Koreen: Raptors abandoning Caboclo SF training. Shifting to PF?

[BetterCallSaul]

Called this before the start of last year


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How did it take a professional NBA franchise 3 years to realize this? I suggested he was a 4 a few days after we drafted him. He never had the foot speed to guard the 3 or the handles and speed/athletic ability to drive by nba 3 men. It's the reason all he does is jack 3's on offense, he's too slow to drive by any wing players.

As I said before he will be a stretch 4. He's not shown any big man skills at all yet, so hopefully it's not too late to groom his this way. I fear he will be a very soft player that doesn't rebound or play physical.

Anyways it's good that they've figured this out it's just a shame it took them this long.

Yeah, I think at best we can hope for a more defensive oriented Steve Novak type of thing out of him. Although Steve Novak is a stupidly pure shooter. Bruno has the shooting touch to make that happen but he's still so young, who knows.

[BismackonLebron]

He's too soft to play at PF.

Right now he's Bargnani purple dinosaur kind of soft. Hopefully some muscle and steroids fixes that, but I doubt it.

[nitrous]

I almost spit out my drink when I read "Koreen: Raptors abandoning Caboclo..."

Same.

[Rapsfan07]

Because the Raptors had a clear need at backup PG? Energy bigs who are weak defensively are a dime a dozen as well (which is what Portis projects as). It was a toss-up at the time, that's the reality.

Yea but we could have easily signed a PG (which we actually ended up doing anyways). At least Portis can rebound and shoot the 3 and he'd at least play some meaningful minutes which hasnt and won't happen because of Lowry.

Picking Wright just didn't make any sense, no matter how you attempt to spin it.

Portia sucks man. Like he is pretty awful.

We haven't had blatant **** ups either. If Hood and Portia were such can't miss prospects they wouldn't be going like 23rd in the draft. Wright was a great pick who kind of got the short end of the stick when we signed Cory jo which we could not of foreseen. Wright will be better then Portis though once he finds minutes I can guarantee you that.

At that point in the draft, you aren't going to get a can't miss guy. It's about getting the best bang for your buck down there and I thought it was pretty obvious that it was Hood and not Bruno. So that was a blatant **** up. Ross over Drummond was also a blatant **** up but that's not the point here.

I think Portis has a chance to be a rotation big on a good team if he keeps developing. Anyways, time will tell.

[YogurtProducer]

Yea but we could have easily signed a PG (which we actually ended up doing anyways). At least Portis can rebound and shoot the 3 and he'd at least play some meaningful minutes which hasnt and won't happen because of Lowry.

Picking Wright just didn't make any sense, no matter how you attempt to spin it.

Portia sucks man. Like he is pretty awful.

We haven't had blatant **** ups either. If Hood and Portia were such can't miss prospects they wouldn't be going like 23rd in the draft. Wright was a great pick who kind of got the short end of the stick when we signed Cory jo which we could not of foreseen. Wright will be better then Portis though once he finds minutes I can guarantee you that.

At that point in the draft, you aren't going to get a can't miss guy. It's about getting the best bang for your buck down there and I thought it was pretty obvious that it was Hood and not Bruno. So that was a blatant **** up. Ross over Drummond was also a blatant **** up but that's not the point here.

I think Portis has a chance to be a rotation big on a good team if he keeps developing. Anyways, time will tell.

I don't think you understand blatant **** ups. Hood wasn't a can't miss guy and he could've very easily been a bust. Wright also has a chance... I don't know why I'm argueibg with you; keep your agenda.

[WCCC]

why does the article say "especially Capela"? Hood > Capela

This is make or break year for Bruno. Goals should be to have a consistent money jumper and play decent all-round D.

Not sure why the writer emphasized that, but I thought most expected us to take Capela with that pick at the time....no?

I had Capela ahead of Hood on my list at the time. Obviously I was wrong. Not as wrong as Masai though. Even Capela has turned out to be a better pick than Caboclo. But they are all still young. I hope Bruno eventually does become the best player of the three.

I wasn't a fan of drafting one way bigs as a lot of these athletic guys either turn out too dumb to put it all together on defense or not skilled enough to develop decent offense. I think a few wanted Capela, but not the majority. Most people didn't consider (or know about) Hood because it was assumed he would be selected by our pick.

[Thespianoid]

Called this before the start of last year


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How did it take a professional NBA franchise 3 years to realize this? I suggested he was a 4 a few days after we drafted him. He never had the foot speed to guard the 3 or the handles and speed/athletic ability to drive by nba 3 men. It's the reason all he does is jack 3's on offense, he's too slow to drive by any wing players.

As I said before he will be a stretch 4. He's not shown any big man skills at all yet, so hopefully it's not too late to groom his this way. I fear he will be a very soft player that doesn't rebound or play physical.

Anyways it's good that they've figured this out it's just a shame it took them this long.

4's nowadays don't need "bigman" skills. They're basically big wings with ballhandling/playmaking skills. If only franchises realized this and stopped putting those prospects (Aaron Gordon, Dragan Bender) at the 3 and failing their development process. THEY ARE 4's. PLAY THEM AT THE 4 FULL TIME. JESUS **** CHRIST PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL ORGANIZATIONS

Problem with Bruno is (as highlighted in the article) his decision making. It's not quick enough for the NBA level and might not ever be, due to his late start with basketball and his competition level through most of his youth. His formative years were not spent with a high level of competition, so he may never develop that speed of mind every player needs at the NBA level.

[If anyone follows motorsports, the situation of one Bruno Senna comes to mind. Not quite the same level of pedigree, but curiously enough....also Brazilian, also named Bruno.]

[LastNameEver]

To be fair, Casey compared him to Reshard Lewis day one. He knew he wasnt a true SF.

[carl_english]

Caboclo experiment is done. Boy needs to save his monies.

[Reg00]

Saw this coming, it's the only way he will stick in the league after his first contract is up.

But I really feel they need to change the name of that position. There is nothing powerful to Bruno (and a lot of others playing that position frankly), how bout Long Forward?

[PdiC]

He must be Masai's illegitimate son or something.

[mintsa]

It's the beginning of the end.

[Raptorfan2012]

I doubt Caboclo will see much time at PF this season either baring any crazy improvements or injuries. It seems Casey has already found our future PF in Skiakim. Looks like it is true that Skiakim will probably be our starting PF by next season. If Skiakim can improve on his jumper, he will basically be Amir/Bismack morphed into one!

[Prestige]

The fact that they're going to this extent is pretty remarkable. I understand there is a need to save face, as well as not abandoning the project and wasting their investment, but damn. It's like they tried to mold a random genetically gifted person into a basketball player, and are learning that it's not really possible. If they had picked a genetic specimen from somewhere in a village in west Africa or an athletic DIII player, I'm not sure if they wouldn't have had similar or perhaps better results.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Portia sucks man. Like he is pretty awful.

We haven't had blatant **** ups either. If Hood and Portia were such can't miss prospects they wouldn't be going like 23rd in the draft. Wright was a great pick who kind of got the short end of the stick when we signed Cory jo which we could not of foreseen. Wright will be better then Portis though once he finds minutes I can guarantee you that.

At that point in the draft, you aren't going to get a can't miss guy. It's about getting the best bang for your buck down there and I thought it was pretty obvious that it was Hood and not Bruno. So that was a blatant **** up. Ross over Drummond was also a blatant **** up but that's not the point here.

I think Portis has a chance to be a rotation big on a good team if he keeps developing. Anyways, time will tell.

I don't think you understand blatant **** ups. Hood wasn't a can't miss guy and he could've very easily been a bust. Wright also has a chance... I don't know why I'm argueibg with you; keep your agenda.

Even if Portis and Wright were the same lever prospect, given the other moves Masai made that summer, Portis would have been more valuable to us. Do to position depth, Wright was non-entity all year, and projects to be no more than a 3rd string point guard for the reasonable future, as long as he's with us. And by the time he gets back, he may be 4th string point guard if they like FVV. I know Cojo wasn't on the roster when Wright was drafted, and that's fine. Masai said he drafted Wright to be the back up pg last year, he just didn't know Cojo would be available. But to me, ok so now what? A first round pick is still an asset that could have been significant if traded. You don't have to give up on a guy to trade them, sometimes it's about arranging and swapping out for pieces that just happen to be a better fit. To me, to draft a senior pg, and then not have path to NBA minutes for them within a few years, is to waste an asset.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

He didn't even get in the Detroit game at all, he's probably the last guy on even the swollen training camp rosters.

[Knucknbuc]

This tells me they know hes not an nba player at all. Dude barely knows how to play at all and theyre switching his position. He sucks waste of a roster spot.

[Patman]

Sounds like they saw everything I saw last year. He had no trouble blocking or changing shots of bigger and stronger guys at the rim. And his shot does look great at times and horrible at others. I had no idea his mechanics were so inconsistent though. Shouldn't someone have been hammering him to shoot 500-1000 the same way every day?

Whenever I see him practicing shots or taking an open shot, his form looks good. It's really when he's rushed in a live situation that his mechanics change. I think they'll have to re-build his form into one with a quicker release and less moving parts. His shot is smooth, but slow and deliberate.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

In the article Koreens says the statement that Bruno never had big minutes was a subtle reference to his first year with us, when they couldn't figure out anything to do with him. But I think it actually goes beyond that, any time you look at Bruno and his basketball career, he never got big minutes anywhere. He's not even on his national team radar. It's one think to take a big risk, but even they couldn't see him play because there was no playing to see. He had a good agent, if we drafted him 20th because we were afraid some other team would grab them.

[Mad Balla 15]

I haven't followed Bruno's development much like others on this board but is he still 2 years away from being 2 years away?