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OT: The Official Toronto Raptors Thread

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MindzEye said:
Super good. Yet again the Clippers without one of their stars is struggling against mediocre (to be kind) competition, it's just not a great supporting cast. There isn't a whole lot of difference between the conferences this year in quality. This isn't "zomg the west", this is just them not being good enough to rest everyone who needs to be rested there.

The Raptors have had the 6th toughest schedule in the league so far, and according to a couple different SOS models, have one of the weakest the rest of the season.

The Celtics fwiw, have had the easiest schedule in basketball so far according to a couple of SOS models.
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I'm legit trying to figure out if we might be better than last year.
 
zeke said:
I'm legit trying to figure out if we might be better than last year.
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I think we're a better regular season team. Siakam isn't playoff Kawhi, and I'll further fucking guarantee that playoff Siakam won't be as good as playoff Kawhi.

We're another guy short in my estimation. Especially if Marc is going to continue have negative offensive impact like he's had.
 
MindzEye said:
Raptors might win the east.

- Philly is dangerous, but the much rumoured Simmons jumper didn't make it out of summer work outs apparently, he's taken less than 5% of his total shots from outside of 10 feet from the basket. Embiid and Horford will have a hard time sharing the court in crunch time and Horford's probably their 2nd best player. They're not particularly deep either and lack scoring punch off the bench. They're going to be an interesting team to watch at the deadline but as constructed right now I think we take them down again

- Boston is the biggest mirage in the league at the moment. They're deep and well coached but Tatum and Brown are still meh in overall. Mind you, I might be under rating Kemba and Hayward. I don't think Kemba is quite this good, and though it would be nice to see Hayward return to pre injury form (which this is pretty much the best version of), I don't know if it lasts all season. Well coached overall and can seriously shoot the ball as a group though.

- Miami deserves a mention. Jimmy has helped turn this into a group of absolute assholes on the defensive end and Jimmy is an early season candidate for MVP. This is a team that will struggle to score against any decent defence though. It's basically Jimmy and Dragic with stuff on the offensive end

- Still don't think the Bucks are built to win a chip, but Freak is ridiculous so who knows. Is hitting 32% from outside (when left wide open...he still has rather slow release) enough to get defenders actually closing out on him? Still don't love the supporting cast, neither of Middleton or Bledsoe are #2 options to be trust with a big game. It's the same as it was man, stop Giannis and you beat them.
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Jimmy butler is just a goddamn beast. Massive loss for philly - their only true ballhandler and shooter. Now philly is left with only one ballhandler and he can't shoot, which makes that a fricken awkward team. And even though Al and Joel are good shooters for big guys....that team really doesn't have much shooting.

Boston's had a powerpuff sked but I do think Kemba is that good - a guy who can light it up but without needing to outright dominate the ball. Tatum is still ass, though. Brown and Smart shot the lights out to start but I'm betting against that lasting. But if hayward is back then they're a dangerous team.

The bucks? They were flawed last year even while running red hot - now that they're a bit unsure of themselves they look beatable.

I said it before the year - no team looks unbeatable to me this year. The clip have a chance to be but I'm far from sold on them. Their depth is a bit of a mirage when you realize that lou and trez are actually starter minutes guys for them - then you realize that harkless/zubac isn't actually a great bench....and that their closing 5 has holes in it offensively and defensively.
 
MindzEye said:
I think we're a better regular season team. Siakam isn't playoff Kawhi, and I'll further fucking guarantee that playoff Siakam won't be as good as playoff Kawhi.

We're another guy short in my estimation. Especially if Marc is going to continue have negative offensive impact like he's had.
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Maybe.

I just keep going back to the fact that as good as kawhi was, our offense actually looked better without him on the court.....and looked much more similar to this sexy ballmoving offense we're seeing this year.

Now we def needed kawhi to step up in the playoffs because everyone else got a bit chokey at times...but I'm not convinced that they haven't all overcome that with some real swagger this year and that all these guys will be able to keep scoring when the playoffs hit, too.

All of Fred, OG, and Siakam look like legitimately different offensive threats thus year, and Lowry was looking better than ever. Fred seems to have added legit finish at the basket, OG is looking like an on ball threat now with both drives and even pullups, and of course siakam is insanely better at outside shooting. That's not just these guys being better this year, but actually being different threats altogether.

Gasol? Old man had a long summer, but he's nailing threes and looked like Sabonis in the high post tonight.
 
I just don't see us doing it with

1) Pascal as the guy
&
2) A collection of good but not great scorers as the #2

There's no Golden State or similar monster at the end of it all for this group to conquer, but you're still probably facing Kawhi-PG, Lebron-AD or Beard-Russ in the finals. We're going to be in a high end talent deficit against those teams. No margin for error man.
 
It's super early to start drawing conclusions on some of these young cats who have played less than 200 minutes so far...but the Raptors have 9 bodies with a positive BPM this year, and 2 names missing from that list are Serge and Marc.

OG - 5.5
Kyle - 4.2
Boucher - 3.5
RHJ - 3.1
TD2 - 2.9
Pascal - 2.6
FVV - 1.9
Thomas - 1.9
Powell - 0.1


Boston has 8, Bucks 8, Heat 7, Sixers 6

Raptors are the deepest team in the Eastern Conference again
 
And with SG still a need, there's room for him to get more.

Then again, Norman F'ing Powell is kinda sorta looking >Demar, too.
 
Davis finally misses a 3. He went 28 minutes without missing a shot (10-10 FG, 7-7 3P, 29 points).



Show me your boners fellas.
 
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