, foot, etc.......

[UnderdogRaptors]

It's either Casey or Val, can't keep both and if we get rid of Casey we will have to build around Val and make him the focal point but we would be a tanking team

[TheAlchemist]

Honestly all Jonas really needs to do is to get faster. Whether its losing that extra weight he gained, achieving a lower body fat% , or training to be more explosive (think its called plyometrics?).

The issue with help defense is he's just too slow. He needs to keep his strength he has now yet be fast enough to contend or help.

If our team can create a system by design to mitigate the issue (our guards help out by playing actual defence /we get a better powerforward) AND Jonas makes some strides in his defensive approach, we will overcome the issue.

I do believe Jonas has the ability to overcome his defensive short comings, BUT he needs more burn. Some don't realize how much Jonas takes things personally and how his confidence is affected by minutes played. I remember when he first came into the league, every time he'd post a guy up, he'd wave for the ball. That kind of desire to score, is an indication that he does care.

This isn't an effort issue, it's a skill set issue. This will be an effort issue if he has complete games like yesterday against Detroit, and Casey yanks him.

Nobody wants to be rewarded by being benched. And that's what a lot of people are saying. Although Jonas has to stop some fundamental mistakes.. Like letting easy layups in by pint sized guards.

His athletic ability is being mitigated by his slow footness, but by becoming more explosive and still retaining about 70% of his muscle, he can be exactly what we need. Raptors need to invest a lot of money in a training regime for Jonas.

I think Chris used to train in a manner for more explosiveness when he was here, I remember him training with a little girl to get faster.

[TheAlchemist]

Also, I do think Masai needs to step in at one point. Just looking at the situation overall, from a management perspective, it's not like we have the assets to go out and get an elite center. We would have to overpay in free agency to get someone that provides just a bit more then what Jonas does. If we do , do that, we'll be capped out or close to it, and still have holes in the roster (power forward, small forward). We can trade Jonas for a up and coming youngster , that of positional need, but right now I see none on the market, and a lot of guys that are overrated (please stop the Wilson Chandler crap -he sucks).

Our best bet is to mitigate Jonas's defensive issues and develop the hell out of him, to reach contender status. This isn't bargnani , the kid wants to win bad, you can see it.

We either develop him, or we magically sign Marc Gasol and score a crazy trade like Val for Kawahi.

The latter is a hell of an unlikely scenario.

[ldnk]

It might be more discussion-worthy had we lost. It's funny that the players don't seem to have any ego about who plays when and who gets touches on this team, but the media and fans all seem to think these are crucial issues.

publicly at least.

Which is awesome because RealGM does a fantastic job of telling everyone what the inside of the lockerroom is doing from the up close vantage point of their couch at home.

To be honest, it confuses me. There are games where Patterson's defense is more valuable than Valanciunas' rebounding and then there are games where we are getting killed on the boards and on guys taking control of the paint and Valanciunas still sits. I think there needs to be a different approach used with JV in the 4th quarters.

That being said, I'm not going to wildly speculate on who is/isn't happy based on my personal assumptions. There are certainly some games where JV's play just looks completely out of gas. I'm going to hold out hope that Casey is just working on making sure he has gas in the tank come playoff time. But that's just me playing the optimism card.

[Hue Durant]

the idiot who single handedly loses games (brooklyn series, pelicans, bobcats shotclock), says bargnani hell or high water, holds MVP Lowry back in favour of Jose and puts vasquez in for clutch D needs to get fired.

The Bobcats shot clock was the biggest fail. Bobcats get a rebound and a full 24 second shot clock, we are down 2 with 26 seconds left in the game and we let them dribble for 24 seconds and shoot, horn sounds as the rebound comes down... wtf?

I was on the tank, literally couldn't contain my laughter

[Volcano]

Jonas doesn't have the mobility guys

that's why we need Aaron Gray hedging on Kobe 35 feet away from the basket in the closing seconds

[Rhythm043]

the idiot who single handedly loses games (brooklyn series, pelicans, bobcats shotclock), says bargnani hell or high water, holds MVP Lowry back in favour of Jose and puts vasquez in for clutch D needs to get fired.

Jose played better than Lowry at that point bra.

Goodbye.

[Dukenukem23]

the idiot who single handedly loses games (brooklyn series, pelicans, bobcats shotclock), says bargnani hell or high water, holds MVP Lowry back in favour of Jose and puts vasquez in for clutch D needs to get fired.

This sums up Casey's tenure perfectly

[mcgrady_1]

Jonas doesn't have the mobility guys

that's why we need Aaron Gray hedging on Kobe 35 feet away from the basket in the closing seconds

That's right up there with the Mopete Miracle vs WAS.

[TheDoctor]

Turns out we got an answer to Ryan's question: The Pacers and Hibbert.

And likely Kings and Boogie too.

[Listas]

I think Chris used to train in a manner for more explosiveness when he was here, I remember him training with a little girl to get faster.

[ontnut]

Not clearly better, based on team construction, team performance, career success:
Stevens
Hollins
Clifford
Blatt
Shaw
Kerr (rookie coach, GSW success mostly due to the quality of their players)
Vogel (Everyone was riding him, but look at Indy. They lost George and Lance, but to go from 1st to a 16-30 record?)
Scott
Spoelstra
Kidd
Saunders
Williams
Fisher
Brooks
Vaughn
Brown
Hornacek (maybe better)
Stotts
Corbin
Snyder
Wittman

In terms of X's and O's, Spo, Stotts, and Kerr are all better than Casey.

Kerr did benefit by inheriting great roster, but his ability to tweak the offense running a more motion based offense adding sets from the Triangle and etc has made the Warriors offense nearly unstoppable. They're the only team along with the Hawks that mirrors what the Spurs run.

In terms of X's and O's maybe, yes, they are better, but team success is ultimately how we define "better", right? If a guy draws up "stupid" plays all the time, but the team scores 90% of the time, do we call that coach/play a genius, or lucky or bad? What I'm trying to say is that the solution isn't necessarily to fire Casey, or to blame him for JV not getting run in the 4th.

If he was handed GS' roster, I think he'd be hailed as one of the greatest coaches in the league, similar to how you say Kerr, or Budenholzer, or any other coach of a top 15 team in the league is one now A lot of "bad coaching" can be shielded by having a great team. It is a two way street, of course - great coaching can uplift a team - but really, the only "great" coach right now imo is Pop.

Put another way, how many coaches, coaching bottom 15 rosters, do you consider to be top level coaches, coaching bad rosters? SVG couldn't FORCE Detroit to play better than the sum of their parts, until they got rid of Smith...sort of how like we got rid of Gay and suddenly we're better and it goes from Fire Casey to extend Casey. We consider SVG a top 5 coach, but he's had some pretty good talent in his time too. All coaches make mistakes every so often - having a great team makes those potential mistakes in judgment, fewer and farther between.

If JV went into beast mode every single game, every possession, Casey would certainly play him in the 4th. I have no doubt. Do I want to see JV play more? Yes. Do I understand why Casey might not trust the guy quite yet, yes. JV is still young, he makes mistakes at a high rate. He's going to be good, but Casey is focused on winning, and when every possession matters, he'd rather give the ball to some others to get a win. I can understand that, and think that is generally the norm.