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golden wrote:
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One already proved he is a sidekick on a championship team, second one is a role player, third one's career fell off due to injury. Take your pick. -
it depends on one's expectations i think. anyone who expected him to become a number one option is probably frustrated as hell right now. he's not that. he's never going to be that. and anyone waiting for that can expect to continue to be dissappointed.golden wrote: View Post
doesn't mean he's not worth his contract or that he can't be an extremely impactful player. lots of all-time greats were not guys you could just give the ball to in the half court to go get a bucket. bill russell, pippen, KG, jason kidd, klay and draymond, giannis etc. would the bulls have been better off trading pippen for say mitch richmond after jordan left? a worse player who was better at getting his own offense?
i'm not comparing pascal to all those HOFers and future HOFers, just making a point.
this team has a collection of excellent complimentary players as well as elite coaching, management, and player development. my hope was that they'd stay competitive and find a way to acquire one of those players either via trade, draft, or free agency. for a number of reasons things haven't gone their way so far this year. they're still not very far off from being exactly what most of us thought they'd be, in the second tier of the east with the boston's and miami's and indiana's.
i don't see the lack of a number one option as a reason to part with the good players we do have and start from scratch.Comment
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I like Pascal a lot. Great guy but Im praying he can just hold onto the ball without it squirting out of his hands for no reason at this point. Never seen a decline like this. BafflingComment
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His numbers are slightly lower, but a decline is an exaggeration. He is averaging 4 less points, shooting 2 less FGs, his FG% is basically the same at around 44-45%, his rebounds and assists went up from last season. Only part of his game that fell off a cliff is his 3 point shooting.Yuri Gagarin wrote: View PostComment
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Agreed. Pascal got thrust into the #1 option after Kawhi left. Still going through growing pains and he may never be that true #1 option, so people are upset.chris wrote: View Post
If he gets to play beside a guy who can get you 30 a game, he'll go back to the #2 option and can play his game. That is where the problem lies, where and when will the Raptors get a #1 option star player to pair with Pascal?Comment
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well i think they are asking him to create way too much offense on his own in the halfcourt and he's attracting by far the most defensive attention. t rex points out that the dude prefers to blend in as a pejorative but there's a bit of truth to it i think, and he (and the team) may benefit a by not forcing the issue so much if it's killing his confidence.Yuri Gagarin wrote: View Post
his health is another unknown factor. he looked great shooting less threes and going to the basket more on the west coast trip. that should be his game. hasn't looked the same back in tampa and he's sat out some games with knee/groin ailments. how much is that bothering him?Comment
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to tank or not to tank? after spending a solid 12 to 14 years firmly in the tank camp starting in about 04 i feel the complete opposite now. plenty of teams have built contenders or championship teams from the middle, including us (and also boston, miami, houston, denver, etc).A.I wrote: View Post
tanking guarantees nothing, especially with the reformed lottery rules. if you're going to do it i think you have to go full firesale and acquire as many picks as possible a la OKC because you're going to swing and miss some. but that's a long process and i'm not sure nurse or masai (who might be our biggest organizational assets) would want to stick around for it.
i'm not there yet, personally.Comment
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I think its massively premature to talk about tanking. We just need a center that doesn't suck and isn't massively undersized.
The raps gave a really good effort fir this game, add og and a center who can do anything and this game is a win.Comment
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oh i agree. but a not-insignificant faction of the board have already been discussing it since we dropped the first two against NO. and it is the eternal debate about how to acquire the type of offensive talent that precipitated this conversation.Dvdvideo wrote: View PostComment
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Got absolutely destroyed in transition tonight. Difference in the game. A lot of it is bad decision making going both ways but it could be guys pressing and trying to do too much.
As for Pascal, he doesn’t look right at all out there. If he isn’t close to 100% it might be better to let him rest for a week or so.Comment
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Yeah to me the difference between now and the tank vs no tank dilemma 4-5 years ago is that GSW looked unstoppable league wide but also LeBron. Like when you step back and realize that if you just had LeBron on your roster over his career it basically meant you were going to the finals. At the time it felt like that was a sign you need to tank for the next LeBron. Pick your favorite superstar, they aren't close to LeBron in that respect. There probably will be another LeBron, but based on the fact that nobody has come close to him in the NBA much less as a prospect its fruitless to try to time and draft the next one. We have seen that you can move from the middle - upper middle of the pack to NBA finalist in an offseason two straight years. We are at a point where we need one big move to go right, and in the meantime we get to was actual exciting games. Ill take that.chris wrote: View PostComment
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Couple thoughts:
-Siakam is now shooting 25% from 3 this season after shooting 35% each of the last 2 years.
- Siakam attempted a shot with 6:56 left in the game and then did not attempt another shot in the game. He has got to be a threat in the 4th quarter of close games. He has not been one this year.
—Next 7 games are Sacramento, Orlando, Orlando, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Memphis, Washington. This next 7 is going to tell us a lot about what direction this team is going.
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Fun game, no? Put up a pretty good fight, but with Siakam and Lowry both still looking a little hobbled and without OG, that's a tough matchup.Comment
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Outside of Brooklyn, those other teams are in that dreaded treadmill cycle fighting for one of the last playoff spots. What do we learn from playing them really? Right now I feel we are better than the Bosh Raptors but worse than the DeMar Raptors. Once we fix our issues at C that should change.Rudy Bargnani wrote: View PostComment
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There is no decline, because Pascal was never "up there". He had a few hot months to start 2018-19 and then opposing teams adjusted to transition and his spin moves. The "decline" started before the all-star break last year. Opposing teams are now diligent in transition and allowing Pascal to take above the break 3's and mid-range step backs. They are taking away the baseline spin and having a second defender waiting to strip the spin into the lane. And Pascal still has not developed any reliable counters. That's all that has happened.Yuri Gagarin wrote: View Post
Pascal needed to come back this year with a tighter handle and more in his bag so that he could get to his spots without losing his dribble (or falling down entirely, smh). Either he did not put in the work, or worse.... he worked really, really hard and it made no difference in his skill level, so this is his ceiling. He had 6 months leading up to the bubble to work on that handle - it's not like he needed a gym for that.
I mean, even if we all say, 'Ok... Pascal's ceiling is a second option', then you're looking at guys like: Khris Middleton, CJ McCollum, PG, Anthony Davis, Harden/Kyrie, Simmons, Jaylen Brown, Jamal Murray, Brogdon, etc.... These guys are all significantly more skilled with the ball than Pascal.
I don't think I've ever seen a guy literally fall down when dribbling as much as Pascal does.
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