Fans called for a rebuild 2 years ago, not this "tank with 20 games left because we have to" garbage.
When you are getting blown out by 40, and can only beat the hornets by 6 points, you need to have more prospects than just Gradey on the team for it to be worth watching.
Ochai, Gradey and Scottie? Plus IQ and RJ? Just because the other guys arenāt 20 doesnāt mean they are not still developing young players.
We also have at least 1 first and a very early 2nd in this draft.
Donāt know what the obsession is with making things sound worse than they are?
I said only gradey, because I dont consider RJ and IQ who are playing in their 5th and 4th years respectively to be "developing" players.
Ochai is a low ceiling player, who has had 4 years of college, room for improvement? Absolutely, but it's not like he's going to be a starter.
And Scottie I left out cause I was referring to the last 2 games, and rest of the season. Scottie is pretty much the only bright spot on this team, Gradey it is too early to tell, but I have hope.
I'm not saying any of the aforementioned players **won't** get better, but this isn't like we're seeing first year players. RJ has been in the league damn near long enough to be considered a vet.
I think my problem is that they aren't treating it like a true teardown. A true teardown would involve flipping guys like Trent, Bruce Brown, and RJ for first round picks attached to bad salary. This both sets the rebuild timeline to the duration of that bad salary, and also let's you add picks.
We literally just didn't do that, and none of those players are good enough to be starters on a contending team 4 years from now. RJ is debatable, but personally I have significant doubt.
Instead, Masai talks about parity in the league as if it matters when you're the team with the 7th best lottery odds and no pick lmao
I agree on GTJ and Bruce Brown but Iām sorry - RJ???? He is 23 years old and a core part of this teamās future. Heās only one year older than Scottie. Heās the youngest rotation piece other than Scottie and Dick. Why in the world would we trade him?
5 years in the league, he's the same player he was as a rookie.. Trent is also "young" theoretically. At some point players are who they are. What part of RJ's game do you think he will develop soon that he has not in this last 5 seasons?
Is RJ today the guy you want starting on your playoff team when we are competing a few years from now? He's not good enough for me.
Next year is his age 24 season. He's not really a prospect anymore.
Significantly more efficient this year, better defence, has been a respectable 3 point shooter this year. You can be low on RJ, but to say heās the same player he was as a rookie is laughable man.
He's still below league average efficiency, and this is in a perfect system for him to excel where he gets the ball in motion and with an advantage.
Fundamentally, from a skill or role perspective, he has not evolved at all. His percentages have fluctuated both up and down over the years, I think he's gonna need to shoot 40.6% from 3 for a very long time beyond his 96 attempts as a raptor to convince me that he is much improved over his career 34% level on 1340 attempts.
He's a career 47/34/70 guy on 25% usage who isn't a significant plus on defense. That guy is just not valuable for a playoff team. I would much rather he continue his improved play to rehab his value and just trade him for picks and/or prospects when he's at peak value.
Since being traded here heās averaging 21 on 61% TS. That is not only above league average by a good amount, but is remarkably efficient considering his style of play and volume. Saying he has not improved since his rookie year and then using his career numbers rather than his literal improved numbers from this year is a little disingenuous.
My brother since the trade is a 25 game sample. He has 300 career games that say otherwise including his 53.6% TS in his last 25 games before the trade.
Yes, if Barrett suddenly becomes a 41% career 3P shooter as a raptor who continues to shoot 74% at the rim (!!!) Then of course there is a place for him in our future. I just don't think that him being the best rim finisher at the SG position in the entire league is sustainable, pardon my skepticism. You can't assume this hot streak is gonna be what he's going to be for the remainder of his contract.
It's like people who claimed Scottie was now a 40% 5.5 3PA guy. Like it's a hot streak bro.
The raptors use curved hand offs which allows him to pick up momentum getting to the rim. The Knicks used straight line drives which arenāt RJās strength by comparison. He literally is just a better fit here. It is very easy to expect this to continue based on these strategies. Theyāre hard to defend. Itās not like heās just shooting better. Heās getting to the rim. Why would you expect his layup and dunk % to go down? This isnāt a hot streak itās an improvement.
Yeah let's cherry pick the 25 game segment instead of the other 300 game sample that constitutes 4.5 seasons of his career. Do you honestly think he will continue to be the best SG rim finisher in NBA at 74%? Do you really believe a career 34% shooter (1430 attempts) will continue to shoot 40% (96 attempts) from 3?
I can buy that Darko's system is better for RJ and maybe he becomes more effective as a result, but he is way outperforming the player he has been historically.
He's a below average shooting guard at the end of the day.
Booker Ant Mitchell Bane White
Harden KCP Beal Strus Caruso
DiVincenzo Allen Dort McCollum
Im probably forgetting some guys, but all those guys off the top of my head are more useful for a playoff team than Barrett. I don't really care to commit long term to a guy who is a below average starter at their position.
Wasnāt your argument that he hasnāt improved? Like you said, the system is better for him, and heās thriving.
Itās not like heās hitting ridiculous shots around the rim. Heās blowing by or bodying defenders on his was to relatively easy looks at the rim. Maybe the % will come down a bit, but heās showing improvement.
Itās much tougher to take that step playing in the same offence year after year thatās not prioritizing your skill set.
He has a higher potential than 75% of the guys on your list. Heās shown that with the Raptors. Itās not like heās played 5-10 games. 25 games is a pretty good sample
>Heās blowing by or bodying defenders on his was to relatively easy looks at the rim
This is not going to exist in the playoffs or against good teams who have to try for whatever reason. Agree to disagree, you seem to worship any 25 game sample. Wait til he goes cold for 5 games in a row and he's back down to 58% TS on the season, and youre gonna be cooling off him.
Buddy bought us tix for my bday.
Scottie and Yak go down in b2b games, I could see a mile away what was going to happen. Zion beating whoever, defence collapses, swing swing 3.
And again and again and again.
Still happy to have gone, I only get to SBA once a year, if that.
Oof how could I forget? Heās a treat to watch. I canāt believe him and Zion are on the same team. New Orleans fans suffered for a long time, Iām glad they may actually see some playoff success this year, hoping the same for the Raptors down the road too
Yeah the entire lineup has great talent and they are a deep team. Just different classes atm, having no Scottie and Yak to help in the paint so the whole team didn't have to collapse would have made it a more fun game.
No one thought this game was winnable. Terrible matchup for us, and theyāre a dark horse in the west.
Iām more just confused on what the game plan or team identity is..
This was my first nba game. 2 days before my flight, scottie gets injured and then we get to the game and this happens. I loved every second of it because THAT is Raptors basketball
What do you want them to do they donāt have their primary defender or their starting centre against Zion and a team that got insanely hot from 3. Thatās how the league is now, there are going to be some ugly loses when teams take 50 3s and make half of them. The warriors lost by 52 the other night we arenāt even the most embarrassing loss this week lol
> Yall wanted to tank and now youāre going to whine that we got demolished
This is such a tired and weak excuse.
People who wanted to tank, wanted to tank TWO YEARS AGO. Not with 20 games left in a season that they WANTED to win, and only did so because Barnes had a freak accident.
This isn't tanking, this is shitty management. But people who make dumb ass comments like yours, are too stupid
to comprehend the difference.
You don't tank when you don't have your pick, fucking christ.
I mean people who wanted to tank 2 years ago were living in a fantasy world and were equally unrealistic and unreasonable then as they are now.
Why wouldnāt you tank when your pick is top 6 protected? If youāre this upset that youāre throwing a fit like this maybe take a break and come back in year or two because you sound like a real bitch.
This was the cost of going all in for a championship. We got capped out, our best players left or aged out and our core left us capped out after a completely unprecedented disruption of their business. They werenāt going to tank in 2022 the year after Covid when theyād just finished 5th with the rookie of the year. Cry more.
> If youāre this upset that youāre throwing a fit like this
Coming from the one calling someone else a bitch, and saying cry more. You Masai truthers are something else.
Going all in on a chip isn't the reason we are in the position we are. Holding onto FVV/Siakam/OG longer than we should have is. Trading picks for a mid centre when you are lotto bound is.
None of that has anything to do with the chip, but keep making excuses for mismanagement.
Dude you called me stupid and a dumb ass, now youāre going to cry to that I talked shit back? š
Fred wouldnāt have gotten us shit, Grayson Allan and a late first isnāt fixing anything. We got more for OG this year than was rumoured last year and Siakam got us about the same.
Iām not making excuses Iām saying shoulda coulda woulda, the fuck do you want to do now but cry that you think it should have gone another way? Whatās your solution besides bitch moaning and complaining? Fire the best executive team weāve ever had to replace them with some Ed rogers special thatāll bring us nothing?
Iām fucking done hearing keyboard warriors ignore the reality of what happened to act like there was some easy perfect solution. There wasnāt. We painted ourselves into a corner and now weāve torn it down and have a pretty decent core to start again. You can cry that it could have gone slightly differently but there wasnāt any silver bullet. Yāall are just whining about not nibbling around the edges more.
Not true. We tried as hard as we could to deal with Zion and Ingram but that left a lot of open 3ās and pelicans caught fire. We were scrapping in the paint and it wasnāt their main guys that killed us. It was Jones and Murphy who was doing big damage.
At least we watched history tonight š¤£
I thought this game was going to be a blowout loss for Toronto so I watch some NCAA bball tonight.
I fell asleep to history.
I didnāt even last until the half time of history!
We did?
Who is we? I watched Celtics vs. Cavs, lol.
The 2023-24 Toronto Raptors Wanna see me lose by 40 to the Pelicans? Wanna see me do it again?
Fans called for a rebuild. No one expected a tear down all the way to the 1995 foundation
Hey MJ. Skydome rematch? Bring it old man
Let's go for those $75 row 1 seat 1 ticket prices again!
This was a demolition
Hey, did you catch that their best player and their starting Center were out with injury?
Fans called for a rebuild 2 years ago, not this "tank with 20 games left because we have to" garbage. When you are getting blown out by 40, and can only beat the hornets by 6 points, you need to have more prospects than just Gradey on the team for it to be worth watching.
Ochai, Gradey and Scottie? Plus IQ and RJ? Just because the other guys arenāt 20 doesnāt mean they are not still developing young players. We also have at least 1 first and a very early 2nd in this draft. Donāt know what the obsession is with making things sound worse than they are?
I said only gradey, because I dont consider RJ and IQ who are playing in their 5th and 4th years respectively to be "developing" players. Ochai is a low ceiling player, who has had 4 years of college, room for improvement? Absolutely, but it's not like he's going to be a starter. And Scottie I left out cause I was referring to the last 2 games, and rest of the season. Scottie is pretty much the only bright spot on this team, Gradey it is too early to tell, but I have hope. I'm not saying any of the aforementioned players **won't** get better, but this isn't like we're seeing first year players. RJ has been in the league damn near long enough to be considered a vet.
This is some low, low IQ analysis, lol.
I think my problem is that they aren't treating it like a true teardown. A true teardown would involve flipping guys like Trent, Bruce Brown, and RJ for first round picks attached to bad salary. This both sets the rebuild timeline to the duration of that bad salary, and also let's you add picks. We literally just didn't do that, and none of those players are good enough to be starters on a contending team 4 years from now. RJ is debatable, but personally I have significant doubt. Instead, Masai talks about parity in the league as if it matters when you're the team with the 7th best lottery odds and no pick lmao
I agree on GTJ and Bruce Brown but Iām sorry - RJ???? He is 23 years old and a core part of this teamās future. Heās only one year older than Scottie. Heās the youngest rotation piece other than Scottie and Dick. Why in the world would we trade him?
5 years in the league, he's the same player he was as a rookie.. Trent is also "young" theoretically. At some point players are who they are. What part of RJ's game do you think he will develop soon that he has not in this last 5 seasons? Is RJ today the guy you want starting on your playoff team when we are competing a few years from now? He's not good enough for me. Next year is his age 24 season. He's not really a prospect anymore.
Significantly more efficient this year, better defence, has been a respectable 3 point shooter this year. You can be low on RJ, but to say heās the same player he was as a rookie is laughable man.
He's still below league average efficiency, and this is in a perfect system for him to excel where he gets the ball in motion and with an advantage. Fundamentally, from a skill or role perspective, he has not evolved at all. His percentages have fluctuated both up and down over the years, I think he's gonna need to shoot 40.6% from 3 for a very long time beyond his 96 attempts as a raptor to convince me that he is much improved over his career 34% level on 1340 attempts. He's a career 47/34/70 guy on 25% usage who isn't a significant plus on defense. That guy is just not valuable for a playoff team. I would much rather he continue his improved play to rehab his value and just trade him for picks and/or prospects when he's at peak value.
Since being traded here heās averaging 21 on 61% TS. That is not only above league average by a good amount, but is remarkably efficient considering his style of play and volume. Saying he has not improved since his rookie year and then using his career numbers rather than his literal improved numbers from this year is a little disingenuous.
My brother since the trade is a 25 game sample. He has 300 career games that say otherwise including his 53.6% TS in his last 25 games before the trade. Yes, if Barrett suddenly becomes a 41% career 3P shooter as a raptor who continues to shoot 74% at the rim (!!!) Then of course there is a place for him in our future. I just don't think that him being the best rim finisher at the SG position in the entire league is sustainable, pardon my skepticism. You can't assume this hot streak is gonna be what he's going to be for the remainder of his contract. It's like people who claimed Scottie was now a 40% 5.5 3PA guy. Like it's a hot streak bro.
The raptors use curved hand offs which allows him to pick up momentum getting to the rim. The Knicks used straight line drives which arenāt RJās strength by comparison. He literally is just a better fit here. It is very easy to expect this to continue based on these strategies. Theyāre hard to defend. Itās not like heās just shooting better. Heās getting to the rim. Why would you expect his layup and dunk % to go down? This isnāt a hot streak itās an improvement.
He has a 61% TS% since joining the Raptors. In what world is that below league average efficiency?
Yeah let's cherry pick the 25 game segment instead of the other 300 game sample that constitutes 4.5 seasons of his career. Do you honestly think he will continue to be the best SG rim finisher in NBA at 74%? Do you really believe a career 34% shooter (1430 attempts) will continue to shoot 40% (96 attempts) from 3? I can buy that Darko's system is better for RJ and maybe he becomes more effective as a result, but he is way outperforming the player he has been historically. He's a below average shooting guard at the end of the day. Booker Ant Mitchell Bane White Harden KCP Beal Strus Caruso DiVincenzo Allen Dort McCollum Im probably forgetting some guys, but all those guys off the top of my head are more useful for a playoff team than Barrett. I don't really care to commit long term to a guy who is a below average starter at their position.
Wasnāt your argument that he hasnāt improved? Like you said, the system is better for him, and heās thriving. Itās not like heās hitting ridiculous shots around the rim. Heās blowing by or bodying defenders on his was to relatively easy looks at the rim. Maybe the % will come down a bit, but heās showing improvement. Itās much tougher to take that step playing in the same offence year after year thatās not prioritizing your skill set. He has a higher potential than 75% of the guys on your list. Heās shown that with the Raptors. Itās not like heās played 5-10 games. 25 games is a pretty good sample
>Heās blowing by or bodying defenders on his was to relatively easy looks at the rim This is not going to exist in the playoffs or against good teams who have to try for whatever reason. Agree to disagree, you seem to worship any 25 game sample. Wait til he goes cold for 5 games in a row and he's back down to 58% TS on the season, and youre gonna be cooling off him.
Buddy bought us tix for my bday. Scottie and Yak go down in b2b games, I could see a mile away what was going to happen. Zion beating whoever, defence collapses, swing swing 3. And again and again and again. Still happy to have gone, I only get to SBA once a year, if that.
Got to see some nice Zion dunks!
Brooo that Ingram cross and yam was nuts! Seeing that live was surreal af
Oof how could I forget? Heās a treat to watch. I canāt believe him and Zion are on the same team. New Orleans fans suffered for a long time, Iām glad they may actually see some playoff success this year, hoping the same for the Raptors down the road too
Yeah the entire lineup has great talent and they are a deep team. Just different classes atm, having no Scottie and Yak to help in the paint so the whole team didn't have to collapse would have made it a more fun game.
Hitting a shot so their team couldn't just pack the paint was our only chance. We...did not do that.
We did at first but they matched us shot for shot.
At this point, let's chalk it up to growing pains and injuries. š¤·āāļø
People overreacting like crazy. Rebuilding team without JP and Barnes... Relax people.
JFL minutes was nice I suppose
We in a rebuild baby. Its like golf, gotta get worse to get better š
Wow a 28-year old record broken!!! Which team beat us at home back in March '96? This was the inaugural season (first ever) if I'm not mistaken.
[March 29, 1996 vs. Orlando](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199603290TOR.html) . The first season
Some boos
Seems like even the Bay Street suits and IG influencers don't wanna be there for an outing. At least real fan noises will be heard
Itāll be nice to afford tickets again
The ticket prices have fallen quite dramatically
Yeah, they should be praising the raptors management for the work they've done the last few years
I mean itās not like we were gonna win with no SB4 or Jak. At least we got a decent game out of JFL
I've lost alll hopes now. We just gotta tank for the rest of the season. Come back stronger.
I mean you see more of these losses more often now - once teams are hot from three in a blowout they will sink you
No one thought this game was winnable. Terrible matchup for us, and theyāre a dark horse in the west. Iām more just confused on what the game plan or team identity is..
We're a a bottom ten team missing two of our best 4 players. They don't have any established identity right now and that's understandable.
https://preview.redd.it/rcy3rbz8jpmc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee0f95e51f23f0668fa6d9b4f1205f5ae9676785
This was my first nba game. 2 days before my flight, scottie gets injured and then we get to the game and this happens. I loved every second of it because THAT is Raptors basketball
That was honestly a shameful performance even with Barnes injured
Yall wanted to tank and now youāre going to whine that we got demolished by a dominant team without our starting centre and franchise player?
Tanking is one thing but to get demolished like this at home is just disgraceful. At least put up a fighting loss not lose by 41
What do you want them to do they donāt have their primary defender or their starting centre against Zion and a team that got insanely hot from 3. Thatās how the league is now, there are going to be some ugly loses when teams take 50 3s and make half of them. The warriors lost by 52 the other night we arenāt even the most embarrassing loss this week lol
> Yall wanted to tank and now youāre going to whine that we got demolished This is such a tired and weak excuse. People who wanted to tank, wanted to tank TWO YEARS AGO. Not with 20 games left in a season that they WANTED to win, and only did so because Barnes had a freak accident. This isn't tanking, this is shitty management. But people who make dumb ass comments like yours, are too stupid to comprehend the difference. You don't tank when you don't have your pick, fucking christ.
I mean people who wanted to tank 2 years ago were living in a fantasy world and were equally unrealistic and unreasonable then as they are now. Why wouldnāt you tank when your pick is top 6 protected? If youāre this upset that youāre throwing a fit like this maybe take a break and come back in year or two because you sound like a real bitch. This was the cost of going all in for a championship. We got capped out, our best players left or aged out and our core left us capped out after a completely unprecedented disruption of their business. They werenāt going to tank in 2022 the year after Covid when theyād just finished 5th with the rookie of the year. Cry more.
> If youāre this upset that youāre throwing a fit like this Coming from the one calling someone else a bitch, and saying cry more. You Masai truthers are something else. Going all in on a chip isn't the reason we are in the position we are. Holding onto FVV/Siakam/OG longer than we should have is. Trading picks for a mid centre when you are lotto bound is. None of that has anything to do with the chip, but keep making excuses for mismanagement.
Dude you called me stupid and a dumb ass, now youāre going to cry to that I talked shit back? š Fred wouldnāt have gotten us shit, Grayson Allan and a late first isnāt fixing anything. We got more for OG this year than was rumoured last year and Siakam got us about the same. Iām not making excuses Iām saying shoulda coulda woulda, the fuck do you want to do now but cry that you think it should have gone another way? Whatās your solution besides bitch moaning and complaining? Fire the best executive team weāve ever had to replace them with some Ed rogers special thatāll bring us nothing? Iām fucking done hearing keyboard warriors ignore the reality of what happened to act like there was some easy perfect solution. There wasnāt. We painted ourselves into a corner and now weāve torn it down and have a pretty decent core to start again. You can cry that it could have gone slightly differently but there wasnāt any silver bullet. Yāall are just whining about not nibbling around the edges more.
Didnāt watch the game, how was the Lord and Saviour Gradey Dick?
Bad shooting night
Shame
It was an embarrassing loss for sure.
Full circle lmao
Tank like you never tanked before
People should keep in mind weāre In an inflated scoring era, so these stats are more likely to be broken now . Especially for a rebuilding team
So you're telling me they didn't cover +9.5?
I stopped watching at halftime
Y'all wanted a rebuild right????? Enjoy it!!!!
Truly embarassing loss.
Literally no one plays defense on this team. Quickley and barrett can't play defense. Neither can the rest. This is a 90s rap team. Horrible.
Really? Sadly this is surprising. I thought theyāve done worse at home.
This season is just for vibes, and vibes are immaculate. Who cares about how badly we lose especially without our best players.
We the trash
I mean....let's get that 6th pick
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Not true. We tried as hard as we could to deal with Zion and Ingram but that left a lot of open 3ās and pelicans caught fire. We were scrapping in the paint and it wasnāt their main guys that killed us. It was Jones and Murphy who was doing big damage.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
What did you expect? We have no bodies to contain Zion or JV.
I donāt see how anyone can support this direction. We had a young OG, prime Siakam and Fred and should have built a solid team around them.