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Everything 2021-22 Free Agency / Off-Season
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golden wrote: View PostOur new “championship core†probably owes Masai more than he owes them. They haven’t done squat in the playoffs without Kawhi.
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golden wrote: View Post
Yeah, FVV & Siakam got paid a huge championship premium because of Kawhi. Masai also let them defend the chip without their playoff MVP, when that year might have been the best time to sell off parts and start the rebuild. He could broken the team up and everybody would have understood.
Our new “championship core†probably owes Masai more than he owes them. They haven’t done squat in the playoffs without Kawhi.
Kawhi hasn't done squat in the Playoffs since he was with the Raptors.
Its as if the Raptors were in the same setting the last 2 seasons as they were during the championship. Its all speculation, but a good educated guess to say the Raptors with home court advantage and Siakam potentially playing better in a normal setting would have beaten the Celtics in the 2nd round. It took the Celtics 7 games and Siakam playing poorly to squeeze by and get to the ECF. They also would have had home court advantage against the Heat.
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magoon wrote: View Post
The very next year they went to the second round and played a hotly contested 7-game series against Boston which came down to the final quarter. At a certain point, you have to accept that there's some amount of variance in basketball playoffs and that the whole deal isn't wholly deterministic from player abilities like you're simming the whole thing in 2K.
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golden wrote: View Post
So, if we're talking about "almosts" here, then they were 0.5 seconds away from being down 3-0 and probably swept. They were blown out multiple times. That series wasn't particularly close.
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slaw wrote: View Post
Come on, man..... there was a game 7 that came down to the last 10 seconds or so. The team had the second best record in the league and lost a game 7 in the waning seconds. The core has flaws, it isn't a championship team, they need moves. You think they should have blown up the team when Kawhi left. Cool. All reasonable points you can make without resorting to sheer nonsense like the above.
My point was that Masai didn’t owe the Kawhi-less core (except maybe Lowry) that chance without Kawhi. He also could have waited until after the bubble to pay Siakam, who got rewarded too early, in the afterglow of the chip. He owes Masai a lot, which was the original point. Fred also capitalized on great timing, with no decent FAs being available last off-season.
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Siakam was a legit second-team all NBA player that year. He deserved the max. His value rose from being the go to scorer on the second best team in the league. He would have gotten the max even after his bad playoffs. Maybe not the 3% boost, but he did get MIP as well, so maybe he would have.
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planetmars wrote: View PostSiakam was a legit second-team all NBA player that year. He deserved the max. His value rose from being the go to scorer on the second best team in the league. He would have gotten the max even after his bad playoffs. Maybe not the 3% boost, but he did get MIP as well, so maybe he would have.
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golden wrote: View Post
I doubt Pascal gets the max in the off-season immediately after the bubble. There were legitimate concerns if his game got exposed and he got figured out in the bubble (i.e. take transition away, sit on the spin and make him a shooter). The most reasonable comp is Jaylen Brown, who thoroughly outplayed Pascal in the bubble - he got a nice paycheck, but not the max.
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planetmars wrote: View Post
Nah.. he'd still get the max. The bubble was weird. If it was a thing then Gobert wouldn't have gotten paid the way he did either.
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slaw wrote: View Post
Is that what people are saying? Seems to me that there are varying views on how good the current roster is and what improvements need to be made. For me, the team needs to add a lot of firepower and it goes to reason it is likely going to need to make some material changes to bring in the necessary guys. For others, it's more adding the #4 pick and adding the present foundation (a foundation which, by the way, had the second best record in the NBA one season ago). Even if you think the team is further away, it is not an unreasonable position to take to say, 'hey, the current core is pretty decent, let's add to it rather than trading it away'. Characterizing that as people saying Siakam or FVV are owed something seems off target.
No, its not unreasonable to want/hope that this core continues on as is but that is one direction and there may be better directions. Masai is not one to trade for the sake of a shake up, quite the contrary. His biggest criticism prior to the Kawhi trade was not making enough moves or any big splashes and rather living off what Colangelo built. His biggest criticism post-Kawhi was not pulling the trigger on Kyle Lowry to obtain something of tangible worth rather than letting him walk for nothing or rather than facilitating a S&T for pennies on the dollar. Masai trades when it makes sense and he only gambles on a trade when the potential payoff is right. That's what history shows.
If Masai is shopping Siakam its because there are valid concerns with where this current team can go with him as the key piece. I trust Masai's judgement much more than anyone in here and this stance to me also seems very reasonable. I welcome a trade because I know it will only happen if it makes a lot of sense for the team.
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