Post deadline reaction: are you glad Masai stood pat?

[Bendit]

I am absolutely fine with it. Did not expect much if anything to happen....and it didnt!. Main reasoning is that "patience" has always been my (as with others) my mantra. I'm an admirer of MU and his process. If he did not come across a deal worth doing...that is fine by me. Seems like first round picks exchanging were the order of the day.....and this is just not a good thing at this point of the post BC evolution of the team. Finally, this team has bonded really well and for all my criticism of Casey he has kept the guys playing together and hard...I want to give them the opportunity to take this season as far as they can go. They have worked hard and they deserve the chance. Summer is a good time to mine for bargains too.

[DanH]

If MU is planning to get a FA then keeping Amir and Lou is pointless since they have trade value. If he isn't planning to sign a FA then even JaVale McGee is worth more than having all contracts expires taking the extra payroll with them.

Trade either of them and the return is likely not expiring contracts, meaning you lose your cap room, and probably are also less competitive this year. And, no, a couple month rental, even of a decent player, is really not worth that much.

[KeonClark]

I'm really, really happy. The players are probably at a all time high confidence right now. It's gotta be nice to know that you're trusted. And I'm talking about guys like Ross and Hansbrough.

This team can make noise. I'm sure Ross can finish the season strong. We have a really beautiful team.

Draft night and summer will be time to upgrade via drafting, signing and trading. For the time being I'm really happy that our GM decided to stand pat.

I see a difference between last year when they were saying ''patience is the key'' and ''we don't want to rush things and we want to develop'' and now. Now we're winning. Like the Portland's and the Chicago's of this league. Winning big time. Not only one or 2 games over 500.

If there were no trade available when we would have upgraded significantly (by that I mean not Hansbrough for a future second round pick), I don't see the point. Because team spirit is freaking important. I mean even a guy like Stiemsma. He's part of the team. So trading him just to trade him is the worse thing we could have done right now.

THANK YOU! Did anybody read the 2Pat article posted here? Like yeah everybody just wants to move guys around endlessly like puzzle pieces. One "interesting" poster here actually said we should have dealt Amir and Lou because they're free agents. Does everyone forget that these are 15 human beings sitting on planes, busses and hanging out in locker rooms and restaurants for the past 6 months, some longer. They would completely understand if a move for huge improvement comes along. Or you trade a cancer in the locker room. Neither was the case with this team.

[ezz_bee]

I'm not glad we didn't make a move. Masai said he would only make a move if it helped us both now AND in the future. I would have been glad had he found that type of trade.

That said, I'm not unhappy. I think there's nothing wrong with giving this team the chance to see how far it can go. I would have been unhappy had Masai made a shortsighted move for this season only, or giving up the NYK/Den pick, which I'm hoping ends up being a top ten pick.

It would have been nice if Masai was able to get his hands on some of the rookie contracts that were moved (Ennis?), but a move like that probably wouldn't have moved the needle that much this year anyway.

Chemistry is also important, Masai said all the right things about Ross this week, (to increase his confidence and drive his asking price up) so hopefully he'll turn it around down the stretch.

We're still looking for Ross and JV to make improvements if we have any chance of getting out of the second round. And With other moves in the East, a first round loss is very much in play, depending on the match up.

Still excited about this team, and to see how far they can go in the playoffs. The off season was always going to be the better time to make larger moves.

[raptors999]

Trade either of them and the return is likely not expiring contracts, meaning you lose your cap room, and probably are also less competitive this year. And, no, a couple month rental, even of a decent player, is really not worth that much.

It just needs to expire around the time JV and Ross are RFA. Keep payroll just below the luxury by adding expensive but short term deals to keep flexibility. Next season Raptors will be at or near the cap level.

[caccia]

The comments Mr. Ujiri made concerning the team being good, but not great, may be realistic, but they are also provocative, almost dismissive. Does he expect the team to roll over just because Golden State comes to town? Or to lose to Chicago or Atlanta in a seven-game series? I am not sure exactly how the players will react. They could see the lack of moves as a vote of confidence, as an earlier poster suggests, or they could take the comments as evidence of low expectations. If that is the case, you might see a little road rage from Lowry and company. The team's own GM does not think they can make it to the Finals.

[raptorredy]

I'm cool with standing Pat. A lot of people are forgetting we didn't expect to be in 2nd place and playing decent ball. Everyyyyyy team has slumps. The raps are no different. If D. Green, G Munroe, T. Harris,L. Altridge or K. Faried was moved then I would be upset, that's my opinion. Now we are in a position to go after one of these guys. The only problem is Masai will be competing with big markets like Lakers .Knicks. Chicago for these big name players, not sure how that is going to work out. The second half and playoff would be interesting because Miami. Detroit and Milwaukee has gotten better ON PAPER. This will be the true test to Team Chemistry and Team basketball. Let's Go Raps. I am standing tall with this team. They have always surprised us when we doubted them.

[DDelight]

Look at our roster. Remove yourself from being a Toronto Raptors fan and compare the names on our roster, to the names on Chicago, Cleveland, and heck Washington. Our "biggest" names are Lowry and DeRozan and they're already extremely underrated in this league.

There's no reason our roster with the names we have should still be in 2nd place at this time. Look there's no reason Atlanta with the names they have should be in 1st. With us/ATL, its the chemistry that has gotten us to this point, not some multi-NBA champion, MVP, DPOY, and #1 draft picked-filled roster. I think it was ok that Masai didn't do any moves. Stick with the chemistry and revisit the roster in the summer.

[mcHAPPY]

The comments Mr. Ujiri made concerning the team being good, but not great, may be realistic, but they are also provocative, almost dismissive. Does he expect the team to roll over just because Golden State comes to town? Or to lose to Chicago or Atlanta in a seven-game series? I am not sure exactly how the players will react. They could see the lack of moves as a vote of confidence, as an earlier poster suggests, or they could take the comments as evidence of low expectations. If that is the case, you might see a little road rage from Lowry and company. The team's own GM does not think they can make it to the Finals.

That is my interpretation and I don't think that is a bad thing. Jumping from first round knock out to the Finals is a big big jump for a team that kept the same core and didn't acquire a superstar or watch their own star become a superstar with the same core.

I don't have a lot of confidence in the roster or style of play come playoff time - which is nothing new.

I think if the Raptors surprise to the upside, that is great. I'll gladly have egg on my face or eat a big ol' serving of crow.

But if they lose in the first round, it will provide Ujiri with all the justification to make a big trade, to let key free agents leave, or to make a coaching change to really make the roster and team his own.


**I look forward to the #ProveEm replies - lol**

[Axel]

Making moves, just to make moves, so Message boarders and media types have something to chat about aint smart.

Conveniently, we don't need the Raptors to actually do anything to have something to chat about. Rock on RR

[Puffer]

Just thinking that. Nothing happens and 4 pages + of posts

[Axel]

Honestly not sure what moves that Masai really could have made. Of the deals that went down, there were very few that we would really have had either interest in or assets for.

I mean, taking a look at what happened:

Afflalo out of Denver - this is actually one that could have made some sense to us, swapping Ross, Hans and a future first (protected) but it would very much be a risk of present vs future. Afflalo hasn't been great this year, but could be a victim of circumstance more than anything. Since Denver essentially traded Afflalo for lesser prospects than Ross and a similar pick, perhaps this is one we could have pulled off (depends on Denver's view of Ross and preference for multiple lesser prospects vs one "greater" prospect).

Reggie Jackson - Enes Kantner - Kendrick Perkins + parts
Jackson is about to get paid, and doesn't play a position we really need help in - so no deal to be made.
Kantner - based on Utah's return (Perkins - to be boughtout, first rounder from OKC, 2nd rounder and a prospect - we could conceivably have made a move here. Landry Fields' contract matches - so it would just be a question of picks and possibly rights to Daniels. Personally, wouldn't do it for what is likely a rental player (he wouldn't resign to play on our bench likely), but I could see why some people might want to.

Plumlee - Ennis - Thomas - MCW - Knight
This is a complicated one to break down but here's my attempt:
Thomas could technically have been had with GV and a first rounder, but the Suns overall haul in this complex multiteam deal is greater than what we would really have offered.

Plumlee & Ennis - Brandon Knight is more valuable than anything we really could offer. (Ross and Hans/Fields/Steamer seemed to be the popular theory among the trade enthusiasts).

Miller for Sessions - neither player would particularly be of value to us.

KG for Thad Young - Minnesota seemed to want to waste assets on nostalgia (let this me a lesson for all the "passport" trade ideas to bring Canadians to the Raptors). Pretty sure Brooklyn likes the return of Thad over anything we could have offered (unless you were willing to throw 1st round picks at a division rival, which I am not).

Dragic - no chance for a deal here.

KJ McDaniels for prospect and 2nd rounder - pretty sure the appeal of Steamer isn't as good as a young PG prospect.

JaVale McGee was a straight salary dump and there is nothing we could have done in that regard.

Pretty sure I don't even need to talk about Prigioni, Shved, Prince, and Luigi.

Overall, moving an expiring Fields, Hans, Hayes is nice in theory, I think we are better off with the cap space in the off-season than any return we could have gotten for those players. The waiver wire should have some interesting players - McGee is an obvious one since Masai traded for him before, but even Perkins (Casey would love him and RR would explode with frustration) is a possibility.

Kudos to Masai for demonstrating patience and not pulling the quintessential Colangelo move of "trading for the sake of trading".

[big boi]

Totally indifferent. I guess happy is closest. Had no expectation a move would be made, and no move was made.

Lots of movement, but arguably nothing that made sense for us given short and long term fit as well as transaction cost.

Feel the Same

[guyroch]

The GM has a young roster with expiring contracts , and draft picks ..

[RPT23]

I'm not upset we didn't make any transactions. I'm sort of get the feeling that Masai didn't get a trade or offer he felt would benefit the team now and into the future.

I know this isn't NBA2K where you make trades based on salaries matching then override if the other GM doesn't cooperate, it doesn't work like that (duh). I trust Masai wants to make a better assessment at season end.

As for complaints about the East being a bit better from the recent trades. I think (and hope) that's good! All this talk about reordering the playoff brackets is not something I'm in favor of. I think only the lottery needs to change. IMO.