Everything Valanciunas

[bryan colangelo]

No, there's just no reasoning behind your stance.

I've pretty much accepted that whenever the Raptors lose, everything to MACK11 — the players, the coaches, the refs — are absolute shit.

When the Raptors win, everything is amazing — except Casey, who is still shit and keeping everyone else on the planet from becoming champions.

Meh. You learn to live with it.

[hotfuzz]

I've pretty much accepted that whenever the Raptors lose, everything to MACK11 — the players, the coaches, the refs — are absolute shit.

When the Raptors win, everything is amazing — except Casey, who is still shit and keeping everyone else on the planet from becoming champions.

Meh. You learn to live with it.

That RealGM mentality.

[mcHAPPY]

No, there's just no reasoning behind your stance.

We all have our unreasonable stances on certain things.

You, as an example, have JV

[JimiCliff]

so again nothing to disprove caseys' continued evolution of this team or the players. just random red herrings to change the discussion.

i never said anything about goats. who would be phil jackson. show me where his record doesn't prove he is the goat? if a coach only ever improves his teams winning percentages and it's players always get better statistically how is he not a good coach?

just even answer that one question

I guess the simplest way to disprove it comes in two easy parts:

1) Part of the team's improvement during Casey tenure is wholly due to Masai's roster changes.

2) The other part of it is due to Casey having inherited a very young team, and naturally talented young players will see their stats improve no matter who's coaching them.

[MACK11]

I've pretty much accepted that whenever the Raptors lose, everything to MACK11 — the players, the coaches, the refs — are absolute shit.

When the Raptors win, everything is amazing — except Casey, who is still shit and keeping everyone else on the planet from becoming champions.

Meh. You learn to live with it.

How about you stop with these personal jabs?

If you have a problem with what I'm saying attack my opinions like others have but these personal jabs are childish.

[S.R.]

It's a shame that he doesn't realize that. There aren't many third year bigs on a good team that get the touches he gets. (Talking out of my ass kinda because I'm too lazy to look up the stats but I can't think of any off the top of my head)

If he realized he wasn't owed anything and just went out and tried to make the most of the minutes that he got he could still be at about 15&10 at least.

I'm also too lazy too look it up, but his usage rate was listed against other C's elsewhere. His usage is a bit low, both against other young C's and even against some defensive C's who have a lot less offensive game than him but are more involved in their teams' offensive systems nontheless.

[bryan colangelo]

How about you stop with these personal jabs?

If you have a problem with what I'm saying attack my opinions like others have but these personal jabs are childish.

Not meant as a jab as all. I kind of like the fact you take the Raptor's winning and losing almost personally. You're invested. Makes the game more fun to watch while being on the board.

[MACK11]

Not meant as a jab as all. I kind of like the fact you take the Raptor's winning and losing almost personally. You're invested. Makes the game more fun to watch while being on the board.

Oh
well then it seems I've overreacted.

[bryan colangelo]

I guess the simplest way to disprove it comes in two easy parts:

1) Part of the team's improvement during Casey tenure is wholly due to Masai's roster changes.

2) The other part of it is due to Casey having inherited a very young team, and naturally talented young players will see their stats improve no matter who's coaching them.

1) That's more an indictment of me, GM Bryan Colangelo, than Casey. If anything, the team performing well after Masai purged all the dead-weight off the roster kind of proves that Casey's coaching and culture were effective, he was just saddled with some unworkable personnel, like Bargs (LOL), Calderon (horrible defender) and Gay. I guess you can argue that Casey didn't have to play those guys, but lets get real — of course he did. I, GM Bryan Colangelo, would have fired him if he didn't.

2) Hard to argue. The players are doing all the real work. But at least all our young guys work hard, consistently. Casey deserves some credit for developing a mature, blue-collar locker room. If Dion Waiters or Swaggy P developed under Casey — or Popovich, or Vogel, or Thibodeau — they would be much different players at this point of their careers. I'm not saying Casey is as good as coach as those guys, but at least he's gets professionalism out his players.

Compare that to guys like Butch Carter, Triano and Kevin O'Neill, Sam Mitchell — their locker rooms always felt like circuses. Casey's locker room seems almost too serious. Butch Carter tried to sue Marcus Camby. Mitchell refused to double-team Kobe in his 81 point game out of spite. Vince body slammed Mitchell for crying out loud. Oh my god, Lenny Wilkens. Did he do anything?

You can't prove Casey made his players better, but you can definitely say some of our guys would have been worse off under some of the other coaches out there.

[S.R.]

1) That's more an indictment of me, GM Bryan Colangelo, than Casey. If anything, the team performing well after Masai purged all the dead-weight off the roster kind of proves that Casey's coaching and culture were effective, he was just saddled with some unworkable personnel, like Bargs (LOL), Calderon (horrible defender) and Gay. I guess you can argue that Casey didn't have to play those guys, but lets get real — of course he did. I, GM Bryan Colangelo, would have fired him if he didn't.

2) Hard to argue. The players are doing all the real work. But at least all our young guys work hard, consistently. Casey deserves some credit for developing a mature, blue-collar locker room. If Dion Waiters or Swaggy P developed under Casey — or Popovich, or Vogel, or Thibodeau — they would be much different players at this point of their careers. I'm not saying Casey is as good as coach as those guys, but at least he's gets professionalism out his players.

Compare that to guys like Butch Carter, Triano and Kevin O'Neill, Sam Mitchell — their locker rooms always felt like circuses. Casey's locker room seems almost too serious. Butch Carter tried to sue Marcus Camby. Mitchell refused to double-team Kobe in his 81 point game out of spite. Vince body slammed Mitchell for crying out loud. Oh my god, Lenny Wilkens. Did he do anything?

You can't prove Casey made his players better, but you can definitely say some of our guys would have been worse off under some of the other coaches out there.

For a hc with a minimal track record outside of his current situation, it's really hard to say what impact he's having on the team until a) you switch coaches and see what a different one does with the same roster, or b) the coach goes to another team and you see what he does with a different roster.

I do know that Casey had Minnesota playing about .500 ball during his first hc stint, and that team was a lot worse after they fired him. It was pretty well recognized that the T-Wolves made a mistake there and should have kept him.

Also, in spite of our differences of opinion about how to develop the young guys, the horns offense, and play calls after time-outs, the Raptors have been doing considerably better each year under Casey and virtually every player is improving. It's not exactly a Mike-Brown-in-Cleveland situation.

I think Casey is a pretty good coach, and that you'd have to find a top-tier coach if you want to replace him and improve, but it's virtually unheard of to replace a coach who's in the midst of essentially doing his job well.

By all accounts Casey also has great rapport with Ujiri, Lowry, and DeRozan. He's not going anywhere any time soon.

*Edit: I've also noticed, with increased recognition this fall, that one of the common descriptors for the Raptors has been "a well coached team." Reggie Miller, Dr.J, and Antonio Davis have all said that during broadcasts. Well, at least before the current run of shitty defensive games ;p

[JimiCliff]

*Edit: I've also noticed, with increased recognition this fall, that one of the common descriptors for the Raptors has been "a well coached team." Reggie Miller, Dr.J, and Antonio Davis have all said that during broadcasts. Well, at least before the current run of shitty defensive games ;p

I'd rather watch games in silence than listen to Reggie Miller

Antonio Davis thought his children would be hurt by learning the metric system

Can't say anything about Dr. J

[charlesnba23]

Omer Asik. Gorgui Dieng. Roy Hibbert. Robin Lopez. Just some of the guys playing center that I consider less good players than JV and that are playing more. Free JV. Unleash him. He's a 15 points, 10 rebounds and 1.5 blocks player.

*Edit*

JV 36MPG: 16.1 PPG, 12.1 RPG, 1.7 BPG, 3.4 FPG.

3.4 FPG over 36MPG. Yep.

That means there is no reason in the world why he's not averaging at least 30MPG.

But hey, we're winning.

[rocwell]

Omer Asik. Gorgui Dieng. Roy Hibbert. Robin Lopez. Just some of the guys playing center that I consider less good players than JV and that are playing more. Free JV. Unleash him. He's a 15 points, 10 rebounds and 1.5 blocks player.

*Edit*

JV 36MPG: 16.1 PPG, 12.1 RPG, 1.7 BPG, 3.4 FPG.

3.4 FPG over 36MPG. Yep.

That means there is no reason in the world why he's not averaging at least 30MPG.

But hey, we're winning.

As long as we're winning and Jonas is earning "experience points" - I'm not complaining. His time will come.

[Raptorsnz]

Yeah JV's played really well the last couple of games, it's just that in the 4th we've either been blowing the other team out or the bench is dominating so we don't need JV. In saying that though JV did go back into the game vs the Pistons when it was in hand so Casey did clearly want some more minutes for him.

[stooley]

The whole playing time issue with Jonas really is just over like 4-5 mpg.