Former Raptor discussion thread 2.0

[Mister Ze]

Really missing Delon right now

[DreamTeam09]

DeMars hoopin' hoopin' single handily won then that game against Portland - my guy

[bape_lovers]

he did, if you look through the GTs last year..everytime Kawhi does it..there were hashtags of #hegone

https://streamable.com/emqg9

Kawhi already starting to miss his Raptor teammates.

I was watching this game, and my takeaway when I saw this is that I've never seen him display this level of frustration with us, which I see as a knock against us. He never cared enough about the team to lash out at his teammates. I think I recall him do it maybe a couple of times, but not within the same game.

[tdotrep2]

DeMars hoopin' hoopin' single handily won then that game against Portland - my guy

Demar always kills Portland

[DreamTeam09]

DeMars hoopin' hoopin' single handily won then that game against Portland - my guy

Demar always kills Portland

U can't put a small gaurd on DeMar, just doesn't work, he torches em

[Kevin Willis]

Casey being non-salty about the Raptors winning.

https://ca.nba.com/news/toronto-raptors-vs-detroit-pistons-dwane-casey-proud-of-nba-championship-team/my109sxm7fts1t69l5p1p6ymc

[Chandan]

guys i am watching the spurs clippers game. I think Rudy gay is a better player than derozan again.

[Kabookalu]

Read on Twitter

[TheAlchemist]

Demar Reaaaalllllllly doesn't like Kawhi lol.

He's going ham on them.

Kawhi tried guarding Derozan too.

Seems like they got a thing going on lol. Masai in the back like Emperor Palpitine just laughing.

[Kabookalu]

There was a lot of Raptor representation in that game:

Lou Williams
Patrick Patterson
DeMarre Carroll (didn't play tho)
Jakob Poeltl
Kawhi Leonard
DeMar DeRozan
Marco Belinelli
Rudy Gay

[Kabookalu]

Other than his steals, particularly on DeRozan and Gay, Kawhi's defense actually wasn't that good. Low effort, allowed a lot of easy blow bys. I'm guessing he's planning on saving himself for the playoffs, but I don't think the Clippers have that luxury. Paul George is expected to return soon, but the man had surgery on both shoulders. He's going to have to be worked into game shape.

Speaking of DeRozan, jeeze louise was this defense bad:

Gfycat Video - Click to Play

https://gfycat.com/aridunrulychicken-basketball

Once Kawhi saw him coming he should have just went back to his man, instead he committed to an already terrible idea of trying to go for a steal, leading to an easy lay up down low plus 1. You're not DeJounte Murray.

[Tim Horton]

How to watch Linsanity in China...

https://www.scmp.com/sport/basketball/article/3035478/how-watch-jeremy-lins-beijing-ducks-cba-2019-2020-season-tv-and

[djsunyc]

[notagenius]

Other than his steals, particularly on DeRozan and Gay, Kawhi's defense actually wasn't that good. Low effort, allowed a lot of easy blow bys. I'm guessing he's planning on saving himself for the playoffs, but I don't think the Clippers have that luxury. Paul George is expected to return soon, but the man had surgery on both shoulders. He's going to have to be worked into game shape.

Speaking of DeRozan, jeeze louise was this defense bad:

Gfycat Video - Click to Play

https://gfycat.com/aridunrulychicken-basketball

Once Kawhi saw him coming he should have just went back to his man, instead he committed to an already terrible idea of trying to go for a steal, leading to an easy lay up down low plus 1. You're not DeJounte Murray.

tbh i thought it was the right play, you want bev to take that shot. Aldridge should have never left harrell.

[DatHomieYouHaTe]

Rumours that Kawhi and Lowry both took the trade hard and basically everyone on the team knew that Lowry was sulking. And Kawhi first few absences was that he didn't care and thought about mailing it in, not because of load management. Can't remember who was interviewed, I think it was Danny Green and Lowry together where they had to have a team meeting early on the Season and just try to clear the air with Masai also present. Kawhi eventually started caring and Lowry stopped sulking. Masai even admitted that if Lowry continued to act like that, he would've traded him. Eventually all the bad vibes left and the team came together and eventually won a Title.

But multiple Raptor People admitted on Interviews through the Season, their was alot of Team Drama early on that they didn't want to leak out. The Lowry-Kawhi phone call claim, has not been corroborated. Simply put, the teams best players didn't like or believe in each other at first.

You could tell something was off. Kawhi was super awkward here. He is a great player but his personality while here was weird. Seems way more comfortable in LA and our team seems more happy as well which is good for both parties. Let's be real Kawhi wanted to go to LA and let everyone know it. We traded for him knowing that as well.

Sent from my POCO F1 using Tapatalk

[Young_Buc]

Kawhi did this in SA and tons of commercials with HEB:

Watch on YouTube

That. Was Just. The Worse.

I know he did community service videos but it was usually with teammates. He still didn't do interviews. In Toronto he was front and center all the time including his New Balance work.

He still did come out of his shell though, and probably even more so with LA than he did in Toronto. To assume it was Toronto that allowed him to do silly videos in LA is silly considering he did them back in SA.

You can see why he wants the bigger market in LA vs Toronto. No one goes to LA to stay away from the spotlight.

Toronto's IMMENSE online presence (it isn't exclusive to real GM) is primarily responsible for Kawhi's popularity. "Fun Guy" The laugh "What it do baby" "Board man gets paid" all byproducts of Toronto's huge online community. I'm sure he's said things in San Antonio that Toronto would make viral.

[Kabookalu]

Other than his steals, particularly on DeRozan and Gay, Kawhi's defense actually wasn't that good. Low effort, allowed a lot of easy blow bys. I'm guessing he's planning on saving himself for the playoffs, but I don't think the Clippers have that luxury. Paul George is expected to return soon, but the man had surgery on both shoulders. He's going to have to be worked into game shape.

Speaking of DeRozan, jeeze louise was this defense bad:

Gfycat Video - Click to Play

https://gfycat.com/aridunrulychicken-basketball

Once Kawhi saw him coming he should have just went back to his man, instead he committed to an already terrible idea of trying to go for a steal, leading to an easy lay up down low plus 1. You're not DeJounte Murray.

tbh i thought it was the right play, you want bev to take that shot. Aldridge should have never left harrell.

I can get behind the idea of forcing it out of Kawhi's hands, but the execution of it was awful. He should have waited for Kawhi to dribble before doubling, that way Kawhi would have been more pressured to pass it out to Beverly after making his move. He attacked him way too early in a neutral position where Kawhi had all the time in the world to make a simple pass.

[Kevin Willis]

Rumours that Kawhi and Lowry both took the trade hard and basically everyone on the team knew that Lowry was sulking. And Kawhi first few absences was that he didn't care and thought about mailing it in, not because of load management. Can't remember who was interviewed, I think it was Danny Green and Lowry together where they had to have a team meeting early on the Season and just try to clear the air with Masai also present. Kawhi eventually started caring and Lowry stopped sulking. Masai even admitted that if Lowry continued to act like that, he would've traded him. Eventually all the bad vibes left and the team came together and eventually won a Title.

But multiple Raptor People admitted on Interviews through the Season, their was alot of Team Drama early on that they didn't want to leak out. The Lowry-Kawhi phone call claim, has not been corroborated. Simply put, the teams best players didn't like or believe in each other at first.

You could tell something was off. Kawhi was super awkward here. He is a great player but his personality while here was weird. Seems way more comfortable in LA and our team seems more happy as well which is good for both parties. Let's be real Kawhi wanted to go to LA and let everyone know it. We traded for him knowing that as well.

Sent from my POCO F1 using Tapatalk

Agree but by the end of the season Kawhi bought in and liked it here. A part of me wants Kawhi to fail to illustrate he was wrong to think this team wasn't good enough. Kawhi has a lot of hidden storylines to disprove.

- This Clippers team is better than the Raptors team. That justifies his decision to leave for more talent
- The Raptors needed him to win. If the Raptors get a better record without Kawhi than with - which is possible - it shows that Kyle is the true leader of this team. It would be a knock against Kawhi
- Kyle's \ Pascal's \ Gasol's \ FVV's numbers greatly improve. Shows that Kawhi's presence actually made other players sacrifice their game.
- Our Defensive Rating stays really good. Shows that Kawhi was an important part of our defense but not the only part. Also Clippers improving their defensive rating shows that Kawhi can make a teams defense improve on his own.
- Style of offense. Clippers offense right now is a lot like ours with Kawhi but even more Kawhi dominant. Our offense is like ours without Kawhi (last year) and the Clippers last year

[Kreamy]

Barkley

Read on Twitter

[Rust_Cohle]

Rumours that Kawhi and Lowry both took the trade hard and basically everyone on the team knew that Lowry was sulking. And Kawhi first few absences was that he didn't care and thought about mailing it in, not because of load management. Can't remember who was interviewed, I think it was Danny Green and Lowry together where they had to have a team meeting early on the Season and just try to clear the air with Masai also present. Kawhi eventually started caring and Lowry stopped sulking. Masai even admitted that if Lowry continued to act like that, he would've traded him. Eventually all the bad vibes left and the team came together and eventually won a Title.

But multiple Raptor People admitted on Interviews through the Season, their was alot of Team Drama early on that they didn't want to leak out. The Lowry-Kawhi phone call claim, has not been corroborated. Simply put, the teams best players didn't like or believe in each other at first.

You could tell something was off. Kawhi was super awkward here. He is a great player but his personality while here was weird. Seems way more comfortable in LA and our team seems more happy as well which is good for both parties. Let's be real Kawhi wanted to go to LA and let everyone know it. We traded for him knowing that as well.

Sent from my POCO F1 using Tapatalk

Agree but by the end of the season Kawhi bought in and liked it here. A part of me wants Kawhi to fail to illustrate he was wrong to think this team wasn't good enough. Kawhi has a lot of hidden storylines to disprove.

- This Clippers team is better than the Raptors team. That justifies his decision to leave for more talent
- The Raptors needed him to win. If the Raptors get a better record without Kawhi than with - which is possible - it shows that Kyle is the true leader of this team. It would be a knock against Kawhi
- Kyle's \ Pascal's \ Gasol's \ FVV's numbers greatly improve. Shows that Kawhi's presence actually made other players sacrifice their game.
- Our Defensive Rating stays really good. Shows that Kawhi was an important part of our defense but not the only part. Also Clippers improving their defensive rating shows that Kawhi can make a teams defense improve on his own.
- Style of offense. Clippers offense right now is a lot like ours with Kawhi but even more Kawhi dominant. Our offense is like ours without Kawhi (last year) and the Clippers last year

Raps without Kawhi don’t get out of the second round. Also the east is much worse than the west this season. Clippers are missing PG which is massive. Kawhi still looks like the best player in the league.

Kawhi was even calling the Raptors “them” and “they” during the championship celebration. He’s definitely much more comfortable in LA. Raptors did everything they could but he really had to drag them through those first two rounds last year. I think Raps are still a good team but clippers look really scary this early. Tons of potential and all without Paul George. Kawhi will probably get
MVP.