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Game 38 Toronto Raptors vs Chicago Bulls - 9:00 PM EST Mar 14/21

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  • Garbo
    replied
    A.I wrote: View Post

    Coaches are always the first scapegoat.

    Most of the young guys we have are either undrafted (few players will make a good career out of it, most won't), have careers as bench players thus far like Stanley and Ellenson or are just young. What do people expect when they're playing against starters and playing more minutes? Some players will take more time to develop than others.

    Out of all the young guys on our team playing right now, I'd say Davis is the only one with real potential, but of course he needs time to develop. Matt Thomas is 26, Stanley and Ellenson have been in the league for a while and have been nothing but mediocre bench players.
    Exactly. This group is the kind of group that you put at the end of the bench and hope that you might find one guy who can surprise you with helpful spot minutes. That's who they are supposed to be. That's who they were signed to be.

    The COVID decimation of our lineup combined with the double kick to the nuts of Baynes and Len forced us to try and pretend these guys are more than what they are. In a regular year, we'd be talking about Bembry's promising 5 minutes in garbage time and Yuta's play down in the G-league. I'm reading nothing into this asterisk season. Certainly not firing one of the best coaches in the NBA.

    Leave a comment:


  • A.I
    replied
    MixxAOR wrote: View Post

    So you think Stanley, Bembry, Ellenson, Thomas, Davis could be doing more if Nurse wasn't the coach?

    Coach is always first one to go when people think it's not talent issue. Almost always ends up being talent issue though
    Coaches are always the first scapegoat.

    Most of the young guys we have are either undrafted (few players will make a good career out of it, most won't), have careers as bench players thus far like Stanley and Ellenson or are just young. What do people expect when they're playing against starters and playing more minutes? Some players will take more time to develop than others.

    Out of all the young guys on our team playing right now, I'd say Davis is the only one with real potential, but of course he needs time to develop. Matt Thomas is 26, Stanley and Ellenson have been in the league for a while and have been nothing but mediocre bench players.

    Leave a comment:


  • planetmars
    replied
    S.R. wrote: View Post
    100% knew this would happen. Quick reminder the Raptors were finally rolling and up to the 4 seed before COVID hit. After 2 weeks of complete bullshit covid ball with half the team out, the hot takes are now:
    - Are any of these players any good
    - Is Nick Nurse actually any good
    - Should we be tanking
    - Is management actually any good

    These current games mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. Less than summer league. It's all garbage, crumple it up in a ball and throw it out.

    This season is 65% bullshit and the last 2 weeks for the Raptors have been 100% bullshit.
    Yeah all good points. Looking at the schedule.. the next 20 or so games.. maybe 4 or 5 tough ones (Utah, Phoenix, Lakers, Brooklyn at the back end of that). Lot of easy wins if we get a full staff: Detroit, Cleveland, Houston, Denver, Portland, Detroit again, OKC, Golden State, Washington, Cleveland again, NY, Atlanta, San Antonio, Orlando, OKC).

    Some good teams like Denver, Portland, Golden State, San Antonio, NY depending on what you think of them but a lot of lottery bound teams.

    I think we could easily go streaking and pull back into the top 4-6 in the East.

    More likely we make the playoffs then drop out, even if we trade Kyle for scraps (which we won't because Masai and Bobby don't lose trades).


    Leave a comment:


  • KeonClark
    replied
    S.R. wrote: View Post
    100% knew this would happen. Quick reminder the Raptors were finally rolling and up to the 4 seed before COVID hit. After 2 weeks of complete bullshit covid ball with half the team out, the hot takes are now:
    - Are any of these players any good
    - Is Nick Nurse actually any good
    - Should we be tanking
    - Is management actually any good

    These current games mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. Less than summer league. It's all garbage, crumple it up in a ball and throw it out.

    This season is 65% bullshit and the last 2 weeks for the Raptors have been 100% bullshit.
    I mean, these games DID tell us we have very poor depth after the top 6 or 7 guys. It was a chance to give run to a handful of guys that did absolutely nothing win. Granted. most teams have these same issues once you get down to 9, 10,11 in the lineup, it's just the Raptors have been spoiled in the past where any group of 8 guys from the top 15 could seemingly step in and make any game competitive

    Leave a comment:


  • G__Deane
    replied
    S.R. wrote: View Post
    100% knew this would happen. Quick reminder the Raptors were finally rolling and up to the 4 seed before COVID hit. After 2 weeks of complete bullshit covid ball with half the team out, the hot takes are now:
    - Are any of these players any good
    - Is Nick Nurse actually any good
    - Should we be tanking
    - Is management actually any good

    These current games mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. Less than summer league. It's all garbage, crumple it up in a ball and throw it out.

    This season is 65% bullshit and the last 2 weeks for the Raptors have been 100% bullshit.
    That's actually all a fair comment

    Leave a comment:


  • MixxAOR
    replied
    golden wrote: View Post

    Davis was going to be drafted in the 2nd round, but he told those teams he wasn't going to sign with them. Same story with FVV... aka... Bet on Yourself. Both FVV and Davis would have been drafted, so it's not like Masai is bringing in an army of talent-less scrubs and giving Nurse only garbage to work with. Boucher would have also been drafted, except he had a really bad injury in his draft year. Stanley, Bembry and Ellenson are all former 1st round picks.

    Nunn is an undersized shooting guard and those guys get passed over all the time in the draft or drafted late second round (e.g. Powell). I know Nunn had some off-court issues, but he wasn't exactly some kind of can't miss prospect coming out of college. Not really sure what to make of Thomas.... Nurse's hook is so quick with him, that it's really hard to figure out if he just needs a role and rhythm, or if he's just physically over-matched at the NBA level. He will either wash out of the league, or he will end up on a contender, hit a few daggers and become a folk hero.
    So you think Stanley, Bembry, Ellenson, Thomas, Davis could be doing more if Nurse wasn't the coach?

    Coach is always first one to go when people think it's not talent issue. Almost always ends up being talent issue though

    Leave a comment:


  • G__Deane
    replied
    KeonClark wrote: View Post

    What do you mean by "appear absent"? They're in Tampa with the team. Masai is always doing interviews, Bobby did the pre game coach presser last week. Do you want to bring cameras in to their team management meetings?
    That's be great, yes.
    Where is Masai always doing interviews, when was the last one and was it posted here? Haven't seen any on sportsnet.ca or TSN or any of the 3 sports dedicated channels.
    have and don't even often read RR except the forum and I don't follow any twitter.

    What has Masai said about how he and Bobby might attempt to make changes this season, have they even commented on the last month. They can't help recent COVID issues but after Len was released?

    Leave a comment:


  • S.R.
    replied
    100% knew this would happen. Quick reminder the Raptors were finally rolling and up to the 4 seed before COVID hit. After 2 weeks of complete bullshit covid ball with half the team out, the hot takes are now:
    - Are any of these players any good
    - Is Nick Nurse actually any good
    - Should we be tanking
    - Is management actually any good

    These current games mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. Less than summer league. It's all garbage, crumple it up in a ball and throw it out.

    This season is 65% bullshit and the last 2 weeks for the Raptors have been 100% bullshit.

    Leave a comment:


  • KeonClark
    replied
    golden wrote: View Post

    Davis was going to be drafted in the 2nd round, but he told those teams he wasn't going to sign with them. Same story with FVV... aka... Bet on Yourself. Both FVV and Davis would have been drafted, so it's not like Masai is bringing in an army of talent-less scrubs and giving Nurse only garbage to work with. Boucher would have also been drafted, except he had a really bad injury in his draft year. Stanley, Bembry and Ellenson are all former 1st round picks.

    Nunn is an undersized shooting guard and those guys get passed over all the time in the draft or drafted late second round (e.g. Powell). I know Nunn had some off-court issues, but he wasn't exactly some kind of can't miss prospect coming out of college. Not really sure what to make of Thomas.... Nurse's hook is so quick with him, that it's really hard to figure out if he just needs a role and rhythm, or if he's just physically over-matched at the NBA level. He will either wash out of the league, or he will end up on a contender, hit a few daggers and become a folk hero.
    Every single man on this roster has gotten multiple cracks at games with solid minutes. You don't always get 10, 20 tries in this league.. It's not the "try" league, its the "win" league. I mean the last 3 games just gave everybody a crack, and only Boucher, Lowry and Powell made any impact. Grab the brass ring when you have a chance, or you end up looking for another job pretty quick.

    Leave a comment:


  • LJ2
    replied
    saints91 wrote: View Post
    Okay, that was the shittiest came to watch in a long long time. Being down 3 starters is pretty tough to overcome. I’m just wondering what we are trying to achieve this year... being away from TO and now this stretch might be tough to overcome.
    That's the million dollar question isn't it? After the slow start and before the roster got hit with COVID we topped out at .500, so pretty safe to expect we'd be competing with Miami and Boston for that 4th seed, if not for those setbacks. Managements actions or inactions would indicate that they are fine being at that spot (for now) and have no expectations beyond that this season.

    So what are the options for improvement:
    1. Trades, but we would need to restock desirable assets first. Also there is a high chance of player walking once contract is up.
    2. Free agency, but this has always been a problem for Toronto due to location.
    3. Internal improvement, but we are limited to the ceilings of our current roster

    The only other option and the one I supported (currently on the fence) is the draft, but thinking more about it we would need to be pretty terrible to break into the top 5. We'd have to move Lowry plus one of Siakam or FVV (OG probably wouldn't impact things). Heck, that might be the case to break into the top 10. Raptors seem to be doing everything in their power to get there....Lowry has rested every injury this season which never happens, as has Siakam and OG,not to mention some of these line up's Nurse is putting out there are straight up funky. We'd have to be so bad that even if we got a legitimate talent in the draft we'd have to be rebuild the roster completely.

    The current course of action might be our best option. Keep the talent we have, improve internally, hopefully hit a home run late in the lottery or wherever we land in the draft. Yeesh.



    Leave a comment:


  • planetmars
    replied
    golden wrote: View Post

    Miami Heat are starting 2 G-League guys (Robinson & Nunn), plus some random guy named KZ Okpala? They got hit by Covid bad early in the season and are now 4th overall & streaking with Bam out.

    Has it become blasphemy to say that Nurse isn't as good as Spoelstra when it comes to developing his bench guys? We all love St. Nick, but he isn't perfect. There's a definite trend there with Nurse and the bench, and losing 3 starters has fully exposed that chink in the armor. Our bench guys don't even look like they know how to play the game of basketball at times. Some of that has to be coaching related.
    I don't know if Nick is good at developing bench / young guys.. Casey might have been better. Having an established role as opposed to being given hats or role cards might be a detriment.

    In the championship year he never had to rely on his depth. I mean OG was like our 9th man and hardly played due to his injuries/ailments. Last year he played his top 7 guys super hard.. and only had to go to his other guys due to injury and for the most part (other than Davis) were pretty bad. He thought McCaw was a top 8 / rotation guy.

    Leave a comment:


  • golden
    replied
    MixxAOR wrote: View Post
    The reason why Nunn went undrafted is different from why Thomas and Davis went undrafted let's be honest though. And it's not talent related.
    Davis was going to be drafted in the 2nd round, but he told those teams he wasn't going to sign with them. Same story with FVV... aka... Bet on Yourself. Both FVV and Davis would have been drafted, so it's not like Masai is bringing in an army of talent-less scrubs and giving Nurse only garbage to work with. Boucher would have also been drafted, except he had a really bad injury in his draft year. Stanley, Bembry and Ellenson are all former 1st round picks.

    Nunn is an undersized shooting guard and those guys get passed over all the time in the draft or drafted late second round (e.g. Powell). I know Nunn had some off-court issues, but he wasn't exactly some kind of can't miss prospect coming out of college. Not really sure what to make of Thomas.... Nurse's hook is so quick with him, that it's really hard to figure out if he just needs a role and rhythm, or if he's just physically over-matched at the NBA level. He will either wash out of the league, or he will end up on a contender, hit a few daggers and become a folk hero.

    Leave a comment:


  • KeonClark
    replied
    nba_4_life wrote: View Post

    When they got hit by covid, they were 14th in the east.... got players back and now they are 4th....
    Yes exactly lol. The covid period was what killed them, same as for us. They were doing no better with Nunn and Robinson.

    Leave a comment:


  • KeonClark
    replied
    G__Deane wrote: View Post

    Why wouldn't I watch?
    I've been a fan since the land before time, I don't pick and choose the games (or seasons) to watch based on their chances of winning...what a weird comment lol

    And remember prior seasons (different situations) where Lowry and DeMar would low grade but publicly criticize the lack of roster movement at the trade deadline as Colangelo or Masai not having faith in the team while other peer teams attempted to get better? That's where we are now and it's weird that Masai and Bobby appear absent for the most part.
    What do you mean by "appear absent"? They're in Tampa with the team. Masai is always doing interviews, Bobby did the pre game coach presser last week. Do you want to bring cameras in to their team management meetings?

    Leave a comment:


  • nba_4_life
    replied
    golden wrote: View Post

    Miami Heat are starting 2 G-League guys (Robinson & Nunn), plus some random guy named KZ Okpala? They got hit by Covid bad early in the season and are now 4th overall & streaking with Bam out.

    Has it become blasphemy to say that Nurse isn't as good as Spoelstra when it comes to developing his bench guys? We all love St. Nick, but he isn't perfect. There's a definite trend there with Nurse and the bench, and losing 3 starters has fully exposed that chink in the armor. Our bench guys don't even look like they know how to play the game of basketball at times. Some of that has to be coaching related.
    When they got hit by covid, they were 14th in the east.... got players back and now they are 4th....

    Leave a comment:

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