Is Toronto a better team than it was at the end of last season?

[psrs1]

M

In reading the link from Axel's post on SI.com Point Forward OffSeason Grades: Toronto Raptors, this statement was found within:





So what do you think? Is Toronto a better team than it was at the end of last season?

AB not taking long 3s and not rebounding is addition by subtraction. Re Gay, JV , DD, Lowry and Amir developing good chemistry and flow time will tell.

[phez]

OK, I'll weigh in on this one. I believe that the Celtics will be good again before the Raptors are. They have started the rebuilding process with draft choices lined up and cap room down the line. The Raptors have to wait to see how the Rudy contract/trade plays out to get to the point to where the Celtics are right now.

did everyone the picks we got for bargnani? what do you believe ujiri could have done if he had assets like kg, pierce, jet to work with?

also, the fact he has positioned our roster so we have even less players on contract going forwards in 2014/2015 than the celtics do? while at the same completely overhauling our bench with much improved players than we had last year?

[Primer]

Two of the Nets picks' will come after Pierce, and KG are likely retired. With the Nets roster strategy (buy, buy, buy!) who wants to bet that they'll be able to remain competitive 5 years down the road? Celtics did great and are on the fast track to contention.

I think the Nets will be competitive every year with the amount of money they're willing to spend. Just look at their salaries moving forward. Everyone other than Joe Johnson, Deron Williams, and Brooke Lopez will be off the books in 2 years. The year after that only (player option) Deron is under contract. As long as they're willing to take on overpaid/aging star-ish players, they will also be a solid team in the East, as there is never a shortage of teams trying to shed deals like Joe Johnsons. Not championship contender, but a solid playoff team.

[S.R.]

The Raptors improvement this year, realistically, will be very slight. Like any other fan, I'm hoping for a best case outcome with Rudy and Landry shooting better, JV and Ross developing significantly, DD improving his range, Rudy attacking more, Lowry having a better balance of running sets vs. attacking the basket, Casey implementing his D-first philosophies, etc. etc. BUT, realistically, this is all the usual offseason chatter that EVERY team is talking up. The NBA comes down to talent wins - period. Some teams add all-stars, MVP candidates, and unprotected first round picks during the offseason, but the Raptors have only added a few scrubs, two of the most noteworthy of which (Hansbrough and Augustin) were bench players on a Pacers team that was known as "the team with the horrible, horrible bench."

JV will be better, but I don't expect him to push this team to 10 more wins this season. He's gonna need some more development time.

Overall it's debatable, considering the drastic overhauls some teams undergo, whether or not the Raptors will be "recongizably better." I'm fine with the SI writer putting it that way.

[Axel]

Two of the Nets picks' will come after Pierce, and KG are likely retired. With the Nets roster strategy (buy, buy, buy!) who wants to bet that they'll be able to remain competitive 5 years down the road? Celtics did great and are on the fast track to contention.

[stretch]

Kelly Olynyk's addition will be significant barring injury. Rookie talent that gets big minutes is a recipe for success.

[Fully]

OK, I'll weigh in on this one. I believe that the Celtics will be good again before the Raptors are. The have started the rebuilding process with draft choices lined up and cap room down the line. The Raptors have to wait to see how the Rudy contract/trade plays out to get to the point to where the Celtics are right now.

I agree. The Celtics obviously didn't have a good off-season in terms of a talent in/talent out perspective, but considering their goal was to start rebuilding I'd say they did a pretty good job. They harvested 4 unprotected first round picks between 2014-2018, got some financial wiggle room a little eariler, and they'll have a chance to get a top 5 pick with their own selection next summer.

[stretch]

The author gave Celtics offseason an A.

So that pretty much tells you all you need to know.

OK, I'll weigh in on this one. I believe that the Celtics will be good again before the Raptors are. They have started the rebuilding process with draft choices lined up and cap room down the line. The Raptors have to wait to see how the Rudy contract/trade plays out to get to the point to where the Celtics are right now.

[Axel]

Exactly, on both points.

So, help me out here. What was the relevance , in this thread, of that lesson you gave me about the whole SI article?

[p00ka]

Some people don't have to try

I posted the other thread with the link to the article, as Matt links at the top of this thread. Matt bolds the statement "Toronto isn’t a recognizably better team than it was at the end of last season." which is the poll question. I think the rest of the quotation provided by Matt isn't really relevant to the topic question. The article and Matt's topic question aren't the same focus, hence 2 different threads. One is providing SI's off-season grading and one is asking how do we perceive this one aspects of what was said within a larger context.

Exactly, on both points.

So, help me out here. What was the relevance , in this thread, of that lesson you gave me about the whole SI article?

[phez]

The author gave Celtics offseason an A.

So that pretty much tells you all you need to know.

[Mediumcore]

I said I'm not sure. If the question was "is Toronto better than they were last year before the Rudy Gay trade" then I would have said yes. With Rudy I know we can get a bucket down the stretch of a game when we need to, but now the question is can we get a stop when we need to? Did we address our issues with rebounding? Did we address our need for scoring in the post? Did we address our need for better ball movement? Outside of internal growth I don't think Phycho T and Augustin address those issues. A lot if not everything is riding on our improvement internally.

[Axel]

I'm truly not trying to be a jackass, but there's another previously created thread about the off-season grading of this whole SI article. This thread asked a different fundamental question, targeting a specific portion of the article.

Some people don't have to try

I posted the other thread with the link to the article, as Matt links at the top of this thread. Matt bolds the statement "Toronto isn’t a recognizably better team than it was at the end of last season." which is the poll question. I think the rest of the quotation provided by Matt isn't really relevant to the topic question. The article and Matt's topic question aren't the same focus, hence 2 different threads. One is providing SI's off-season grading and one is asking how do we perceive this one aspects of what was said within a larger context.

[p00ka]

I don't think the writer is discounting organic growth, but rather he is trying to grade the off-season for the team, which is really comprised of trades, draft, free agency, and coaching changes. Every team has organic growth (some more than others) and I don't think that is a factor in what he is trying to evaluate. He is basically admitting that the team will be better with Gay on board full time and JV's development, but since he is trying to evaluate how well they did in terms of off-season changes, the evolution doesn't really apply.

I'm truly not trying to be a jackass, but there's another previously created thread about the off-season grading of this whole SI article. This thread asked a different fundamental question, targeting a specific portion of the article.

[Mundy]

Not too much better, but with the potential to get legs as the season goes on. If we start the season as a .500 team we'll be in great position if we tighten up after the all-star break. Being on par with the end of last season isn't necessarily a bad thing.