2020 End of Season / Playoffs

[S.R.]

All time?

Nahhhhhhhhhhh.... not yet

Kawhi's load management is going to be a major knock against top level GOAT arguments. Other guys top 5 all time were not only great, they were great over full careers and piles of games. None of them voluntarily took 30% of games off. They won at a GOAT level without having to pace themselves like Kawhi does

[DogeLover1234]

Yeah when I say adjust expectation and role, it don't mean accepting the fact he hit a permanent wall and this is who he is and will be.

We should continue to promote his development, but also with the understanding that for some time (and maybe ever) he might not be suitable to be the tight-handle ISO midrange monster able to break set defences at will that we're all demanding him to be. We gotta (a) have a contingency plan to continue to look for said guy, and (b) continue to challenge Pascal but also putting him in a position to succeed.

That may involve running some plays for the poor guy once in a while (like putting the man on simple pick&Rolls for a change), rather than simply saying "hey, you're the 'main guy' now, you gotta fend for yourself out there and get us buckets". Siakam has to own how he played, that's an important part of his growth process, but there's something to be said about the way they used him tactically too. It didn't help.

im mot ready to say he cant be a guy who can individually break defenses down yet - hes got all the measurables, plays with great speed and has nice touch. Plus he makes a lot of nice reads. His handle got heavily exposed but if he gets a deeper bad he should be pretty damn good. I agree hes not going to be the alpha dog Kawhi was, but I dont think you need that to be a contender and hes worth building around in the meanwhile (plus he fits with literally everyone). The question is going to be, can Pascal be a consistant option regardless of matchup, he wasnt this year and the half court offense suffered. Honestly idk but I like the guy and I’d bet on him to work his ass off to try.

[Kagemusha]

Kawhi's load management is going to be a major knock against top level GOAT arguments. Other guys top 5 all time were not only great, they were great over full careers and piles of games. None of them voluntarily took 30% of games off. They won at a GOAT level without having to pace themselves like Kawhi does

Kawhi was recovering from injury.
He wasn't sitting down coz he's lazy.
This load mgmt thing is getting out of hand sometimes and maybe he will forever be stigmatized by that misconception.

[DogeLover1234]

Kawhi was recovering from injury.
He wasn't sitting down coz he's lazy.
This laid mgmt thing is getting out of hand sometimes and maybe he will forever be stigmatized by that misconception.

I think the argument isnt that people dont think hes the elite of the elite, but that longevity matters in GOAT discussion. Avaiabilty matter - LeBron has been an ironman since entering the league. Kawhis had 3 years at this level with questions about how long he can sustain it. Ultimately I think its just a bummer because injuries are bad luck and have held many great players back.

[Kagemusha]

I think the argument isnt that people dont think hes the elite of the elite, but that longevity matters in GOAT discussion. Avaiabilty matter - LeBron has been an ironman since entering the league. Kawhis had 3 years at this level with questions about how long he can sustain it. Ultimately I think its just a bummer because injuries are bad luck and have held many great players back.

I agree.
I was just critical of the wrong notion that Kawhi voluntarily took days off.
He is a workhorse too, even played thru injury in the playoffs for us last year.
It's too early for this top 5 GOAT discussion, he's not done playing.
We will judge his career once he finally retires.

[S.R.]

I was just critical of the wrong notion that Kawhi voluntarily took days off.

Did he involuntarily take days off?

[DanH]

true but again i just don't see us signing lowry for a huge amount.

The scenario where we sign Lowry to a decently large amount would be if we hit summer 2021 and strike out on the big FAs we are hunting. Then we re-sign all our expirings to keep the team good and have them as trade chips. That goes for Lowry, Norm and whichever C they decide to bring back on a one year deal.

[DanH]

So I took a quick look at shampsorts.com/capulator... we won't be able to operate under the cap most likely. Even if we renounce all free agents except for Boucher and VanVleet, and we assume Stanley picks up his option (I can't see why he wouldn't).. that leaves us around $122M in salary including cap holds. The cap is expected to be around $117M.

That leaves us with:

Lowry
VanVleet
Powell
Siakam
OG
McCaw
Stanley
Boucher
Dewan
Matt
Terrence
#29 draft pick
#59 draft pick

That's 11 players, 2 picks and only Boucher at center. No real backup PF since RHJ will be gone too.

We'll have the non-tax payer midlevel (around $9.9M). Plus veteran and minimum contracts to fill out the roster.

If we can't afford to bring back Serge, we'll need to replace him somehow. I think the mid-level goes to that guy. My hope is it's someone like Harry Giles or Aron Baynes if we want a vet. But I think that'll be the focus of free agency this off season.

Yep, no chance they operate with cap room unless they let Fred walk, and even then they are probably at about the MLE in cap room so no point to it. In fact, that’s probably optimistic - that 117M cap projection is likely to fall. By rights it should plummet due to the huge revenue loss this year, but more likely they negotiate a flat cap to this year for the next couple seasons until the revenue comes back. So for now I’ve been planning on a 109M cap in 2020-21 and 2021-22. Frankly, they are in more danger of entering the tax than they are of finding themselves with cap room.

[Kagemusha]

Did he involuntarily take days off?

It's not voluntary if he really can't go.

[inthepaint]

.

[inthepaint]

So I took a quick look at shampsorts.com/capulator... we won't be able to operate under the cap most likely. Even if we renounce all free agents except for Boucher and VanVleet, and we assume Stanley picks up his option (I can't see why he wouldn't).. that leaves us around $122M in salary including cap holds. The cap is expected to be around $117M.

That leaves us with:

Lowry
VanVleet
Powell
Siakam
OG
McCaw
Stanley
Boucher
Dewan
Matt
Terrence
#29 draft pick
#59 draft pick

That's 11 players, 2 picks and only Boucher at center. No real backup PF since RHJ will be gone too.

We'll have the non-tax payer midlevel (around $9.9M). Plus veteran and minimum contracts to fill out the roster.

If we can't afford to bring back Serge, we'll need to replace him somehow. I think the mid-level goes to that guy. My hope is it's someone like Harry Giles or Aron Baynes if we want a vet. But I think that'll be the focus of free agency this off season.

Pardon my ignorance, I don't know much about this cap stuff (in-game basketball is what I enjoy more), and I'm sure you're right, just wondering how you arrived at the 122M. This link says we got 86M tied up for next season: https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/TOR.html

I thought we'd hopefully be able to use the difference between that 86M and whatever the cap ends up being to sign one of Serge or Fred and pay the rookies/roster fillers, but it's obviously not that simple, so I'm wondering how it works (probably it has to do with cap holds?)

[007]

Rockets going out sad

[DanH]

Pardon my ignorance, I don't know much about this cap stuff (in-game basketball is what I enjoy more), and I'm sure you're right, just wondering how you arrived at the 122M. This link says we got 86M tied up for next season: https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/TOR.html

I thought we'd hopefully be able to use the difference between that 86M and whatever the cap ends up being to sign one of Serge or Fred and pay the rookies/roster fillers, but it's obviously not that simple, so I'm wondering how it works (probably it has to do with cap holds?)

Yeah, the NBA uses a soft cap. So if you are just re-signing your own free agents, the cap is kind of irrelevant. You can go over it to sign players you have the rights to.

But if you want to sign another team’s free agent, you need to be under the cap. Or have an exception to the cap (such as the mid level exception, or MLE, worth about the average salary for one over-the-cap signing). But for a real difference maker you tend to need cap room. Well, you might say, why not just use your cap space first on a free agent, and then since you are allowed to go over the cap for players you own the rights to, sign them after. Well, the NBA obviously doesn’t want that to be allowed, so each of your own free agents is assigned a cap hold, a temporary cap hit that sits on your books so long as you have the rights to that player. The value of the hold is based on an assumed raise from the previous season salary. You can get rid of that hold any time by waiving your rights to re-sign that player and go over the cap. Or by signing them, at which point their actual salary replaces their hold.

This summer, technically, FVV, Gasol, Ibaka, Boucher and RHJ all have cap holds that will sit on the Raps books. But those take them way beyond 122M. I suspect the value above was based on just FVV and Boucher’s cap holds (which means we’d be assuming that the Raptors do not want to re-sign the other FAs) or on an assumed salary for them, plus some amount for our first round pick and empty roster spots (they have cap holds too).

Long story short, if all we want to do is re-sign players, we don’t have to worry about the cap, this year anyway. It’s more long term planning that ties our hands on who we can give deals with term to. This year, however, if they did try to re-sign everyone, the danger would be paying luxury tax, which they will not want to do.

[Dr Hannibal Lecter]

Rockets going out sad

Good..Dribble..Dribble..Dribble..small s#$% ball is crap..Harden is so overrated,I don't care what anyone says..his garbage.

[golden]

Rockets going out sad

Gimmick player and gimmick coach couldn’t cheat the system. Houston, we have a problem.