Game #7 Toronto Raptors vs Phoenix Suns - Jan 6 - 9:00pm ET

[slaw]

TD and Thomas would be firmly in the rotation in the Heat from last year. Developing bench players is Nurse’s fatal flaw.

The use of Davis and Thomas is frustrating but you're overstating the case a little here. FVV and OG developed just fine under Nurse as has Boucher (I won't include Pascal but there's a case to be made Nurse was integral to his growth in the championship season). RHJ had a good year under Nurse. It's more to do with personnel right now than Nurse.

[Kagemusha]

next 10 games

- Kings
-Warriors
- Blazers
- Hornets x 2
- Mavericks
- Heat x 2
- Pacers x 2

I can see us beating Kings, Warriors, Blazers and then it's a bunch of Ls

Us beating Warriors and Blazers?
l highly doubt that.
Curry is playing great. Wiseman will have a feast inside too.

[The Great One]

I notice the trade for Harden articles popping up again.
Hell no to that.

The planets are lining up for an ideal tank job -
1. Pandemic season
2. They're not playing in Toronto
3. Deep draft

The Rockets are not trading Harden for Siakam so you don't have to worry about that.

#TankSZN

[DogeLover1234]

What do you mean by we have no picks in the draft?
What happened to the lottery pick system?

We have better scouting and development programs than those teams you mentioned. We have better FO and coaching too.

I mean we traded all our picks over the last 3 years for a championship. Its a trade you do any gay, but results when those vets leave you have a depth problem. We ended up relatively well considering we have what, 5(?) players on the roster we drafted and two of those are rooks. The talent coming in has been a lot of undrafted and reclamation projects - weve done a pretty good job with that constraint but its tough. Sorry to be unclear cause yes, we have our picks going forwards. Thats why Im optimistic going forwards, we just need more talent coming in the door.

Yeah I might be blindly optomistic in the next 10 but otherwise thisll be a long season.

[iblastoff]

So our championship squad was pretty good (Fred had an off game) and we still came up short. Phoenix was super hot from 3 but our defense wasn't as good as it could have been. It pretty much comes down to our center depth being garbage. I really thought Baynes was going to be good. He's unplayable. Len is okay but worse than average IMO. And Boucher is a PF.

Our roster composition sucks. The only way to fix this roster is to trade for a C. I don't know who's possible or what's available but yeah that's an issue.

We played 18 games before the Gay trade. We were 6-12 at that point. That was Masai's "tank" move.

Can we get to 7 or 8 wins by game 18? That's the barometer. I don't think we will. We'd have to go 6-5 or 7-4 the rest of the way.

- Kings
- Warriors
- Blazers (B2B)
- Hornets
- Hornets
- Mavs
- Heat
- Heat
- Pacers (B2B)
- Pacers
- Bucks


Potential wins against the Kings, Hornets (x2), maybe we beat the Heat and Pacers once.. that's only 5 wins.

Lowry is our move. Once we trade him, it's a full on tank. Let's see what happens after that Bucks game. Circle Jan 27 on your calendars.

get demarcus cousins on the cheap. done. dude is barely playing in houston. give him the starting position in toronto. sure he's got health/general whacko issues. but still WAY better than baynes/len and arguably better than ibaka even.

[planetmars]

get demarcus cousins on the cheap. done. dude is barely playing in houston. give him the starting position in toronto. sure he's got health/general whacko issues. but still WAY better than baynes/len and arguably better than ibaka even.

Houston can't trade him until February since he was signed as a free agent. We'll be trash by then. No point being a buyer at that point.

[The Great One]

As someone who has watched a decent amount of these “up and coming” eastern conference teams, I dont know how the board can be all in on tanking. Cleveland, NYK, Atlanta, Chicago all spent a good while in the lotto and you cant convince me any are better than us, and the only one with a better core is Atlanta. Its fun to watch these teams actually play hard but they arent exactly good yet. Our problem right now isnt that weve had bad picks in the draft, its that weve had NO picks in the draft. Should have traded Norm in the offseason for an extra pick or prospect.

1. Deep draft
2. Raptors are a great drafting team
3. If they trade Lowry this team would completely fall off. I'm talking top 5 pick maybe even top 3.

[planetmars]

Maybe we can swap Powell's with Dallas? Powell isn't great but would be a huge upgrade over Baynes & Len.

[MixxAOR]

Maybe we can swap Powell's with Dallas? Powell isn't great but would be a huge upgrade over Baynes & Len.

Nerlens Noel is asking for a trade or buyout from Knicks. To be fair it's just a rumor

[planetmars]

Nerlens Noel is asking for a trade or buyout from Knicks. To be fair it's just a rumor

Can't be traded until Feb as well.. A buyout would be cool but a contender will just snatch him up.

[ebrian]

Hey guys, I haven't posted here in quite some time but I've been reading. A few things on my mind:

1. I really liked what I saw from Pascal Siakam, not just this game but against the Celtics. Hopeful that he can build on this success.

2. I don't think Nurse was necessarily calling out his players. Or at least not in the malicious way that people are viewing it? I've appreciated Nurse's frankness or candidness in his interviews and I think that's all it was. I also think the players for the most part know that's how he is and so I don't think they would have been offended by his comments either.

3. Tank or no tank.. I think we've been spoiled for years now. We've had winning seasons for 7+ years and other teams haven't had that so they've been able to build in conventional ways. You can't stay competitive forever, at least not without a generational talent. We've built our team on really solid player development, great coaching (including Casey!) and low draft picks while other teams have been stocking up on lottery picks. We've also lost a lot of reallly good veterans and they haven't really been replaced. And you can count me in as someone who thought Aron Baynes might adequately bridge the gap/void left behind by Gasol/Ibaka. Goodness gracious have been wrong so far. Holy hell has he been bad so far.

I don't think there's anyone here that wants to see us lose 50 games this year. But with the shortened season, the whole Tampa Bay "home" crowd, and this season *meant* to be a transition year (Plan B now) for Toronto, it should hurt less? Of all the years to blow it, this is the year. Like that shortened season when the Spurs sucked and got Tim Duncan, we have an opportunity to do similar.

All this to say that I wouldn't be angry if we ended up with a top 3 pick.

[planetmars]

Hey guys, I haven't posted here in quite some time but I've been reading. A few things on my mind:

1. I really liked what I saw from Pascal Siakam, not just this game but against the Celtics. Hopeful that he can build on this success.

2. I don't think Nurse was necessarily calling out his players. Or at least not in the malicious way that people are viewing it? I've appreciated Nurse's frankness or candidness in his interviews and I think that's all it was. I also think the players for the most part know that's how he is and so I don't think they would have been offended by his comments either.

3. Tank or no tank.. I think we've been spoiled for years now. We've had winning seasons for 7+ years and other teams haven't had that so they've been able to build in conventional ways. You can't stay competitive forever, at least not without a generational talent. We've built our team on really solid player development, great coaching (including Casey!) and low draft picks while other teams have been stocking up on lottery picks. We've also lost a lot of reallly good veterans and they haven't really been replaced. And you can count me in as someone who thought Aron Baynes might adequately bridge the gap/void left behind by Gasol/Ibaka. Goodness gracious have been wrong so far. Holy hell has he been bad so far.

I don't think there's anyone here that wants to see us lose 50 games this year. But with the shortened season, the whole Tampa Bay "home" crowd, and this season *meant* to be a transition year (Plan B now) for Toronto, it should hurt less? Of all the years to blow it, this is the year. Like that shortened season when the Spurs sucked and got Tim Duncan, we have an opportunity to do similar.

All this to say that I wouldn't be angry if we ended up with a top 3 pick.

Welcome back!

The tank or no tank debate really boils down to Kyle Lowry. Do we keep him and try to retain him next season, and have him retire a Raptor like Kobe and Dirk did in LA/Dallas? Or do we move on.

I, myself am not 100% ready to part ways with our GROAT. Even though rationally it makes sense to do it. Losing him will hurt. But it's bound to happen eventually.

[golden]

The use of Davis and Thomas is frustrating but you're overstating the case a little here. FVV and OG developed just fine under Nurse as has Boucher (I won't include Pascal but there's a case to be made Nurse was integral to his growth in the championship season). RHJ had a good year under Nurse. It's more to do with personnel right now than Nurse.

You could argue that FVV, OG, Pascal & Powell all developed into rotation players under Casey and continued their curves. RHJ barely played in the playoffs and we never re-signed him, so I don't see how that's a win. The only clear-cut Nurse guy is Boucher, and the jury is still out on him, and he achieves what he does based on energy anyway.

By development, I'm talking about going from out of the rotation into permanent fixtures with a consistent role. We haven't had a consistent bench under Nurse, except for Ibaka (a bonafide starter) and Powell, who was already in the rotation.

[DanH]

Damn, this season is a little snakebitten. They haven't exactly played well on aggregate but there are a few losses that should have been wins just based on wacky shooting numbers. Should average out over the course of the season, but has to be deflating to lose so many early games.

Nice that Pascal is rounding into form. Loved the aggression from him in this one.

[LJ2]

You could argue that FVV, OG, Pascal & Powell all developed into rotation players under Casey and continued their curves. RHJ barely played in the playoffs and we never re-signed him, so I don't see how that's a win. The only clear-cut Nurse guy is Boucher, and the jury is still out on him, and he achieves what he does based on energy anyway.

By development, I'm talking about going from out of the rotation into permanent fixtures with a consistent role. We haven't had a consistent bench under Nurse, except for Ibaka (a bonafide starter) and Powell, who was already in the rotation.

Lowry still has a couple of good years to go before you can move him to the bench. If he plays it out like Dirk and sticks around for the free buffet, you may see Lowry in a Raps uniform for another 5 or 6 years.