Toronto Raptors who are still playing Alumni thread ....

[KeonClark]

The Raptors remind me of Karl-Anthony Towns / Wiggins era of the Wolves ... Great stats during the regular season but compete level
so low that Butler roasted them during a famous intra squad practice ..

The Raptors? Or the Leafs? Either way, I don't think either had a "compete level" issue whatsoever...

I'm not even Leafs fan but I'll interject here. The blowback on them losing to Tampa is funny. They outplayed Tampa. The bounces and reffing didn't go their way, and they lost in 7. Tampa is the 2x defending stanley cup champion, going for 3, up 2 games to 0 on the leagues best team this year. Like, what are we even talking about here. The Leafs are a very good, young hockey team.

[guyroch]

Until the Leafs address the lack of sandpaper, I think it will be more of the same, maybe a round or two. Time to trade Nylander

The Raptors remind me of Karl-Anthony Towns / Wiggins era of the Wolves ... Great stats during the regular season but compete level
so low that Butler roasted them during a famous intra squad practice ..

[G__Deane]

Until the Leafs address the lack of sandpaper, I think it will be more of the same, maybe a round or two. Time to trade Nylander

[Primer]

It's all about relative timeline. The Leafs' best player is 24 years old. Them making the playoffs at all the past few years was the team functioning ahead of schedule. The NHL is also a league with incredible parity, meaning there's a lot of luck involved with advancing in the playoffs.

In terms of how the team actually performed, this year's playoff "run" was actually a huge leap forward for the Leafs. They just lost a good, hard fought series against the two times defending champs. Previous years they collapsed (last year in particular) against lesser teams. They had big issues from previous years that they fixed. This year's team if they stay the course should be very, very good for a long time and have as good a chance as anyone to go deep in the playoffs. The challenge for their management is keeping the right parts as they go through the annual cap crunch.

Contrast that to the Raptors, who advanced further in the playoffs earlier but started their success with much more established key players (DeMar was 24 when the Raps made that FIRST run to the playoffs, and was traded heading into his age 29 season, never mind Lowry who was actually who made the team tick). And Masai gave them year after year after year to get over the hump, even when years like 2014-15 were happening. I would expect the Leafs to take a similar approach to their core - build around it, fix weaknesses you find along the way, and eventually it either pays off, or your players are still falling short when in their prime, and when that happens you have a tough decision to make. But I think if management is smart (like Masai) that tough decision should still be a ways off.

I agree with all of this. I'm a Lightning fan and I was scared of the Leafs this year and I've never been scared of the Leafs. The Lightning are the favorite to win it all in my mind, how can they not be? The Leafs just got the toughest first round matchup possible, and put up an extremely good fight. Losing in game 7 by 1 goal is as close as a series can get.

I'm hoping the Leafs do something dumb and overreact, because if not they're going to be an actual problem for the Lightning from now on.

[DanH]

Wow we live in the same sports city as Raptors and Leafs . Raptor players like Demar got us to conference Finals but it wasn't good enough and we traded him but same sport city we have have our hockey team that can't make it out of the 1st round and management comes out as status quo . Thank god we have
Masai and his standards for excellence .

Oh by the way there was a Bosh sighting at the Juno's .. I assumed he got paid ..

It's all about relative timeline. The Leafs' best player is 24 years old. Them making the playoffs at all the past few years was the team functioning ahead of schedule. The NHL is also a league with incredible parity, meaning there's a lot of luck involved with advancing in the playoffs.

In terms of how the team actually performed, this year's playoff "run" was actually a huge leap forward for the Leafs. They just lost a good, hard fought series against the two times defending champs. Previous years they collapsed (last year in particular) against lesser teams. They had big issues from previous years that they fixed. This year's team if they stay the course should be very, very good for a long time and have as good a chance as anyone to go deep in the playoffs. The challenge for their management is keeping the right parts as they go through the annual cap crunch.

Contrast that to the Raptors, who advanced further in the playoffs earlier but started their success with much more established key players (DeMar was 24 when the Raps made that FIRST run to the playoffs, and was traded heading into his age 29 season, never mind Lowry who was actually who made the team tick). And Masai gave them year after year after year to get over the hump, even when years like 2014-15 were happening. I would expect the Leafs to take a similar approach to their core - build around it, fix weaknesses you find along the way, and eventually it either pays off, or your players are still falling short when in their prime, and when that happens you have a tough decision to make. But I think if management is smart (like Masai) that tough decision should still be a ways off.

[guyroch]

Wow we live in the same sports city as Raptors and Leafs . Raptor players like Demar got us to conference Finals but it wasn't good enough and we traded him but same sport city we have have our hockey team that can't make it out of the 1st round and management comes out as status quo . Thank god we have
Masai and his standards for excellence .

Oh by the way there was a Bosh sighting at the Juno's .. I assumed he got paid ..

[KeonClark]

He’s got back issues I guess.

Also he just isn’t better than Brook or Bobby anymore sadly.

Yeah, Ibaka is on the 17th hole of his career. He'll spend his last few years as a serviceable journeyman on the center waiver wire circuit. He could probably have a rotational spot on a bad team.

[Bonus Jonas]

I wonder what Ibaka is thinking right now ? Why trade for him and and not even use him .. Is he hurt ( if he was he wouldn't have passed the physical ) .. I know he was ruled out for last game but the guy is getting zero playing time ..

He’s got back issues I guess.

Also he just isn’t better than Brook or Bobby anymore sadly.

[guyroch]

I wonder what Ibaka is thinking right now ? Why trade for him and and not even use him .. Is he hurt ( if he was he wouldn't have passed the physical ) .. I know he was ruled out for last game but the guy is getting zero playing time ..

[Dvdvideo]

Ya i didn't have time to watch, was just going by his stats. But I thought many of you guys said to be a true "superstar" you had to be able to deal with double teams etc and still produce.

[The Great One]

People who clearly didn't watch the game somehow have a strong opinion about the game. Hilarious lol.

First of all, Caruso and LaVine did not play. LaVine is in protocols and Caruso has a concussion. Two, if you actually watched the game, the Bucks were double teaming/triple teaming DeRozan the whole game. So it was impossible for him to score. His teammates didn't make it any easy for him because they couldn't hit any shots.

[DanH]

Looks like Derozen unfortunately delivered about what he had in the past, in the losses he had 25, 18, 11 and 11. That just doesn't get it done post season.

It was a little different this year.

With the Raps, DeMar would typically tank both their offence and defence in the playoffs. This year the Bulls relied heavily on him for offence and he came through, they had a disastrous offence when he sat. But their defence was terrible in his minutes, which is similar to his playoff trends of the past.

I think it's more fair to say that the Bulls were a 6 seed that lost, which is to be expected, and that DeMar, although much more valuable on the offensive end which is a great step for him in terms of playoff performance, is still the defensive issue we all came to know, and that just won't cut it in the playoffs most times.

[chris]

Looks like Derozen unfortunately delivered about what he had in the past, in the losses he had 25, 18, 11 and 11. That just doesn't get it done post season.

he was not the problem tonight, it was everyone else. without lavine they trapped him every time he touched the ball and forced him to give it up. he made the right passes and they got wide open shots, just didn't knock enough of them down.

can't draw many conclusions about the bulls based on this series or even the second half of their season really due to the injuries. only conclusion i would draw is that the vuc trade was a mistake and they'd be much better off with wendell carter jr and franz wagner or whoever else they liked at 8. he was not good enough for them.

[Dvdvideo]

Looks like Derozen unfortunately delivered about what he had in the past, in the losses he had 25, 18, 11 and 11. That just doesn't get it done post season.

[Primer]

Absolutely correct. Come to that, as I recall, the details of the drug issue were never revealed. He probably wasn't dealing smack. Maybe after a taste of being tossed out of the big league, he will have determined it wasn't worth the thrill and would keep it clean. I was certainly impressed with his ability. Of course, he's not 6'9".

Whatever he tested positive for, if it wasn't steroids he didn't deserve to be banned for a year. I'd welcome him back. He'd be a good scoring guard off the bench.