What's next

[G__Deane]

Seriously if there is a way to trade DeMar, Lowry and Ibaka while keeping all the other rotation players and getting a good and deep team and picks, that would be the way to go. They won't win a championship with this core.

Trading Demar, Lowry and Ibaka probably means eating at least 20M and yes, throwing in some picks we don't have, especially for Ibaka. You're not getting much back for the latter two, especially great picks that make the team mediocre but deep and talented. Their contracts have crewed the idea of blowing it up but having all these picks to build on and sell to fans.

[rocwell]

[meductic]

This was a 3 year deal with only one year gone. They will count the money from this year, trim what they can as far as contracts go, which will not be easy, and look at the expiring contracts the following year. This year proved Casey’s coaching the previous years was completely off base. They might wait another year, but my patience would be extremely thin with him. To try a team tear down now would be extremely expensive. The contracts are too expensive... but they are short and expire almost in unison. Next year may be viewed as a lost year with a relatively good team while waiting for the following year to complete a large scale restructuring.

[Hotshot]

That would be amazing if Casey win coach of the year and get kicked out

If Casey wins coach of the year, you can't fire him. The publicity would be really bad. I think Sam Mitchell was saved this way too.

[magoon]

For the sake of argument, for people whining, let's remember that over the last five years the Raptors have won more playoff series than any other team in the East except Cleveland. (Even if Boston beats Philly, they'll still only tie Toronto.) Saying that fans are going to disappear is stupid, just like it was stupid last year when Cleveland swept us then and everybody said fans were going to disappear, because fans don't go away when you're having great regular seasons and making playoff runs literally every year.

In about six months the next regular season will commence and the Raps will reel off eight wins in their first ten games and you're all going to stop complaining because it's fun to watch your team win basketball games, so please all of you shut the fuck up about "this team can't win a ring" because ninety-nine percent of all basketball teams cannot ever win a ring, and to be honest this team has exactly one monkey on its back and it happens to be the single best basketball player of all time (and yes he's better than MJ was and playing in an environment that deflates his numbers as compared to MJ) so that's kind of forgiveable.

And before anybody starts complaining about Indiana playing the Cavs better, they really didn't. Cleveland simply played them worse. The Raps and Pacers both contested about the same number of shots (46% for Toronto, 44% for Indiana) but Cleveland A) shot better against Toronto on contested shots than they did against Indiana (56 percent to 54 percent) and B) were just much less streaky than they were against Indiana. Against Indiana, everybody who wasn't LeBron had half a series where they shot well and half a series where they didn't; against Toronto they just all shot well all the time regardless of whether the shots were contested or not. When Cleveland's shots are hitting, they're a good team, and when Cleveland isn't scoring, they aren't. We just had the bad luck to get lengthy hot streaks from Korver, Smith and Love all at once after they spent many games being very bad, and it wasn't because we weren't defending enough of their shots as compared to Indiana. If they had shot like this against the Pacers that series would have been over in four games too.

None of this means that I don't agree that the Raps have mental toughness issues (they do) or that the defensive rotations got really bad (they did) or that there needs to be some trading happening (Ibaka is $20 million of dead weight and needs to be gone as soon as possible, and it's probably a good idea to sell on Norm too). But, again, if the problem with the Raptors is that they can't beat the greatest basketball player of all time because they don't have a true superstar, well, superstars don't grow on trees, so you might as well enjoy some wins.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

5 years of playoff futility with the Casey/DeRozan/Lowry core. Something has to give. Something should have given five years ago, when "Fuck Brooklyn" failed to come to fruition.

I'm not even upset tonight. The last two years have been complete apathy, knowing the fun regular seasons were nothing more than a façade.

As the saying goes, a leopard can't change its spots. Despite all the rhetoric, Casey, DeRozan and Lowry are who they are. The core needs to be disbanded.

[charlesnba23]

Seriously if there is a way to trade DeMar, Lowry and Ibaka while keeping all the other rotation players and getting a good and deep team and picks, that would be the way to go. They won't win a championship with this core.

[Truth Teller]

That would be amazing if Casey win coach of the year and get kicked out

COTYs usually get fired in a couple of years, but not 2 months after winning it.

[sanyo]

Probably wont get another season like this for a long time... 59 wins was great but the East is emerging and we wont get a season like this in a long time.

It was a very fun regular season, just didnt make it in the post season... whatever happens will happen I guess.

[charlesnba23]

That would be amazing if Casey win coach of the year and get kicked out

[Mindlessness]

Same thing we do every year at this time: We wait for Masai press conference where he will probably won't reveal much.

lol

I know we hate it, but being a Leafs fan... Oh boy the stuff Nonis and Burke let leak, revealed, etc was annoying. Especially moreso cause more often than not those rumours that got leaked were fucking stupid - please never think about signing fucking Jeff Finger to a $4M per year contract.

With Lou, nothing gets leaked. And it's absolutely hilarious watching analysts just speculate on what the Leafs intend to do, they don't know SHIT.

So, I'll live the same way with Masai I suppose.

[KeonClark]

Same thing we do every year at this time: We wait for Masai press conference where he will probably won't reveal much.

Last year was a headline grabber. Pissed off and rattled, he demanded huge change while giving this group another kick at the can.

At minimum I think Casey has to go now

[Hotshot]

Same thing we do every year at this time: We wait for Masai press conference where he will probably won't reveal much.

[Truth Teller]

Rebuild. You can't sell the same product next year. Its like the boy who cried wolf too many times.

[MixxAOR]

Personally I think in the next 10 years we will never reach Conference Finals.