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

[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 ..