Everything Pascal Siakam

[DanH]

You know how else it doesn't work? You don't get to use your wins from 2 seasons ago.

Teams figured us out. Our weird roster was novel 2 years ago and teams weren't ready for it. Like a college football team running the triple option. Just as with the triple option, once a team has prep time it's easily beaten. Even with the element of surprise we still only won 48 games and got bumped in the 1st round. We had a healthier team this season, and we added Poeltl, and we still regressed.

We regressed before adding Poeltl. We were better after.

The real difference between two seasons ago and this one is Precious was extremely useful the second half of two seasons ago, so we had a real option besides running the novel and terrible small looks, while this past season he was hurt early and never really found his footing, and we had to rely on the small look (which was bad both years in spite of the extra shooters around Pascal and Scottie, shock) and a 2nd round rookie in Koloko to anchor the team until Jak got here.

That and some close wins/losses luck that went the other way.

[Primer]

We regressed before adding Poeltl. We were better after.

The real difference between two seasons ago and this one is Precious was extremely useful the second half of two seasons ago, so we had a real option besides running the novel and terrible small looks, while this past season he was hurt early and never really found his footing, and we had to rely on the small look (which was bad both years in spite of the extra shooters around Pascal and Scottie, shock) and a 2nd round rookie in Koloko to anchor the team until Jak got here.

That and some close wins/losses luck that went the other way.

When Precious was briefly a stretch 5 shooting above average from 3pt is when we played better, because we had 3 shooters around Scottie and Pascal. Poeltl isn't that kind of center.

[A.I]

You know how else it doesn't work? You don't get to use your wins from 2 seasons ago.

Teams figured us out. Our weird roster was novel 2 years ago and teams weren't ready for it. Like a college football team running the triple option. Just as with the triple option, once a team has prep time it's easily beaten. Even with the element of surprise we still only won 48 games and got bumped in the 1st round. We had a healthier team this season, and we added Poeltl, and we still regressed.

Fred, Pascal, Scottie, and OG all played more games, significantly more in OG's case.

Really curious where this "element of surprise" thing came about. Is it the aggressive defense? We're talking about NBA teams, it doesn't take them a year to figure things out. Its the regular season too, you'll beat on lesser teams on talent alone, but they struggled doing that last season as well.

Raptors didn't do anything special that made them excel. They just played well and played with effort. They were a .500 team until Pascal came back and they dealt with the Covid stuff, then they took off in the second half of the season.

Celtics were similar, but did it in better fashion. Struggled early season and dominated the league in the second half of the season.

[DanH]

When Precious was briefly a stretch 5 shooting above average from 3pt is when we played better, because we had 3 shooters around Scottie and Pascal. Poeltl isn't that kind of center.

Uh, no, when Precious was briefly a stretch 5 shooting above average from 3pt he was playing primarily in bench groups and those two guys weren't playing together in those lineups. We just had some bench pop to make up the difference even though our 3-shooters starting group sucked, unlike the starting group with Jak, which was great, but had truly awful bench looks behind them.

[DanH]

The post-all-star stretches the past two seasons:

2021-22: Starters 15th in net rating, bench 10th in net rating
2022-23: Starters 10th in net rating, bench 20th in net rating

[Primer]

Really curious where this "element of surprise" thing came about. Is it the aggressive defense? We're talking about NBA teams, it doesn't take them a year to figure things out. Its the regular season too, you'll beat on lesser teams on talent alone, but they struggled doing that last season as well.

Raptors didn't do anything special that made them excel. They just played well and played with effort. They were a .500 team until Pascal came back and they dealt with the Covid stuff, then they took off in the second half of the season.

Celtics were similar, but did it in better fashion. Struggled early season and dominated the league in the second half of the season.

Yes the team 6'9 swarming defense worked at first really well. Then teams figured it out and guys stopped putting the maximum effort which is what it required. Nurse ran gimmicks because that's all this roster could do, it couldn't run a conventional NBA offense. Masai thought that would give us an edge and it did briefly 2 seasons ago. It did not last year.

[A.I]

Yes the team 6'9 swarming defense worked at first really well. Then teams figured it out and guys stopped putting the maximum effort which is what it required. Nurse ran gimmicks because that's all this roster could do, it couldn't run a conventional NBA offense. Masai thought that would give us an edge and it did briefly 2 seasons ago. It did not last year.

So guys stopped putting in effort because the defense stopped working or because there were ton of issues within the team and they just didn't buy in last season.

[Kagemusha]

Well thank god that’s not how the NBA works, then.

Well, you just can't use their better season and disregard the bad one, can you?

[Kagemusha]

So guys stopped putting in effort because the defense stopped working or because there were ton of issues within the team and they just didn't buy in last season.

All of the above. I guess

[Primer]

So guys stopped putting in effort because the defense stopped working or because there were ton of issues within the team and they just didn't buy in last season.

I think one thing led to another. When you exert maximum effort and it's not resulting in wins you stop trying as hard and get frustrated.

[DanH]

Well, you just can't use their better season and disregard the bad one, can you?

Is the discussion their floor, ceiling or expectation? If we are discussing ceiling, which I think we are, why would their average performance be more relevant than their best one?

[A.I]

All of the above. I guess

Sure, but the large majority of it goes to the issues within the team.

The league doesn't revolve around the Raptors, teams aren't just focused on figuring us out, there are 29 other teams and the top teams are focused on other top teams. If we were talking about the Playoffs, yes because its 1 team vs another for 7 games, but in the regular season, you'll win games against teams worse than you on talent alone. The Raptors struggled to do that last season.

[golden]

Well thank god that’s not how the NBA works, then.

He probably meant to use the word "treadmill" instead of "middling", which would've been more accurate.

[golden]

You know how else it doesn't work? You don't get to use your wins from 2 seasons ago.

Teams figured us out. Our weird roster was novel 2 years ago and teams weren't ready for it. Like a college football team running the triple option. Just as with the triple option, once a team has prep time it's easily beaten. Even with the element of surprise we still only won 48 games and got bumped in the 1st round. We had a healthier team this season, and we added Poeltl, and we still regressed.

Fred, Pascal, Scottie, and OG all played more games, significantly more in OG's case.

Yeah, it's bizarre how people think that opposing team's coaching staffs are all dumbasses who aren't spending time trying to figure out how to beat us.

[Kagemusha]

Is the discussion their floor, ceiling or expectation? If we are discussing ceiling, which I think we are, why would their average performance be more relevant than their best one?

Dan, if you're projecting team performance you have to factor in the competition too.
Especially after this draft, many teams have gotten better.