Potential Coaching Candidates

[Nilanka]

Any talk about this being a system issue is completely off base. This is on the players, not Casey.

DeRozan and Lowry are missing makeable shots. Period. Most teams would be salivating for the kind of looks they're getting, because open mid-range jumpers are a shot that every playoff team needs to be able to make in order to win. If you can't make those, then the defence doesn't pay any penalty for packing the paint and emphasizing 3 point line recovery. And if your 'stars' in particular can't knock down what should be gimmes, then no amount of coaching is going to help.

Except, most of DeRozan's mid range jumpers are not open looks.

[white men can't jump]

That happened rather quickly once Carroll got back and was healthy. If the option was there earlier in the season I think you may have seen it happen sooner.

It really didn't. And these are unrelated anyway. Carroll is a SF, Scola a PF. Scola started 4 playoff games....and has been dreadful since about the new year. Like, worse than playoffs DeMar bad....and while his minutes went down, it was obvious a change needed to be made long ago. I give no credit whatsoever to Casey for his handling of Scola. Just another example of refusing to make an adjustment when it's obviously needed.

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[grindhouse]

I like frank vogul


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[A.I]

Any talk about this being a system issue is completely off base. This is on the players, not Casey.

DeRozan and Lowry are missing makeable shots. Period. Most teams would be salivating for the kind of looks they're getting, because open mid-range jumpers are a shot that every playoff team needs to be able to make in order to win. If you can't make those, then the defence doesn't pay any penalty for packing the paint and emphasizing 3 point line recovery. And if your 'stars' in particular can't knock down what should be gimmes, then no amount of coaching is going to help.

You clearly haven't been watching the games if you think DD has been shooting and missing open shots. Lowry is missing shots he can make, DD is just settling to frustratingly, stupid contested long 2's.

[DogeLover1234]

Agreed. Hate me all you want but as soon as American players hear an accent good luck with getting their respect.

Masai does just fine, that doesn't seem to be any different.

[jpaps]

I like frank vogul


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+1 (although I'd probably spell it Vogel )

[Miekenstien]

+1 (although I'd probably spell it Vogel )

he likes a guy you haven't heard about yet

[bigfatbob]

casey will never get fired, especially since the raptors somehow improved in standing over last year. There is no cause, even if raptors are playing garbage right now.

[golden]

Fitting that you would use that analogy Golden.

Yep, I'm a golden fool myself. lol.

[Lark Benson]

You clearly haven't been watching the games if you think DD has been shooting and missing open shots. Lowry is missing shots he can make, DD is just settling to frustratingly, stupid contested long 2's.

Sure he's settling for frustratingly stupid long range shots, but they're less contested than you might think. Sure Miami is getting a token hand up, but they're conceding that jumper rather than the drive and he's often walking into shots he can make, especially after using picks. He took a ton of tightly contested jumpers in the first round, no denying that, but he's had a lot more space to operate in the 2nd round and if your all-star can't make the shots that the defence is giving him despite the fact that they're his favourite, you've got problems.

I feel like fan expectations have skyrocketed after an overachieving season and aren't in line with the talent level any more. Nobody expected them to win this many games, nobody expected DeRozan to grow as much as he did. But he's still not an alpha scorer in this league and neither that nor Lowry's slump is Casey's fault.

[Axel]

I feel like fan expectations have skyrocketed after an overachieving season and aren't in line with the talent level any more. Nobody expected them to win this many games, nobody expected DeRozan to grow as much as he did. But he's still not an alpha scorer in this league and neither that nor Lowry's slump is Casey's fault.

It's too much to ask the 2nd seed to comfortably beat the 7th seed and then look competent in competing with the 3rd seed?

This team has always had talent, the primary concern under Casey has always been the misuse of the talent. Over-reliance on DD and KL to create, underuse of JV, ball movement and PnR. Blaming the fan expectations is just another sad excuse to try and deflect the blame from the man who has oversaw all of this.

[ebrian]

I've always defended Casey because I still think we're the same team from two years ago that should have tanked to get Wiggins but instead kept winning and got better. There's been internal development for sure, and a few pieces added, but it's still the same team that could have gone the other way. Instead we've won a lot of games and made the playoffs every year since.

But lately the usage of players has become a concern for me. JV's under-utilization this year has been a concern for me because he has shown that he can not just have flashes but completely dominate a game and still not get fed the ball. I've seen far less efficient players getting more involved, which just makes no sense anymore. Granted, the team has never been big on the advanced metrics, but you look around the league, you don't have to be crazy about the math and still get it. During the playoffs, the iso has been a concern for me, not because it's boring or predictable, but because when the Raptors pass the ball it has been proven that they can dominate.

So for me, it's really a concern for me to see the lack of ability to adapt to situations. Whether it be blindness or stubbornness, I don't know, but when you see one thing continue to work well but resort to your own game plan, it just makes no sense. The goal is not to prove your way works -- the goal is to win, at any cost. You can always go back to the old ways if the new way isn't working, but to stick to one way when it's not working? That's bad coaching.

[Letter N]

Masai does just fine, that doesn't seem to be any different.

Masai is a GM, he's not in the huddle or yelling at them for missing an assignment. I'm not saying it's impossible, but language is a key part of gaining people's respect and millionaire athletes don't need much of an excuse to stop following orders.

[Lark Benson]

It's too much to ask the 2nd seed to comfortably beat the 7th seed and then look competent in competing with the 3rd seed?

This team has always had talent, the primary concern under Casey has always been the misuse of the talent. Over-reliance on DD and KL to create, underuse of JV, ball movement and PnR. Blaming the fan expectations is just another sad excuse to try and deflect the blame from the man who has oversaw all of this.

I absolutely think it's asking too much with DeRozan and Lowry slumping the way they are.

Look, the team had a great year, but just because they won a lot of regular season games doesn't make them a powerhouse.

They don't have stars that show up in the playoffs and who can get their game off against tough competition, and that's the foundation of any good playoff team. I don't know if you saw the OKC/Miami Game 5 last night, but the Raps have a better supporting cast than OKC but Durant and Westbrook are dragging their team to wins because they are players that can make plays when the defence snuffs out their primary actions. Can't say that about DeRozan and can only sometimes say that about Lowry. Everything flows from there - you can't expect role players to carry your team in the post-season and yet that's what we've seen since round 1. Hell, if not for Jonas beasting we would have lost in the first round.

You can try to blame that on Casey all you want, but it comes down to this: it's way too easy to scheme for DeRozan and take his game away and he doesn't have counters. No amount of coaching is going to change that. MAYBE if we had a top-3 or top-5 coach they could come up with something else, but at this point Casey's choices are hope DeRozan shoots his way out of his funk or bench him and hope your role players can step up. Casey can tell DeRozan he needs to look for the pass until he's blue in the face (and he has been since round 1) but it's on the player to adjust on the court.

I completely disagree that this team has the talent. They do from 3-10 (and even they lack the experience for a deep playoff run) but their top 1-2 are nowhere near good enough to make a run to the conference finals, and for the last 2 years haven't even been good enough to get out of the first round. That's not on Casey.

You say over-reliance on DD and KL to create, but who else can? The whole team is built to play off of those 2 guys, the only other ball handler that creates is Cory Joseph and that's why he plays in closing lineups so often. Ross, Patterson, JV, Powell, Carroll, none of those guys are creators with the ball in their hands, they're finishers. I agree that JV should have been featured more, but underuse of ball movement and PnR? That's literally their entire offence, so I don't know where you're getting that? Strongside PnR into shot, if nothing is there then swing to weak side into another PnR, repeat until you find a shot, they've been doing it all year. This isn't a veteran team full of great passers we're talking about here that can whip passes through traffic - they can barely even feed the post competently, and they struggle to complete simple passes under pressure.

I'm not saying Casey is blameless or perfect, or even irreplaceable - if you can find someone better then grab him, no doubt! But to blame him for the fact that DeRozan is basically single-handedly sabotaging his team while Lowry can't find his shot is just, in my opinion anyway, misplacing the blame.

[Quirk]

Well said, if we start next season with Casey as coach and DeRozan with contract significantly bigger that JVs, then this season will stand as our best ever for a quite a bit longer, as we can't grow so long as Casey is coaching and DeRozan leads the team in usage. At least on of them must go.

No team has 5 super stars in the starting lineup, so I actually don't mind keeping DeRozan, so long as he's willing to accept the salary and usage that he deserves as a slightly above average starter.

I also think that building the long-term fundamentals of the team is more important than in-game coaching, though you would ideally have a coach that could do both, Casey seems good in that regard. However, as his in-game coaching is questionable, he needs on-court leadership that plays the right way on their own, without active in-gaming coaching. DeRozan is the opposite of such a player.

So, given the right salary and the right coach that could keep DeRozan's usage down with good in-game coaching, I could be fine with keeping DeRozan. Or given the right on-court leadership (i.e. not DeRozan) I could see keeping Casey. But keeping both is a big mistake.

In my mind, if we go the new coach route, and we keep DeRozan, then there is only one coach to hire:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BD...Obradovi%C4%87

Either bring in Obradovic or let DeRozan join the Lakers.

If this off-season results in a Casey extension and a DeRozan contract that is anywhere near the postal code of max than we can enjoy a few seasons of a good raptors then this season is its absolute ceiling. No team with DeRozan as it's highest usage player and Casey behind the bench can get better that he raptors are right now.