The Dichotomy of Raptor Fans

[Deadallus]

How about a 4th camp.

The camp who is tired of watching management bumble along making foolish decisions year after year.
The camp who is fed up with washed up, over-valued players collecting a final paycheck and mailing it in once they come North of the border.
The camp who wants to vomit watching another player come up here make a name for himself, whine that he has no help, then jump ship for greener pastures.

Give me back those teams of old that played their asses off whether they had the talent to compete or not. I have no problem watching the Raptors lose when they lay it all on the line, like they did against the Lakers in L.A. What I cannot tolerate is watching a team just go through the motions, hovering somewhere between potential good and incredibly underachieving. The team name should be changed to the Toronto Marshmallows. They are soft from the management, to the coaches to the players. This organization gets bullied around and dangles that carrot of hope in front of the fans noses year, after year, after year. Loyalty only goes so far. My patience is being tested.

[mo-sales]

Your camp needs to stay away from roof tops and bridges.

Yea, its pretty impressive how spotty BC's record as President/GM has been. He's hit a lot of singles (Amir, Sonny, AP) , a couple doubles (Jack, Derozan, Bargs), has yet to hit a triple and wasted a lot of plate appearances swinging for the fences, but sadly striking out. He got caught stealing (Turk) and made a serious miscalculation promoting the third base coach to manager.

[Apollo]

We're talking about a .500 team becoming a title contender. That is a huge amount of improvement. If you believe those players can engineer that, then fine, playoffs all the way. I don't see that type of potential though.

Good point. If they make it it's not even like they're going back the following year to build on it. This off-season is probably going to be a rebuild and those four games of post season play will have little value compared to the potential of a 13-15 overall 1st rounder.

Players taken 13-15 sorted by year:
2008
13. Brandon Rush
14. Anthony Randolph
15. Robin Lopez

2007
13. Julian Wright
14. Al Thornton
15. Rodney Stuckey

2006
13. Thabo Sefolasha
14. Ronnie Brewer
15. Cedric Simmons

2005
13. Antoine Wright
14. Joey Graham
15. Danny Granger

2004
13. Sebastian Telfair
14. Kris Humphries
15. Al Jefferson

What the trend over the past five years, excluding this current draft class, seems to be that most years there is a star, very nice rotation player and a end of the rotation player to be had from 13-15. Three out of these five years a home run was hit with the 15th pick for whatever its worth.

[insight_tor]

If they make the playoffs they lose their draft pick to Miami due to a past trade.

Make the playoffs = No first rounder
Miss the playoffs = One first rounder

By the way, right now they're sitting with the 13th worst record in the league and Chicago takes their playoff spot make that 12th. The 12th pick is better than no pick. As much as I'd like to have a team to cheer for in the playoffs I realize they'll be lucky to win a single game.



Hasn't happened all season. What makes you think that's changing now? They look completely defeat to me.



Time to accept that's not happening this year.



It went wrong because they stopped trying. Stopped caring. Lacked leadership. Lacked accountability. Lacked toughness.

Well, the draft pick is going to be lost anyway, this year or in near future. Anyway, this is a different matter, the bets that Collangelo did are starting to show the "dividends".

Regarding the current lack of leadership/toughness/accountability - if you are so convinced that this is true, then why are you even talking about tanking? Tanking is when you could win the games but actually the players are just not giving their best efforts and lose games intentionally. Based on your assessment, Raptors may end up missing the playoff and get the draft pick not because tanking but because they are not capable of more.

[Apollo]

When the pick is lost is a huge detail. Do you want to give up a draft pick at the beginning of a rebuild or on the up wing?

I've never mentioned tanking once.

[nubreed000]

RealGM.com

awwww he's polite? Should fit right in with the rest of the team

[nubreed000]

How about a 4th camp.

The camp who is tired of watching management bumble along making foolish decisions year after year.
The camp who is fed up with washed up, over-valued players collecting a final paycheck and mailing it in once they come North of the border.
The camp who wants to vomit watching another player come up here make a name for himself, whine that he has no help, then jump ship for greener pastures.

Give me back those teams of old that played their asses off whether they had the talent to compete or not. I have no problem watching the Raptors lose when they lay it all on the line, like they did against the Lakers in L.A. What I cannot tolerate is watching a team just go through the motions, hovering somewhere between potential good and incredibly underachieving. The team name should be changed to the Toronto Marshmallows. They are soft from the management, to the coaches to the players. This organization gets bullied around and dangles that carrot of hope in front of the fans noses year, after year, after year. Loyalty only goes so far. My patience is being tested.

That's my camp