Screw Tanking

[Puffer]

...Time for some Bob the Builder avatars?

Got it.

[lilmamba_]

Got it.

loooool
your avatar xD
"can we fix it YES WE CAN"

[p00ka]

lol, you go special1!!!!

I'll go against best advice and pipe in here with what "drives me crazy!!" (reference to a couple of posts in this conversation)

Whatever the side, there were a few kids who piped in with crazy stuff. Let's separate them, and speak to the consensus among the more mature and knowledgeable folks on both sides.

The sensible anti-tankers were never against a re-build/re-tool, and always recognized that this team wasn't/isn't a finished product, and that work needed to be done. What we objected to was TANKING (hey the motto y'all adopted), which by definition if that means anything, and supported by the rhetoric pro-tankers spoke to, is getting as BAD as possible so that the team would get better via the draft. Please don't re-invent history here. The majority of pro-tankers were in favour of dumping everybody but JV for "prospects and picks", specifically pointing out that the first step in the intent being to get BAD, as in trying to be worse than all other teams in the league.

I'll say it again. By definition, as well as by the ideas presented, "tank" was "tank", and the re-build/re-tool re-naming came later, but even then the idea of pro-tankers was to get BAD, lose a ton of games, in the hopes of getting better down the road. Y'all may find some advantage (don't want to go to that speculation, mind reading) in putting a different dress (re-build/re-tool) on it, but let's call a spade a spade. Tank is tank, and pro-tankers constantly demeaned anti-tankers with "naive/kool-aid/short-sighted" comments, while we were saying there's other ways to go,,,,,,,,, ummmmm, as in re-build/re-tool over time. Y'all stuck with the get BAD by TANK concept, but just adopted our concept's terminology to put a nicer dress on the same ugly gal.

[Superjudge]

Meh.

Team should have lost every game.

Didn't.

suck now, and only hope for future is a less than likely playoff run....ala 1985 Atlanta Hawks.

Raps are my team, but you pom pom shaking rah rah's refuse to look at it realistically. Don't for one moment believe this BS about players wanting to come here. Thats what that is, BS. Toronto has one hope to lure a great player here, and thats, to ALREADY have a great player here. Unless you figure there is a guy on that roster already that can be considered that, than you NEEDED this draft to pot a nice little piece of the puzzle. A superstar.

Don't gimme crap about odds or percentages, because guess what your odds are now............ 0.

So, yeah, say whatever you like, you will be wrong. Dead wrong, and everyone in the know, knows. Toronto has to hope for everything, and I mean EVERYTHING to go right now. Best case scenario's out the ass. But hey, so far so good right, I mean nobody has been hurt yet. Thats one of the Best case scenario's. stay healthy, cuz you certainly aint got a bench.

After that, catching third place would be nice. Not a must, but close. Then they absolutely MUST win the first round in the playoffs, and then after that, win again, and if not win, go 7 games and make a real ruckus.

then, and only then, will you see media attention, and FA attention, and if not...... trust me, that term "treadmill", ya well you will soon learn exactly what it means.... if you havent figured out yet that is.

Cheers Rah Rah's. No tank, you must be completely thrilled.
I hate it.

But then I like watchging them win too.... just I know that after this year is done.... fuck

Go team, Conference finals or BUST

[Burnit482]

LOL - Wow. Someone says to enjoy the games and let the GM worry about the future and that drives you crazy??

You know what drives me crazy? When a pro-tanking "know-it-all" tells me that my team sucks and that the season is a complete waste and that we will be irrelevant for years to come (welcome to mediocrity).....all BEFORE we played one game in 2013-2014!

I've learnt to accept that some people are just shit talkers.......Shall we call it even?

I know you don't speak for pro-tankers .....but tanking was actually a strategy that was proposed around these parts for months. You being a mod should know this. Also, to call yourself a pro-tanker while saying it was never a strategy of yours, "just a potential/expected residual impact" sounds a little iffy to me. If I didn't see your silly avatar, i'd think you were someone else. It's almost like you went to the Bryan Colangelo school of double talk... just wow. Dude, your the tank commander. You were one of the firsts to embrace the tank.....or so i thought.

Regardless, who really cares right? I never really got along with pro-tankers on here because i was dismissed as "drinking the kool-aid" or niave.

I find it funny that some pro-tankers such as yourself are getting upset over my advice. Is it my fault Masai made the changes MANY of us anti-tankers were looking for? He got rid of Bargs, Gay and sure'd up the bench. We gained more flexibility and don't have Rudy's 19 million dollar option hanging over our heads. This team appears to be playing a lot better. Why does this bother you so much?? Why are we still talking about tanking? Dude, no need to be bitter. Sometimes things don't go the way that you wanted. Such is life!

Screw tanking!

Right now we are at .500. In a normal year even in the east we would be between 7-9 probably. This year with everyone tanking we happen to be in 4th. This team right now is not a contender and should not be considered one. One bright spot is our team is very young and developing. Lowry plays a key part in this and we have no idea what will happen. If we lose him and got nothing back this team doesn't even make the playoffs.
You talk about our team like were the best already . Were not we need to retool and add talent. Tanking is one way of doing this. Most people want a way to get a top pick, tanking being one and also one where you lose nothing in the process other than games. Everyone forgets games lost if you end up winning. Does any miami heat fan remember when they won like 18 games like 7 years ago? doubt it.

Your attitude sucks quit attacking people and just give your opinion. Its really embarrassing. This team is in mediocrity at the moment and until moves are made will continue to be in mediocrity. I don't see a way barring a KD or superstar signing or a stud in the draft to get this team into that discussion. Id love to be proven wrong and i see a lot of potential in our guys. At best at this moment we are atlanta with horford johnson smith era.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

Y'all stuck with the get BAD by TANK concept, but just adopted our concept's terminology to put a nicer dress on the same ugly gal.

And from "our" side, I'd say we opposed the crowd that believed going into the season, that the team (including Gay) was a sure-fire playoff team. It's the same 'he said, she said' stuff that got us so bogged down in the summer.

Given that the team was capped-out (almost a tax team) and had few tradeable assets (JV, Ross, Amir, DeRozan and Lowry), improving the team for the long-term would likely have cost the team in the short-term (since you have to trade talent to get talent, or trade more now for more later).

So yes, many people supported a rebuild/retool. By starting the rebuild in the offseason (on the heels of the future-looking Bargnani trade), the expectation is that the team would not be as good this season, thus also improving their own draft positioning.

Those posters who believed in this team (including Gay), or at least wanted to give them a chance to see what they could do (with a full season of Gay and no Bargnani), harped only on the "tanking" aspect of the other strategy.

Both sides had legitimate arguments for their approach. The funny thing is that the way this season has played out, both sides could argue that their approach was "right". Pro-tankers could argue that as expected, the team sucked (with Gay) and needed to be rebuilt/retooled to be successful. Anti-tankers would argue that the Gay trade was just addition-by-subtraction, similar to the Bargnani trade, and that it wasn't an outright "tanking" move. Both sides aren't wrong.

[Burnit482]

Not to mention this team has had no significant injures while other teams are getting ripped apart with injury adding to our aid. And were still only 500.

[psrs1]

Generally speaking most pro- and Anti-tankers are not that far apart. It is the labels that make it seem worse than it is. Some pro-tankers wanted losing and more losing and loading up on draft picks. Most pro-tankers consider draft picks as only one component of an overall strategy which includes internal growth and development with opportunist trades. I myself don't like flat out losing to load up on draft picks mainly because you need luck with lottery balls. But getting good draft picks does have some merit when mixed with development of current young assets like TR and JV. Most posters here understand that top free agents are not likely to sign here and thus we need trades and draft picks. However, we also need complimentary pieces . The Raps have done a good job in this regard relative to teams like Cleveland who have a plethora of high draft picks but are still stuck on the treadmill of mediocrity.

[Puffer]

The builder avatar can completely encompass tank mode, tweak mode, rebuild mode, incremental improvement mode, and the growth from within mode.

The Raptors are going take the path that Masai leads them down. All of the whining from either side won't make a smidge of difference. And I am a little tired of the persistent condescension. I'm looking at a lot of people around here, you know who you are. I don't think there is any need for "...you pom pom shaking rah rah's refuse to look at it realistically."

Realistically no one here knows what is going to happen, what options are now open to the Raptors, who might make a significant improvement, nothing. I would not have guessed that Ross would blossom like he did. Vasquez is playing like shite since he got to Toronto, but if you do a side to side comparison with him and Lowry for this year, their numbers are very similar. Maybe Masai trades Lowry for a backup PG and a pick, Vasquez blossoms, the backup plays adequately, the Raps make it to the second round and Masai bundles some assets together to move up a little in the draft and pulls a couple of middle to late round draft pick roses out of his butt.

Nobody knows and prancing around here, beating your chest and proclaiming your superior knowledge, particularly with nothing to support it but "Trust me, I know what I'm talking about, unlike you idiots" just makes you look like a juvenile fool who hasn't lived long enough to learn that humility is actually a survival tool.

[vino]

Meh.

Team should have lost every game.

Didn't.

suck now, and only hope for future is a less than likely playoff run....ala 1985 Atlanta Hawks.

Raps are my team, but you pom pom shaking rah rah's refuse to look at it realistically. Don't for one moment believe this BS about players wanting to come here. Thats what that is, BS. Toronto has one hope to lure a great player here, and thats, to ALREADY have a great player here. Unless you figure there is a guy on that roster already that can be considered that, than you NEEDED this draft to pot a nice little piece of the puzzle. A superstar.

Don't gimme crap about odds or percentages, because guess what your odds are now............ 0.

So, yeah, say whatever you like, you will be wrong. Dead wrong, and everyone in the know, knows. Toronto has to hope for everything, and I mean EVERYTHING to go right now. Best case scenario's out the ass. But hey, so far so good right, I mean nobody has been hurt yet. Thats one of the Best case scenario's. stay healthy, cuz you certainly aint got a bench.

After that, catching third place would be nice. Not a must, but close. Then they absolutely MUST win the first round in the playoffs, and then after that, win again, and if not win, go 7 games and make a real ruckus.

then, and only then, will you see media attention, and FA attention, and if not...... trust me, that term "treadmill", ya well you will soon learn exactly what it means.... if you havent figured out yet that is.

Cheers Rah Rah's. No tank, you must be completely thrilled.
I hate it.

But then I like watchging them win too.... just I know that after this year is done.... fuck

Go team, Conference finals or BUST

I share the sentiment and agree with the general train of thought. It makes sense. But... seeing where it's going and liking the product on the floor I'll just leave it up to MU. If the Raps go on a tear the next few games and Lowry or DD gets an All-Star nod... some one might consider signing/re-signing in the off-season. Just saying. Gone is the tank and it's a good thing. I find hard to believe how one can HATE that. As for the bold, common sense tells me multiple teams are going to be better in the East next season but I'd like to see where we go from here.

As for pOOka's "ugly gal" - maybe it is a surprise for you, but most "tankers" with some common sense and ability to think on their own (as opposed to being fed theories and probabilities) have always combined additional moves to the most obvious: "keep JV and trade everybody else" in order to loose as many games as possible. I was hoping for picks/assets coming in our way, JV and Ross develop, several prospects (from these assets) catching fire ala 2Pat AND the team losing by a point in overtime most games, while beating say, the Heat and the Pacers. Yeah... ideal case for tankers, but hey I'd be thrilled!

p.s.
really enjoy this discussion. some intelligent comments here (minus the personal shit)

[Doc]

This thread is so amazing.

[Joey]

This thread is so amazing.

Guys, can we watch the foul language please?! ...

[Doc]

Guys, can we watch the foul language please?! ...

You muthafucka just gave me an infraction for just saying the word ****? Asshole.

[Joey]

You muthafucka just gave me an infraction for just saying the word ****? Asshole.

[ebrian]

I don't understand the animosity between the two sides and the personal attacks. "Screw ****ing" to me is a personal attack, because you are a basically saying my ideas are stupid. I don't think your idea is stupid, why attack me? At the end of the day we all want to see the team do well, but we just have different ideas about how to get there. From that standpoint, I don't understand why anything ever has to get personal.

So to switch it up a bit, I wonder if each side has a different interpretation of what is meant by "no man's land". I think when I heard TL talk about chasing championships and MU talk about no man's land, I thought immediately of the Atlanta Hawks. I know there was also another term thrown around called the "treadmill", I think that was something different, referring to the 7-11 range. So for me, my interpretation of MU's goal was to avoid being Atlanta. But maybe I'm wrong?

As I've mentioned, I personally wouldn't mind it. Obviously I'd love to contend every year, but making the playoffs 6 years in a row while never getting past the 2nd round.. I mean it's not terrible. It's better than what we've been doing the past 6 years, that's for sure!

But if we look at Atlanta, I think it's very similar to where we are headed. As mentioned they've made the playoffs in every one of those years but have never gone past the second round. They improved mostly by developing their own players after Al Horford was drafted, and build around a solid nucleus of Horford, Smith and Joe Johnson. I think the highest draft pick in the last 6 years has been Jeff Teague at #19, who by the way has developed in a fairly decent player. Even after losing Josh Smith they are still right there after getting Millsap. The Horford injury will hurt but the East is so bad they'll very likely make the playoffs for a 7th straight year.