To trade or not to trade

[slaw]

I think our current roster is solid enough - when healthy- to defeat Sixers and Bucks in the playoff. What do we need ?
We need to improve in the offencive rebounding area.
Sometimes, no trade is a good trade.

My only real concern is the lack of another legit scorer. It's the reason I think the Gallinari rumors make some sense and obviously Ujiri has a long-time connection with him going back a decade. Slotting him alongside Siakam and Gasol upfront would be a major handful for defenses and would open up the game for Pascal and Kyle cause teams couldn't cheat the way they do with OG.

Problem with Gallinari though is the price tag, which I assume will be high, and what holes his addition creates. Not sure it is feasible without creating new problems.

[golden]

My only real concern is the lack of another legit scorer. It's the reason I think the Gallinari rumors make some sense and obviously Ujiri has a long-time connection with him going back a decade. Slotting him alongside Siakam and Gasol upfront would be a major handful for defenses and would open up the game for Pascal and Kyle cause teams couldn't cheat the way they do with OG.

Problem with Gallinari though is the price tag, which I assume will be high, and what holes his addition creates. Not sure it is feasible without creating new problems.

Watching Gallo move around the court in the OKC game, though. Injuries have taken their toll. He moves like a 70 year old man. He'll get targeted on switches played right off the court in the playoffs, just like the Raps did to Ilyasova and Mirotic.

[bertarapsfan]

Net rating and PIPM be damned! Take that, DanH!

There's no analytic for Heart.

[GOLDBLUM]

There's no analytic for Heart.

Dan: “Yes. Yes, there is.”

[KeonClark]

There's no analytic for Heart.

Beats per minute

[golden]

Beats per minute

Dan: ECG is more accurate.

[RaptorsVictim]

My only real concern is the lack of another legit scorer. It's the reason I think the Gallinari rumors make some sense and obviously Ujiri has a long-time connection with him going back a decade. Slotting him alongside Siakam and Gasol upfront would be a major handful for defenses and would open up the game for Pascal and Kyle cause teams couldn't cheat the way they do with OG.

Problem with Gallinari though is the price tag, which I assume will be high, and what holes his addition creates. Not sure it is feasible without creating new problems.

Ibaka as a price will be a very high price, add to that some draft picks.
I am not happy with Gallinari game. I think the lack can be achieved through the general sharing of scoring. Many players have raised their scoring average this year, It is all about rebounding and defence.
I will stick with this roster at the moment.

[bertarapsfan]

Beats per minute

Len Bias is the all time leader in BPM.

[slaw]

Watching Gallo move around the court in the OKC game, though. Injuries have taken their toll. He moves like a 70 year old man. He'll get targeted on switches played right off the court in the playoffs, just like the Raps did to Ilyasova and Mirotic.

There's definitely negatives and he obviously isn't as good a defender as OG. He held up pretty well as a Clipper last season and the Thunder are a slightly above-average defensive team with him playing 30+MPG and they don't have near the personnel, experience or system the Raps have on that end of the floor.

It's a trade-off as to whether you take the potential defensive issues in exchange for not playing 4-on-5 on offense with OG if he goes in the playoff tank.

[S.R.]

This roster is at a very similar position to pre-Kawhi trade - anything short of nabbing a top 5 or top 10 guy is shuffling deck chairs. Masai knows that, Plan A is cap space next summer to solve that problem. Anything that overrides Plan A means he'll be solving the problem sooner rather than later by nabbing that guy now.

Hard to predict if/when that happens. Don't think anyone called the Kawhi trade a month ahead of time.

[KeonClark]

Len Bias is the all time leader in BPM.

Lamar Odom came close

[inthepaint]

There’s some truth in that but also some Toronto insecurity. Sure, without Kawhi’s shot, we wouldn’t have gotten by philly. But without Jimmy, we wouldn’t have needed Kawhi’s shot.

Also, not to take anything away from the iconic meaning of "the shot", but every time people talk about it, it sounds like we were losing that game by 1, and the shot put us ahead on the last second. The game was tied. Yet people talk about as if it didn't go in we'd be dead for sure. If it it didn't go in, Philly would have to pull it off in OT, on the road, vs a squad full of husky veterans with deep playoff experiences while they themselves had no one that had ever been past the second round. Like, I'm sure glad it didn't go to OT for us to find out (hence the historical importance of "the shot"), but that Philly would win for sure is far from a given.

[G__Deane]

This roster is at a very similar position to pre-Kawhi trade - anything short of nabbing a top 5 or top 10 guy is shuffling deck chairs. Masai knows that, Plan A is cap space next summer to solve that problem. Anything that overrides Plan A means he'll be solving the problem sooner rather than later by nabbing that guy now.

Hard to predict if/when that happens. Don't think anyone called the Kawhi trade a month ahead of time.

Unpopular opinion time:
The only thing Masai has left to prove he can accomplish in order to confirm the gold leaf statue over the regular statue is to actually attract and SIGN an elite to agent to Toronto. He brings Giannis here and he can have a solid gold statue with a lifetime pigeon guard.

I don't see the more likely tinkering making a difference this season

[planetmars]

So looks like the cap is dropping a bit based on expectations for next season.. due to the whole China fiasco. Still higher than this year, but not as high as once assumed. So we could see some activity at the deadline for teams that may want to try and duck the tax now.

This is from Woj:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...ax-projections

The loss of the league's China-driven revenue has caused many front-office executives to tell ESPN that they've been preparing for the possibility that the original 2020-21 cap projection of $116 million could drop as far as $113 million.

Also would affect Siakam's extension since those are based on a % of the cap.

[golden]

Unpopular opinion time:
The only thing Masai has left to prove he can accomplish in order to confirm the gold leaf statue over the regular statue is to actually attract and SIGN an elite to agent to Toronto. He brings Giannis here and he can have a solid gold statue with a lifetime pigeon guard.

I don't see the more likely tinkering making a difference this season

Masai also said "we will in again in Toronto". So he's got that to prove, too. Giannis would definitely improve those odds. When this man makes bold proclamations... the safe bet is to not bet against him.