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OT: The Official Toronto Raptors Thread

Scottie with 33 & 13 with 5 assists and 3 stocks is the exact type of stat line I want him chasing. We're not going to get the best version of Scottie Barnes by letting him fall into chasing 10+ assists a night. I want him around the rim on both ends because he's our 2nd best defensive rebounder and his playmaking is at it's best in transition and his size and touch around the rim can be a problem. I want him shooting 17-20 times a night, but within the flow of the offence and not chucking up 3's because the ball is in his hands late in the clock and he's forced into it. I want him directing the defence off of the ball and doing free safety type shit with tips and stocks. He's not a lockdown guy on the ball, but he's top tier as a help defender.
 
Orlando is a good test after the Brooklyn game. Brooklyn sucked before they traded off Dennis and DFS and suck worse now. Orlando's record is sneaky good, but a -0.9 net rating (21st) is probably a better indicator of what they are than their record (10th overall) has them at.

Even without RJ, if this group isn't competitive against this version of Orlando (still without Paolo), it's a red flag moving forward.
 
zeke said:
But it's almost like preseason for us with this group barely playing with each other yet now playing good teams in midseason form.
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Yup, this. I don't understand why Mindz is so fixated on these ultimatums. So many injuries + so many young guys means they likely haven't had enough time as a group to master the system, and when people come back from injuries rotations and player roles change, it takes time to gel. Especially if they're trying to modify the system on the fly to account for the poor D.

There's no guarantee this is a good team or that it will for sure get better, but it seems pretty clear to me why they look so disorganized at times.
 
zeke said:
But it's almost like preseason for us with this group barely playing with each other yet now playing good teams in midseason form.
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Yeah, that's why I said competitive. If they're good, they should beat bad teams (mission accomplished against Brooklyn), compete with mid tier teams (we'll see tonight), and not get wrecked by good teams (losing by 10 to Boston, instead of 70 or whatever the fuck that was the other night)
 
axlsalinger said:
I don't understand why Mindz is so fixated on these ultimatums.
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Because this summer is important. The season is half over, and we need as much information about who and what this group is as we can get. Getting rid of the vets, running this group back next year and finding out that it's only a 35-40 win team with the core between 24-26 years old would be really, really bad for the organization.

The Raps are in a weird position this summer where they don't have a lot of cap space to work with (they have 150M in guaranteed salary spoken for already next year, throw in a top 5 pick and you're closer to 160) and this core probably can't afford to be bad again next season for any reason.
 
I mean they shouldn't need too long to show their stuff (and arguably did already last game), but i'd give them 5gms or so after RJ gets back before we can really start to see what we have.
 
MindzEye said:
Because this summer is important. The season is half over, and we need as much information about who and what this group is as we can get. Getting rid of the vets, running this group back next year and finding out that it's only a 35-40 win team with the core between 24-26 years old would be really, really bad for the organization.

The Raps are in a weird position this summer where they don't have a lot of cap space to work with (they have 150M in guaranteed salary spoken for already next year, throw in a top 5 pick and you're closer to 160) and this core probably can't afford to be bad again next season for any reason.
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I get it, and I can definitely be too patient at times, but they haven't had a healthy lineup at all this season. Young guys played well but now their roles are changing. With most of the guys back, I do expect to see them start winning more games going forward, but there's no way to know exactly how long it's going to take.
 
axlsalinger said:
I get it, and I can definitely be too patient at times, but they haven't had a healthy lineup at all this season. Young guys played well but now their roles are changing. With most of the guys back, I do expect to see them start winning more games going forward, but there's no way to know exactly how long it's going to take.
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That's kind of my point though, it shouldn't take long. I'm not talking about this group being a 50+ win group right out of the box. But their net rating should start trending towards neutral (currently 26th with a -6.5) they should be highly competitive against everyone but the elite teams in the league, etc. Yeah, it's going to take a few weeks to iron out some wrinkles (5th starter, better role definition for the kids off of the bench, etc) and I'm definitely expecting inconsistency, inability to close out games, etc but they should be highly, highly competitive in the 2nd half or some big questions need to be asked about what the summer should look like.
 
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