Raptors on the Rise?

[Masai Ujiri]

Eric Bledsoe is definitely performing at an all-star level. PER > 22. ORTG > 110. USG > 25%. And his team is winning. That's very similar to the Harden situation - bench player who showed lots of potential to emerge into a star if/when given a more prominent role. If Bledsoe can keep it up, then it is exactly the same situation as Harden, at an even lower acquisition price.

Yep. People just love to try and pidgeonhole the whole idea of rebuilding, and make it seem like the only way to do it is by blowing up your whole roster to tank for as high of a pick as possible.

The key is to just make smart trades and capitalize on opportunities when they arise. By accumulating assets, we can position ourselves to make these kind of moves in the future. Imagine if we were in our current situation last season. Who says the Clippers would say no to receiving a great backup big like Patterson (or even Amir), a proven floor-spacer and scorer like Salmons, and a 2016 1st round pick for Bledsoe?

The key is smart management putting you in position to make these kind of deals.

[golden]

And in most of those instances, the star player dictates where he wants to go, with his soon-to-be former team at best getting a short list of destinations. They can still trade him to another team, but other teams won't make offers if they know someone doesn't want to play for them.

The Harden situation was aided greatly by it happening fast so it caught Harden and the league by surprise, by Harden still being on his rookie deal at the time, and by him not being an established superstar (literally traded him and he broke out in Houston as a legit star, before that there was always some uncertainty due to his role in OKC) who was playing with two of the top players in the league.

Paul basically got to dictate where he went. So did Dwight. So did Melo, So did Shaq way back when he forced his way to Miami....

It's really really difficult to plan for acquiring a star in a trade. And it's rare that an obvious star (or as close as can be to obvious) on a rookie deal like Harden becomes available. And you end up shedding possibly lots of assets to do so. It's a very risky deal, especially since the 3rd guy frozen out in such a situation like Harden's is rarely as obviously talented as him, because a team would almost never have two franchise talents playing AHEAD of such a guy.

Is it non-duplicable? No. But it's not a deal that comes along very often. In fact I can't think of a similar trade at all off the top of my head.

Eric Bledsoe is definitely performing at an all-star level. PER > 22. ORTG > 110. USG > 25%. And his team is winning. That's very similar to the Harden situation - bench player who showed lots of potential to emerge into a star if/when given a more prominent role. If Bledsoe can keep it up, then it is exactly the same situation as Harden, at an even lower acquisition price.

[golden]

Houston acquiring Harden is one of the "models" moving forward. You can't bank on a superstar becoming available at any given time, but they do become available for a variety of reasons. The GM's job is to maintain a flexible position with lucrative assets so that he's able to make a swing for the fences if/when such an opportunity comes.

Other situations where stars became available via trade include Deron Williams, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Rudy Gay (just kidding!), even KG and Ray Allen, etc.

In all cases, it doesn't matter why the player left the previous team (the argument presented here that the Houston situation is not repeatable is really irrelevant - it has nothing to do with the trading of every other major star in league history). What matters is that the team that acquired the player had the assets available to make the trade and was in a flexible enough position financially to acquire a huge contract.

I wouldn't plan on this being course of action #1 because you don't know who will be available when, and only one team will manage to acquire an available star player, but it is an opportunity you keep yourself open to with smart roster moves, assets on the roster, and by keeping yourself in a team-friendly financial situation. It doesn't make sense to just write it off. It is an opportunity that's more realistic if you keep the likes of Amir and DD on your roster.

And this is coming from a guy who still thinks the Raps highest probability of success is to draft #1-5 in 2014.

People will attack your post because you used the word 'model', but the bolded part is really the essence of what needs to be done. Opportunities to improve your team dramatically spring up all the time and not just this upcoming draft - maybe. And it's not just about using your own 'as-low-as-possible' draft position.

[golden]

I gotta say: doesn't the Curry-Thompson-Barnes situation look like it could play out exactly like Durant-Harden-Westbrook?

Thanks, forgot about GSW and Memphis Grizzlies too. And magoon mentioned the new CBA, which will actually make it even more difficult to retain 3 stars - making more elite or potential elite players available in the future. Flexibility and asset collection seems to be the way to go - with multiple and immediate ways to achieve the objective of asset collection.

[S.R.]

Houston acquiring Harden is one of the "models" moving forward. You can't bank on a superstar becoming available at any given time, but they do become available for a variety of reasons. The GM's job is to maintain a flexible position with lucrative assets so that he's able to make a swing for the fences if/when such an opportunity comes.

Other situations where stars became available via trade include Deron Williams, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Rudy Gay (just kidding!), even KG and Ray Allen, etc.

In all cases, it doesn't matter why the player left the previous team (the argument presented here that the Houston situation is not repeatable is really irrelevant - it has nothing to do with the trading of every other major star in league history). What matters is that the team that acquired the player had the assets available to make the trade and was in a flexible enough position financially to acquire a huge contract.

I wouldn't plan on this being course of action #1 because you don't know who will be available when, and only one team will manage to acquire an available star player, but it is an opportunity you keep yourself open to with smart roster moves, assets on the roster, and by keeping yourself in a team-friendly financial situation. It doesn't make sense to just write it off. It is an opportunity that's more realistic if you keep the likes of Amir and DD on your roster.

And this is coming from a guy who still thinks the Raps highest probability of success is to draft #1-5 in 2014.

[mcHAPPY]

How do you see this glass?

Looks to me like it has been sitting out on the table for days.

It is lukewarm and mediocre at best relative to other glasses of water.

Hey! Kind of like the Raptors relative to the NBA!

[KeonClark]

Here is why I don't think Raps are on the rise:

1) I believe Ujiri when he says Raptors will not be stuck in the middle. No timeline was given but sticking with this team as is for the near future means the Raptors are stuck in the middle. If he thinks the team has opportunities to get out of the middle as is, more power to him, and I look forward to seeing how he does it.

2) 3 of 4 Raps opponents have had serious issues of late. Lakers bring back Kobe and huge disruption. Philly minus MCW and while they won, couldn't put the 76ers away convincingly.... again. Chicago is starting Teague and rolling with Augustine as backup... you know, DJ? The guy Raps just cut? Only solid team they played smoked Raps.

3) Raps had a major shake up. They will be scouted. Teams will adapt.

4) Lowry has his bags packed with open ticket in hand. Vasquez is looking great backing up Lowry who is playing great. What happens when Vasquez is starting with Buycks/Stone combo for back up? While Vasquez might put up impressive numbers, his D is suspect and the teams he has started for have hardly excelled (see: NOP last year; SAC this year). Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in keeping Vasquez long term at the right price..... as a backup.

5) The Raptors are sitting in 7th place in the east.... and just 2 wins out tied for 3rd worse in the LEAGUE (and 3 wins for 2nd worst, 4 wins for tied for WORST).

6) This week's schedule:
Monday: Philadelphia at Brooklyn, Washington at New York, Orlando at Chicago
Tuesday: Sacramento at Charlotte
Wednesday: Utah at Orlando, Detroit at Boston, Washington at Brooklyn, New York at Milwaukee
Friday: Brooklyn at Philadelphia, Milwaukee at Cleveland, Charlotte at Detroit
Saturday: Washington at Boston, Sacramento at Orlando, Utah at Charlotte, Cleveland at Chicago, Philadelphia at Milwaukee
Monday 23rd: Milwaukee at Charlotte, Detroit at Cleveland, New York at Orlando

Teams are going to win these games. There are a lot of weaker teams adding wins this week, one way or another. I don't consider Charlotte an easy task for Toronto and then they face Dallas, OKC, and SAS.

Someone quote this next Tuesday and we'll see how things are looking then.


7) A high draft pick does not require the worst record in the league. Finishing with 4th worst record, which is easily 'attainable' with this team with another trade, give Raptors an 83% chance of a top 4 pick.

How do you see this glass?

[mcHAPPY]

Here is why I don't think Raps are on the rise:

1) I believe Ujiri when he says Raptors will not be stuck in the middle. No timeline was given but sticking with this team as is for the near future means the Raptors are stuck in the middle. If he thinks the team has opportunities to get out of the middle as is, more power to him, and I look forward to seeing how he does it.

2) 3 of 4 Raps opponents have had serious issues of late. Lakers bring back Kobe and huge disruption. Philly minus MCW and while they won, couldn't put the 76ers away convincingly.... again. Chicago is starting Teague and rolling with Augustine as backup... you know, DJ? The guy Raps just cut? Only solid team they played smoked Raps.

3) Raps had a major shake up. They will be scouted. Teams will adapt.

4) Lowry has his bags packed with open ticket in hand. Vasquez is looking great backing up Lowry who is playing great. What happens when Vasquez is starting with Buycks/Stone combo for back up? While Vasquez might put up impressive numbers, his D is suspect and the teams he has started for have hardly excelled (see: NOP last year; SAC this year). Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in keeping Vasquez long term at the right price..... as a backup.

5) The Raptors are sitting in 7th place in the east.... and just 2 wins out tied for 3rd worse in the LEAGUE (and 3 wins for 2nd worst, 4 wins for tied for WORST).

6) This week's schedule:
Monday: Philadelphia at Brooklyn, Washington at New York, Orlando at Chicago
Tuesday: Sacramento at Charlotte
Wednesday: Utah at Orlando, Detroit at Boston, Washington at Brooklyn, New York at Milwaukee
Friday: Brooklyn at Philadelphia, Milwaukee at Cleveland, Charlotte at Detroit
Saturday: Washington at Boston, Sacramento at Orlando, Utah at Charlotte, Cleveland at Chicago, Philadelphia at Milwaukee
Monday 23rd: Milwaukee at Charlotte, Detroit at Cleveland, New York at Orlando

Teams are going to win these games. There are a lot of weaker teams adding wins this week, one way or another. I don't consider Charlotte an easy task for Toronto and then they face Dallas, OKC, and SAS.

Someone quote this next Tuesday and we'll see how things are looking then.


7) A high draft pick does not require the worst record in the league. Finishing with 4th worst record, which is easily 'attainable' with this team with another trade, give Raptors an 83% chance of a top 4 pick.

[magoon]

Ok Nostradamus.

The Harden trade was the direct result of the transition to the new CBA and OKC's unwillingness to go into the tax even a tiny amount (since the difference between Harden and OKC was literally about a million dollars). It isn't duplicable because the contracts that made Harden's re-sign problematic (Durant/Westbrook/Ibaka) were signed pre-new-CBA.

The Curry/Thompson/Barnes thing in Golden State isn't quite the same thing because all contracts will be post-CBA and because GS, unlike OKC, knows what's coming. OKC decided that they HAD to trade Harden as a result of the new CBA, and got forced into what was essentially a self-created hostage situation. GS has a few years to decide how they want to handle Barnes, and David Lee's contract expires in that timeframe as well so GS will be in a better place than OKC was.

Define "freaking terrible". They certainly were not tanking during that 4 year period.

07-08: (36-46) (Drafted Hibbert #17 with the Raptors pick)
08-09: (36-46) (Drafted Hansbrough #13)
09-10: (32-50) (Drafted George #10, Stephenson #40)
10-11: (37-45) (Made playoffs, traded draft pick for George Hill)


Where did they tank again?

Four years where they came in ninth, tenth, tenth and ninth. They took on a long-term prospect in Hibbert (and Hibbert was extremely long-term, taking basically five years to become a true starting center) got Paul George in a top-ten pick and got lucky with Lance (and traded Kawhi Leonard for Hill). They were not a good team and they were not especially competitive except in 2008-9 when the Eastern Conference was having a particularly bad year and a 37-win Hawks team took the eighth seed.

They didn't tank. They REBUILT, which is the important thing.

Portland had 2 years that you could maybe call treadmill years post-Roy. And they didn't tank either. Instead of short-changing themselves on guys like Aldridge, Batum and Wesley Matthews to tank, they shipped out guys that had no long-term value (see Gerald Wallace) for assets they could use. They happened to be able to take advantage of Billy King and get Damian Lillard out of that Wallace deal.

In 2006, after several years of sucking, they draft Roy and LMA; they spend a couple years teaching those players to grow, they draft Oden, they have a good run even though Oden turns out to be an injury bust in 2008-09, then as Roy starts to break down the team just starts getting worse even though they add Matthews and Batum until the team bottoms out in 2011-12, when they trade Wallace to the Nets in what's an absolute FLEECING of a trade. That's what gets them Lillard.

Do you work for Phoenix's front-office? How do you know that?

Because they traded away two of their three best players in 2012 (Scola and Gortat) for first-round picks, expiring contracts and trasheap players like Gerald Green, and intended to focus their 2013-14 season on Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe (unproven as a starter) and Markieff and Marcus Morris, who were both borderline-bench players in 2012-13 and this year have increased their PER and winshares/48 by over 50% each. Miles Plumlee's improvement is even more dramatic and Green's nothing to sneeze at.

What you're suggesting is that Phoenix believed that a bunch of marginal scrub players were being underrated massively and decided to go out and get them, and mostly got them from teams whose front offices tend to very good (Houston and Indiana) but somehow thought they were giving away mostly garbage which is why they also offered draft picks. This is, to say the least, improbable. Indiana and Houston knew they were giving away players who were mostly marginal up to that point and traded accordingly, and Phoenix's front office likely estimated those players to be roughly the same level, with the caveat that Phoenix could afford to give them more minutes than they would see elsewhere and experience is the best thing for young players to see if they improve. Phoenix was buying lottery tickets, and most lottery tickets don't pan out. Phoenix got very lucky.

[JimiCliff]

Umm.... Why?

Why? Because I think he's going to be an excellent player, probably an all-star.

And when I said anything and everything I meant: reasonable packages composed of any non-JV, non-this-year's-1st-rounder pieces.

[Masai Ujiri]

I wouldn't call it non-duplicable, but it isn't common either.

Regardless, if I was Masai, I'd be offering anything and everything short of JV and this year's first round pick for Barnes.

Umm.... Why?

[white men can't jump]

This magoon is just talking out of his ass. I'm not sure how it's a non-duplicable event. Teams not being able to keep stars due to money reasons or simply the star player wanting out, happens all the time.

And in most of those instances, the star player dictates where he wants to go, with his soon-to-be former team at best getting a short list of destinations. They can still trade him to another team, but other teams won't make offers if they know someone doesn't want to play for them.

The Harden situation was aided greatly by it happening fast so it caught Harden and the league by surprise, by Harden still being on his rookie deal at the time, and by him not being an established superstar (literally traded him and he broke out in Houston as a legit star, before that there was always some uncertainty due to his role in OKC) who was playing with two of the top players in the league.

Paul basically got to dictate where he went. So did Dwight. So did Melo, So did Shaq way back when he forced his way to Miami....

It's really really difficult to plan for acquiring a star in a trade. And it's rare that an obvious star (or as close as can be to obvious) on a rookie deal like Harden becomes available. And you end up shedding possibly lots of assets to do so. It's a very risky deal, especially since the 3rd guy frozen out in such a situation like Harden's is rarely as obviously talented as him, because a team would almost never have two franchise talents playing AHEAD of such a guy.

Is it non-duplicable? No. But it's not a deal that comes along very often. In fact I can't think of a similar trade at all off the top of my head.

[JimiCliff]

I'm not sure how it's a non-duplicable event. Teams not being able to keep stars due to money reasons or simply the star player wanting out, happens all the time.

I wouldn't call it non-duplicable, but it isn't common either.

Regardless, if I was Masai, I'd be offering anything and everything short of JV and this year's first round pick for Barnes.

[Masai Ujiri]

I gotta say: doesn't the Curry-Thompson-Barnes situation look like it could play out exactly like Durant-Harden-Westbrook?

This magoon is just talking out of his ass. I'm not sure how it's a non-duplicable event. Teams not being able to keep stars due to money reasons or simply the star player wanting out, happens all the time.

[JimiCliff]

1. Houston got extremely lucky because of the Harden trade, which is a non-duplicable event.

I gotta say: doesn't the Curry-Thompson-Barnes situation look like it could play out exactly like Durant-Harden-Westbrook?