Everything 2019 Offseason!

[Other Scott]

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.

There's no clear blueprint to winning a championship, each one needs a little bit of luck along the way. The Raptors completely lucked into a fairly unprecedented Kawhi Leonard situation with a proven star coming off an injury and unhappy with his team being available for terrific value.

There are teams following the Raptors blueprint though - the Pacers are the first example that comes to mind. Just relying on continuity and consistent asset management to take them closer to the top piece by piece. The Jazz are another good example. Then if a trade comes available, the pieces are there to pick up.

And I really don't see anything wrong with what the Clippers did either. Yes, they gave up a ton for Paul George, but they legitimately have the team to contend for a championship now.

The other teams that are going crazy with trades/ signings right now:
Lakers - Yeah this team is a trainwreck. They are a trainwreck with James and Davis, so they'll be a decently good trainwreck, but otherwise I have no good excuse.
Thunder - Sometimes things just reach their natural end. The Durant leaving thing basically screwed them out of being a true contender, and they've actually done a good job pivoting. They got excellent value out of two players in George and Westbrook who together weren't enough to lead their team anywhere close to a championship.
Rockets - I don't think there's a Raptors model to be had for the Rockets right now. They played their asset accumulation cards a long time ago and got Harden, and then nearly won a championship with it. They're kind of in last gasp mode right now, with piling up one last kick at the can in a weakened West conference and hoping if it fails they can get some value out of dealing Westbrook. I don't love trading for Westbrook for the price they paid at all, but they're too maxed out and close to the championship to play the asset accumulation game
Nets - This is the one that is the most clearly anti-Raptors, but if you have the chance to get both Kyrie and Durant without giving up that much you have to take it.

And the Raptors route can fail too. The Celtics didn't play things that much differently than the Raptors did and had better assets, and got burned. There's no surefire strategy to winning other than make smart moves when they come.

[LivedThroughBargnani]

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.

Fair point on the salary. Take out one of the vets then and you likely end up in the same place.

As for OG, doubtful he's an all-star and he's certainly not in the same class of prospect as D'Angelo Russell. Projects as a nice 3-and-D guy tops. Ball-handling, aggressiveness, and shot aren't there; and not only is the shot inconsistent, but it isn't near compact or elevated enough to consistently get off in tight situations. DLo is a 23 yo all-star with touch, shiftiness, and great vision who led a team of misfits to the playoffs. Agree to disagree but I take Russell 10/10 times.

[The Great One]

What would it take to pry Brad Beal out of Washington?

[Mitchell Duong]

What would it take to pry Brad Beal out of Washington?

Who can say? The Wizards are a mess.

They'll probably say no to tons of rumored deals that sounded great, and then trade him for peanuts, and get roasted.

[Scraptor]

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.

DeMar has more points as a Raptor than 6 other franchises' career scoring leaders.

If you retire his jersey it's not for excellence in play alone, it's about loyalty and commitment to the franchise.

And I don't think any individual dilutes the accolade of another individual. The retirement of Sean Elliott's jersey doesn't dilute Tim Duncan's.

[Kagemusha]

Anyone object to retiring #2?
I mean #23 was retired in Miami.

[The Great One]

Anyone object to retiring #2?
I mean #23 was retired in Miami.

#2 should be retired. It's a no brainer imo. Kawhi is the greatest Raptor of all time, the BIGGEST reason why we won a championship. VC, Lowry and DeRozan are all no brainers as well imo.

Teams should retire the greatest players and the most important players in franchise history. Bruce Bowen, Sean Elliott and Avery Johnson's numbers are retired in San Antonio. They're not hall of famers by any means but they're 3 of the most important players in Spurs history.

[white men can't jump]

There's no clear blueprint to winning a championship, each one needs a little bit of luck along the way. The Raptors completely lucked into a fairly unprecedented Kawhi Leonard situation with a proven star coming off an injury and unhappy with his team being available for terrific value.

There are teams following the Raptors blueprint though - the Pacers are the first example that comes to mind. Just relying on continuity and consistent asset management to take them closer to the top piece by piece. The Jazz are another good example. Then if a trade comes available, the pieces are there to pick up.

And I really don't see anything wrong with what the Clippers did either. Yes, they gave up a ton for Paul George, but they legitimately have the team to contend for a championship now.

The other teams that are going crazy with trades/ signings right now:
Lakers - Yeah this team is a trainwreck. They are a trainwreck with James and Davis, so they'll be a decently good trainwreck, but otherwise I have no good excuse.
Thunder - Sometimes things just reach their natural end. The Durant leaving thing basically screwed them out of being a true contender, and they've actually done a good job pivoting. They got excellent value out of two players in George and Westbrook who together weren't enough to lead their team anywhere close to a championship.
Rockets - I don't think there's a Raptors model to be had for the Rockets right now. They played their asset accumulation cards a long time ago and got Harden, and then nearly won a championship with it. They're kind of in last gasp mode right now, with piling up one last kick at the can in a weakened West conference and hoping if it fails they can get some value out of dealing Westbrook. I don't love trading for Westbrook for the price they paid at all, but they're too maxed out and close to the championship to play the asset accumulation game
Nets - This is the one that is the most clearly anti-Raptors, but if you have the chance to get both Kyrie and Durant without giving up that much you have to take it.

And the Raptors route can fail too. The Celtics didn't play things that much differently than the Raptors did and had better assets, and got burned. There's no surefire strategy to winning other than make smart moves when they come.

It's not about specific route. That's really not what I was alluding to at all.

What I was trying to point out is that these teams have been extremely risk positive in relation to acquiring star players, which is only one dimension of team building, to the point where they may have compromised their ability to address other areas. They seem unconcerned with the rest of roster building and just seem to assume that things will work once they have stars. However, the only reason the Raptors were in a good position was that they could make that trade for Leonard without gutting their roster so that they still had an actual team around their superstar, but they already had a very deep roster. Either way, Masai knew that the trade only made sense because he would have the team around the guy to legitimately compete for a championship. It wasn't just about getting a superstar (or two).

It is more important to have some superstar power, but it's extremely difficult to win without a team. Miami lost twice in 4 years despite vastly outclassing the star talent of every team they faced in the Finals. The first year they lost because they lacked the role players to make things work. The last year they lost because they faced an opponent who played better as a team with no clear superstar at the time (it was Kawhi's coming out party, but no one considered him a star before then).

Now none of the teams that made big trades have much of any flexibility to actually improve the pieces around their stars. So if there are any issues, it will get damn hard to fix them. Now they all already have a couple of decent pieces besides their stars, but none of them are that deep, and they have no assets left to really sweeten trades if they need to try and shake things up. Heck, even the pieces they have might not fit, and then they'll be in desperation mode trying to repair their rotations.

Basically, you still need to be able to roll out at least 6-7 players (ideally I'd say 7-8) who can contribute all the way into the Finals. Guys will have off nights. Guys might get tired. Some matchups may be tough. The Raptors only had one superstar, but we had 8 players who were all contributors to our playoff run. This gave us a very important safety net so that if someone struggled, we had other pieces who could potentially step up. And we didn't really need them to step up for our top guys. Kawhi was stellar, and Pascal rarely had a bad night (maybe a handful of games, tops). We needed them to be a safety net for each other.

If Norm doesn't play well in game 3 of the Conference Finals, do we win a championship? We likely go down to 3-0 to the Bucks and probably lose that series. In that game we needed double-OT, and we got a combined 77 points, 32 rebounds and 13 assists from Leonard, Pascal and Gasol. We got very little from Green, Ibaka and Fred, so we really needed our 8th man Norm to pour in those 19 points he had that night. Norm in general was a big key for us in that Bucks series, as was Fred in the last 3 games.

What if Fred didn't get his new papa mojo and shoot lights out for the last 9 games of the playoffs? We also probably lose (he shot like 52% from 3...that's insane). Green was struggling, so without Fred getting hot and Norm playing well, we don't get past the Bucks.

What if Ibaka and Gasol had too many nights where they were both bad? We got lucky with them rarely both being bad on the same night. And Ibaka put together maybe his best string of playoff games in the Finals to really help us win. So here again, without this working out we probably don't win.

Anyway, all this to say that these new "superteams" all have holes, and limited avenues to patch them up. Even recent superteams like the Heat and Warriors (especially pre-Durant) needed some degree of depth. Partly because it gives the stars more space to play their game and not be the sole concern of how their opponent would have to gameplan. And those Heat and Warriors teams had 3-4 legit all-stars.

Now getting stars is harder than building a team around them, but many of these new "superteams" have very limited avenues to round out their rosters.

[DogeLover1234]

How would you manage these end of the bench guys? All young and seem like if all goes well they could play in an NBA rotation this season. Do you stick em in the Gleague until someone gets traded or injured, or do you try to shuttle them back and fourth to learn from the veterans a bit and get some garbage minutes occasionally? I like Davis and Hernandez, seems like once Hernandez gets his game sense back he could be useful, energy guys always have a role.

[thead]

I'll tell you my personal bar for retiring a Jersey and why your favorite people are disqualified (relax I don't work for MLSE)

Vince Carter - Great, one of the greatest reasons basketball exploded in Canada - Jersey Retirement? No Why? Loyalty, Heart, No Chip

Chris Bosh - Great, one of the greatest reasons basketball exploded in Canada - Jersey Retirement? No Why? Loyalty/joined Super Team, No Chip

DeMar DeRozan - Great, one of the most loyal hard working dudes ever - Jersey Retirement? No Why? No Chip

Kawhi Leonard - Greatest guy to every play for Toronto. Gave me memories that will last a lifetime - Jersey Retirement? No Why? He left

Kyle Lowry - Kicked all kinds of ass. Won a chip and has been the emotional leader of the team for 7 years. Jersey Retirement? Yes

[Mapko]

That doesn't look right though when you kick the tires. If he wanted to play in LA for the Clippers then he'd have never told the Raptors at all. Telling the Raptors gave the Thunder leverage to score quite the bounty from the Clippers. If Kawhi or PG goes down with a devasting injury the Clippers are fucked.

Think Brooklyn deal few years back. Now we have 3 teams in West (Lakers, Hou & Clippers) that have essentially mortgaged the future EXPECTING to win. Guess what: Maybe 1 of those 3 teams wins if all goes well (I still believe that Denver & GS -esp when Klay comes back are stronger, maybe even Jazz).
All 3 teams have question marks (lakers, age & possibly injury prone; Clipps -load management, lack of depth; Hou -chemistry & lack of D).
Dont be shocked if OKC by 2016-28 become a powerhouse.

[Mapko]

Yes, he is talking about tampering there. And what is your issue with the sentiment that rules should actually be enforced?

Changes to the moratorium schedule do not preclude other changes.

Tampering is not an issue, esp as it only benefits big market teams. Never heard of a players asking to be traded to Detroit, or Minnesota, or To or Jazz or...
Can you immagine NBA brass watching say Toronto-Denver finals this-next year (good chance if Leonard resigns? TV diaster.

[Mapko]

I'm curious how he looks like when Nurse coaches him for Team Canada. If it's the same timidness and lackadaisical play then yeah maybe he's just too risky

I think that might be a great opportunity to see whats he made of.

[Mapko]

Caron Butler saying that we're not making playoffs without Kawhi pissed me off. Fuck tank. Run it back.

What does he know about making playoffs?
Did he ever make it?
That idiot had audacity to pick us No 5 IFF Leonard signs with us.

[Dr Hannibal Lecter]

I have feeling Norm Powell will get dealt sooner than later..Clearing Cap for 2020 and 2021 ..u gotta do what u gotta do baby!!!
As for Caron Butler...whoooo..plz,just stop.
Raps will b fine,not championship,but playoffs for sure,don't worry..