Everything 2016/17 NBA Draft Thread aka Thank Nation 2.0

[JamesNaismith]

If Fultz is what they say he is then Ainge is going to take him and build for the long run. It's going to be really clear in a couple of days that IT + Horford + Butler/PG/whoever still have no chance of beating Lebron and Golden States.

Quite the opposite, if so then they'll grab Ball. Fultz is a great individual talent, that should be an elite scorer but I don't think that equates to a great team in the future. Ball makes everyone around him better and I'd feel confident that in the future he will lead a 50+W team and that's not even factoring their next top 5 pick next year. If I'm them I don't care what Lavar says, I'm taking him.

[Deems]

I'm liking Ike Anigbobu more and more, Biyombo-esque with potential.

[Chr1s1anL]

TJ Leaf

Wasn't really a fan but, this interview impressed me.

[DogeLover1234]

Quite the opposite, if so then they'll grab Ball. Fultz is a great individual talent, that should be an elite scorer but I don't think that equates to a great team in the future. Ball makes everyone around him better and I'd feel confident that in the future he will lead a 50+W team and that's not even factoring their next top 5 pick next year. If I'm them I don't care what Lavar says, I'm taking him.

I disagree with this take.

[lewro]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sCwGO5qiuRg

Tolzman interview on leaf.

Holy fuck koreen asks long winded questions and then backchannels "yeah,yeah" every 2 secs!

[Hotshot]

So it seems Masai wants Lowry, Casey, Ibaka and Tucker all back next season.

If that's the case some salary will be shed in order to try and sign all those free agent players back (minus PP probably).

[DogeLover1234]

So it seems Masai wants Lowry, Casey, Ibaka and Tucker all back next season.

If that's the case some salary will be shed in order to try and sign all those free agent players back (minus PP probably).

Thats wild, not you but the concept of bringing back all those guys. Everyone knows that Masai cant go too far into the tax so trading JV and Carroll to make room would be brutal. Seems counterproductive to trade Carroll, JV and likely a couple of assets (young guys or picks) for Tucker and Ibaka. Better hope for a season free of injuries.

[Scraptor]

You and Masai obviously have two different opinions of this team.

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Obviously we do.

If this entire squad is brought back as is with Casey as coach then it's hard not to wonder exactly what is going to change. We have the same arguments every year. You argue that we're doing great in the regular season, I argue that it won't work in the playoffs.
And it doesn't.

But hey maybe a 50-win team and a first round playoff win is good enough for you. It's certainly good enough for MLSE.

[NoPropsneeded]

Better to stay competitive till a window opens to win a chip. No point in wasting time rebuilding not knowing whether you'll be as good as we are

[Hotshot]

Obviously we do.

If this entire squad is brought back as is with Casey as coach then it's hard not to wonder exactly what is going to change. We have the same arguments every year. You argue that we're doing great in the regular season, I argue that it won't work in the playoffs.
And it doesn't.

But hey maybe a 50-win team and a first round playoff win is good enough for you. It's certainly good enough for MLSE.

The thing is where do you want to go from here?! a partial tear down and its a 40 win team, a more serious tear down and we are looking into a 30 win team and its no guarantee you will pick a superstar stud game changer in the draft (they are usually first overall pick, the rest are crapshoot whether they will indeed develop into a superstar and that first overall pick isn't guarantee either). What it does guarantees is that you will be a losing team for at least a half a decade.

The best model still is what the Spurs are doing. Stay a 50+ win team for as long as you can (Spurs have gone 7 years between 2007 to 2014 of not winning a title and they didn't buy the whole tear it down thing while maintaining a 50+ win team and winning culture) , buy your time, draft the right players, and with smart trading by managing your assets perhaps land a mid level pick where that raw superstar could potentially slide (Giannis and Kawahi) and then grab them. I think as long as you have assets where if things failed, they still have value where you can flip them to some other value is the way to go.

Raptors best run this far in its 20 years existence has been this one, and its only been going for 4 straight years. You tear it down and once again you are back to being the NBA joke and all that hard work of attracting free agents will fall flat on its face and we are back in Minnesota, Sacramento territory.

[grindhouse]

Everything leave apart when we drafted bruno

[special1]

Everything leave apart when we drafted bruno

What? Please elaborate....


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[special1]

The thing is where do you want to go from here?! a partial tear down and its a 40 win team, a more serious tear down and we are looking into a 30 win team and its no guarantee you will pick a superstar stud game changer in the draft (they are usually first overall pick, the rest are crapshoot whether they will indeed develop into a superstar and that first overall pick isn't guarantee either). What it does guarantees is that you will be a losing team for at least a half a decade.

The best model still is what the Spurs are doing. Stay a 50+ win team for as long as you can (Spurs have gone 7 years between 2007 to 2014 of not winning a title and they didn't buy the whole tear it down thing while maintaining a 50+ win team and winning culture) , buy your time, draft the right players, and with smart trading by managing your assets perhaps land a mid level pick where that raw superstar could potentially slide (Giannis and Kawahi) and then grab them. I think as long as you have assets where if things failed, they still have value where you can flip them to some other value is the way to go.

Raptors best run this far in its 20 years existence has been this one, and its only been going for 4 straight years. You tear it down and once again you are back to being the NBA joke and all that hard work of attracting free agents will fall flat on its face and we are back in Minnesota, Sacramento territory.

This is such a sensible post.

I agree with this totally.

Why tear down a 50 win team? That's a last resort folks.

Better to make adjustments/improvements and stay competitive.


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[DanH]

Thats wild, not you but the concept of bringing back all those guys. Everyone knows that Masai cant go too far into the tax so trading JV and Carroll to make room would be brutal. Seems counterproductive to trade Carroll, JV and likely a couple of assets (young guys or picks) for Tucker and Ibaka. Better hope for a season free of injuries.

I expect the team will not pay tax at all after the way the season ended.

But if they aren't bringing Patterson back, they don't have to shed that much salary to dodge the tax.

They have 81M committed this summer as is. The tax is 121M or so. Lowry, Ibaka and Tucker probably get 30M, 20M and 10M respectively, give or take a couple million. Keep in mind, they'll probably backload the deals hoping for the cap to keep rising soon, so those deals are bigger than the first year salaries suggest - they would work out to 5/174 (~35M per year) for Lowry, 5/116 (~23M per year) for Ibaka, and 3/32 (~11M per year) for Tucker (who I assumed a shorter deal for).

So, adding $60M to the $81M puts them pretty much exactly $20M over the tax.

Dropping one of Carroll or JV, and also dropping Joseph, would clear enough breathing room. Joseph should be easy. The other two not so much, but I'd bet they can find a place for Carroll if they shell out a prospect or pick - either their 1st this year or one of Nogueira, Siakam, Bruno, depending on how good Masai is (if it ends up being BeBe that would be ideal, as he's due for a raise next summer). In any case, if they drop a prospect/pick and those two guys, that leaves them with a roster of 12 players, and the minimum is 14. So two more guys. One would likely be at the minimum, so $1.5M. Leaving either $2M (if the pick goes) or $3.5M (if, say, Nogueira goes) for the 14th man. They'll also have a pair of those two-way contracts, which don't count against the cap/tax, but can only rarely play (they are limited to 45 days of NBA service time per season, including practice days).

Tight, but definitely manageable.

[DanH]

The thing is where do you want to go from here?! a partial tear down and its a 40 win team, a more serious tear down and we are looking into a 30 win team and its no guarantee you will pick a superstar stud game changer in the draft (they are usually first overall pick, the rest are crapshoot whether they will indeed develop into a superstar and that first overall pick isn't guarantee either). What it does guarantees is that you will be a losing team for at least a half a decade.

The best model still is what the Spurs are doing. Stay a 50+ win team for as long as you can (Spurs have gone 7 years between 2007 to 2014 of not winning a title and they didn't buy the whole tear it down thing while maintaining a 50+ win team and winning culture) , buy your time, draft the right players, and with smart trading by managing your assets perhaps land a mid level pick where that raw superstar could potentially slide (Giannis and Kawahi) and then grab them. I think as long as you have assets where if things failed, they still have value where you can flip them to some other value is the way to go.

Raptors best run this far in its 20 years existence has been this one, and its only been going for 4 straight years. You tear it down and once again you are back to being the NBA joke and all that hard work of attracting free agents will fall flat on its face and we are back in Minnesota, Sacramento territory.

Yep! If you can keep this core together, you do so.

If Lowry walks though, that's a whole other conversation.

Still, I would not be a fan of bailing on this team as constructed, and would hope that Masai finds a way to keep as many of the key pieces as possible.