Are we treadmilling?

[slaw]

That doesn't make it any more of a desirable position to be in.

Depends. It's much more desirable to be Toronto than Sacramento, for example. It's much more desirable to be winning 56 games and playing in late May than it is to be losing 56 games and waiting for those magic beans....

[golden]

Yeah, this discussion is ridiculous. Treadmilling means that you've reached a point where salary-cap-wise, draft-wise, and current-roster wise, you've maxed out your assets, and your only ability to actually move forward is to take a significant step back.
1. Cap: we've got enough expirings this year that we could acquire a different near-max player to improve the core. As well, other than Biyombo, we've got bird rights on every other important contract on the roster. Getting to the conference finals (and regardless of whether they lose in 4 by 100 points here), is only a positive in terms of attracting free agents.
2. Draft: We've got a mid-lottery pick this year! We would have to tank to hard to get anywhere close to that within the near future. Plus four first-rounders (probably) between this year and next.
3. Roster: Decent potential for internal growth, both in terms of young players improving and reaching their prime, plus veterans learning how to play smarter and be better leaders.

I seem to be different than most, but I'm super-optimistic about where this team is. That doesn't mean I'm super-optimistic about this specific core or any particular players or the coaching staff. That doesn't mean I'm satisfied with getting to the conference finals and getting blown out there. And that doesn't mean that I think they won't take a step backwards next year.

Agree with most of this, except the bold above. If anything, the playoffs have highlighted our overall (1-15) talent depth being able to overcome our veterans and leaders playing really dumb and going AWOL for long stretches.

[iblastoff]

I think its a safe assumption to say that Boston and Miami (if Bosh is cleared to return) will likely be able to improve a little more than the Raptors who will be at the salary cap when they re-sign Demar. Who knows tho, #9 could be an instant impact player.

I know you've joked about fake playoff wins and ECF, but our first 2 round opponents were not very good and we likely should have beaten them a little more convincingly. I don't think the road to the ECF will be as easy next year.

it wasnt easy at all. this year the east was way better than it ever has been in a long time. meanwhile the wizards could have been the 8th spot in the west. sure, various teams have injuries to deal with. but thats just the way it goes every single year.

[Nilanka]

Depends. It's much more desirable to be Toronto than Sacramento, for example. It's much more desirable to be winning 56 games and playing in late May than it is to be losing 56 games and waiting for those magic beans....

No argument from me on that point.

[Nilanka]

Lumping every team together from 30 to 56 wins and calling their status undesirable is dumb.

There's obviously a spectrum of undesirability. Didn't think that needed to be spelled out here.

But measuring yourself against mediocrity, and claiming "but we're better than the Bucks" isn't really a talking point.

[OldSkoolCool]

So we made the conference finals but what's the next step? how do we become a contender? IMO I think if we keep this core this is the peak.

These are the important questions^

Next step has to be changing the status quo, as I think we have a talented roster; with JV being a top 3 C in the league, and Lowry being a massive win producer.

Thing is, right now we are a guard oriented team in a league of guard oriented rosters that have superstars on the wings.

Bad news bears for the Raptors is I dont see us being able to land ourselves a superstar wing at this point unless we tank. Which I dont want to do now with JV...

So that means in a guard centric league where teams lack talented 2-way big men...the Raptors have an opportunity to have a unique advantage over the rest of the league.

Unique advantages are really how you get to that next level in the NBA.

What that means is changing from a guard centric to a big centric offense. Rule of dominoes says that puts DD and Casey (loves guards) are the odd men out...as they drive the guard centric play as well as DD doesnt compliment post players as we saw in this playoffs, teams shamelessly help off him because he isnt a threat to shoot or attack the closeout with consistency (but rather back it out/overdribble).

TLDR;

If we stay guard oriented. We treadmill. If we go forward oriented. We potentially take the next step that makes us a comptetive ECF team.

[golden]

tread-mill

noun

"A team not skilled enough to compete for a title, and not poor enough to earn a top 5 draft pick in that once-in-a-decade draft year that the generational talent to win championships is available, who is sometimes not even drafted top 5 (e.g. Steph, Kobe, Dirk,...) The dreaded lack of elite talent infusion."

Nilanka's International Dictionary, 4th Edition (2016)

Updated that definition for you. lol.

[3inthekeon]

For other teams, Lowry's next few seasons align much better than ours.

What other teams?

[ebrian]

Does sweeping mean doing what the Cavs did to their opponents in their rounds so far?

Yes I think so. I mean, we barely scraped by those two series so I definitely think still have a ways to go. But I think you can sweep those teams and still lose the Lebron's Cavaliers.

I think if we can still grow to a point that we'd challenge the Cavs in the ECF for the next few years assuming Lebron sticks around, that means that we haven't reached our ceiling yet.

[ebrian]

it wasnt easy at all. this year the east was way better than it ever has been in a long time. meanwhile the wizards could have been the 8th spot in the west. sure, various teams have injuries to deal with. but thats just the way it goes every single year.

I don't think he means it was easy, but that it may seem that by comparison next season. There are several teams in the East that are where we were at this time last year; 1-2 pieces to reach our level.

[Yuri Gagarin]

^ Dude one link to your blog is more than enough. Do you want to be looked at like junk mail?

[Nilanka]

As a Torontonian that has been following the Raptors since their inception in 1995, is safe to say the 2015/2016 NBA season will go down as the greatest year in Toronto Raptors history. Although this year’s journey has been amazing, one cannot help to reminisce the past 21 years of disappointment. Over the past two decades, I never felt that the Raptors were part of the NBA fraternity and being located in Canada definitely does not help. However, this feeling of exclusion does not stem from the geographic whereabouts of the Raptors, but it stems from the lack of on-court accomplishment as an organization. Similar to the NBA 2K video game series, I believe there are certain achievements an organization needs to accomplish to validate their membership within the NBA fraternity. Below are 5 achievements that I believe an organization needs to fulfill before that franchise can even be considered a novice member of the NBA fraternity (Tier One)...click link to read the rest.

http://gameofrings.blogspot.ca/

[octothorp]

Bold: The intention of the OP of this thread reincarnation was to articulate this sentiment. What I was attempting to do is lay out all the decisions/questions that MU will have to address to continue progression of the team. The opposite of this in my view is best described with the term "tread milling".

Many posters are wrongly assuming that the achievements so far (the MU tenure) are being described as being treadmilling. I am referring to the immediate future and whether this team has reached a ceiling (a hard one) as currently constituted and faced with a Lebron led team in the East. The compete level is just not pretty to watch. Apart from Lebron they are a deep team. They also pay a hefty tax bill.

So, how do we make ourselves better? This is merely aspirational...and not attempting to try (even making hard decisions) is what I call being in a treadmill mindset.

Rather than making this a referendum on the treadmill term (not the intention) I would urge the posts tack to suggest what should/could be the best moves made by Masai.

Okay then, I think it's a mistake to try and get general discussion about off-season directions in a thread about treadmilling because it's such a loaded term, but I'll play along. My big picture approach, if I were Masai, would be to set myself up to keep my window to get to the next level open as long as possible, and keep as much flexibility possible for acquiring the right guy via trade or free agency. You need to be opportunistic, rather than going all-in on one approach or another.

The unusual thing about the Raptors is that they've got a nice stable of assets, but nobody about whom you'd say "that's the guy you need to keep and build around." JV's the closest to that. Lowry would be if he were 5 years younger.

If you cannot sign a star free agent who makes sense for the team this year (Durant, maybe Horford), then there's more value to keeping DeRozan and working to trade him eight months down the line, then in letting him go and trying to make good use of that cap space. Getting good value back in a S&T this offseason works too, but is unlikely.

I don't put a lot of value on cap space this offseason, because everybody has loads of it, and as good as Ujiri is at making a pitch, it's unlikely you hook one of the big fish. Nothing wrong with trying though.

The status quo (resigning DeRozan to near max, no major trades, using exceptions to fill in roster spots) isn't awful, because it still has decent flexibility for trades and for future offseasons.

[bigfatbob]

im a bit confused. Why do the warriors/thunder have 3 days rest in between game 2 and 3, while raptors/cavs only have 1 game rest between games? Is this just the scheduling or some other reason?

[Barolt]

Okay then, I think it's a mistake to try and get general discussion about off-season directions in a thread about treadmilling because it's such a loaded term, but I'll play along. My big picture approach, if I were Masai, would be to set myself up to keep my window to get to the next level open as long as possible, and keep as much flexibility possible for acquiring the right guy via trade or free agency. You need to be opportunistic, rather than going all-in on one approach or another.

The unusual thing about the Raptors is that they've got a nice stable of assets, but nobody about whom you'd say "that's the guy you need to keep and build around." JV's the closest to that. Lowry would be if he were 5 years younger.

If you cannot sign a star free agent who makes sense for the team this year (Durant, maybe Horford), then there's more value to keeping DeRozan and working to trade him eight months down the line, then in letting him go and trying to make good use of that cap space. Getting good value back in a S&T this offseason works too, but is unlikely.

I don't put a lot of value on cap space this offseason, because everybody has loads of it, and as good as Ujiri is at making a pitch, it's unlikely you hook one of the big fish. Nothing wrong with trying though.

The status quo (resigning DeRozan to near max, no major trades, using exceptions to fill in roster spots) isn't awful, because it still has decent flexibility for trades and for future offseasons.

I disagree on this one. Given the premium on 3pt shooting in the league, there's absolutely a scenario where two years down the road you're trying to trade DeMar's 30M contract and no one is really that interested.