Everything Off Season

[inthepaint]

2021. It is all about Giannis. Look at what Miami, Dallas and Toronto are doing, or not doing, tonight.

Yep. Looks like they're all in on the pipe dream. 2021 has been on the works for years and the guy is an MVP caliber player, so there's an argument for that strategy. Let's hope they get him though, because he's the only elite free agent potentially available that season. All the other max caliber ones will more than likely stay with their respective teams, and on the very slim chance they leave, they have 28 other teams to pick besides the Raptors.

It's a gamble that may pay off, but stays in the way of two other strategies available to teams that recently won a championship like the Raptors:
1. Continue to aggressively add value and " win-now" talent to try to stay at the top (what the Lakers are doing now)
2. Flip some of your pieces to high ceiling good prospects and quality future draft picks, so you bounce back more quickly from bridge years like this one. In other words, the sell high strategy, which is most effective when your core still have the championship shine

Right now (so far) it looks like we're forfeiting these two avenues to pursue the Knicks strategy, which is to save cap space and hope he'll come. I'd be more comfortable if there were multiple targets to fall back to if Giannis didn't come (he frankly has no reason to, unfortunately; his team will likely do better than the Raptors this season and will be able to pay him more).

What's iffy about this strategy is that not only it's very unlikely Giannis will leave the Bucks to sign here, but there's also the fact that there are no other realistic max FA targets that year. The 2021 FA "bonanza" is a mirage. We might be forfeiting the 2 strategies above and most likely end up with a Gobert type of player in free agency (or worse), which means we will have punted two seasons and will have lost the opportunity to maximize the value of our championship core as assets, since by then they'll be older and further removed from the championship (where their value as assets are the highest)

That said, I trust our front office, they're one of the best in the league. Each path has a drawback though, you gotta look at it from all angles and continue re-assess as the years go by. I'm sure they're looking at the whole picture.

[The Claw Reborn]

The Clippers will always be the doormat of Hollywood and Highland.

They missed badly that small window of winning everything last season.

Now JaMychal Green and Harrell are gone.

Karma maybe lurking around Steven Anthony Ballmer and his General Manager Lawrence Frank - the Duo Tamperers (like Donny and Rudy) lol

[Yuri Gagarin]

inthepaint yes but one thing. Barring anything major this team is still very good as it is. It’ll still finish well with a shot at it in the playoffs AND have a chance for greek. Not bad at all.

[Quirk]

No thanks to Tristan Thompson, hasn't been very good since 2017.

[LJ2]

Wall is saying he wants out of Washington. Keeps getting worse for FVV.

[planetmars]

Doesn't seem like anything crazy happened overnight. I think the last one I missed before going to bed was the JaMychal Green signing in Denver. He was one of my sleepers that I was hoping we could nab (him and Temple who ended up in Chicago).

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Craziest signing of the day still goes to Harrell for the mid level in LAL. Seems not totally on the up and up there with Klutch as his representation. But what can anyone really do? Feels good to see the Clippers get shambled a bit there.


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The ghost of Joe Dumars award goes to Detroit. Just still racking my brain trying to figure out what they were doing.

They signed Plumlee (3 years, $25M??), Okafor and Grant. I like Grant but he was given $20M a year for 3 years. I mean if Grant gets $20M a year, Fred is getting $30M. Can only imagine what OG gets. They also drafted another big in Isaiah Stewart, who they traded to get from Houston.

And then the big oh I get it moment came when many guys like Holliger and Nate Duncan on twitter assumed this was a S&T with Blake going to Denver and Plumlee/Grant coming back to Detroit. But nope. Detroit waived and stretched Dedmon and someone else to get the signings to fit in. Like WTF? I do like the Josh Jackson pick up though. Kid has a lot of potential, and should get plenty of opportunity.


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The karma kicks you in the ass award goes to the Clippers who lost Harrell to their rival team for pennies on the dollar. Then had to save some face and gave Marcus Morris a 4 year, $64M contract. I mean that's a huge overpay for a guy that was pretty bad for them in the playoffs. Kawhi most be stoked.

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Lakers have won the off season so far (trade for Shroeder, getting Wes to replace Green, and then snatching Harrell). But I also like Miami's moves. Bringing back Leonard and Dragic for 1+1 deals is smart. Means they can roll out the same roster as last year and still have room for Giannis next season. They did lose the slam dunk champ but I didn't think he was very good. So I don't think they'll be crying in their sleep over that one.

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Guys that have made their grandkids rich, that I didn't mention above include Bertans ($80M/5), Harris ($75M/4), and Gallinari ($61M/3). AAV for each is decent though. Love the 5 year contract for Bertans. Washington wasn't messing around, and that kid has fire coming out of his finger tips. Just hope he continues to stay healthy to live up to that deal.

[G__Deane]

So far what I hear is lot of teams targeting our guys, but us targeting nobody. My prediction: we're not gonna get any impactful player (maybe a fringe rotation guy), and be happy that once again we survived the poaching threats and managed to keep our own players.

And that's a fail....

[LJ2]

Basically a bunch of players moved around yesterday, Raps fans are pissed we did nothing, but we are most likely to resign the two best free agents available that are not named Anthony Davis 😁

[TheWaterboy]

Basically a bunch of players moved around yesterday, Raps fans are pissed we did nothing, but we are most likely to resign the two best free agents available that are not named Anthony Davis 😁

I'm surprisingly OK with the state of things right now. On the one hand, we haven't made ourselves better or even put ourselves into run-it-back position... but on the other hand, we haven't screwed up already like some teams have, and we haven't had players we want back signed out from under us, either.

[G__Deane]

Basically a bunch of players moved around yesterday, Raps fans are pissed we did nothing, but we are most likely to resign the two best free agents available that are not named Anthony Davis 😁

But re-signing most of a roster that fell well short ....optimism. I don't want to be content with a playoff appearance

[golden]

But re-signing most of a roster that fell well short ....optimism. I don't want to be content with a playoff appearance

Meh, you just gotta chill a bit Deaner. We’re at the end of the WeTheNorth Era. We should be grateful that it ended in a chip and a surprisingly robust title defense season last year. Enjoy the rebuild.

The “gotta do something now” mentality is the hallmark of the Bryan Colangelo years.

[Puffer]

And that's a fail....

Actually it would be a fail if you had heard something. That would mean the front office was leaking something. What are the Raptors going to do until they know what's going on with Fred? He, as has been noted, is one of the best free agents available that is likely to sign with the Raptors. I think they are doing exactly what they have been planning to do, and nothing that has happened has changed any of that. We'll see what happens after today's meeting. And we will see the results at the end of the season.

[LJ2]

But re-signing most of a roster that fell well short ....optimism. I don't want to be content with a playoff appearance

Fell well short of what? We almost made it to the conf finals with no star to speak of. Masai is working towards acquiring one. If you're hoping for Colangelo type moves with no vision of the long term future then he's not the GM for you. I think he's earned our patience..at least until next year's free agency 😁
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[Rudy Bargnani]

And that's a fail....

You keep repeating this but again the salary cap is what it is. If the raps let van vleet, Ibaka, gasol all walk for nothing they would not even have enough money to sign a jerami grant piece.

There are going to be a bunch of good teams doing nothing this off-season . Miami, Raptors, probably Celtics, probably clippers.

[TheWaterboy]

But re-signing most of a roster that fell well short ....optimism. I don't want to be content with a playoff appearance

I'm not sure if there are many aggressive moves out there that would do any more than keep us relevant (which is what re-signing our free agents would do). Most anything we might do next year, Giannis or no Giannis, likely relies on us not spending into the tax this year, which will limit our ability to spend on free agents beyond our re-signings, or using the mid-level on a big man if we don't bring Gasol and Ibaka back.

The most aggressive move I can think of that we might look into is trying to trade for Harden. I'm not sure Lowry + Norm + picks/back-of-the-bench is enough return for Houston - especially since they still have Westbook on the books - and Siakam and a re-signed Fred makes our current roster imbalance much, much worse.