Reality Check

[The Great One]

If the goal is to win a Championship. You gotta have an ELITE player on your team.

Since i started watching NBA basketball back in the early 90's. Every team that won the championship had at least 2 elite players on their team except for the 2004 Pistons team.

Let's see:

Bulls dynasty had Jordan and Pippen.
Rockets had Olajuwon.
1999 and 2003 Spurs - Duncan and Robinson.
2005 and 2007 Spurs - Duncan, Parker and Ginobili.
Early 2000 Lakers team had Shaq and Kobe.
2006 Heat - Shaq and Wade.
2009 and 2010 Lakers - Kobe.
2008 Celtics - Pierce, Allen and Garnett.
2011 Dallas - Nowitzki.
Heat have LeBron and Wade.

Raptors have Rudy Gay. All-Star caliber type of player but not an elite player by an means. He obviously has all the tools to be an elite player in this game though.

How do you get that elite player though? the only thing that i can think of right now is to tank for Andrew Wiggins/Jabari Parker. Or hope that Gay can take his game to the next level.

[Miekenstien]

i agree with the elite player requirement however it's already too late for Gay. none of those guys grew into greatness. they were pretty awesome from the gate.

maybe parker was given time to grow and mature.

that said i think IF jv can become what we all pray he can then gay becomes an adequate second guy, just payed like a firsty.

[Mediumcore]

Tank. Tank hard and don't apologize for it. Some people don't have the stomach for it, but the energy those people put into critizicing that decision will be putting even more energy into cheering for the team once they start winning.

[Axel]

If the goal is to win a Championship. You gotta have an ELITE player on your team.

Since i started watching NBA basketball back in the early 90's. Every team that won the championship had at least 2 elite players on their team except for the 2004 Pistons team.

Let's see:

Bulls dynasty had Jordan and Pippen.
Rockets had Olajuwon.
1999 and 2003 Spurs - Duncan and Robinson.
2005 and 2007 Spurs - Duncan, Parker and Ginobili.
Early 2000 Lakers team had Shaq and Kobe.
2006 Heat - Shaq and Wade.
2009 and 2010 Lakers - Kobe.
2008 Celtics - Pierce, Allen and Garnett.
2011 Dallas - Nowitzki.
Heat have LeBron and Wade.

Raptors have Rudy Gay. All-Star caliber type of player but not an elite player by an means. He obviously has all the tools to be an elite player in this game though.

How do you get that elite player though? the only thing that i can think of right now is to tank for Andrew Wiggins/Jabari Parker. Or hope that Gay can take his game to the next level.

You do realize that in your list you have two other teams listed with just a single elite player? The 2009 and 2010 Lakers have Kobe and Pau could been argued as "elite".
But other thank Dirk, no one else on that Mavs team was elite anymore.

I don't think we need to go into full-out tank mode, but we do need to get young players that fit better on the court than our current roster. Moving one of our wings for 2013 first rounder (ie. Gay or DeRozan) would go a long way if we can use the pick to draft an elite shooter (Bennett, Crabbe, Bullock) or the future PG (Burke, Schroeder).

No matter what though, moves need to come.

[seiz]

If the goal is to win a Championship. You gotta have an ELITE player on your team.

Since i started watching NBA basketball back in the early 90's. Every team that won the championship had at least 2 elite players on their team except for the 2004 Pistons team.

Let's see:

Bulls dynasty had Jordan and Pippen.
Rockets had Olajuwon.
1999 and 2003 Spurs - Duncan and Robinson.
2005 and 2007 Spurs - Duncan, Parker and Ginobili.
Early 2000 Lakers team had Shaq and Kobe.
2006 Heat - Shaq and Wade.
2009 and 2010 Lakers - Kobe.
2008 Celtics - Pierce, Allen and Garnett.
2011 Dallas - Nowitzki.
Heat have LeBron and Wade.

Totally agree with you on this. Its also worth mentioning that all those teams had players who had won the MVP award. As much as we like to talk about having a team concept, the NBA is a star driven league. At the end of the day its the MVPs that bring teams championships. Tanking is really the only way I see the Raptors getting a potential MVP, unless Masai can pull off some miracle trades to get us this potential MVP.