Everything 2019 Offseason!

[Kagemusha]

The NBA is so broken, the odd thing to me is that the Raptors just gave a blueprint of how to win a championship yet all these teams are just hunting stars to team up together, rather than building a complete team. I truly do trust in MU, we will be back in a short time.

The Raptors model is not for the glamorous big American teams.
It requires time, patience and a lot of work.

[Demographic Shift]

I think we deserve a Clippers vs Lakers first round playoff matchup. We could be happy knowing one of them will lose in the first round.

Would that be great or what... the 4 vs 5 matchup with both of Gods teams...
The Clips and Lakers square off in round 1 of the earthquake series

Three teams would have to finish ahead of them in the standings... Denver is going to be good and so is Utah.... could one of the Blazers...Warriors or the newly Russelled Rockets make a surprise run... Hey its not out the realm for one of these teams to play 650 ball and post 53 or 54 wins.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo.

If Leonard load manages another 20 or so games and Paul gets slightly knicked up even a bit they might not post as many W's as it would take to finish in the top 3. I am not buying the fertilizer that suddenly Montrez Harell and Ivca Zubac and Patrick Beverly are suddenly all star calibre NBA players... Serge and Kyle eat their lunch on most nights. Williams is a microwave scorer off the bench but plays as much defense as Harden.. maybe less....So Maybe the clips post 51 wins...Heresy I know.. but it is possible.

What of the other LA brand.. Los Lakers... Well Anthony Davis aside from last years debacle only plays between 65 and 70 games a year due to injury. Hes not brittle but he seems to sustain more DNP - INJURY than not. Lebron the cyborg plays a lot. BUt for the first time last year he got hurt. Lebron may not be in perfect health but he close. However genetics as a science says his recovery time should be getting longer if he does get nicked again....After those two guys there are a lot Laker type signings.. BIg on name.. but a little to a lot shorter on substantive delivery. Boogie.. KCP .. Rondo...Are Green and Kuzma enough to over come 30 man games lost between Lebron and Davis ? Say they get half of the 30 games one or both of LBJ and Davis miss. Say the Lakers play 675 ball with them.. Thats 51 wins or so.


So that would be the 4 vs 5 bracket matchup that the league wants and hates..... But if things fall into place... one of those two teams could be out in the first round....And wouldn't that be great if your an LA hater. .

[golden]

Very interesting.... OKC just cleaning up the balance sheet on long term debt before he sells....
Have to think a very petulant Chris Paul wants out of OKC bad.. Real bad... Prolly to anyplace that has a star-ish player... Miami being a decent bet. Not sure about Detroit as OKC might want expirings so their salary commitments are about 60M$ at the start of 2020-21 season.

Cleaning up the balance sheet happens all the time outside of the sports world....
Any mention if Bennet or other members of the ownership group want to buy his piece ?

OKC is working like hell to get CP3 to Miami and trying to squeeze a pick out of it. Heck, 6 first round picks might get you a 10% equity stake, before the franchise moves back to Seattle. And you're right - cleaning up the balance sheet is exactly what happened before the Hawks got sold.

Everybody has been blaming Kawhi & PG's trade "request" for the trade. But to me it seemed way too bizarre that OKC traded an All-NBA player at lightning speed and under the cover of darkness to not raise any eyebrows. Do people really think that OKC would just bend over because PG asked them to? Business doesn't work that way. Ownership did the deal because: (1) they realized they had the Clippers over a barrel, (2) the timing was perfect & (3) all the backlash would on PG, not ownership.

[Apollo]

The Raptors model is not for the glamorous big American teams.
It requires time, patience and a lot of work.

The way the Raptors won is incredibly difficult to do. Everything had to go right and the timing was perfect.

[The Great One]

What the heck is going on with Magic and the Lakers? lmao

[LivedThroughBargnani]

D'Angelo Russell anyone? Cap issues aside, package of Marc, OG, a 1st, and Kyle get it done imo.

[MixxAOR]

D'Angelo Russell anyone? Cap issues aside, package of Marc, OG, a 1st, and Kyle get it done imo.

Warriors just got him.

[big boi]

I think DeRozan should get a on a ring of honour or jersey retirement. He was an important piece to changing the culture of the franchise. Think about prior to Masai coming here. The raptors really were a bottom tier franchise. DeMar’s work ethic and effort he brought to the court played a roll in that.

I would say DeMar and Lowry get their jerseys retired at the same time.

DeMar in no way deserves to have his number retired. Ring of honour. Retired numbers for the raps have to start with excellence. Lowry is the place to start. It has to mean something. Demar would dilute the honour for those that follow and dilute the honour given to Lowry.

[planetmars]

I think D'Angelo will be available by the deadline. Warriors wanted an asset for KD and got one in Russell that they can flip later. They still have a big tax bill coming their way when Draymond gets his max contract.. and they won't be able to let him walk - I mean they can but they'll become a mediocre franchise if they do.

I've said it before but I do think Kyle for D'Angelo (straight up) would work well for both sides. We can retool with a younger point guard going forward. Kyle gets one more (real) shot at a ring. Than he can enter free agency and look for a long term deal somewhere else. We can throw a pick in to give the Warriors that asset they wanted from D'Angelo.


I'm basically looking for our PG of the future. We have no real contingency plan when Kyle walks away or he gets too old. Fred is fine but not good enough to be an all-star caliber PG. Hope Davis turns into something but he's still a big question mark.

Glad we have Pascal but you need a stud PG/playmaker in this league to win.

[LivedThroughBargnani]

Warriors just got him.

Just to echo the above, they want him gone, prob at deadline. Kyle, marc, og gives them a stacked lineup going into playoffs along w expirings.

As for Fred, I'd say he's shown us his peak as a bench spot up guy. Good 6th man but no more, and let's not forget he was up and down all year and downright bad in the playoffs until we were blessed with the birth of his son. Not to mention there's a good chance we lose him next offseason to a team willing to overpay.

[inthepaint]

DeMar in no way deserves to have his number retired. Ring of honour. Retired numbers for the raps have to start with excellence. Lowry is the place to start. It has to mean something. Demar would dilute the honour for those that follow and dilute the honour given to Lowry.

For me at the moment the only Raptor (past & present) that deserves to have their Jersey retired is Lowry. He's the only one that checks all the boxes.

[DanH]

D'Angelo Russell anyone? Cap issues aside, package of Marc, OG, a 1st, and Kyle get it done imo.

Uhhh, how much do you think DLo makes? Lowry and Marc make nearly 60M combined. How would the Warriors possibly pull off that trade?

Also heck no to giving up OG and a 1st AND our two most valuable potential veteran sale pieces for one not-that-great player.

[DanH]

Well we'd have to get our cap expert(Dan?) in here to talk contracts because that's not my forte but yeah, the right contract in my opinion is one equivalent to a high tier role player. If he comes back it would be different, it would not be ride or die ISO ball and probably he would be best suited coming off the bench because we're talking a few years out from now... But I think if it could work, if it could fit into the plans the right way in the next build up then it would be a nice story to see him come back and help them win a second championship.

DeRozan is not a guy I'd want back.

But more importantly than my preferences, the Raptors over the next couple of off-seasons - 2021 especially - need to be big game hunting. Using the cap space long term on anything short of a star will hurt them - and for all DeRozan's scoring and improved playmaking he is simply put not a star level impact player. Even if adding him for cheaper, that has to be the last priority, keeping their other cap space for a chance at one or more superstar signings. Landing the big fish in free agency is unlikely - but there's only a chance if you actually have the cap space when it comes time to go fishing.

If he's a MLE add a few years from now after the Raptors have built their new star core, sure. As a free agency target with cap space? Poor choice, IMO, and unlikely to fit with the rest of the plans for the books.

[chris]

Uhhh, how much do you think DLo makes? Lowry and Marc make nearly 60M combined. How would the Warriors possibly pull off that trade?

Also heck no to giving up OG and a 1st AND our two most valuable potential veteran sale pieces for one not-that-great player.

they could throw in curry

[white men can't jump]

The NBA is so broken, the odd thing to me is that the Raptors just gave a blueprint of how to win a championship yet all these teams are just hunting stars to team up together, rather than building a complete team. I truly do trust in MU, we will be back in a short time.

The thing is, the other teams didn't take note of the asset accumulation, strong drafting with low picks, timely trading and creating lots of depth. The only lesson they took from our championship was the "risk" move of trading for Leonard. In other words, going all in with a big shakeup hoping it pays off.

The prices being paid for guys like Davis, George (though obviously they paid more as it was to get Leonard, but still, holy shit), Westbrook...I don't remember ever seeing this. They seemed to have missed the part where Masai didn't have to pay through the roof for Kawhi. In other words, we still had a team left and flexibility for the future (in case Kawhi had stayed).

Masai basically broke the league by being way smarter than everyone else. Now everyone is trying to take the same kind of risk with half the brain power.