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OT: The Official Toronto Raptors Thread

Wayward DP said:
What about Durant?
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We don't have enough bad salary to match...which doesn't make it impossible, but it does make it more expensive to engage 3rd teams.

I don't see a great fit there though tbh. 37, so definitely a win now thing but he's a secondary offensive guy and not elite anymore...but Phoenix seems to think that they're trading 33-34 yr old "Kevin Durant" and a top 20-30 offensive player about to turn 37 with 1 yr left on his deal.

For Zion, I'm okay with running a bit of a weird lineup out there (one of Ingram or Scottie has to play SG, probably Ingram and he's never played the position before). For one year of Durant...eh
 
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MindzEye said:
Yeah, I don't think he's what we need. Too much overlap with what Scottie does well in the half court, too little of the stuff we need from a 5 on the defensive end, at too high of an acquisition cost.
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He lacks the handles of a 3, the quickness of a modern pf and the size of a traditional C.

Really talented player but I don’t think you can contend with him as a 2nd option.

And the raps need a 1A at least.
 
mbow30 said:
He lacks the handles of a 3, the quickness of a modern pf and the size of a traditional C.

Really talented player but I don’t think you can contend with him as a 2nd option.

And the raps need a 1A at least.
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It's where Zion intrigues me, even with the baggage. This team isn't any single move away from being a contender. So putting together a bit of a flawed lineup together is fine if it raises our ceiling. Something like

C - Jake
PF -Zion
SF - Scottie
SG - Ingram
PG - Quickley

lacks shooting and lacks point of attack defence...but there's a lot of shit it would do really, really well. All 5 guys pass and create well above average for their positions. Tons of length and size, would be great rebounding and shot challenging team. Everyone runs the court well above average for the position. I don't think it beats a legit contender level club in a best of 7, but it's young and wouldn't be an easy out for anyone.

All of that is assuming that 2025 Zion continues taking his conditioning relatively seriously and can stay healthy. Neither of which is assured. But other than Charlotte giving LaMelo away for cheaper than I expect him to cost, it's the only way I see to add an actual gamebreaking talent to the organization.

Just like the we the north era, you ride it out with your not a contender for a 50 win season or three and continuously stockpile as much talent in house as possible and wait for your path and the trade availability of a top 5-7 type player to line up.
 
MindzEye said:
It's where Zion intrigues me, even with the baggage. This team isn't any single move away from being a contender. So putting together a bit of a flawed lineup together is fine if it raises our ceiling. Something like

C - Jake
PF -Zion
SF - Scottie
SG - Ingram
PG - Quickley

lacks shooting and lacks point of attack defence...but there's a lot of shit it would do really, really well. All 5 guys pass and create well above average for their positions. Tons of length and size, would be great rebounding and shot challenging team. Everyone runs the court well above average for the position. I don't think it beats a legit contender level club in a best of 7, but it's young and wouldn't be an easy out for anyone.

All of that is assuming that 2025 Zion continues taking his conditioning relatively seriously and can stay healthy. Neither of which is assured. But other than Charlotte giving LaMelo away for cheaper than I expect him to cost, it's the only way I see to add an actual gamebreaking talent to the organization.

Just like the we the north era, you ride it out with your not a contender for a 50 win season or three and continuously stockpile as much talent in house as possible and wait for your path and the trade availability of a top 5-7 type player to line up.
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I get it, I really do. But do you really want to run back the New Orleans experiment with a better starting 5? And is Jake, Scottie, IQ, and bench mob enough to win a random game in February?
 
Pwner said:
I get it, I really do. But do you really want to run back the New Orleans experiment with a better starting 5?
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I mean, we get BI & Zion for the price of like a 1st (BI) + RJ and stuff....it's definitely an increase of talent in the organization and I think that should be the driving motivation for any moves made this summer.

The New Orleans experiment did win 49 games in 23-24, in the west, with Zion & BI having a group with them probably not quite as good (at the time, Trey Murphy took a pretty solid step this year) as even this Raptors group with no bench adds would be

Pwner said:
And is Jake, Scottie, IQ, and bench mob enough to win a random game in February?
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Depends on if this is the bench or not. The bench needs work whether or not we swapped our RJ for Zion.
 
He was only really ever barely on the list fwiw. Worth a mention, but it was always unlikely.

Only thing I would bet on their is that 1 of KD, Beal, or Booker is getting traded. Beal isn't leaving, and Phoenix would like to keep Booker. KD is the obvious one, but it's not the easiest trade in the world to make happen if you're expecting any sort of a return. Really only makes sense for a team that is a playoff team who needs a 3/4 bucket getter and has ~50M in contracts they can move to salary match.

The only situations I see that even make theoretical sense

Detroit: Tobias + Stewart
SAS: Vassell + Barnes
Houston: Houston picks up Fred's team option and flips him to Phoenix
Miami: Wiggins + Rozier
Clippers: Norm + Bogdan + stuff
Sixers: Podcast P
Denver: MPJ + Stuff
Knicks: KAT or OG


and for various reasons, most of those don't make sense.
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
The Heat feel the most Duranty
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Yeah, I'd be pretty shocked if they tore that down and started over. Playing with sportrac's trade machine for a minute....

Wiggins + Duncan Robinson + Kevin Love works financially. Only like 9 million of Robinsons money this year is guaranteed. So they could ETO Robinson, waive Love and that gets them well under the 2nd apron.

If Phoenix is demanding more value, Jaime Jacquez swapped in for Love would do the same thing...just ETO'ing Robinson would get them under the 2nd apron, which is probably a pretty big fucking priority of theirs this summer.

If I'm Miami, I do the top package and throw in the GSW 20th overall from this draft they have.

C - Bam
PF - KD
SF - Highsmith
SG - Herro
PG - Davion/Rozier (obvious mid season upgrade)
a pretty nice looking young bench as well. Jovic, Ware, JJJ

It's not going to win anything, but it's probably solid playoff team. Miami never struggles to attract good veterans to show up for cheap either to fill in bench spots, and they would Rozier's expiring deal to move to go after something with mid season.
 
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