WoW article: DeMar DeRozan is no Vince Carter

[CalgaryRapsFan]

I don't care if fans over-inflate the value/skill/potential of players on the team. My problem is when ownership, management, the coaching staff and media do it.

I think Valanciunas could become an elite C, but that's it for the Raptors. I think Lowry is a near-elite PG, but if he winds up re-signing for $10-15M per season, I suddenly think there will be much higher expectations and much more criticism headed his way (similar to DeRozan going from high value @ $3.3M to being an inefficient scorer who's not worth $9.5M).

[enlightenment]

Jonas will be elite, just watch

Lowry was the most efficient player in the GAME until he got hurt. Like tied with Harden, and yet harden got all the media attention. IMO if the raps had a winning record, those numbers were MVP like.

Derozan is going to be very good, maybe not elite in a way, but he will be able to dominate games with his scoring. We've seen him do it before, and as he ripens with age he will be more consistent, intelligent, and efficient at it.

Ross has potential, no one is pooling in to say elite talent, but he has a niche that he will master. Along with what else we've seen, including a strong commitment to defense, I think he could be an upper echelon player.


We have a really good team in 3-4 years of development with JUST this core.

[BD12]

Jonas is not "elite" talent. If he was, what does that make Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan, Tyson Chandler or "insert name of any coordinated starting center"? I think he has the potential to be a Joakim Noah with a much prettier jumpshot. Just my opinion though.

Anthony Davis is an "elite" talent.

[Nilanka]

I think Valanciunas is "elite" talent. If you look at the numbers he's posting in limited and sporadic minutes without really having any clue what he is doing, well, it's encouraging.

Lowry is a really good player. And.... that's it.

I'm not sure if Jonas has elite talent, or an elite motor (like Kenneth Faried). But either way, I agree it's encouraging.

[slaw]

I sincerely hope there aren't any Raptor fans who believe there's "elite" level talent on this roster...aside from Lowry (which is debatable).

I think Valanciunas is "elite" talent. If you look at the numbers he's posting in limited and sporadic minutes without really having any clue what he is doing, well, it's encouraging.

Lowry is a really good player. And.... that's it.

[Superchunk]

I know little about advanced stats, but basically Demar had 3 more turnovers, one less point on one more shot and a couple of rebounds less and their 'win score' is significantly lower and evidence that he didn't really have a good game.

Doesn't really pass the sniff test to me.

[Nilanka]

I sincerely hope there aren't any Raptor fans who believe there's "elite" level talent on this roster...aside from Lowry (which is debatable).

[Brandon]

Link.

My favourite part:

[DeRozan] was the second or third least productive guard/forward in the league last year...

Despite their advanced sabermetrics stat which I think is silly, their site is one of the only ones I know of that spends time criticizing the Raptors players and organization for everyone to read, ie. not behind a paywall.

Other sports analysis sites either laugh at the organization for its mistakes (understandable) or basically ignore it, but there always seems to be a Raptors-related article floating around there.

I also talked to someone who is a fan of the Celtics about the attitudes that were around in the bad old days before the Garnett/Allen trades and Rondo draft. He said that, like here, there was a tendency for fans to inflate the achievements of bad players -- like Gerald Green and Delonte West, and to suggest that, if they had enough time and the right conditions, they would develop at some unspecified future time, into legendary all-stars, mvp candidates etc.

I think fans in general engage in wishful thinking regarding their teams, and the problem with it is, not only is it plain wrong -- bad players do not turn into good players -- they are good or bad by nature, it hurts what should be the next step for fans, which is organized criticism of the regimes in charge of the rosters.

Or, to put it another way, not a lot of people here want to face the reality that, with the exception of Lowry, these players are bad, and are not helping the team win, but helping it lose, and that none of them are going to "develop" into anything of note. That's a depressing thing to believe, but it's the truth. On the other hand, the Celtics changed things very quickly in just one offseason. So that's what I'm hoping for, rather than the idea of transforming losing players into winning ones.

I don't think the current regime is going to accomplish this. I think a new regime is necessary, because obviously the success of the current regime is tied to the current players -- their players. If they are failures, then so is the regime. That's what I think is behind this disastrous DeRozan contract.