What the Raptors are missing? (Points Per Shot)

[mcHAPPY]

I do not see a lot of SGs in this list. do you?
why not keep Demar where he is and bring in a scoring big?

11 players.

1 SG - Harden
2 PG/SG - Curry/Dragic
1 SF/SG - George

5 traditional positions in the game.

I think SG is appropriately represented.


As to answer the bold:
Because the Raptors already have 2 high scoring PPS players in Amir and JV who also contribute to more than one side of the ball.

Let me ask you:
Why not move DeRozan to 6th man and allow his shots in the starting lineup to go to a much efficient wing?

[Masai Ujiri]

You can't move DeRozan to 6th man until you get a player that can produce that 1.3/1.4 PPS that you want given the same volume. We currently do not have that player, and no it's not as simple as re-distributing his 18 shots a game amongst the other 4 starters. Basketball is not simple mathematics (although mathematics can help us understand and evaluate the sport).

Until we have that player, DeRozan is more effective as a starter than a 6th man. When we get that guy, sure let's talk about moving either DD or Ross to the bench or even trading one of them depending on who's the better fit in the starting 5.

I personally would be elated if DeRozan was playing 6th man, because that would mean we have somebody pretty damn good in the starting lineup.

[draftedraptor]

As to answer the bold:
Because the Raptors already have 2 high scoring PPS players in Amir and JV who also contribute to more than one side of the ball.

Let me ask you:
Why not move DeRozan to 6th man and allow his shots in the starting lineup to go to a much efficient wing?

6th man is not a bad idea. He can work on his efficiency in that role.
But we do not have the luxury of moving him to a bench role. Not unless we are tanking and he is our O.J.Mayo.

[mcHAPPY]

6th man is not a bad idea. He can work on his efficiency in that role.
But we do not have the luxury of moving him to a bench role. Not unless we are tanking and he is our O.J.Mayo.

Exactly. It is an idea. A conversation starter.... and ender for some! I think he would thrive in that role against weaker defenders and become really efficient.

As to the bold, this was in my OP:

The issue of course is where do Toronto get an elite primary scorer while keeping the current core of DeRozan, Lowry, Amir, Ross, JV, Patterson, and Vasquez in tact?

It is difficult. My best answer would be to remain competitive, fix the books to have ability to acquire an elite scorer, and keep accumulating assets to ensure should one be available via trade the roster is not stripped of winning parts.

[mcHAPPY]

Lots of criticism of bean counters and mathematicians trying to play/discuss/build basketball. But here is an interesting perspective from one of the all-time greats, Pat Riley:

IU: Speaking to competency on the management side, how do you achieve that? In the financial world, quantitative analysis is the backbone of competency in so many things. Where does quantitative analysis play a role in the Heat organization?

Riley: We have been doing analytics for years. We just called it “statistical analyses” back in the ’60s and ’70s. We’ve always used numbers that we feel define the difference between winning and losing, success and failure. We have a database of numbers, not only individually but as a team, in which we track every single movement that one of our players makes out on the court. And we will definitely quantify it into a number. And the player will have that number.

[Head Coach] Erik Spoelstra is one of the new state-of-the-art technological coaches. He believes in these numbers. He uses them to set up the offense and defense, especially offensively, and who are the best players to complement LeBron and Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, our best assets. Numbers and analytics play a big part in true field goal percentage, or how we can space the floor. The numbers tell us that Shane Battier and Rashard Lewis play better when LeBron and Chris and Udonis Haslem are on the court.

But there still is a gut instinct. The No. 1 thing you do in this league is to try to find the best talent. Then you need to get all of the players to sacrifice whatever they need to sacrifice for the team. Sacrifice has been a big part of our success. When we signed the “big three,” they gave up $51 million in total salary so we could bring in four or five other guys to help them win.

If you come to this culture from another culture, you have to understand exactly how we do things around here. And you have to understand how our coach plays his players. You may have to sacrifice minutes or shots or whatever it is, and grow into another role, and grow into another thought process of support.

http://www.indexuniverse.com/section...lart=1&start=5

That is some deep stuff right there..... and not a thing I disagree with. In fact it kind of sounds similar to the things I've been posting about. Not attempting to put myself in the same category as Pat Riley - LOL - just saying that if I have not been getting my message across very clear, Pat just summed it up eloquently.

[Puffer]

Lots of criticism of bean counters and mathematicians trying to play/discuss/build basketball. But here is an interesting perspective from one of the all-time greats, Pat Riley:




That is some deep stuff right there..... and not a thing I disagree with. In fact it kind of sounds similar to the things I've been posting about. Not attempting to put myself in the same category as Pat Riley - LOL - just saying that if I have not been getting my message across very clear, Pat just summed it up eloquently.

A-1. Very nicely put by Riley. It kind of drives me nuts when people disparage statistics. Sure, you can mock some guy creating a thread with cherry picked data, but let's face it...good professional teams are going to analyze each player and each situation out the wazoo, so that they have the best possible idea of how to win. You can talk about the "eye test" and I don't discount it totally, but there is a reason the police go with a video of a crime scene first, as opposed to the reports of the 5 eye-witnesses. The 5 eye-witnesses will provide 5 different descriptions of the perpetrators, because people depend on pattern recognition so heavily, and the patterns in head are different from the patterns in someone else's head.

Great find.

[Masai Ujiri]

Exactly. It is an idea. A conversation starter.... and ender for some! I think he would thrive in that role against weaker defenders and become really efficient.

As to the bold, this was in my OP:



It is difficult. My best answer would be to remain competitive, fix the books to have ability to acquire an elite scorer, and keep accumulating assets to ensure should one be available via trade the roster is not stripped of winning parts.

Lol you crucified me when I suggested this in the offseason...

[p00ka]

Lol you crucified me when I suggested this in the offseason...

lmao,,,, in fact what most anti-tankers have been saying all along, and getting crucified over, more often than not being demeaned as "short-sighted",,,, below the visionaries in love with the upcoming draft. It doesn't seem long ago that some tankers wanted MU to unload EVERYBODY but JV. Oh well, good to see some people coming around.

[ceez]

i think we should go hard in the paint for Po. not sure milwaukee doesn't laugh and hang up the phone if anyone asks about him though. he's that good.

like, has anyone here watched him play? i expected him to be raaawwwww but show some flashes but this kid has been actually productive and the scary part is it's not because he's even particularly skilled yet.

i would offer pretty much anyone on the roster not named JV

[p00ka]

i think we should go hard in the paint for Po. not sure milwaukee doesn't laugh and hang up the phone if anyone asks about him though. he's that good.

like, has anyone here watched him play? i expected him to be raaawwwww but show some flashes but this kid has been actually productive and the scary part is it's not because he's even particularly skilled yet.

i would offer pretty much anyone on the roster not named JV

I haven't seen him at all, except a few highlights, but will have to make a point. I'd be careful though of rating a guy too high based on first year (not even 1/2 season) performance. Over the years, I've seen way too many players look like world beaters at first, then come crashing down for a multitude of different reasons. There's very good reason, backed up by lots of history, why many say you need 2-3 years minimum to truly see what you've got, good or bad. Ross is our closest example. Many who were down on him as a bust, are now sky high on him. Thing is, for every Ross example, there's another that started out like gangbusters, fans got all gaga over him, then a few years later he's a deep bench guy.

[OldSkoolCool]

Lol you crucified me when I suggested this in the offseason...

Your join date is November...I guess anything is possible for the Warlord Ujiri

lmao,,,, in fact what most anti-tankers have been saying all along, and getting crucified over, more often than not being demeaned as "short-sighted",,,, below the visionaries in love with the upcoming draft. It doesn't seem long ago that some tankers wanted MU to unload EVERYBODY but JV. Oh well, good to see some people coming around.

Ok so you admit that you saw this team trading away gay and going on a run? The "tankers" had their opinion in the offseason because we knew the team was going to be bad, and it was. That's why we wanted to tank. Now things are very different, and now we have to re-evaluate our perspective because tanking for a high pick is harder to achieve. Saying that you saw that they were going to be competitive and should build by cap space, is actually more of a sucker punch that you thought that the group in the summer was going to be competitive...

I haven't seen him at all, except a few highlights, but will have to make a point. I'd be careful though of rating a guy too high based on first year (not even 1/2 season) performance. Over the years, I've seen way too many players look like world beaters at first, then come crashing down for a multitude of different reasons. There's very good reason, backed up by lots of history, why many say you need 2-3 years minimum to truly see what you've got, good or bad. Ross is our closest example. Many who were down on him as a bust, are now sky high on him. Thing is, for every Ross example, there's another that started out like gangbusters, fans got all gaga over him, then a few years later he's a deep bench guy.

Tyreke Evans is also a prime example. Great first year...meh now

[p00ka]

Ok so you admit that you saw this team trading away gay and going on a run? The "tankers" had their opinion in the offseason because we knew the team was going to be bad, and it was. That's why we wanted to tank. Now things are very different, and now we have to re-evaluate our perspective because tanking for a high pick is harder to achieve. Saying that you saw that they were going to be competitive and should build by cap space, is actually more of a sucker punch that you thought that the group in the summer was going to be competitive...

Naw, never saw the trade coming, but I did say I saw great potential in players many were writing off as not being useful in a build. My stance was always:

- to first see what that group could show, just like Masai said was the prudent thing to do. Was there a chance they could be competitive? Impossible to argue otherwise. It was all just opinion, but isn't it amazing what removing one piece did? One piece, and not DeMar, not Lowry, not Ross, not Amir,,,, yet in the summer, many were saying unload everybody but JV
- make decisions based on the results. MU did, and unloaded the piece that was easy to see was an anchor. That he reaped what he did was amazing.
- not give away the farm to rest all hopes on lottery & draft luck delivering a single bull with no herd to serve

[CalgaryRapsFan]

Naw, never saw the trade coming, but I did say I saw great potential in players many were writing off as not being useful in a build. My stance was always:

- to first see what that group could show, just like Masai said was the prudent thing to do. Was there a chance they could be competitive? Impossible to argue otherwise. It was all just opinion, but isn't it amazing what removing one piece did? One piece, and not DeMar, not Lowry, not Ross, not Amir,,,, yet in the summer, many were saying unload everybody but JV
- make decisions based on the results. MU did, and unloaded the piece that was easy to see was an anchor. That he reaped what he did was amazing.
- not give away the farm to rest all hopes on lottery & draft luck delivering a single bull with no herd to serve

With regards to the bold, therein lies the problem. I don't think any pro-tanker was ever calling for that sort of plan.


I actually think that if you were to remove the word "tank" and the stigma attached to it, there's actually always been a lot more common ground between 'conservative tankers' and 'liberal wait-and-see'ers' than either side wanted to admit.

Most pro-tankers wanted to tank/blow-it-up/rebuild/retool this team for the following reasons:
#1) the expected ceiling for the team was playoff bubble (ie: no man's land)
#2) Gay and DeRozan were redundant and two ISO-heavy players limited ball movement
#3) the team was capped out, financially speaking
#4) if #1-#3 proved true and some degree of rebuilding/retooling was inevitable, logic dictates it be started immediately to ALSO exploit the loaded 2014 draft

From what I read, most pro-tankers wanted Gay or DeRozan traded. The rationale for DeRozan was that Gay had a more proven track record, less trade value and an albatross contract. If Gay could be moved, even better. Lowry made sense to be traded due to his expiring contract, up-and-down last season and assumption that trading Gay or DeRozan would result in a tank on its own. If Gay and Lowry were traded, it was assumed the tank would be on, making it logical to explore trading DeRozan and/or Johnson, with a much higher expected return for those two players (no dumping or unloading, only for legit fair market return - talent for talent).

The Gay trade has essentially addressed #2 and #3.

The Gay trade, significant improvement by Ross, return to 2011-2012 form by defense and tanking/injured EC competition have all helped address #1... for the time being, at least.

#4 was always at least somewhat dependent on #1-3, but it's still also somewhat up in the air.

---

At this point, I don't think either side of the great tank debate should be declaring 'victory'. One injury, one losing streak or one Lowry trade could drastically alter the fortunes of Toronto this season (and that doesn't speak to other teams making moves to improve, such as Cleveland did). As well as Toronto has played in the wake of the Gay trade, only MU truly knows what he has in store for this team.

I do believe that an outright tank is out of the realm of possibility, not that it was ever really that probable. I still think some degree or rebuild/retooling could occur. Lowry continues to be the lynch-pin in this debate, as far as I'm concerned. Until the trade deadline passes with Lowry still healthy and on the roster, I don't think that debate will be decided.

[Masai Ujiri]

With regards to the bold, therein lies the problem. I don't think any pro-tanker was ever calling for that sort of plan.


I actually think that if you were to remove the word "tank" and the stigma attached to it, there's actually always been a lot more common ground between 'conservative tankers' and 'liberal wait-and-see'ers' than either side wanted to admit.

Most pro-tankers wanted to tank/blow-it-up/rebuild/retool this team for the following reasons:
#1) the expected ceiling for the team was playoff bubble (ie: no man's land)
#2) Gay and DeRozan were redundant and two ISO-heavy players limited ball movement
#3) the team was capped out, financially speaking
#4) if #1-#3 proved true and some degree of rebuilding/retooling was inevitable, logic dictates it be started immediately to ALSO exploit the loaded 2014 draft

From what I read, most pro-tankers wanted Gay or DeRozan traded. The rationale for DeRozan was that Gay had a more proven track record, less trade value and an albatross contract. If Gay could be moved, even better. Lowry made sense to be traded due to his expiring contract, up-and-down last season and assumption that trading Gay or DeRozan would result in a tank on its own. If Gay and Lowry were traded, it was assumed the tank would be on, making it logical to explore trading DeRozan and/or Johnson, with a much higher expected return for those two players (no dumping or unloading, only for legit fair market return - talent for talent).

The Gay trade has essentially addressed #2 and #3.


The Gay trade, significant improvement by Ross, return to 2011-2012 form by defense and tanking/injured EC competition have all helped address #1... for the time being, at least.

#4 was always at least somewhat dependent on #1-3, but it's still also somewhat up in the air.

---

At this point, I don't think either side of the great tank debate should be declaring 'victory'. One injury, one losing streak or one Lowry trade could drastically alter the fortunes of Toronto this season (and that doesn't speak to other teams making moves to improve, such as Cleveland did). As well as Toronto has played in the wake of the Gay trade, only MU truly knows what he has in store for this team.

I do believe that an outright tank is out of the realm of possibility, not that it was ever really that probable. I still think some degree or rebuild/retooling could occur. Lowry continues to be the lynch-pin in this debate, as far as I'm concerned. Until the trade deadline passes with Lowry still healthy and on the roster, I don't think that debate will be decided.

With regards to the first bold, that is not true. Most tankers were advocating trading away BOTH DeRozan AND Gay, not just one of them. In addition to Kyle Lowry.

With regards to the second bold, the Gay trade in unison with the Bargnani deal has actually addressed #1 as well. Our ceiling is not playoff bubble. First of all we're the #3 seed, last I checked that is not on the bubble/teetering on the edge of the playoffs.

Second of all the increased flexibility this team now has, has put us in position to potentially rise to contender status over the next few years without tanking.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

With regards to the first bold, that is not true. Most tankers were advocating trading away BOTH DeRozan AND Gay, not just one of them. In addition to Kyle Lowry.

I know that and I said as much. The difference is that pro-tankers felt that one of them (ideally Gay, but more likely DeRozan) needed to go, while the other (ideally DeRozan) could possibly be traded (not dumped/unloaded, but traded in a good value trade of present talent for future talent type move). There was never a call to unload/dump everybody. Exploring trade opportunities to return packages of good young prospects and draft picks is an entirely different thing altogether. The only commonality between them is the future-looking aspect.

With regards to the second bold, the Gay trade in unison with the Bargnani deal has actually addressed #1 as well. Our ceiling is not playoff bubble. First of all we're the #3 seed, last I checked that is not on the bubble/teetering on the edge of the playoffs.

I also included the Gay trade as part of the explanation for #1 seemingly being addressed. I don't believe for a second that any poster - pro, anti or neutral on tanking - envisioned such a significant improvement in the team's performance and W/L record following the Gay trade. Yes, it may have been hoped that some players would benefit from removing Gay's black-hole offense, but definitely not to the degree we've seen thus far.

Second of all the increased flexibility this team now has, has put us in position to potentially rise to contender status over the next few years without tanking.

Again, this is no different than what any pro-tanker was pushing for. The only difference is that most people (not just pro-tankers) assumed that trading Gay or DeRozan would not have such a profoundly positive impact on the team's record. It was widely assumed by posters and NBA experts/insiders/reporters alike, that the result of such a trade would have been a less competitive team (ie: tanking).

Given the near-immediate rumors of Lowry being shopped following the Gay trade, I would personally be inclined to include MU in that list of people who believed the Gay trade was more of a tank/rebuilding/gaining flexibility deal than a move intended to improve the team this season.