Fully wrote:
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Even the most steadfast supporters of this current Raptors team seem to admit that they're capped at a 6-8 seed for the next two seasons, and that's assuming a bunch of things go their way. The playoffs are far from a guarantee next season and yet the Raptors have no first round pick, are pushed to the luxury tax, and have very little in terms of moveable assets to upgrade the team via trade. Simply put, they are constructed as a "win now" team... minus the winning part.
Rather than waiting two seasons of average results to elapse, and then beginning a rebuild, I would fully support tearing this thing down immediately if I thought a capable basketball mind was behind the process. The benefits of doing it now instead of waiting would be: you get to take advantage of a couple of great drafts in 2014/15, and you don't waste any of the prime or near-prime of JV in a couple years time.
Here's my plan. Let's go tanking!
Raptors trade Andrea Bargnani and the Sacramento Kings 2014 2nd round pick to the Charlotte Bobcats for Ben Gordon.
Both players are stealing money at this point, but the Bobcats pick up a draft pick that is likely to be in the 30's for taking on another year of bad contract. From their perspective, they rid themselves of the Gordon headache and don't really lose anything basketball wise since they're actively trying to suck anyway.
Raptors trade Rudy Gay & Linus Kleiza to the Los Angeles Lakers for Pau Gasol, who is immediately waived by the Raptors
Gasol would have helped the Raptors win games next season, and we don't want that. We have however carved out a $20 million dollar chunk of cap space for the summer of 2014 with this move though. The Lakers get pretty good value back for Pau as Gay can perform a poor man's Kobe Bryant impression while he battles back. They can also sell the move to Dwight as proof that they are still aiming to compete right now.
Raptors trade DeRozan to Minnesota for Brandon Roy & Luke Ridnour
Raps get the corpse of Brandon Roy (and his expiring deal) and the definition of a stop gap point guard that is also expiring in the summer of 2014. T-Wolves get a starting shooting guard at the cost of cap flexibility exclusively.
Raptors trade Kyle Lowry to the Milwaukee Bucks for their 2014 1st round pick (top 7 protected)
Rather than losing Lowry in free agency next summer, or being strong-armed into extending him for a big pricetag when few seem to be completely sold on the guy, the Raps pick up another first rounder in a loaded draft.
2013-14 Roster:
Ridnour
Ross
Fields
A. Johnson
JV
Bench:
Gordon
Acy
JL3
Gray
Anderson (Re-signed to a 2-year/ $4 million dollar contract this summer)
Random high-character veteran making peanuts A
Random high-character veteran making peanuts B
Throw JV/Ross/Acy out there as much as possible and get the lumps out of the way. We've also maintained two high character guys in Johnson & Fields who should be able to provide some perspective throughout all the losing. We also suck, which is the whole point.
2014 expiring contracts:
Gasol ($20 million)
Roy ($5 million)
Ridnour ($4 million)
Gordon ($12 million)
Lucas ($2 million)
Gray ($2 million)
Next summer we go into the draft with our own pick (good chance to be top 5 with this roster), the Bucks pick (let's say it's in the 10-18 range), and over $40 million dollars of cap room. Stink the place out for one more season and add another top prospect in 2015 and all of a sudden we have a very good young core with a glut of cap space.
Rather than waiting two seasons of average results to elapse, and then beginning a rebuild, I would fully support tearing this thing down immediately if I thought a capable basketball mind was behind the process. The benefits of doing it now instead of waiting would be: you get to take advantage of a couple of great drafts in 2014/15, and you don't waste any of the prime or near-prime of JV in a couple years time.
Here's my plan. Let's go tanking!
Raptors trade Andrea Bargnani and the Sacramento Kings 2014 2nd round pick to the Charlotte Bobcats for Ben Gordon.
Both players are stealing money at this point, but the Bobcats pick up a draft pick that is likely to be in the 30's for taking on another year of bad contract. From their perspective, they rid themselves of the Gordon headache and don't really lose anything basketball wise since they're actively trying to suck anyway.
Raptors trade Rudy Gay & Linus Kleiza to the Los Angeles Lakers for Pau Gasol, who is immediately waived by the Raptors
Gasol would have helped the Raptors win games next season, and we don't want that. We have however carved out a $20 million dollar chunk of cap space for the summer of 2014 with this move though. The Lakers get pretty good value back for Pau as Gay can perform a poor man's Kobe Bryant impression while he battles back. They can also sell the move to Dwight as proof that they are still aiming to compete right now.
Raptors trade DeRozan to Minnesota for Brandon Roy & Luke Ridnour
Raps get the corpse of Brandon Roy (and his expiring deal) and the definition of a stop gap point guard that is also expiring in the summer of 2014. T-Wolves get a starting shooting guard at the cost of cap flexibility exclusively.
Raptors trade Kyle Lowry to the Milwaukee Bucks for their 2014 1st round pick (top 7 protected)
Rather than losing Lowry in free agency next summer, or being strong-armed into extending him for a big pricetag when few seem to be completely sold on the guy, the Raps pick up another first rounder in a loaded draft.
2013-14 Roster:
Ridnour
Ross
Fields
A. Johnson
JV
Bench:
Gordon
Acy
JL3
Gray
Anderson (Re-signed to a 2-year/ $4 million dollar contract this summer)
Random high-character veteran making peanuts A
Random high-character veteran making peanuts B
Throw JV/Ross/Acy out there as much as possible and get the lumps out of the way. We've also maintained two high character guys in Johnson & Fields who should be able to provide some perspective throughout all the losing. We also suck, which is the whole point.
2014 expiring contracts:
Gasol ($20 million)
Roy ($5 million)
Ridnour ($4 million)
Gordon ($12 million)
Lucas ($2 million)
Gray ($2 million)
Next summer we go into the draft with our own pick (good chance to be top 5 with this roster), the Bucks pick (let's say it's in the 10-18 range), and over $40 million dollars of cap room. Stink the place out for one more season and add another top prospect in 2015 and all of a sudden we have a very good young core with a glut of cap space.
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