The Ringer: Raptors should consider blowing it up

[Swervin81]

There's just too many really crappy teams to blow it up now. Besides, tanking's a bit overrated. You don't need a **** of top picks to win. Look at the last few title teams:

Cleveland: Got TT and Love (Wiggins + Bennett) as a result of tanking (Remember: They got Kyrie with the Clippers' pick in the Baron Davis deal). Kyrie + TT + Wiggins (or even Love) would be a playoff team, but not much more. It's all LeBron coming back.

Golden State: Not a single one of their big 3 guys were top 5 picks (6th, 11th, 35th)... Harrison Barnes 7th overall when they tanked just to keep their pick on the coin toss was the only time they ever really tanked.

San Antonio: Shrewd drafting and signing, self sustaining culture, excellent coaching... only one year they tanked when Robinson got hurt. But it set the foundation for the future. However, that's only one part of it in the grand scheme of thing to have this kind of sustained success.

Big 3 Miami: Already had Wade, convinced Bosh and LeBron to come over... their efforts the only year they tanked got them Michael "smoke weed everyday" Beasley. Yeah.

Dallas: Veteran team, great trades and signings. Monster performance by Dirk who they didn't even draft.

LA: Bynum was not a top 10 pick. Pau was aquired via trade and they already had Kobe.

Boston: Already had Pierce, traded top 5 pick (only way tanking helped) for Ray Allen, traded a bunch of **** for KG.

2006 Miami: Wade was a core piece acquired by tanking but that's it. They got Shaq via trade and Wade was just superhuman. This one you could say was acquired by tanking.

Detroit: Acquired Billups as a castoff who bloomed late, Rip Hamilton acquired via trade as well, Tayshaun Prince wasn't even a top 20 pick, Ben Wallace went undrafted, and Sheed was acquired via trade.

Threepeat LA: Kobe drafted outside of top 10, Shaq acquired in FA.

1999 San Antonio: Admiral and Duncan both 1st overall picks. Okay, this one was a nice tank.

So we have, out of the last 11 distinctly unique championship winning teams, only 2 were a direct result of tanking (99 Spurs, maybe 2006 Heat, maybe Cleveland (I gave .5 to Cleveland and Miami)). All the rest were outside top 5 picks or already had their core guy in place. The Thunder were the least contending team to be truly built through tanking, but they didn't win.

Tanking for that one piece wouldn't be bad because I feel it would be beneficial to tank for one year for that franchise guy and then immediately improve while you shrewdly draft,trade, develop, and sign along the way. Hopefully to the point ring chasers will wanna come. That's how you build a title team in this league ideally.

That said, the timing is not now. Too many **** teams. We'd be stuck on the treadmill. In a few years when the east becomes more balanced out and there's no exceptionally awful teams.

Also, don't give me Philly as a good example. Call me when Philly has more than a guy that hasn't played a single game, a guy that's played 31 games in 3 years, a guy that's a total bust and liability on D, and one of the worst GM's in the league.

[RaptorsLife]

Tank for RJ barrett

RJ looks underwhelming af i have no clue why he's ranked #1 lmao. Wiggins looked like a much better hs prospect

That's 2019 prospect he is only 16 lol

[MavCarter]

Tank for RJ barrett

RJ looks underwhelming af i have no clue why he's ranked #1 lmao. Wiggins looked like a much better hs prospect

That's 2019 prospect he is only 16 lol

I know he's only 16 lol he still looks underwhelming to me for a #1 ranking. Maybe highlights don't capture his entire game idk. Wiggins looked like an absolute beast at 16

[Raps in 4]

Next year draft isn't even good. Just give this core 1 year with a new coach. They will most likely fail because putting too blame on casey and not on the players. A new coach won't solve everything.

Then trade everyone away and tank in 2018

That's essentially what I proposed—re-sign Lowry, then go into next season with all intentions of acquiring another star. The chances are it won't happen. Pull the plug in December, trade everyone. Except you're wrong about the 2018 draft. It's friggin' loaded. There's multiple potential cornerstones.

Who are they? None of the prospects in 2018 really scream "superstar" to me

How accurate are scouting reports for players TWO years before they are eligible for the draft?

[RaptorsLife]

RJ looks underwhelming af i have no clue why he's ranked #1 lmao. Wiggins looked like a much better hs prospect

That's 2019 prospect he is only 16 lol

I know he's only 16 lol he still looks underwhelming to me for a #1 ranking. Maybe highlights don't capture his entire game idk. Wiggins looked like an absolute beast at 16

Read on Twitter

Wiggins was a beast athlete. I think Rowan is a better all around player.

[KevinOConnorNBA]

That's 2019 prospect he is only 16 lol

I know he's only 16 lol he still looks underwhelming to me for a #1 ranking. Maybe highlights don't capture his entire game idk. Wiggins looked like an absolute beast at 16

Read on Twitter

Wiggins was a beast athlete. I think Rowan is a better all around player.

I was in the same gym. I went in not really knowing any of the players. I this kid around 6-foot-7 with super long arms. I'm like, I'm gonna focus a lot on him. From the first play, it was obvious he was an elite prospect. So I check my sheet, see RJ Barrett, then realize he's ranked #1 everywhere. One exec at the gym said to me, "He's one of those 'no duh' prospects." And he is. Barrett's feel is incredible for his age. He's a superb athlete. He doesn't have many weaknesses other than ironing out his jumper. I look forward to seeing how he develops over the coming years.

[VanWest82]

Someone tweeted me about this thread and I am very happy to see that it was revived. I'm not re-joining this to say, "I told you so," because I wouldn't and the offseason hasn't even come yet anyway, but merely to ask: How has the postseason changed your perspective of the Raptors' future? Does it increase interest in a rebuild? Or does nothing change because they're still a top East team?

Don't we have to run it back at this point? Letting Lowry, Ibaka, Patterson, and Tucker all walk would be a death blow to the franchise. And as long as Derozan is still on the team, we're probably not bad enough to truly rebuild.

If you re-sign everyone (or at least Lowry & Ibaka) your ability to turn around and trade them for long-term assets will only be as good as the deals you sign them to. So I don't think we're likely to see something resembling a sign and trade (i.e. within a year), especially given Lowry and Ibaka share an agent (who will presumably be leery of both his clients signing under market deals for the same team). FMV or an overpay is more likely IMO. So you give it another shot, another year maybe, and re-evaluate summer of 2018. Or am I missing something?

As an aside, say we do decide to blow it up next year (or this off season for that matter). Demar is probably our best asset, but he's tricky to build around. Any idea what the Raptors might get for him, assuming he's able to replicate or improve upon the RS success he had this year?

[LiSTWithLani]

Someone tweeted me about this thread and I am very happy to see that it was revived. I'm not re-joining this to say, "I told you so," because I wouldn't and the offseason hasn't even come yet anyway, but merely to ask: How has the postseason changed your perspective of the Raptors' future? Does it increase interest in a rebuild? Or does nothing change because they're still a top East team?

Don't we have to run it back at this point? Letting Lowry, Ibaka, Patterson, and Tucker all walk would be a death blow to the franchise. And as long as Derozan is still on the team, we're probably not bad enough to truly rebuild.

If you re-sign everyone (or at least Lowry & Ibaka) your ability to turn around and trade them for long-term assets will only be as good as the deals you sign them to. So I don't think we're likely to see something resembling a sign and trade (i.e. within a year), especially given Lowry and Ibaka share an agent (who will presumably be leery of both his clients signing under market deals for the same team). FMV or an overpay is more likely IMO. So you give it another shot, another year maybe, and re-evaluate summer of 2018. Or am I missing something?

As an aside, say we do decide to blow it up next year (or this off season for that matter). Demar is probably our best asset, but he's tricky to build around. Any idea what the Raptors might get for him, assuming he's able to replicate or improve upon the RS success he had this year?

Advanced stats paint a different picture. While he puts up numbers, he doesn't move the needle. DeMar is not nearly as talented as his AllStar peers. In fact, he's a definite negative on defense (50% of the time) and only passable when he has the ball in his hands on offense (34.3% or 34.3% of 50%[offense] = 17.2%). We were cruising when he was playing historically good basketball to begin the season and I fully believe that is precisely what needs to happen for him to actually improve our chances of winning, because he's less than 20% useful.

As for the Original article and premise of this thread, the point is to win. I love Masai and feel that he has done wonders for us, but without that top end talent, his efforts are futile. I would rather be Milwaukee that lost to Toronto, than Toronto, that [spoiler alert!:] advanced to lose to Cleveland. The only mistakes that Masai has made to date was overpaying for Carroll and not firing Casey upon arrival, following the loss to Brooklyn, following the Sweep by Washington or mid-season this year.

[Financials]

That's essentially what I proposed—re-sign Lowry, then go into next season with all intentions of acquiring another star. The chances are it won't happen. Pull the plug in December, trade everyone. Except you're wrong about the 2018 draft. It's friggin' loaded. There's multiple potential cornerstones.

Who are they? None of the prospects in 2018 really scream "superstar" to me

How accurate are scouting reports for players TWO years before they are eligible for the draft?

we had companies fawning to give lebron money well before the draft, and look how that turned out.

sometimes they know, sometimes they dont, but its not like two years before a draft is a complete crapshoot.

[StopitLeo]

Side.

So let me get this straight. You're saying if you were in the Sixers position, you would do that trade?! Give your head a shake! You would give up those picks for a player who, although plays fearless and has some heart, is definitely on the wrong side of 30 and starting to break down. No way, Jose!

If the Sixers feel they are ready to start competing with Embid and Simmons healthy then yes. They don't need another lottery pick more than they need a PG and veteran leadership to move towards that goal.

Their cap situation lets them easily handle a max deal for Lowry since they have almost nobody on the books after the next two seasons.

Plus, Colangelo.

Why would Lowry go along with this? If he knew he was going to end up with the Sixers why not just sign there and play for a team with many more assets? Or do you think Masai can trick him into signing for us instead of the Sixers by convinving him he is our future and then trade him to the Sixers? Surely that would be considered an extreme doublecross?

No trick. If Lowry wants to go to the Sixers (it's his hometown, he played at Villanova) he can only sign a 4 year deal with them. With Toronto he can sign a 5 year deal. The difference for that 5th year will be over $30M. So if he wants to go there it is advantageous for him to work out a sign and trade. It is obviously advantageous for Toronto to do a S&T as well since otherwise they would get no compensation if he leaves.

[CoachJReturns]

There's just too many really crappy teams to blow it up now. Besides, tanking's a bit overrated. You don't need a **** of top picks to win. Look at the last few title teams:

Cleveland: Got TT and Love (Wiggins + Bennett) as a result of tanking (Remember: They got Kyrie with the Clippers' pick in the Baron Davis deal). Kyrie + TT + Wiggins (or even Love) would be a playoff team, but not much more. It's all LeBron coming back.

Golden State: Not a single one of their big 3 guys were top 5 picks (6th, 11th, 35th)... Harrison Barnes 7th overall when they tanked just to keep their pick on the coin toss was the only time they ever really tanked.

San Antonio: Shrewd drafting and signing, self sustaining culture, excellent coaching... only one year they tanked when Robinson got hurt. But it set the foundation for the future. However, that's only one part of it in the grand scheme of thing to have this kind of sustained success.

Big 3 Miami: Already had Wade, convinced Bosh and LeBron to come over... their efforts the only year they tanked got them Michael "smoke weed everyday" Beasley. Yeah.

Dallas: Veteran team, great trades and signings. Monster performance by Dirk who they didn't even draft.

LA: Bynum was not a top 10 pick. Pau was aquired via trade and they already had Kobe.

Boston: Already had Pierce, traded top 5 pick (only way tanking helped) for Ray Allen, traded a bunch of **** for KG.

2006 Miami: Wade was a core piece acquired by tanking but that's it. They got Shaq via trade and Wade was just superhuman. This one you could say was acquired by tanking.

Detroit: Acquired Billups as a castoff who bloomed late, Rip Hamilton acquired via trade as well, Tayshaun Prince wasn't even a top 20 pick, Ben Wallace went undrafted, and Sheed was acquired via trade.

Threepeat LA: Kobe drafted outside of top 10, Shaq acquired in FA.

1999 San Antonio: Admiral and Duncan both 1st overall picks. Okay, this one was a nice tank.

So we have, out of the last 11 distinctly unique championship winning teams, only 2 were a direct result of tanking (99 Spurs, maybe 2006 Heat, maybe Cleveland (I gave .5 to Cleveland and Miami)). All the rest were outside top 5 picks or already had their core guy in place. The Thunder were the least contending team to be truly built through tanking, but they didn't win.

Tanking for that one piece wouldn't be bad because I feel it would be beneficial to tank for one year for that franchise guy and then immediately improve while you shrewdly draft,trade, develop, and sign along the way. Hopefully to the point ring chasers will wanna come. That's how you build a title team in this league ideally.

That said, the timing is not now. Too many **** teams. We'd be stuck on the treadmill. In a few years when the east becomes more balanced out and there's no exceptionally awful teams.

Also, don't give me Philly as a good example. Call me when Philly has more than a guy that hasn't played a single game, a guy that's played 31 games in 3 years, a guy that's a total bust and liability on D, and one of the worst GM's in the league.

You literally argued against yourself in this post:

Cleveland tanked and drafted LeBron and Kyrie. They also used their number one pick to trade for a 3rd all star named Kevin Love.

Golden State tanked and drafted Curry, the best shooter to ever live, 6th overall.

San Antonio drafted Duncan and Robinson 1st overall, so I have no idea why you brought them up. Lol. They were also ahead of the curve in drafting international players. They also have Pop, who is head and shoulders above just about every other coach.

Miami drafted Wade after tanking. He won them a title before they even signed Shaq. He joined a team with a great climate and a chance to win one more title.

Dallas got Dirk at the draft. Saying they didn't draft him is like saying we didn't draft Vince. It's irrelevant because he was targeted on draft night and they got him. They also added hall of fame players like Kidd for that one title.

Lakers traded a very good center named Vlade for Kobe. They were already a winning team before Shaq arrived and he only went to live in LA. Toronto is a great city, but nobody signs here over LA for it's culture, weather etc.

Boston drafted Pierce. So like all these other teams they started with a hall of famer.

Detroit is really the only exception here, but they traded a hall of fame talent(though a broken down one) for Ben Wallace. But yes, they are the exception to the rule as they built themselves through trades primarily. They also drafted very well for their position getting Hamilton and Prince(who I remember being mocked by some scouts/experts.)

Philly has only been to the finals once in the last 30 years. They needed a hall of fame, former number 1 overall pick they tanked for and drafted to get there. Yes, it's worked out terribly this time around. But again, getting to that point requires elite, hall of fame, MVP caliber players which we do not have.


So yeah, that was the worst post I've ever read. I'm assuming you're too young to actually remember those teams, otherwise you don't really follow basketball at all and are just talking out of your ass.

[Yallbecrazy]

We just can't continue on like this anymore.
Reading comments on this forum like "I hope both casey and Lowry are goners.Lowry attuide is too much"
"Hey better not be.....even if he gives us a huge discount.....we need team players who are tough defenders"
"This is going to cripple our future. We can't resign Lowry & Ibaka to the max, it's just not worth it. We need to tank and rebuild"(while Ibaka may only be worthy of a near max deal, the rest of the comment is clearly obtuse)

There are 4 threads on the front page that haven't been locked or merged that all have to do with rebuilding / letting Lowry walk. A poll asking if he will be a Raptor next year is currently 58% in favour of no. Comments about him not getting more than 20MM a season if he comes back.

Brings me back to my main point and the thread title. RealGM-Raptors needs to be blown up, there are too many people here that are suffering from inadequate intelligence and the board has gone to crap. It is almost unreadable, of course this thread (which is pro Raptors and Lowry) will probably be locked while the other 4 anti Lowry/ tanking threads will keep going

[Steelo Green]

Only the fourteenth thread this hour. Congrats.

[Mack11]

THIS BOARD IS CRAP.. UNREADABLE

*posts another blow it up/not to blow it up thread*

[Yallbecrazy]

the blow it up is about this forum, not the team.
Poor reading comprehension, another reason to blow up the forum

[CoachJReturns]

Yes please merge all these pro blow up/tank/rebuild threads. I'm in favor of the team changing direction, but even I can't see why we need a new thread every other day about the same subject.

[VanWest82]

Advanced stats paint a different picture. While he puts up numbers, he doesn't move the needle. DeMar is not nearly as talented as his AllStar peers. In fact, he's a definite negative on defense (50% of the time) and only passable when he has the ball in his hands on offense (34.3% or 34.3% of 50%[offense] = 17.2%). We were cruising when he was playing historically good basketball to begin the season and I fully believe that is precisely what needs to happen for him to actually improve our chances of winning, because he's less than 20% useful.

As for the Original article and premise of this thread, the point is to win. I love Masai and feel that he has done wonders for us, but without that top end talent, his efforts are futile. I would rather be Milwaukee that lost to Toronto, than Toronto, that [spoiler alert!:] advanced to lose to Cleveland. The only mistakes that Masai has made to date was overpaying for Carroll and not firing Casey upon arrival, following the loss to Brooklyn, following the Sweep by Washington or mid-season this year.

My point was Derozan is the player we could trade for the highest value package given his production + long-term nature of his deal. Everyone else on the team either hasn't proven themselves to that degree or are UFAs about to sign monster contracts (at a higher salary cap than when Derozan signed his).

Also, I disagree with your opinion on his effectiveness (outside of the defense comment). Derozan has holes in his game, sure, but he was a significant contributor (and often the most important one) in many of our wins this year. Trying to marginalize those contributions by factoring usage statistics based on incorrect interpretation of role and responsibility - he has an increased role on offense, decreased role on defense so it's not 50/50 - meanwhile completely ignoring the other ways he helps facilitate offense just isn't telling the real story.

I would rather have Giannis too. Easier said than done. My post was about alternatives. It's really easy to blame current players/coaches for past failures or blame Masai for past signings. It's much harder to look at the current roster with so many outgoing FA and chart a course to finding a superstar, especially if your plan is to let all those assets walk for nothing.

[Mack11]

the blow it up is about this forum, not the team.
Poor reading comprehension, another reason to blow up the forum

of course this thread (which is pro Raptors and Lowry) will probably be locked while the other 4 anti Lowry/ tanking threads will keep going

[OakleyDokely]

I trust Masai either way. He's a good asset manager.

[MavCarter]

There's just too many really crappy teams to blow it up now. Besides, tanking's a bit overrated. You don't need a **** of top picks to win. Look at the last few title teams:

Cleveland: Got TT and Love (Wiggins + Bennett) as a result of tanking (Remember: They got Kyrie with the Clippers' pick in the Baron Davis deal). Kyrie + TT + Wiggins (or even Love) would be a playoff team, but not much more. It's all LeBron coming back.

Golden State: Not a single one of their big 3 guys were top 5 picks (6th, 11th, 35th)... Harrison Barnes 7th overall when they tanked just to keep their pick on the coin toss was the only time they ever really tanked.

San Antonio: Shrewd drafting and signing, self sustaining culture, excellent coaching... only one year they tanked when Robinson got hurt. But it set the foundation for the future. However, that's only one part of it in the grand scheme of thing to have this kind of sustained success.

Big 3 Miami: Already had Wade, convinced Bosh and LeBron to come over... their efforts the only year they tanked got them Michael "smoke weed everyday" Beasley. Yeah.

Dallas: Veteran team, great trades and signings. Monster performance by Dirk who they didn't even draft.

LA: Bynum was not a top 10 pick. Pau was aquired via trade and they already had Kobe.

Boston: Already had Pierce, traded top 5 pick (only way tanking helped) for Ray Allen, traded a bunch of **** for KG.

2006 Miami: Wade was a core piece acquired by tanking but that's it. They got Shaq via trade and Wade was just superhuman. This one you could say was acquired by tanking.

Detroit: Acquired Billups as a castoff who bloomed late, Rip Hamilton acquired via trade as well, Tayshaun Prince wasn't even a top 20 pick, Ben Wallace went undrafted, and Sheed was acquired via trade.

Threepeat LA: Kobe drafted outside of top 10, Shaq acquired in FA.

1999 San Antonio: Admiral and Duncan both 1st overall picks. Okay, this one was a nice tank.

So we have, out of the last 11 distinctly unique championship winning teams, only 2 were a direct result of tanking (99 Spurs, maybe 2006 Heat, maybe Cleveland (I gave .5 to Cleveland and Miami)). All the rest were outside top 5 picks or already had their core guy in place. The Thunder were the least contending team to be truly built through tanking, but they didn't win.

Tanking for that one piece wouldn't be bad because I feel it would be beneficial to tank for one year for that franchise guy and then immediately improve while you shrewdly draft,trade, develop, and sign along the way. Hopefully to the point ring chasers will wanna come. That's how you build a title team in this league ideally.

That said, the timing is not now. Too many **** teams. We'd be stuck on the treadmill. In a few years when the east becomes more balanced out and there's no exceptionally awful teams.

Also, don't give me Philly as a good example. Call me when Philly has more than a guy that hasn't played a single game, a guy that's played 31 games in 3 years, a guy that's a total bust and liability on D, and one of the worst GM's in the league.

lol man you're sig is a great reminder of how fast things change. When that sig was made losing out on barnes drummond and nash seemed like the end of the world. Fast forward a couple years later and i couldn't careless about any of them