Toronto Raptors: It’s Time To Rebuild

Toronto Raptors: It’s Time To Rebuild

Hello Raptors fans and welcome back to Raptors report I’m your host Julie and a lot has happened since we last spoke uh my wife and I had our third child uh the Cotto Raptors are absolutely terrible the Raptors are terrible oh no uh I’m pretty optimistic I think that

The Raptors will make the playoffs this year I think that the Raptors will make the playoffs this year anyway uh the Raptors are in a pretty unenviable position moving forward into the new year and in my opinion they need to make a big change now the Raptor front office has been

Putting off rebuilding for a number of years now and the team does have talent uh but their asset cupboard moving forward is pretty bare uh the Raptors hired a new coach to fix what they assumed was an issue with their development pipeline Darko rakovich for years the Raptors have been finding and

Developing Talent off of their bench using that talent to grow an asset pool which helped them acquire talents in order to win a championship guys like Norman Powell guys like Fred Van vet guys like dlan Wright guys like yakob purle some of them were traded uh for

Kawai and for Mar Gasol but some they kept and helped uh grow and become the championship team in the aftermath of that they’ve seen less success and I think that the front office saw coach nurse as unwilling to do the development that Casey had been doing and when he

Left I think that they found a replacement that they wanted to develop the talent that they had or so they thought uh so they hired Darko he had a lot of development bonafides uh and they asked him you know to coach guys up well in today’s episode

We are going into the nitty-gritty we’re going to figure out what has gone wrong with that plan and what they need to do moving forward so without any further Ado let’s Jump Right In the Toronto Raptor are on the wrong side of mediocre yet again this season

Despite a couple of players having good individual Seasons it’s definitely not looking like the Raptors have the juice to make a run to the postseason despite the positive spin from the front office this offseason the coaching change the vaunted new offense among other promises things are not going very well obviously things could

Change as they often do in the NBA and a second wind could catch the Raptor’s sails propelling them in a different direction from the course they’re currently on but as the season unwinds and the sample size grows it becomes easier and easier to see what a team is

Truly made of and as the season marches on the Raptors look every bit as bad as their record indicates the team’s offense is inconsistent to downright bad and while the defense of the starting lineup is strong the bench always seems to let the other team back in the door

Those holding out hope for younger bench players to step up Brady dick precious auua and Malachi Flynn to name a few have to be pretty disappointed by their play so far young players growing and improving Off the Bench often provide the Boost that teams need in order to

Take a step forward so the lack of development there certainly puts a damper on the hope that the Raptors could somehow turn the ship around in the case of Grady dick writing him off this early in his career would be fool Hardy although the early results are not

Very good for Flynn and particularly precious this is starting to look like The Last Chance Saloon Flynn has had a bit of a Resurgence in his play but the bar was on the floor so to speak and his modest play has raised it ever so slightly Flynn’s approach to basketball is very

Meek which makes him less than ideal for a bench lineup That desperately needs an aggressive shot Creator and his size on the other end badly limits the team’s ability to match up with other teams defensively if ly’s play moved the bar a little bit off the ground precious has

Taken the bar and plunged it into the depths of the Earth’s crust his play has been catastrophic with frequent mindbending mistakes on offense his inability to hit shots and his total falloff on the defensive end the place that he looked so strong just a few seasons ago precious has always been a question

Mark a large athlete with audacity some ball handling skills the possibility of a three-point shot and a huge defensive ceiling in his first year with the Raptors he came into his own during the second half of the Season helping the Raptors reach the playoffs his second year with the Raptors was marred by

Inconsistency and defensive regression and in his third and current season he has simply been downright bad the question mark is slowly turning into a period and I’m not sure how much time the Raptors can afford to give him if they’re actually looking to win basketball games so what is the solution should the

Raptors spend assets to upgrade the bench unit should they try to adjust minutes and hope for the best for the first question I would simply say no unless the Raptors can somehow add a player with current and future value the team is simply not good enough to make a

Short-sighted move the minute’s question is one that the Raptors should Implement sooner rather than later but it does not seem like an Elixir that will cure all of the team’s wos the final option is the most controversial make some big trades get younger and go from there

Whatever the front office set out to do this season the Raptors definitely look like they should be sellers cakam OG anobi and Gary Trent Jr are all in the final years of their contracts cakam and anobi have value around the league as versatile multitool forwards Gary after

A disastrous start to the season has begun to round into form but his upside as a player looks much lower than it did a few seasons ago he appears to be an off-ball guard who can shoot and not do a whole lot else the Raptors also have other assets purle has

Had a bit of a Down season this year that said he’s a good Defender a great finisher and an underrated playmaker he’s on a long-term reasonable contract and has recently entered his prime Dennis shuder is having a okay season statistically and should be able to get some value

Back Chris bue is a decent bench player who other teams might value the only true Untouchable on the roster should be Scotty Barnes Barnes has had a great start to the season but the minutes he’s played with the bench have H his production considerably and he’s still

Finding his way as a pro with that said he’s 22 years old on his rookie contract and a good stepping stone for the Raptors if they decide to rebuild so that they’re not starting from square one and in terms of other players to hang on to OG anobi would be a decent

Bet although he is in the final year of his deal he’s still only 26 and if the Raptors free up enough cap space they could give him the contract he’s been looking for cakam is one of my favorite Raptors of all time he’s a great player

Who is a big part of the Raptor’s first and only championship by all accounts he’s a great guy and a true Pro the front office never truly invested much in trying to build around him kind of half-assing that part while also kind of half-assing the development side of

Things leaving the Raptors Stuck in the Middle with that said cakam is almost 30 and deserves to be in a better situation than a mediocre team struggling to tread water in the Eastern Conference if the Raptors can find a team that needs a playmaking forward with excellent interior scoring and distribution skills

Pascal is a guy who could take a middling team and turn them into a contender with the struggles of the Golden State Warriors they might be a team to keep an eye on they have some interesting prospects in Moses Moody and Brandon pmy and they badly need size at

The forward spot and Veteran production siakam’s contract situation will limit how much the Raptors can ask back for him but getting value for his expiring should be a priority so that they don’t run into a Fred Van vet situation where they get left holding the bag and nothing else to show for it

Complicating the rebuild scenario somewhat is the Raptor’s pick situation the Raptors in exchange for yakob purle traded this year’s draft pick top seven protected the good news is that purle may be worth more than what he was traded for the bad news is that the Raptors probably want the pick to convey

In this year’s draft because this year’s draft isn’t very good what that means is that the Raptors probably don’t want to fully bottom out what’s strange is that even if the Raptors trade away a very good player like cakam or purle the team might not be much worse off due to a

Very redundant and frankly silly roster construction perhaps a trade that adds some depth Off the Bench and more shooting could maintain the Raptor’s mediocre trajectory while making things a little bit more palatable in the long run the future of this club appears quite murky and like most Raptors fans I

Hope for some clarity soon and and that’s this week’s episode the Raptors have really put themselves behind the eightball they have a lot of talent but a lot of it is not under contract for next season and this season uh things are not looking too hot so I

Think that a shakeup is probably in the best interests of the team but I’m always interested to hear what you have to say um should they fully blow it up who would you keep and who would you trade also what do you think of Darko rakovich is he really screwing things up

Is it not his fault there’s a lot of differing opinions that I’ve been hearing not a lot of it has been very positive but can you really blame the guy um I want to hear from you about that and I’m always interested in talking to other Raptors fans uh be it

Here on YouTube in the comment section below or on Twitter or X or whatever uh at Raptors report you can reach me there I’m always talking about the Raptors uh and I’d love you to come and join me and as always thank you for tuning in to Raptor report your source for indepth

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Merry Holidays! Time for a nice, fat lump of coal in your stocking, because we’re talking about blowing up your favourite basketball team. What went wrong? Why are they terrible? What do they need to do? All your questions are answered and more in this can’t-miss episode!

Music:
Gravity by Stanley Gurvich
Summer’s Over by DWNLD
Wine & Wishes by Jamie Bathgate
Hold On by Ottom
Honey by Kick Lee
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