jimmie wrote:
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But I have a hard time with the first half. Is playing X more games in a season really going to impact Gay or Derozans or Lowry's or whoever's value? I think these guys have enough history that teams would be rather confident in knowing what they are getting whether thats today, a month from now or at the trade deadline.
I think your right that he could be (I don't necessarily think he is, but I'll explain that below) waiting for a better scenario to arise, but I don't think playing time is really going to do much to raise the value of players on this team. (not saying its impossible, just unlikely)
It's pretty hard to read the tea leaves on this one. I have no idea how you look at a 20, 30 or 40 game sample size and determine the next 5 years of the organization. Don't you already have that plan in mind? When Ujiri was hired all the talk was about how he and Leiweke were on the same page: was that page taking Colangelo's roster, adding Tyler Hansbrough, and crossing their fingers? Seems highly unlikely to me.
So, I have trouble taking Ujiri completely at face value when he says it's wait and see mode, in part because I don't really see the end game with that approach. As has been said repeatedly (even by the optimists), the top end for this group is low playoff seed and the team is basically capped out for all intents and purposes. So, even if this roster is above average (or even good), there doesn't seem to be a viable way to get it to really, really good or elite or great.
So, I have trouble taking Ujiri completely at face value when he says it's wait and see mode, in part because I don't really see the end game with that approach. As has been said repeatedly (even by the optimists), the top end for this group is low playoff seed and the team is basically capped out for all intents and purposes. So, even if this roster is above average (or even good), there doesn't seem to be a viable way to get it to really, really good or elite or great.
1) Is new ownership really going to make a difference? I understand that as telecommunications services content is important Bell/Rog. However, for all the gripping people did about OTPP, from a business perspective, their business model was damn effective in this market. "If its not broken don't fix it" applies to the business world to - given the cash flow created by MLSE, I'm not as confident as some that ownership is really down with any sort of potentially costly change
2) Its not easy to make trades in the NBA, particularily making trades of equal footing (ie. a trade is usually win now for one and lose now hopefully win later for another). The CBA makes things difficult. Toronto's cap situation puts limitations on moves. There seems to be a real lack of valuable assets (that Toronto would comfortably part with anyways). Then ofcourse their is Masai usual references to wanting to trade for value and ofcourse 'Karma'.
Even if Masai/TL want to go about making a significant change to this roster, there are no shortages of potential barriers to doing that, atleast in the short term.
I completely agree with your final sentence, and maybe I'm just cynical here, but I really don't see this team, with this roster predominantly intact, playing out this season as an unrealistic possibility. I can say without question I very much hope I'm wrong here.
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