PG: Leagues most selfish team loses again

[Dennis 37]

For a start, shore up the roster imbalance by getting a center. Trade Dragic and Boucher for someone who can play. It's hard to say what else until and if we ever get everyone healthy together. If we do, play a center on court almost all the time, and go longer at the 2/3/4 with Pascal, OG, Barnes and Yuta more.

Do we go young, or FVV and Pascal's age? If you go young and talented, that might take a lot of picks. If we went older, what would Jakob Poeltl cost?

I'd say Pascal and Fred's age because they are under 30, still young. OG is a vet too, and Barnes and other young guys will follow along. A vet big like Jakob would be great.

I was thinking Precious and Boucher and a future pick. If you have Jacob, you don't need both Khem and Precious. I don't know if Khem moves the needle for them, but Precious might attract their attention.

[HiJiNX]

I was at the game and let me tell you, FVV started off by letting other guys try to get their’s but after everyone started missing he decided he was gonna try to take over and he kept us in it for the first half. And everyone on this team but Yuta and Barnes are guilty of lack of ball movement.

This is not necessarily directed at you HiJinx but I am just following up on this point.

Imagine the team was Harden and Durant playing with the rest of this healthy roster excluding Fred and Pascal and in the first half they distribute the ball evenly and the rest of the team shoots 6 for 24 on almost all paint shots and wide open 3s. Meanwhile Harden and Durant go 9 for 18.

Would it make sense to call Harden and Durant selfish if they decided to have a less egalitarian approach in the 2nd half or would that just be considered the winning basketball move to make? Sure, Fred and Pascal are no Harden and Durant, but when the rest of the roster does not deliver, does it make basketball sense to keep going to something that clearly doesn't work?

Interesting question.

In the case of Durant, I’d agree with you that it makes sense to feed your best scorer and let him go to work. But with Durant, he’s a proven scorer and he’s remarkably efficient, but I see your point. And that’s why I’m conflicted about Fred tbh. I don’t think he’s actually been a shoot first player this year. I think he’s been a shoot when needed player this year and we have needed him a lot, especially whenever OG/Siakam/GTJ have been on the bench. I actually think Fred has been running the team really well most of the time. In my opinion, he’s been our best player this year. It all falls apart when he sits. Our bench is capable of two or three minute stints but not much beyond, especially our backup PGs. My only issue with Fred is when he looks off other players to take a WORSE shot. If he looks someone off to get to his midrange or his pull up three off the screen then I’m fine with it. Those are good shots for him. Generally, I wish he would let people touch it a bit more but he’s improved in that regard as the season has progressed imo. The other thing I think Fred needs to improve on is turning the corner after using a screen—he needs to learn to dip his shoulder around the screen and put pressure on the paint.

With Siakam, I would prefer if he ISO’d only after we ran offensive actions and they didn’t work. He’s not efficient enough against a set defence to ISO often.

Generally speaking, though, I think we just need more possessions with more passes as I think it’ll improve rhythm and chemistry and also tire out our opponents. Also, we shouldn’t ever be trying to ISO with more than 12 on the shot clock…except for GTJ cuz he’s good at it.

[jacinto]

It's not only that they're necessarily selfish, it's that they think they have the right and talent to keep the ball in their hands.

It's basically FVV and Siakam are benefiting playing on this team or else I wouldn't see Harden, hypothetically, pass the ball to either of them if they were on the Nets. Only difference is Harden reserves the right because he actually is a true baller.

Sent from my GM1900 using RealGM mobile app

[ishoy123]

It's not only that they're necessarily selfish, it's that they think they have the right and talent to keep the ball in their hands.

It's basically FVV and Siakam are benefiting playing on this team or else I wouldn't see Harden, hypothetically, pass the ball to either of them if they were on the Nets. Only difference is Harden reserves the right because he actually is a true baller.

Sent from my GM1900 using RealGM mobile app

FVV is so underrated right now. He's literally the only active player who can score right now.

[links135]

Man, as good of a shooter FVV is, guys are only making like....27% on 3's from his passes. 17% the last 3 games.

Guys are making 40%+ from OG, Trent, Siakam and Achuiwa. Even 34% from Barnes. (40% in November)

This is the problem with FVV pounding the ball. Yes he can score, but he doesn't actually make guys better through his playmaking, yet virtually everyone else is thriving off each others playmaking.

On the flip, FVV is a really good catch and shoot for 3 pointers. Like really really good.

I have no clue how you're getting those numbers (and I saw it in an FVV thread too), but it just seems like a case of variance and sample size while also ignoring who each player might be passing to for those shots.

OG played all of his games but 1 with FVV and GTJ (FVV didn't play against Detroit) in November. OG setting up teammates for threes 4 times per game (and making 1.4) leads me to believe most of those passes were going to FVV and GTJ...and upon some investigating I see that of OG's 11 assists on 3FGM, 8 of them were to FVV and 2 were to GTJ. Svi was the other player. The results were similar for Scottie and Siakam as 12 and 10 of their 3FG assists were to FVV or GTJ and another 4-5 were to OG.

I'm not going to dig into it any deeper because I can already see a trend. Obviously the team is going to shoot worse off of FVV's passes when FVV himself is the best three-point shooter on the team...and obviously everyone else is also going to have their assist numbers inflated because FVV was shooting 52% on C&S threes in November.

I have a suspicion that a pretty sizable chunk of FVV's passes were to Boucher (who operates in the PnR/PnP with FVV for most of his shots) who was 4/25 on C&S threes in November. Svi (11/35) also gets a lot of passes from FVV off of pindowns from what I recall. If even half of those 60 attempts were off of FVV's passes, you're talking about 2.5 of his 8 passes/game going to players shooting 25% on C&S threes.

This has nothing to do with FVV not being a good passer. It has everything to do with FVV being such a good shooter that he is boosting percentages while the rest of the team is generally shooting poorly lol.

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612761/passes-dash/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&Month=2&sort=FG3_PCT&dir=1

It's the passing tracking. It's literally been this all season.

You can even check all the players he's passing to individually. Only Svi has shot a decent %
https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1627832/passes-dash/?sort=FG3A&dir=1

[Mikistan]

I was at the game and let me tell you, FVV started off by letting other guys try to get their’s but after everyone started missing he decided he was gonna try to take over and he kept us in it for the first half. And everyone on this team but Yuta and Barnes are guilty of lack of ball movement.

This is not necessarily directed at you HiJinx but I am just following up on this point.

Imagine the team was Harden and Durant playing with the rest of this healthy roster excluding Fred and Pascal and in the first half they distribute the ball evenly and the rest of the team shoots 6 for 24 on almost all paint shots and wide open 3s. Meanwhile Harden and Durant go 9 for 18.

Would it make sense to call Harden and Durant selfish if they decided to have a less egalitarian approach in the 2nd half or would that just be considered the winning basketball move to make? Sure, Fred and Pascal are no Harden and Durant, but when the rest of the roster does not deliver, does it make basketball sense to keep going to something that clearly doesn't work?

Interesting question.

In the case of Durant, I’d agree with you that it makes sense to feed your best scorer and let him go to work. But with Durant, he’s a proven scorer and he’s remarkably efficient, but I see your point. And that’s why I’m conflicted about Fred tbh. I don’t think he’s actually been a shoot first player this year. I think he’s been a shoot when needed player this year and we have needed him a lot, especially whenever OG/Siakam/GTJ have been on the bench. I actually think Fred has been running the team really well most of the time. In my opinion, he’s been our best player this year. It all falls apart when he sits. Our bench is capable of two or three minute stints but not much beyond, especially our backup PGs. My only issue with Fred is when he looks off other players to take a WORSE shot. If he looks someone off to get to his midrange or his pull up three off the screen then I’m fine with it. Those are good shots for him. Generally, I wish he would let people touch it a bit more but he’s improved in that regard as the season has progressed imo. The other thing I think Fred needs to improve on is turning the corner after using a screen—he needs to learn to dip his shoulder around the screen and put pressure on the paint.

With Siakam, I would prefer if he ISO’d only after we ran offensive actions and they didn’t work. He’s not efficient enough against a set defence to ISO often.

Generally speaking, though, I think we just need more possessions with more passes as I think it’ll improve rhythm and chemistry and also tire out our opponents. Also, we shouldn’t ever be trying to ISO with more than 12 on the shot clock…except for GTJ cuz he’s good at it.

When Fred walks the ball over half court with 16 left on the clock we are at 12 sec left pretty quick!

[Gold Dragon]

Man, as good of a shooter FVV is, guys are only making like....27% on 3's from his passes. 17% the last 3 games.

Guys are making 40%+ from OG, Trent, Siakam and Achuiwa. Even 34% from Barnes. (40% in November)

This is the problem with FVV pounding the ball. Yes he can score, but he doesn't actually make guys better through his playmaking, yet virtually everyone else is thriving off each others playmaking.

On the flip, FVV is a really good catch and shoot for 3 pointers. Like really really good.

I have no clue how you're getting those numbers (and I saw it in an FVV thread too), but it just seems like a case of variance and sample size while also ignoring who each player might be passing to for those shots.

OG played all of his games but 1 with FVV and GTJ (FVV didn't play against Detroit) in November. OG setting up teammates for threes 4 times per game (and making 1.4) leads me to believe most of those passes were going to FVV and GTJ...and upon some investigating I see that of OG's 11 assists on 3FGM, 8 of them were to FVV and 2 were to GTJ. Svi was the other player. The results were similar for Scottie and Siakam as 12 and 10 of their 3FG assists were to FVV or GTJ and another 4-5 were to OG.

I'm not going to dig into it any deeper because I can already see a trend. Obviously the team is going to shoot worse off of FVV's passes when FVV himself is the best three-point shooter on the team...and obviously everyone else is also going to have their assist numbers inflated because FVV was shooting 52% on C&S threes in November.

I have a suspicion that a pretty sizable chunk of FVV's passes were to Boucher (who operates in the PnR/PnP with FVV for most of his shots) who was 4/25 on C&S threes in November. Svi (11/35) also gets a lot of passes from FVV off of pindowns from what I recall. If even half of those 60 attempts were off of FVV's passes, you're talking about 2.5 of his 8 passes/game going to players shooting 25% on C&S threes.

This has nothing to do with FVV not being a good passer. It has everything to do with FVV being such a good shooter that he is boosting percentages while the rest of the team is generally shooting poorly lol.

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612761/passes-dash/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&Month=2&sort=FG3_PCT&dir=1

It's the passing tracking. It's literally been this all season.

You can even check all the players he's passing to individually. Only Svi has shot a decent %
https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1627832/passes-dash/?sort=FG3A&dir=1

Click on each player. Fred’s shooting makes up a big portion of each player’s 3FGA passing targets. If Fred could pass it to himself, his percentage would go up as well.

[Boogie!]

It's not only that they're necessarily selfish, it's that they think they have the right and talent to keep the ball in their hands.

It's basically FVV and Siakam are benefiting playing on this team or else I wouldn't see Harden, hypothetically, pass the ball to either of them if they were on the Nets. Only difference is Harden reserves the right because he actually is a true baller.

Sent from my GM1900 using RealGM mobile app

FVV is so underrated right now. He's literally the only active player who can score right now.

fvv is the type of player that is a good complimentary piece around an established star hierarchy. use him as a sixth man, or use him strictly as a 3 and d player/combo guard in spurts, and hell be great. making him a focal point of your team doesn't work. hes not leading this team anywhere. this is the problem with his actual value vs his perceived value. there's no way in hell that if he was as good as everyone thinks he is, that we would be struggling this bad... our roster talent wise is good enough... he just doesn't know how to actually make his teammates better. im sure a lot of good teams would love his services to take him over the top... but with this current raptors group he wants all the awards, and in that role, this team isn't going anywhere.

the way this team is constructed makes sense if everyone plays 5 as 1... they have a lot of good talent everywhere, that they need to trust and empower each other and find ways to get each other going... instead they play the opposite. every game... that's a coaching and chemistry issue.

[WaltFrazier]

This is not necessarily directed at you HiJinx but I am just following up on this point.

Imagine the team was Harden and Durant playing with the rest of this healthy roster excluding Fred and Pascal and in the first half they distribute the ball evenly and the rest of the team shoots 6 for 24 on almost all paint shots and wide open 3s. Meanwhile Harden and Durant go 9 for 18.

Would it make sense to call Harden and Durant selfish if they decided to have a less egalitarian approach in the 2nd half or would that just be considered the winning basketball move to make? Sure, Fred and Pascal are no Harden and Durant, but when the rest of the roster does not deliver, does it make basketball sense to keep going to something that clearly doesn't work?

Interesting question.

In the case of Durant, I’d agree with you that it makes sense to feed your best scorer and let him go to work. But with Durant, he’s a proven scorer and he’s remarkably efficient, but I see your point. And that’s why I’m conflicted about Fred tbh. I don’t think he’s actually been a shoot first player this year. I think he’s been a shoot when needed player this year and we have needed him a lot, especially whenever OG/Siakam/GTJ have been on the bench. I actually think Fred has been running the team really well most of the time. In my opinion, he’s been our best player this year. It all falls apart when he sits. Our bench is capable of two or three minute stints but not much beyond, especially our backup PGs. My only issue with Fred is when he looks off other players to take a WORSE shot. If he looks someone off to get to his midrange or his pull up three off the screen then I’m fine with it. Those are good shots for him. Generally, I wish he would let people touch it a bit more but he’s improved in that regard as the season has progressed imo. The other thing I think Fred needs to improve on is turning the corner after using a screen—he needs to learn to dip his shoulder around the screen and put pressure on the paint.

With Siakam, I would prefer if he ISO’d only after we ran offensive actions and they didn’t work. He’s not efficient enough against a set defence to ISO often.

Generally speaking, though, I think we just need more possessions with more passes as I think it’ll improve rhythm and chemistry and also tire out our opponents. Also, we shouldn’t ever be trying to ISO with more than 12 on the shot clock…except for GTJ cuz he’s good at it.

When Fred walks the ball over half court with 16 left on the clock we are at 12 sec left pretty quick!

There was a moment last night when we had been on a little run, Barnes playing well, the ball was moving. Then we got a defensive rebound, Fred started walking it up, and it was like the air went out of the offense. I've seen it so often, suddenly he starts to bring it up slowly, as if to say ok we're going to get a really good shot now. But it usually ends up in him dribbling the clock down and we force a shot. I can't recall the exact part of the game last night but second half and not at the end of a quarter. Kyle used to force the pace, Fred tends to slow it down to much.

[WaltFrazier]

I have no clue how you're getting those numbers (and I saw it in an FVV thread too), but it just seems like a case of variance and sample size while also ignoring who each player might be passing to for those shots.

OG played all of his games but 1 with FVV and GTJ (FVV didn't play against Detroit) in November. OG setting up teammates for threes 4 times per game (and making 1.4) leads me to believe most of those passes were going to FVV and GTJ...and upon some investigating I see that of OG's 11 assists on 3FGM, 8 of them were to FVV and 2 were to GTJ. Svi was the other player. The results were similar for Scottie and Siakam as 12 and 10 of their 3FG assists were to FVV or GTJ and another 4-5 were to OG.

I'm not going to dig into it any deeper because I can already see a trend. Obviously the team is going to shoot worse off of FVV's passes when FVV himself is the best three-point shooter on the team...and obviously everyone else is also going to have their assist numbers inflated because FVV was shooting 52% on C&S threes in November.

I have a suspicion that a pretty sizable chunk of FVV's passes were to Boucher (who operates in the PnR/PnP with FVV for most of his shots) who was 4/25 on C&S threes in November. Svi (11/35) also gets a lot of passes from FVV off of pindowns from what I recall. If even half of those 60 attempts were off of FVV's passes, you're talking about 2.5 of his 8 passes/game going to players shooting 25% on C&S threes.

This has nothing to do with FVV not being a good passer. It has everything to do with FVV being such a good shooter that he is boosting percentages while the rest of the team is generally shooting poorly lol.

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612761/passes-dash/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&Month=2&sort=FG3_PCT&dir=1

It's the passing tracking. It's literally been this all season.

You can even check all the players he's passing to individually. Only Svi has shot a decent %
https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1627832/passes-dash/?sort=FG3A&dir=1

Click on each player. Fred’s shooting makes up a big portion of each player’s 3FGA passing targets. If Fred could pass it to himself, his percentage would go up as well.

That's likely true. It shows what we need is someone else making more of the passes, because Fred is a good shooter and we'd be better off with him being on the receiving end more. otherwise, I suspect the stats showing other Raps don't shoot well off Fred's passes is because he doesn't get them the ball in good open spots. Which would be because when he penetrates he's not a threat so he doesn't draw the D away from shooters far enough.

[Dennis 37]

Spoiler:

I have no clue how you're getting those numbers (and I saw it in an FVV thread too), but it just seems like a case of variance and sample size while also ignoring who each player might be passing to for those shots.

OG played all of his games but 1 with FVV and GTJ (FVV didn't play against Detroit) in November. OG setting up teammates for threes 4 times per game (and making 1.4) leads me to believe most of those passes were going to FVV and GTJ...and upon some investigating I see that of OG's 11 assists on 3FGM, 8 of them were to FVV and 2 were to GTJ. Svi was the other player. The results were similar for Scottie and Siakam as 12 and 10 of their 3FG assists were to FVV or GTJ and another 4-5 were to OG.

I'm not going to dig into it any deeper because I can already see a trend. Obviously the team is going to shoot worse off of FVV's passes when FVV himself is the best three-point shooter on the team...and obviously everyone else is also going to have their assist numbers inflated because FVV was shooting 52% on C&S threes in November.

I have a suspicion that a pretty sizable chunk of FVV's passes were to Boucher (who operates in the PnR/PnP with FVV for most of his shots) who was 4/25 on C&S threes in November. Svi (11/35) also gets a lot of passes from FVV off of pindowns from what I recall. If even half of those 60 attempts were off of FVV's passes, you're talking about 2.5 of his 8 passes/game going to players shooting 25% on C&S threes.

This has nothing to do with FVV not being a good passer. It has everything to do with FVV being such a good shooter that he is boosting percentages while the rest of the team is generally shooting poorly lol.

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612761/passes-dash/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&Month=2&sort=FG3_PCT&dir=1

It's the passing tracking. It's literally been this all season.

You can even check all the players he's passing to individually. Only Svi has shot a decent %
https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1627832/passes-dash/?sort=FG3A&dir=1

Click on each player. Fred’s shooting makes up a big portion of each player’s 3FGA passing targets. If Fred could pass it to himself, his percentage would go up as well.

I do see your point in this debate. If Fred sinks more shots off passes from teammates than his teammates do off pass from him, it could just be that he is a better shooter.

Alternatively, if Fred gets the ball when he is wide open, and his teammates get the ball when closely covered or with the shot clock running down, it could be that Fred's shooting success rate is higher because he gets better passes than he gives.

To prove one side or other in this debate we need more data.

What percentage of passes to and from Fred are in the last 4 seconds of the clock shot?
What percentage of passes to and from Fred result in a wide open shot?

[Mikistan]

Spoiler:

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612761/passes-dash/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&Month=2&sort=FG3_PCT&dir=1

It's the passing tracking. It's literally been this all season.

You can even check all the players he's passing to individually. Only Svi has shot a decent %
https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1627832/passes-dash/?sort=FG3A&dir=1

Click on each player. Fred’s shooting makes up a big portion of each player’s 3FGA passing targets. If Fred could pass it to himself, his percentage would go up as well.

I do see your point in this debate. If Fred sinks more shots off passes from teammates than his teammates do off pass from him, it could just be that he is a better shooter.

Alternatively, if Fred gets the ball when he is wide open, and his teammates get the ball when closely covered or with the shot clock running down, it could be that Fred's shooting success rate is higher because he gets better passes than he gives.

To prove one side or other in this debate we need more data.

What percentage of passes to and from Fred are in the last 4 seconds of the clock shot?
What percentage of passes to and from Fred result in a wide open shot?

also team aggregate data - what percentage of passes are coming from inside the painted area out to 3pter as opposed to perimeter to perimeter passes - and i thnk we will find passes from paint to 3pt are higher % than passes from perimeter-2-perim

[GreatWhiteStiff]

It's actually almost insane that fred sits like 8-10 minutes a game and we're generally a -5 to -10 in those minutes he sits. I mean everyone knows our bench sucks, but if we had a good bench that could maintain or even expand leads, like on certain derozan/lowry teams, Fred would probalby be seen as a winner.

[LiSTWithLani]

We could've had Bane. Instead we have Malachi and GTJ.

Maybe too harsh on the kid, but it’s disgusting how much better Bane is than Malachi. Masai and co. dropped the ball there for sure.

Yeah, just given how much better he is. Like, it's not that he's a bit better than Malachi, he's waaaaaay better. Bane looks like he could be a future All Star at some point.

Wasn't he selected 30th? You can't be upset at the Raptors for missing, 29 other teams missed - that's the whole league!

[Reeko]

Maybe too harsh on the kid, but it’s disgusting how much better Bane is than Malachi. Masai and co. dropped the ball there for sure.

Yeah, just given how much better he is. Like, it's not that he's a bit better than Malachi, he's waaaaaay better. Bane looks like he could be a future All Star at some point.

Wasn't he selected 30th? You can't be upset at the Raptors for missing, 29 other teams missed - that's the whole league!

I don't think we're upset with the Raps, we just expect a lot from our scouting department and FO given how good they have been, and we're surprised when they miss on a guy. You're right, but it just hits different when he's the pick right after your own and he was someone that was projected to go in that range. If we were selecting 17th, then I don't think it's even a discussion because Bane wasn't projected to go that high.

[OAKLEY_2]

Simmons is a hack, but he's not wrong. Except for missing Leo, nobody misses Leo.

Leo is 1000 percent better than Alvin.. and we need to clean house with devlin also.

100% disagree. Alvin speaks his mind. He isn't afraid to criticize a ref or opposing player. And he doesn't talk down to viewers. Good riddance Leo.

Steve Simmons is the worst sports journalist in Canada.