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  • Shaolin Fantastic wrote: View Post
    What JV does doesn't impact winning games. Yeah he's an efficient scorer and he rebounds but he's not impacting wins in any sort of significant way. He's the same as Vucevic and Enes Kanter. Skilled scorers who can shoot as well and board, but can't defend anything other than one on one post matchups with other big centers. You don't win games because of those type of players.

    So tired of the Valanciunas overrating. There's a reason Masai has been offering the guy up in trades for the past 3 years if not longer.
    LOL, of course he does. It's not a coincidence that the team was like 23-6 with JV in the lineup and significantly worse than that without him. Not that the starters were dramatically better with him than with Serge.

    Valanciunas has developed into a significantly better defender than those two you reference and the results show it, for anyone who cares to actually look rather than rely on narratives from a few seasons ago.
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    • planetmars wrote: View Post
      Nobody is saying JV is better than Gasol.

      The trade itself was confusing until we got Lin. It made no sense to me to upgrade a position that was successful to something better but also getting rid of a depth piece that was pretty important (Wright).

      The problem was never at the Center position. Jobaka (see what I did there).. was actually pretty fricken awesome this year.

      The trade makes things messier not cleaner. We never had an issue with JV coming off the bench. Or playing 19 minutes a game. Or just playing in certain matchups (and rarely in the 4th). He was a soldier and when he played was super optimal. We needed Wright to be the backup PG.. especially since both Lowry and Fred have been banged up all year.

      Our struggles were mainly with our role players (OG, CJ, sometimes Fred) not playing as well as they did last year. Those guys needed to be upgraded. And they weren't.

      Gasol can make them better just by being on the floor with them. But if we never replaced Wright with Lin it would have been a bad trade, IMO.

      And this has nothing to do with JV being better than Gasol (he's not). It was the entire premise of the trade. We had no reason to do it. Our C spot was working absolutely fine. And was probably the best C tandem in the league.


      The only argument I can see that makes sense was that Masai felt we needed some leadership in the locker room. With DeMar gone and Kawhi less vocal perhaps Masai felt we needed a big voice to help us through the playoffs. But nobody's bringing this up so I'm not sure if it's even relevant. A guy like Gasol could have helped us against the Cavs. Raptors tend to be mentally weak in the playoffs too (especially Lowry).
      The thing is though, that Gasol, is also an upgrade over Ibaka as well. Hey, I had my reservations when I first heard the trade. I too, felt that our C tandem of Ibaka/JV was extremely productive and that we got a lot out of them. But, the Gasol/Ibaka tandem should be considerably better than the Ibaka/JV tandem. I'm not sure it will ultimately be evident in counting stats, that remains to be seen. And we have yet to see how productive Ibaka will be with the bench if he gets moved there. Ultimately, it might be a wash if Ibaka isn't productive with the bench, but in theory, this is a great trade despite the Lin acquisition. And it's hard to believe that the trigger would have only gotten pulled with the knowledge of the possibility of a Lin type acquisition a week or so later. Masai wanted Gasol, and never really gave up too much to get him. Gasol is also a leader, fierce competitor and has abilities on both sides of the floor that benefit the team that neither JV or Ibaka have (defensive positioning and awareness being amongst the most noticeable).

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      • DanH wrote: View Post
        LOL, of course he does. It's not a coincidence that the team was like 23-6 with JV in the lineup and significantly worse than that without him. Not that the starters were dramatically better with him than with Serge.

        Valanciunas has developed into a significantly better defender than those two you reference and the results show it, for anyone who cares to actually look rather than rely on narratives from a few seasons ago.
        No, he doesn't and he isn't any better defensively than Vucevic or Kanter. Those two are just on really, really bad teams compared to ours. Stop overrating JV. You're doing what Christian does with DeRozan. If he was actually as good and impactful as you say, Masai would not have continually shopped him the past 3 years or traded him for an aging Gasol when JV is in his prime.

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        • LJ2 wrote: View Post
          Masai would have made that trade regardless of whether Lin was available or not. Delon's minutes could have been easily replaced by any number of players clearing waivers or even from 905.

          I think the reason they wanted to move on from JV was they felt he hurt our defense more than he helped on offense. And his offense didn't seem to fit with what Nurse was running.

          He was good enough to get us Gasol. It's time to move on.
          IMO, it did fit. Nurse, like most coaches, runs an offence that fits the personnel. You're right in the sense that he didn't fit a more varied offence that Nurse would have preferred to run. Although I can't find stats for cuts, I'm guessing we did far less cutting than Nurse wanted to run, simply because neither of JV or Ibaka are good enough passers. Gasol adds that new dimension, which should enable Nurse to diversify the offence further.
          If we knew half as much about coaching an NBA team as we think, we"d know twice as much as we do.

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          • Shaolin Fantastic wrote: View Post
            ... If he was actually as good and impactful as you say, Masai would not have continually shopped him the past 3 years or traded him for an aging Gasol when JV is in his prime.
            Of course he would if he was all in for this year. Gasol just has to be better than JV, and with his passing and the ability to initiate offense from the post he opens up things for the starters and the bench, wherever he plays in ways that JV cannot. The starters and bench were better with JV, so he is impactful. The starters and bench will be better with Gasol, so he is MORE impactful.

            Masai is not counting on Gasol to help the team for three more years. He is hoping Gasol can help the team THIS year to get to the finals and thereby induce Kawhi to resign. If Kawhi resigns, after the Raps get to the finals (or even the EC finals) there is a much higher likelihood of signing another "impactful" player next off-season. And then they can give it another run to see how 2020 - 2021 turns out.

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            • Shaolin Fantastic wrote: View Post
              No, he doesn't and he isn't any better defensively than Vucevic or Kanter. Those two are just on really, really bad teams compared to ours. Stop overrating JV. You're doing what Christian does with DeRozan. If he was actually as good and impactful as you say, Masai would not have continually shopped him the past 3 years or traded him for an aging Gasol when JV is in his prime.
              No one is perfect. Masai also signed Lorenzo Brown. He must be awesome yeah?

              I understand why Masai would trade JV for Gasol. It's the right idea, for sure, and could pay off in spades. Ultimately the logic is to get a guy who a) can hopefully help the team to the same peak JV did, b) do so in more minutes and against more varied opposition, and c) potentially increase the height of that peak if all goes well because he can replicate the stuff JV does and also bring top notch playmaking and better defence. All of that is good stuff.

              We don't need to undervalue JV, nor ignore his obvious impact on the team, to understand the move or be excited about the upside of adding a guy like Gasol, especially if he's going to be rejuvenated on a winning team as he appears to be through a couple games.
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              • Another underrated aspect of the Gasol acquisition is referee respect and getting calls. That becomes extremely magnified in the playoffs (Lebron can literally get away with anything). Gasol has the respect of all the refs and won't get called for ticky tack bullshit and will get calls on offense when he's fouled. JV was the exact opposite with zero respect from the refs on both ends of the floor.

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                • DanH wrote: View Post
                  No one is perfect. Masai also signed Lorenzo Brown. He must be awesome yeah?

                  I understand why Masai would trade JV for Gasol. It's the right idea, for sure, and could pay off in spades. Ultimately the logic is to get a guy who a) can hopefully help the team to the same peak JV did, b) do so in more minutes and against more varied opposition, and c) potentially increase the height of that peak if all goes well because he can replicate the stuff JV does and also bring top notch playmaking and better defence. All of that is good stuff.

                  We don't need to undervalue JV, nor ignore his obvious impact on the team, to understand the move or be excited about the upside of adding a guy like Gasol, especially if he's going to be rejuvenated on a winning team as he appears to be through a couple games.
                  Nobody's undervaluing JV. You're overrating the shit out of him acting like he's on par with Gasol. Also not sure why you're acting like a guy who was playing EIGHTEEN freaking minutes per game was anchoring our success while he was here. Give me a break.

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                  • Shaolin Fantastic wrote: View Post
                    Nobody's undervaluing JV. You're overrating the shit out of him acting like he's on par with Gasol. Also not sure why you're acting like a guy who was playing EIGHTEEN freaking minutes per game was anchoring our success while he was here. Give me a break.
                    You want to provide me a quote where I said he was on par with Gasol?

                    You must not have seen what happened in those 18 minutes, nor what has happened since those 18 minutes went away.
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                    • OG literally could be the difference between us making the finals and beating golden state or not

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                      • TrueTorontoFan wrote: View Post
                        OG literally could be the difference between us making the finals and beating golden state or not
                        This is so true. I thought the OG/Pascal/Kawhi combo could be a switchable defensive juggernaut that would become our unique advantage.

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                        • He's old, but I actually think he might make a difference in the post-season. Good pick up just in case Ibaka disappears again like last year.

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                          • Gasol in 3 games as a Rap - 5 assists

                            JV last night - 5 assists

                            Just sayin'!

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                            • Mack North wrote: View Post
                              Gasol in 3 games as a Rap - 5 assists

                              JV last night - 5 assists

                              Just sayin'!
                              If players made their open shots, Gasol would have like 15 assists

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                              • A.I wrote: View Post
                                If players made their open shots, Gasol would have like 15 assists
                                Gasol has 14 potential assists and 5 assists in three games as a Raptor.

                                Typical assist to potential assist ratio is usually about 1:2 to 2:3. So Gasol could reasonably expect 7 assists (he does tend to set up threes, so you'd expect him to be closer to that 1:2 ratio).

                                JV has 7 assists and 10 potential assists in two games as a Grizzly. If we just ignore whether guys make their shots at all, that's 19 total assist opportunities for Gasol in 60 minutes and 17 total assist opportunities for JV in 44 minutes.

                                Obviously it's super early, and it will be interesting to see if JV keeps it up as a more primary option in Memphis, and Gasol should see his assist numbers jump if he gets some time with the starters, which hopefully will happen soon and stick.
                                twitter.com/dhackett1565

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