Everything Valanciunas

[Puffer]

And all of this while trotting out a starting centre who's incompatible with today's NBA. How is this even possible?

(Just thought I'd try and get this thread back on topic )

Nice effort.

[Scraptor]

Zach Lowe put up his first preview piece, on his most intriguing players this season. Although there were no Raptors mentions, I really liked this quote:

Nurkic's revival is a useful reminder that only a half-dozen or so superstars translate independently across any roster. Everyone else is a plant seeking the right habitat.

This play he references is very similar to a Jonas slip screen... except Lillard finds Nurkic on the dive to the basket, whereas Jonas would be waving his hands in the air.

http://media.video-cdn.espn.com/gifs...kic_10.0_3.mp4

I hope if JV gets dealt he finds a situation like this. Nurkic is the better defender, but JV can still be a key piece somewhere imo.

[Mess]

Zach Lowe put up his first preview piece, on his most intriguing players this season. Although there were no Raptors mentions, I really liked this quote:



This play he references is very similar to a Jonas slip screen... except Lillard finds Nurkic on the dive to the basket, whereas Jonas would be waving his hands in the air.

http://media.video-cdn.espn.com/gifs...kic_10.0_3.mp4

I hope if JV gets dealt he finds a situation like this. Nurkic is the better defender, but JV can still be a key piece somewhere imo.

I had to watch that video frame by frame to see that he didn't dribble and it's actually not a travel. Actually fairly impressive footwork to get to the basket. Though I do agree that it would be rare for JV to receive a pass on a roll so far away from the basket.

[Fully]

Zach Lowe put up his first preview piece, on his most intriguing players this season. Although there were no Raptors mentions, I really liked this quote:



This play he references is very similar to a Jonas slip screen... except Lillard finds Nurkic on the dive to the basket, whereas Jonas would be waving his hands in the air.

http://media.video-cdn.espn.com/gifs...kic_10.0_3.mp4

I hope if JV gets dealt he finds a situation like this. Nurkic is the better defender, but JV can still be a key piece somewhere imo.

Call me crazy but Nurkic shows more quickness and agility on that play than I've ever seen from JV.

[Puffer]

Call me crazy but Nurkic shows more quickness and agility on that play than I've ever seen from JV.

Fake news. They just speeded up the video clip/Sarc

[KeonClark]

Toronto has walked that line as well as anybody in recent years. Only three clubs have won more regular season games over the last 24 months (Golden State, San Antonio, Cleveland) and only two have won more playoff games (Golden State, Cleveland). Meanwhile, the bottom half of their roster has been made up of rookies, sophomores and third-year players, most of which have produced when called upon, both at the NBA level and in the D-League, where Raptors 905 is coming off a championship season. It’s an underappreciated feat.

http://www.tsn.ca/raptors-camp-quest...ep-up-1.859507

Sent from my LG-H831 using Tapatalk

Your cherry picking shiny stats to say what we already know: we're one of the top teams in the Nba 2nd tier. We're going on 3 or 4 years of that being the case. (Actually it'll be 5 years in a couple months that we've had really good win %). You can't blame a lot of the fan base for being hungry for more, and not just resting on being a really competitive bronze medalist. Success is great, but we havent come close to the mountain top, and instead of constantly trotting out "matt Devlin stats" like playoff wins over 2 years or whatever, people are earnestly trying to figure out how we best get there.

[Puffer]

...people are earnestly trying to figure out how we best get there.

Easy. Acquire, through draft or trade, a player who winds up in the top five of all NBA players while retaining the existing core.

You guys make such a bid deal out of this. If the above is impossible, the don't worry, be happy.

[Scraptor]

Easy. Acquire, through draft or trade, a player who winds up in the top five of all NBA players while retaining the existing core.

You guys make such a bid deal out of this. If the above is impossible, the don't worry, be happy.

Not sure about top 5, but guys like Jimmy Butler, Paul George, or DeMarcus Cousins could have been really useful. And given what they were traded for, it clearly isn't impossible.

[Scraptor]

Call me crazy but Nurkic shows more quickness and agility on that play than I've ever seen from JV.

You're crazy. He's not doing anything more quick/agile than JV does on the number 1 play in this mix:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zLjufgl4_5g

[Shaolin Fantastic]

You're crazy. He's not doing anything more quick/agile than JV does on the number 1 play in this mix:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zLjufgl4_5g

so you picked something from 4 years ago, when JV was actually a lot lighter to make your point...

[DanH]

so you picked something from 4 years ago, when JV was actually a lot lighter to make your point...

Considering the context of the post was "anything we've ever seen from JV," I'm not seeing the issue.

[Fully]

Considering the context of the post was "anything we've ever seen from JV," I'm not seeing the issue.

My original comment was a bit hyperbolic I'll admit but I think my point is still a valid one.

I'm all for continuing to explore ways to have more balance on offence but it's not as simple as saying "check out the way team X got their big man involved on this play - the Raptors should do that too". I watch that play from Nurkic and think that if you put JV in the same situation - receiving a pass 18 feet away from the basket with a full head of steam off of a roll - it would result in a turnover or bad look much more than it would a converted bucket for Jonas.

[DanH]

My original comment was a bit hyperbolic I'll admit but I think my point is still a valid one.

I'm all for continuing to explore ways to have more balance on offence but it's not as simple as saying "check out the way team X got their big man involved on this play - the Raptors should do that too". I watch that play from Nurkic and think that if you put JV in the same situation - receiving a pass 18 feet away from the basket with a full head of steam off of a roll - it would result in a turnover or bad look much more than it would a converted bucket for Jonas.

I think that may be true, but I also think if you take out the "head of steam" part, the team has found success hitting guys on short rolls.

[Scraptor]

so you picked something from 4 years ago, when JV was actually a lot lighter to make your point...

It was the first video I found, dude. I didn't have time to go digging but since I'm here....

My original comment was a bit hyperbolic I'll admit but I think my point is still a valid one.

I'm all for continuing to explore ways to have more balance on offence but it's not as simple as saying "check out the way team X got their big man involved on this play - the Raptors should do that too". I watch that play from Nurkic and think that if you put JV in the same situation - receiving a pass 18 feet away from the basket with a full head of steam off of a roll - it would result in a turnover or bad look much more than it would a converted bucket for Jonas.

You can literally go through all of JV's rolls from 18 feet out on nba.com and see that this isn't true. The one thing he was touted for coming into the league was his ability as a pick and roll finisher.

Here's one example of a cutting dunk through traffic:
http://stats.nba.com/events/?flag=3&...layer&sct=plot

And a cutting dunk starting from farther away:
http://stats.nba.com/events/?flag=3&...layer&sct=plot

There's a misconception that's arisen because we are such a terrible team at delivering the ball to our bigs (be it basic post entry passes or hitting the roll man), and that's that Jonas is a fumbling turnover waiting to happen. The issue more than anything is timing. We don't run those plays so our timing is always shit. We were 27th of 30 teams in hitting the roll man and 22nd of 30 in post possessions.

[Puffer]

...There's a misconception that's arisen because we are such a terrible team at delivering the ball to our bigs (be it basic post entry passes or hitting the roll man), and that's that Jonas is a fumbling turnover waiting to happen. The issue more than anything is timing. We don't run those plays so our timing is always shit. We were 27th of 30 teams in hitting the roll man and 22nd of 30 in post possessions.

Amen.