Combining the Raptors with another team, Can we beat the Cavs? Warriors?

[ebrian]

There is no lottery team that can combine with the Raptors to beat the Warriors. The Warriors have 2 generational talents on their team, plus Klay Thompson, plus Draymond Green. The Raptors not only don't have any generational talents, we don't even have All-NBA players. Heck if DeRozan or Lowry played in the West, we'd have no all-stars either.

To be honest I'm not sure if the Raptors would beat the Warriors if we added the Cavs..

[planetmars]

you do not see the pelicans gelling and being a low playoff seed? Embid is just a monster but can he stay healthy. I wish him well he does so many things well despite his lack of nba experience.

The West is a nightmare. I think we'll see 7 of the same teams that made the playoffs last year out West (GS, SA, Houston, OKC, Utah, LAC, Memphis) get in ahead of NO. Then you have Minny who improved a tonne.. and Denver with Millsap (who I love) ahead too. Portland is still a really good young team as well. I don't think NO will make it despite having Cousins for the whole year. Davis is great but too unreliable when it comes to his health.

Memphis lost some good (albeit older) talent though.. so maybe they don't get in. And Utah without Hayward or Hill could be in trouble too. But I still think they both get in.

[Scraptor]

There is no lottery team that can combine with the Raptors to beat the Warriors. The Warriors have 2 generational talents on their team, plus Klay Thompson, plus Draymond Green. The Raptors not only don't have any generational talents, we don't even have All-NBA players. Heck if DeRozan or Lowry played in the West, we'd have no all-stars either.

To be honest I'm not sure if the Raptors would beat the Warriors if we added the Cavs..

We could beat them with the Wolves.

Lowry/Teague
DD/Wiggins
Butler/Powell
Ibaka/Gibson
Towns/Jonas

Towns is a generational talent and should make an All-NBA team this year. That's a huge edge at C and on the bench. Positions 1-4 could slow down their Big 4 enough for the bench units to carve them up. Over 7 games we'd wear them down.

[JamesNaismith]

Depressing we need to combine teams just to think of how we would be relevant lol but I'll take the bait...

If Philly were healthy I say them but couldn't rely on it so yeah Minny has the best roster to fill the gaps in our roster. I just think this team really needs a player like what Simmons will be like that can cause the defense to collapse and find the open man to introduce a little thing called "ball movement" and the hell with Towns, if Embiid is healthy he is the true generational player, if he was actually healthy he would be in talks for one of the greatest big men and even players of all time, yeah I said it lol --- he is that good.

[ebrian]

I don't see it. A generational big man won't make a difference against this Warriors team. The way they play, and their strengths, there's just no stopping them with a big man. You basically need two Lebron's to do it and there's only one and he couldn't do it.

[Mess]

If you combined all 14 non-playoff teams, could they beat GS?

[JamesNaismith]

I don't see it. A generational big man won't make a difference against this Warriors team. The way they play, and their strengths, there's just no stopping them with a big man. You basically need two Lebron's to do it and there's only one and he couldn't do it.

Disagreed and it's not saying that the big man is the key to beating them but rather a big piece.

Two "LeBron's" isn't the answer either.

Both teams followed the same formula...

1. A dynamic player that collapses the defense and finds one of their plethora of open shooters(ie/ LeBron and Curry)
2. It kind of reinterates the last point but surround them with shooters (ie/ Kyrie, Love, Frye, JR etc) and (Klay, Draymond, Iggy, Barnes etc)
3. Have a great perimeter defender that can switch to post (ie/ LeBron and Green) while the rest are tall/long enough to switch as well
4. An energy big to rebound and defend (Thompson and Bogut)
5. A clutch scorer to match Steph or Klay which of course was Kyrie
6. Be able to match scoring LeBron & Kyrie vs Steph & Klay....and Love vs Green. Cavs advantage is Kyrie can match Steph, LBJ obv an edge over Klay and Love/Green can cancel each other out....big problem here the Warriors went and added a 7ft 30ppg shooting assassin in KD who is also a much improved defender and arguably now their best player

KD was shooting OVER LeBron and getting to the RIM at will...

The Cavs (or any team for that matter need to match all those things listed PLUS the addition of KD). A player like a healthy Embiid would do that. Joel is actually a pretty damn good 3 pt shooter AND provides arguably THE best defense in the league. I can't remember the site that did the article but it showed that PHI went from being the worst defending team in the league to TOP 5 when Biid was on the court, that's absurd, no player caused such a dramatic shift. His combination of height and quickness is unbelievably rare which is what causes that, not to mention his per 40 stats he's almost a 30ppg, 11rpg and 3.7bpg.

The issue this past year is the Cavs have no answer to KD, if they suddenly had a player that could almost equal the scoring output PLUS cause GS to rack up fouls because no one can guard Embiid AND he's shutting down any penetration plus making many of their jumpers very difficult...suddenly GS would have a MAJOR problem and that's why there is so much excitement about Philly's potential (obviously based almost solely on their health) because they are trying to design a team that can try and create that very dynamic....Fultz being the clutch one on one scorer like a (not exact) Kyrie, Simmons to mimic that dynamic ballhandler that collapses the defence and Embiid a big time scorer in his own right and monsterous defender...whom they've also surrounded with shooters like Reddick, Korkmaz, Saric, RoCo etc.

The very ironic thing about this discussion is that you say "2 LeBrons" and I say that he needs an "Embiid" while Philly has cap space and is about as perfect of a market as he can get with a "story" dramatic enough to fit a LBJ legacy about reviving a dead franchise....but of course HEALTH will be the biggest determining factor.


#TRUSTTHEPROCESS

[golden]

Disagreed and it's not saying that the big man is the key to beating them but rather a big piece.

Two "LeBron's" isn't the answer either.

Both teams followed the same formula...

1. A dynamic player that collapses the defense and finds one of their plethora of open shooters(ie/ LeBron and Curry)
2. It kind of reinterates the last point but surround them with shooters (ie/ Kyrie, Love, Frye, JR etc) and (Klay, Draymond, Iggy, Barnes etc)
3. Have a great perimeter defender that can switch to post (ie/ LeBron and Green) while the rest are tall/long enough to switch as well
4. An energy big to rebound and defend (Thompson and Bogut)
5. A clutch scorer to match Steph or Klay which of course was Kyrie
6. Be able to match scoring LeBron & Kyrie vs Steph & Klay....and Love vs Green. Cavs advantage is Kyrie can match Steph, LBJ obv an edge over Klay and Love/Green can cancel each other out....big problem here the Warriors went and added a 7ft 30ppg shooting assassin in KD who is also a much improved defender and arguably now their best player

KD was shooting OVER LeBron and getting to the RIM at will...

The Cavs (or any team for that matter need to match all those things listed PLUS the addition of KD). A player like a healthy Embiid would do that. Joel is actually a pretty damn good 3 pt shooter AND provides arguably THE best defense in the league. I can't remember the site that did the article but it showed that PHI went from being the worst defending team in the league to TOP 5 when Biid was on the court, that's absurd, no player caused such a dramatic shift. His combination of height and quickness is unbelievably rare which is what causes that, not to mention his per 40 stats he's almost a 30ppg, 11rpg and 3.7bpg.

The issue this past year is the Cavs have no answer to KD, if they suddenly had a player that could almost equal the scoring output PLUS cause GS to rack up fouls because no one can guard Embiid AND he's shutting down any penetration plus making many of their jumpers very difficult...suddenly GS would have a MAJOR problem and that's why there is so much excitement about Philly's potential (obviously based almost solely on their health) because they are trying to design a team that can try and create that very dynamic....Fultz being the clutch one on one scorer like a (not exact) Kyrie, Simmons to mimic that dynamic ballhandler that collapses the defence and Embiid a big time scorer in his own right and monsterous defender...whom they've also surrounded with shooters like Reddick, Korkmaz, Saric, RoCo etc.

The very ironic thing about this discussion is that you say "2 LeBrons" and I say that he needs an "Embiid" while Philly has cap space and is about as perfect of a market as he can get with a "story" dramatic enough to fit a LBJ legacy about reviving a dead franchise....but of course HEALTH will be the biggest determining factor.


#TRUSTTHEPROCESS

When a team can play 5-out, it negates the impact of a rim-protecting big man - we saw that with Rudy Gobert in the playoffs. So, basically you need Embiid to completely dominate his matchup with Draymond on both ends.... but you're at a disadvantage trading 2's for 3's on offense, even though Embiid CAN hit 3's - it's not his strength. So then it also comes down to Embiid's ability to guard Draymond on the perimeter, in which case you probably have better choices on defense.

[The Great One]

I don't see it. A generational big man won't make a difference against this Warriors team. The way they play, and their strengths, there's just no stopping them with a big man. You basically need two Lebron's to do it and there's only one and he couldn't do it.

So you're saying, Olajuwon in their prime or Shaq won't make a difference against this Warriors team? I completely disagree. Olajuwon or Shaq would completely DOMINATE this Warriors team.

[Joey]

Fixed the title ... was driving me insane. Lol

[Joey]

And the answer to this thread is the definitely TWolves. Fills gaps and adds crazy depth... and well.. KAT.

[LJ2]

you need a great scoring team to beat the Cav's.

Lowry, Bledsoe
Booker, DeRozan
CJ Miles, Josh Jackson
Ibaka, Dudley
Chandler, JV

[c-troop]

Raptors + Charlotte

Lowry - Kemba
DeRozan - Powell
Batum - MKG
Williams - Kaminsky
Ibaka - Valanciunas

...or just use the Raptors starting 5 as the 'starters' and utilize the Hornets starting 5 as the bench.

[JamesNaismith]

When a team can play 5-out, it negates the impact of a rim-protecting big man - we saw that with Rudy Gobert in the playoffs. So, basically you need Embiid to completely dominate his matchup with Draymond on both ends.... but you're at a disadvantage trading 2's for 3's on offense, even though Embiid CAN hit 3's - it's not his strength. So then it also comes down to Embiid's ability to guard Draymond on the perimeter, in which case you probably have better choices on defense.

Embiid would eat him up, he shoots the 3 better than Draymond and Joel could easily handle Draymond defensively are you kidding?! He is one of the elite defenders in the league at 7'2 and handles the perimeter no problem. He has great lateral speed for a man his size that keeps him in front of perimeter players, recovers quickly, frequently has chase down blocks (see Embiid block LBJ for reference) and incredibly long that will negate whatever minor speed advantage nvm trying to shoot over his height/length will be incredibly difficult for anyone....let me repeat that again, PHI with Embiid off the court was damn near bottom of the league, on court NUMBER 1 IN THE ENTIRE LEAGUE, in a perimeter oriented league that's not just "rim protection". On the flipside goodluck 6'6 Draymond trying to contain a 7'2 monster.

[KeonClark]

Fixed the title ... was driving me insane. Lol

Sweet Jesus thank you