2022 PreSeason - 3 Weeks to Camp Opening - Where Do The Raps Stack up in the East ?

[Demographic Shift]

Right, and our initial defence was good enough on first chances that even giving up 14 a game on second chances, it graded out to a top 5 overall mark for the second half of the season. And that's with OG missing a bunch of time and Fred hobbled.

Even with Precious making leaps and bounds with his shooting last season, his season long offensive impact was disastrous, while his defensive impact was truly elite. He's currently the very definition of a defence first player. Almost any replacement for him would lead to better offensive results and worse defensive results for the team.

Don't see it that way.
Neither of us are changing views in the short term..
We can pick this up after 25 games again.

KPI's will be defensive rebounding and second chance points ?
Or
What do you want use as the benchmark ?

[Demographic Shift]

No, I don't see it.
In no particular order in my opinion the top 9 in the east are:

Milwaukee
Boston
Philly
Miami
Brooklyn
Toronto
Cleveland
Chicago
Atlanta

That's 9. I think Charlotte, Detroit, Knicks, Orlando, Indy, Washington are all worse than the top 9.

Who is your dark horse from the bolded above.
I think Deeetroit Basketball pushes for the playin and makes it.

[DanH]

Don't see it that way.
Neither of us are changing views in the short term..
We can pick this up after 25 games again.

KPI's will be defensive rebounding and second chance points ?
Or
What do you want use as the benchmark ?

Uhh, if the discussion is about defence, the benchmark should be defence. DRTG captures the effects of giving up additional chances via offensive boards. Giving up offensive boards and second chance points doesn't actually hurt you unless it makes you give up more actual points to the other team.

It's not a view one can change. It's the way the game works - if you score more points than the other team does, you win, no matter how many each of your points come from the offensive glass.

[Demographic Shift]

Thanks for the pro tip that if team a scores more points than team b they win.
Stats aside you have to play defense to win as the competition gets better the further you go.
Part of playing defense is ending possessions with defensive rebounding.
We don't do that very well.
The outcome of that hole in the defensive side of the ball is giving up second chance points that kill you .. 14 gimme points. A game.

The East got better in the offseason.
The Raps did not keep up with the pace of change in the East as a whole.
Giving up 14 gimmies a game during the reg season is a lot.
Depending on where you see the Raps in the standings when the playoffs start, the teams in front of them all have rim protecting rebounding 5's or most of them do. We will have to work incredibly hard to get offensive rebounds where the other teams won't have to work as hard..

So watch DTRG...
I will watch defensive rebounds and second chance points given up.
Reviist at 25 games/Christmas.

Stay well.

[slaw]

We can agree on your first few sentenences anyway...... The Raps don't have a 5.
After that not so much I am afraid.

Hoping that we get a different result on the defensive glass with the same players as last year is a pretty risky strategy.

Raps are never going to be a great defensive rebounding team under this front office and coaching staff cause of the style of play. Even the title team was middle of the pack in DRB%. The trade off is that the aggressive style of defense causes turnovers and other mistakes, which the Raps can capitalize on by having 5 guys who can all run the break. The advantage on the other end is playing 5-out with 5 skilled guys and creating match up issues for the opponent.

Raps aren't changing their entire philosophy to get a big guy who rebounds. They will try to cover the weakness as best they can and play to their strengths.

[DanH]

Thanks for the pro tip that if team a scores more points than team b they win.
Stats aside you have to play defense to win as the competition gets better the further you go.
Part of playing defense is ending possessions with defensive rebounding.
We don't do that very well.
The outcome of that hole in the defensive side of the ball is giving up second chance points that kill you .. 14 gimme points. A game.

The East got better in the offseason.
The Raps did not keep up with the pace of change in the East as a whole.
Giving up 14 gimmies a game during the reg season is a lot.
Depending on where you see the Raps in the standings when the playoffs start, the teams in front of them all have rim protecting rebounding 5's or most of them do. We will have to work incredibly hard to get offensive rebounds where the other teams won't have to work as hard..

So watch DTRG...
I will watch defensive rebounds and second chance points given up.
Reviist at 25 games/Christmas.

Stay well.

So, if the Raptors give up 20 offensive boards a game, and 40 second chance points, a total disaster of a result in that metric... but otherwise give up literally zero points. So 40 points given up total per game. What is your stance on their defence? Not good enough, because of all those offensive boards and second chance points? That's ridiculous, the only reason you care about the 14 "gimmes" is because they contribute to the total points given up.

This is ridiculous anyway, you are describing these 14 PPG as though they could be zero. The best team in the league at preventing second chance points gave up 11.4 of them per game. The Raptors' 13.9 is 2.5 points worse than the best in the league. Which is a trade off they happily make to be able to play their defensive system, which (including those extra 2.5 points), again, rated TOP FIVE (4th actually) in the league last season over their final 41 games (and top 10 overall).

We were better at generating offensive boards last year than we were bad at preventing them, so even if we don't improve that area it's still an overall area of strength, not weakness.

[Hotshot]

Koloko will be the rim protector big rebounding 5 that would be utilized specifically when the Raptors will have trouble with other bigs on the floor. He will be our Manute Bol in his first year, he will average more rebounds than points cause that is all he will be tasked to do in limited minutes (protect the rim, defend, grab rebounds and putbacks offensively).

This is why we saw him play with the starters in summer's training ca.. i mean Rico Run.

[golden]

Raps are never going to be a great defensive rebounding team under this front office and coaching staff cause of the style of play. Even the title team was middle of the pack in DRB%. The trade off is that the aggressive style of defense causes turnovers and other mistakes, which the Raps can capitalize on by having 5 guys who can all run the break. The advantage on the other end is playing 5-out with 5 skilled guys and creating match up issues for the opponent.

Raps aren't changing their entire philosophy to get a big guy who rebounds. They will try to cover the weakness as best they can and play to their strengths.

We're not really a legit 5-out team if/when teams don't respect Precious, Scottie & Pascal's 3-pt shot. We do have Birch spotting up in the corner a lot, but I'm not sure what that actually achieves. And Boucher had an off-year from 3. And Banton can't shoot... period.

We don't really exploit matchups consistently either. It ends up being very much a "your turn / my-turn" type of offense, with each guy ISO'ing against their defender... with infrequent picks and screens to hunt those mismatches.

[Demographic Shift]

Koloko will be the rim protector big rebounding 5 that would be utilized specifically when the Raptors will have trouble with other bigs on the floor. He will be our Manute Bol in his first year, he will average more rebounds than points cause that is all he will be tasked to do in limited minutes (protect the rim, defend, grab rebounds and putbacks offensively).

This is why we saw him play with the starters in summer's training ca.. i mean Rico Run.

Love your optimism.... To me Koloko is another project big man in a long line of them.
Hope you are right... I am not holding my breath.

[Demographic Shift]

So, if the Raptors give up 20 offensive boards a game, and 40 second chance points, a total disaster of a result in that metric... but otherwise give up literally zero points. So 40 points given up total per game. What is your stance on their defence? Not good enough, because of all those offensive boards and second chance points? That's ridiculous, the only reason you care about the 14 "gimmes" is because they contribute to the total points given up.

This is ridiculous anyway, you are describing these 14 PPG as though they could be zero. The best team in the league at preventing second chance points gave up 11.4 of them per game. The Raptors' 13.9 is 2.5 points worse than the best in the league. Which is a trade off they happily make to be able to play their defensive system, which (including those extra 2.5 points), again, rated TOP FIVE (4th actually) in the league last season over their final 41 games (and top 10 overall).

We were better at generating offensive boards last year than we were bad at preventing them, so even if we don't improve that area it's still an overall area of strength, not weakness.

Teams that stink at defensive rebounding rarely if ever do well in the playoffs.
We stink at defensive rebounding.
We stink at giving up easy gimme second chance points because we stink at defensive rebounding.
I am of the opinion we should address that. Not with 2nd round picks or with fans hopes that we will just do better with the same guys.
We should address that.
We haven't.

talk about this at christmas / 25 game mark.

[TrueTorontoFan]

Love your optimism.... To me Koloko is another project big man in a long line of them.
Hope you are right... I am not holding my breath.

he is much better than manute.... he will have 10-15 minutes per night this year

[DanH]

Teams that stink at defensive rebounding rarely if ever do well in the playoffs.
We stink at defensive rebounding.
We stink at giving up easy gimme second chance points because we stink at defensive rebounding.
I am of the opinion we should address that. Not with 2nd round picks or with fans hopes that we will just do better with the same guys.
We should address that.
We haven't.

talk about this at christmas / 25 game mark.

Oh, you have any evidence to back that up?

GSW last season won the chip and gave up 1 point per game fewer in second chance points than we did.

MIL won the chip the year before and was middle of the pack with 13 second chance PPG given up.

The Warriors in 17-18 allowed the 2nd most second chance points in the league. Won the chip.

The year before they won the chip allowing the 3rd most.

Plenty of teams with middle of the pack or near the best have also won the chip.

It's almost like that metric in particular is actually not at all relevant to how well teams do in the playoffs as a rule. Teams need to be good at things to do well in the playoffs, being good or bad at this one thing is not any more important than any other weakness or strength.

[The Great One]

Is it just me or is this forum look different now?

[The Great One]

These are my predictions for the East:

1. Raptors
2. Bucks
3. Nets
4. Celtics
5. 76ers
6. Heat
7. Hawks
8. Cavaliers
9. Knicks
10. Bulls
11. Pistons
12. Wizards
13. Magic
14. Hornets
15. Pacers

I think it'll be close between teams 1-6.. about 2-3 wins separating 1 from 6 with a lot of tie breakers. I believe in this years Raptors more than previous years. Still not feeling the Cavs vibes. I think they make the playoffs though, but only as the 8th seed.

Knicks beat the Bulls in their play-in game.

#1 seed? eh. Ok. I like it.

Here's one predicition that isn't very popular but i'm pretty confident will happen - Raptors will finish ahead of the Heat in the standings. The Raptors are a better team than the Heat.

[DanH]

#1 seed? eh. Ok. I like it.

Here's one predicition that isn't very popular but i'm pretty confident will happen - Raptors will finish ahead of the Heat in the standings. The Raptors are a better team than the Heat.

This is very possible. Quality of team aside, the Heat have a lot of aging vets who might miss a lot of time or rest fairly often and they might not prioritize regular season wins like some of the younger teams.