Everything Pascal Siakam

[LJ2]

Not to mention FVV over Trent for defense, despite size. We could have a hell of Box & 1 this year.

Both are among our best three shooters. Need as much of that around Barnes, if he is the future.

[DanH]

Has nothing to do with his skills, he is talented

it is that round thing on top of his shoulders

Mentally weak player especially facing adversity

Yeah, remember when he completely collapsed in the NBA finals and didn't essentially win game 1 by himself, and totally failed to score the finals-clinching bucket over known-terrible-defender Draymond Green in game 6.

[The Claw Reborn]

Yeah, remember when he completely collapsed in the NBA finals and didn't essentially win game 1 by himself, and totally failed to score the finals-clinching bucket over known-terrible-defender Draymond Green in game 6.

Oh please, you way extended yourself. The past two seasons he flopped just admit it.

[The Claw Reborn]

he is mentally weak When Facing Adversity

I highlighted it for you so you wont extend yourself and that poster who similar to you cherrypicked what you feel is true

[JawsGT]

The barnes, trent, og, pascal, precious lineup i mentioned gets me going because of the idea of barnes guarding the other teams ball handler. He seems capable of defending PG's, at least at the college level, so I'm pumped to see what he can do against elite level PG's running PnR in the half court. He has the potential to just swallow up smaller players, and if its him and precious guarding the PnR...good luck NBA. Of course, this type of lineup is what many here seem to think the raps are envisioning for the future. You may be right.

Offensively, there are some issues. If pascal returns to form, then there may be just enough shooting there with OG and trent capable of 40% from 3. But Barnes ability to quarterback an offence would likely be even more important to the success of that lineup. And if it did prove successful, then obviously that would suggest he would be able to do that, which would be super exciting.

In any event, I think trent, og, pascal and precious are who the raptors would like to start at some point. Obviously, they would want barnes in there too at some point, so unless pascal is going to be moved, FVV is the odd man out. Which makes sense if management does envision a taller 1-5 playing positionless ball.

Clearly, there is no reason to rush this. Barnes will need some burn to get up to speed on the nba game. Maybe he starts in pascals place due to his injury, which should accelerate his development and hopefully he shows improvement offensively.

But you have to be excited about the potential of a lineup like that. Tremendous versatility defensively, switch everything ability, and any two could double a big man and cause problems. All can handle the ball to a certain degree (very excited about precious in this regard), and there will always be a mis match to hunt. If barnes learns to shoot more effectively, pascal returns to pre covid form, and OG adds a move or two offensively, then that could be one of the best lineups in the league. Alot of ifs, yes, but tell me you doubt it can happen and I may have call you a liar.

[DanH]

he is mentally weak When Facing Adversity

I highlighted it for you so you wont extend yourself and that poster who similar to you cherrypicked what you feel is true

Yes, I remember now how that playoff run was entirely without adversity. Thanks for highlighting that for me.

[DanH]

Oh please, you way extended yourself. The past two seasons he flopped just admit it.

The past two seasons? You mean the bubble and last season, yes? If you mean the 19-20 regular season, I question your ability to judge a player's performance. He made 2nd team all-NBA that year.

If he was fundamentally unable to perform under pressure that would have shown when he combined with Kawhi to be one of the highest scoring playoff duos of all time.

[The Claw Reborn]

The past two seasons? You mean the bubble and last season, yes? If you mean the 19-20 regular season, I question your ability to judge a player's performance. He made 2nd team all-NBA that year.

If he was fundamentally unable to perform under pressure that would have shown when he combined with Kawhi to be one of the highest scoring playoff duos of all time.

You keep on going back to the nostalgia, I don’t blame you but get over it…lol….just like defending your boy Stevie Nash

Siakam sunk under pressure when he got smack upfront of the adversity of the bubble and COVID, you and your cronies still so naive to not see it at face value jeez

[saints91]

I’m sorry but the Bubble and season in Tampa are not normal circumstances. We don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. What makes someone mentally weak? Siakam had a bad bubble performance, as did many players... is Giannis mentally weak?

Siakam started to bounce back last season and then got Covid and had trouble getting back on track when a team was clearly not putting out their best lineups/effort.

Perhaps the he was overpaid and over performed and expectations got over blown, but it’s too early to make that judgement.

[DanH]

You keep on going back to the nostalgia, I don’t blame you but get over it…lol….just like defending your boy Stevie Nash

Siakam sunk under pressure when he got smack upfront of the adversity of the bubble and COVID, you and your cronies still so naive to not see it at face value jeez

Right, so the bubble was a higher pressure environment than the Finals. Got it.

Why would the 20-21 season have been a high pressure environment? There were basically no expectations of the team, basically identical to the 19-20 season.

Having COVID, playing zero home games all year, and not being able to train during the offseason are not the sort of "adversity" a player is expected to perform under. At least, not by the reasonable.

If the throughline was that Pascal couldn't handle pressure, he'd have folded in the chip run, and he'd have laid an egg the entire 19-20 season when he was first handed the 1A reins. And yet, he didn't. He only struggled in the extremely out of the ordinary contexts listed above.

Wait, also, what do you mean with the Steve Nash comment? I can't recall the last time I had a Steve Nash conversation.

[TrueTorontoFan]

You keep on going back to the nostalgia, I don’t blame you but get over it…lol….just like defending your boy Stevie Nash

Siakam sunk under pressure when he got smack upfront of the adversity of the bubble and COVID, you and your cronies still so naive to not see it at face value jeez

I think its been kind of shown that he was stuck in canada while other players had homes and what not to go to in america and could work out when they want even if not sanctioned because america was much more lax. So the guy just sat around in his house sadly (and its likely a condo).


The bubble was early on in the pandemic still... we didn't even have the vaccine starting to be rolled out then... .so at that point there is a ton going on.



He also had a groin injury before the season ended that he was playing with and never really got back to norm after that...because those are tough injuries. Again missing the playoffs was good for us because it gave guys like FVV and Siakam rest that they needed and now he has a house in the US with a court and everything and has been working. I mean we haven't really had a team that has had a good long off season in a WHILE. Think of how short the past few off seasons have been. That is when you work on your game. AND you need a little bit of recovery time. So when you are playing in a normal season till Mid July, and then in another instance you are playing right after that in a short period of time.. yeah it takes its toll.

I am not against trading basically anyone on the roster but I want to see things under a semi normal situation.


Also Siakam was bad offensively from a shooting standpoint but he wasn't making a ton of turnovers and his defence was still good enough that he had to play in the celtics series. It also allowed OG to grow a bit more. Lastly, what about Gasol. He shat the bed HARD. There were shots he was missing all series.

[SkywalkerAC]

Down the line and as soon as hopefully the end of this season you probably want your lottery pick to start.

I thought it wasn't (or wasn't supposed to be) about who starts but who finishes the game. I see no problem with coming off the bench as a rookie.

[planetmars]

Pascal was just horrible in the clutch last year.. to the point where I just felt so bad for the guy. He came into the season flat, when he had videos of him working out and saying stuff like he's coming into the season with a chip on his shoulder.

But I still like the dude. Definitely got a bad wrap from the bubble and early in the season. Some fans haven't let go. It is what it is. I remember Lebron looking like crap against the Mavericks in 2011. Kyle Lowry looked like he shat himself against the Bucks that one season. Some guys just get into funks.

I believe in Pascal. I think he's going to look like an all-star again. Let's just hope he gets one clutch shot to go down this season for his sake.

[LJ2]

I thought it wasn't (or wasn't supposed to be) about who starts but who finishes the game. I see no problem with coming off the bench as a rookie.

I don't think it's set in stone, but generally you want your best players to start and finish the game. Was a different scenario with Ibaka and Gasol if that is what you are referring to because you Raps were trying to preserve the legs of an aging Gasol, but I think we are past that now with a young team with fresh legs.

I don't have a problem with Barnes coming off the bench as a rookie either, but my point is that we are all hoping he develops quickly and can be put into the starting line up sooner than later (best 5 on the floor). I'd love it if Scottie could supplant one of the starters by end of season because it would mean he's already outplaying one of our best 5.

[planetmars]

I don't think it's set in stone, but generally you want your best players to start and finish the game. Was a different scenario with Ibaka and Gasol if that is what you are referring to because you Raps were trying to preserve the legs of an aging Gasol, but I think we are past that now with a young team with fresh legs.

I don't have a problem with Barnes coming off the bench as a rookie either, but my point is that we are all hoping he develops quickly and can be put into the starting line up sooner than later (best 5 on the floor). I'd love it if Scottie could supplant one of the starters by end of season because it would mean he's already outplaying one of our best 5.

The team has 3 Raptor "vets" that will likely always get that starter spot, unless hurt. So we're just really looking at 2 spots for him. The center (which will likely be Birch's spot) or SG (which will likely be Trent Jr's spot).

I wouldn't want him to play C on this team.. maybe for the odd spell here or there, but that's a tough position to put a rookie in. Likely he only starts if someone gets hurt.. or if Trent really starts sucking IMO.