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OT: The Official Toronto Raptors Thread

one thing that seems pretty unique about the raps starters is that they're all natural passers with very high assist rates along with being high usage scorers.

pretty rare to see that many guys together who are all good scorers and passers.
 
zeke said:
one thing that seems pretty unique about the raps starters is that they're all natural passers with very high assist rates along with being high usage scorers.

pretty rare to see that many guys together who are all good scorers and passers.
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Yeah, just for contrast:

This was the AST% of the 48 win Raptors core rotation from a few years ago:

Fred: 26.7%
Pascal: 23.0%
Scottie: 14.7%
OG: 11%
Trent Jr: 8.8%
Precious: 6.9%
Boucher: 2.2%


This rotation

IQ: 30.3%
Scottie: 28.4%
Shead: 28.3%
RJ: 27.6%
Ingram: 27.1%
Jake: 13.9%
Gravy: 9.0%
Okai: 8.0%
Boucher: 5.4%

We share the ball a lot, now we just need more offensive efficiency/shot making. RJ has been meh/bad this season from an efficiency standpoint, Scottie has been bad, Gradey pretty bad considering his role, Shead bad.

We need RJ in the .570-.580 range and Scottie to give up above the break 3's except on wide open catch and shoot situations. Thankfully, Ingram is much better suited to taking a lot of the shot types that Scottie and RJ struggle with and we can get them working off ball a bit more with RJ's curl/cut heavy game and Scottie working in that 10-16ft mid range, which he's legitimately becoming lethal in, shooting 50% from there this season but it only makes up 19% of his shot diet. Would like to see that move into the 25%+ range next year.
 
I don't mind scottie chucking the long 3s for practice tbh. Would be great if the practice helps him improve there. chuck away for this year imo.

and yeah on the bench both Mogbo and Shead are also willing and able passers.

the rest don't pass at all though, just shooters - boucher agbaji dick walter battle.
 
I'm kind of fine with having a few guys in the rotation that the ball stop at for a shot, as long as they're enough of a shooting threat to create good spacing, knock down the open shots the ball movement generates, and then defend well at the other end.

My concern right now is a guy like Gradey (surprise) being a one trick pony whose trick is kind of just okay, and Ja'Kobe not being able to make shots. Mogbo moving the ball and play good D is fine as a role player. Boucher being a chaotic high TS% bench scorer who shoots as soon as the ball touches his hands and works hard on D and the glass is fine. Battle is going to need to improve his D to stick eventually, but fits the mold of a quality role player.
 
Yeah i don't mind it as long as they can actually shoot. The only guy i actually trust to shoot there is Battle, though Agbaji is winning me over and has D, Boucher is a weird little unicorn, and Gradey's form looks pretty sweet tbh. Walter u just don't know that the shot will ever be there but what do i know.

Jakobe and Gradey both have a bit more than just shooting in their offensive bag of course but still they both need good shooting to ever be useful.
 
zeke said:
though Agbaji is winning me over and has D
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images
 
Seems a bit generous. His first year is similar to demar’s if you normalize 3 pt shooting (basically, hes taken 9x more 3’s, which brings down his offensive efficiency a bunch).
 
It's a lot generous. Shai was a fulltime rotation level player the day he stepped on an NBA court. He was a 6th/7th man on a 48 win team that did a bit of everything and did it pretty well. Ja'Kobe has been a deeeep bench level player, one of the most ineffient guards in the league, on a high lottery team. If Ja'Kobe was on anything but a high lottery team, he would be in the G League right now, he's nowhere near good enough to be a NBA player yet.

I don't see the similarities at all. Shai was an efficient plus plus 3 level scorer on top of being a very good playmaker and impact NCAA defender as a prospect. Walter a low efficiency, high volume shooting guard with severe tunnel vision. Not close to the same level of prospect coming into the NBA, and not close to the same level of quality in year 1.

Even just taking a look at his best game of the year:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSoO7gHmgGI

It's mostly catch and shoot stuff that drops for him, a few flashes of being able to make a good pass to the cutter off the dribble, one "kinda like Shai if you squint a bit" drive when he attacks a close out.

There is a huge, huge defining factor when determining stylistic similarity to someone like Shai....are they able to create off of the dribble? If you're not able to attack and break down a defence off of the dribble consistently, you're not stylistically similar to any of the perimeter offensive engines like Shai, Lebron, Spider, Giannis, Steph, Dame, Brunson, Tatum, Ant, etc. If you can't do that, your coach isn't even going to put you in the type of role where you're taking those type of shots. Aside from a few isolated flashes, I haven't seen much from Ja'Kobe this year that suggests that he's going to end up an on ball player.
 
I get the hope on that comparison because you want to believe that jakobe's herky-jerky stuff can be effective and SGA is the king of that, but SGA is a deadeye shooter who is a magician at always staying balanced deapite the herkyjerky while Jakobe is always, always off bakance.
 
zeke said:
I get the hope on that comparison because you want to believe that jakobe's herky-jerky stuff can be effective and SGA is the king of that, but SGA is a deadeye shooter who is a magician at always staying balanced deapite the herkyjerky while Jakobe is always, always off bakance.
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I also don't get the bit about retiring the KCP conversation...that's a red flag imo, not a good thing. Nothing in his development so far suggests a higher ceiling than that imo and him starting to tailor himself to a KCPish type role now is probably the best way for him to last in the league. There's an old ethos in NBA skills development circles that 1st rounders get 2 yrs of "development" where no one really expects them to be players yet, where they're allowed to play outside of themselves to see what they can maybe turn into but starting yr 3 it's perform in the role you're given or sit....so sure, maybe let him stretch his legs for another year. If we don't see a massive jump from him next season, he needs to get KCP on the phone and be ready to take notes.
 
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