Did the Toronto Raptors take too long to change their starting lineup? | Fake Trade Friday & more!

Did the Toronto Raptors take too long to change their starting lineup? | Fake Trade Friday & more!

On your Friday episode of Locked on Raptors the Toronto Raptors finally changed their starting lineup this week and it might be too late for it to matter we’ll get into why that is we’ll take your mailbag questions and it’s another round of fake trade Friday coming up on today’s show thanks so much

For hanging you are locked on Raptors your daily Toronto Raptors podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every Day hey what’s going on and welcome to another episode of lockon raptors part of the lockon podcast Network your team every day it is Friday December the 29th and I’m your host Shawn Woodley for coming the Toronto Raptors now for 10 seasons on various platforms you can

Find all my work over on the website that don’t work so good at Woodley Sean you can find the show on Instagram at lockon Raptors and of course you can come and join us in the lockedown Raptors Discord server the link to join is in the description of the podcast

It’s free to do it and it’s a great little Community we got building around the show lots of friendly faces in there talking ball spiraling all the good stuff it’s uh it’s a great spot come and hang out we’d love to see it this episode is brought to you by prize piic

The easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports go to prize.com SL locked on NBA and use the code all lowercase locked on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 of course a reminder you can find the show for free wherever get your podcast subscribe follow rate review t

It’s always appreciated when you do that uh you can also find us on YouTube you can subscribe to the channel hit the notification Bell and you will never miss an episode when it goes live which is perfect for our every dayers out there of which all of you should be at

This point and if you’re not get on board it’s fun listening to me talk every day of course haven’t been talking every day this week we are back after a bit of a Christmas break uh the thing is usually I would record during this week but my parents recently moved to the

Country with very very bad internet infrastructure and so uh it’s a nice baked in excuse to take a little break and unplug but I was not able to get shows out this week but that’s okay because the Raptors have blessed us with a loaded weekend schedule with some

Pretty intriguing games so you’re going to get today’s show where we’re going to take your mailbag questions we’ll talk about the week that it’s been we’ll get into a fake trade Friday we are also though going to talk about the Celtics game on Saturday and of course the Pistons game that everybody’s terrified

About on Sunday morning as well so you have that to look forward to uh with that though let’s dive on into today’s episode like I said we got some mailbag questions coming up later in the show we’ve got a fake trade Friday Indiana Pacers Edition to get to in the last

Segment but I wanted to take a sec off the top just to kind of you know summarize my takeaways from a pretty weird week of Toronto Raptors basketball of course you had the Jazz game on Saturday which featured a Scotty Barnes master class and also a master class in

Pissing away a 17 point lead the defense completely falling off a cliff as it has been want to do this season followed up of course by a couple days off for the holidays much needed I’m sure and a win over the very very bad Washington Wizards that featured the starting

Lineup getting changed 30 games into the season only about 24 games after we I think realized this lineup maybe wasn’t very good uh but they got it done and that was encouraging to see if nothing else and that’s kind of where I’m going to focus this one right we’ve talked

Plenty about the defense and why it’s been a just a mess for the Raptors this season I think that was very much on display in that jazz game if you want a deep dive on the defense last Friday show with Dave dufor a very good place

To go for that but let’s uh just kind of focus mostly on the lineup change and what it means for the Raptors and frankly my big Takeaway on it which it’s good like undeniably it’s good that they’ve done this obviously it’s not perfect point guard play is important

The Raptors still lack that Scotty Barnes you know there were moments in that game against the Wizards where you could see the limitations of Scotty as like a full-time point guard you know he’s not always going to be able to burn by a guy in you know from a standstill

Denny AIA locking him up a couple times here and there Denny AIA does that to guys sometimes but you saw some of the things you’ll have to work around with Scotty Barnes being your nominal point guard in the lineup but generally like the infusion of space and shooting and a

Better informed Gary Trent Jr it makes a lot of sense for the this team not only because it frees possessions up for Scotty Barnes and Pascal SE yakum to go to work that were previously being used in the starting lineup by Dennis schruder but it also moves Dennis shuder

To the bench where he was bloody awesome he was a plus 29 he had 10 assists he conducted the second unit beautifully along with a couple of rotation changes we saw Jaylen McDaniels back in the mix utto Porter Jr back in the mix and God

Please let uto Porter Jr be back in the mix for the Long Haul here because he just makes those lineups make a whole lot more more sense as does Dennis schruder and so while the starters didn’t actually win their minutes they kind of got waxed in their minutes defensively in particular the offense

Was very good defense was a was a mess uh I still think this is the right move for the team in their current context the issue is it might have come too late for it to really matter to the sort of big picture decisionmaking that this

Team has to make right like it’s if you’re going to use the next 10 to 15 games of hopefully this new version of the rotation in the starting lineup as sort of your Beall end all for decision-making that feels like maybe not the best decision-making process maybe the Raptors already have their

Minds made up maybe they know what they intend to do with the deadline maybe they know that they’re going to try to find a deal for Dennis schruder before the deadline for a contender or something like that maybe they know that one of OG or Pascal is on the way out

Maybe both and they know that they’re going to be sort of skewing more towards a Scotty Centric Vision anyway so why not get a head start on it you know you don’t want to assume where the front office is at that I know all the reporting is out there you know with

Cryp cryptic replies to people on Twitter you know saying the Raptors still haven’t decided on stuff that’s very possibly true they’ve taken a while to decide on things in the past you would hope that this change in lineup this late on into the season is not going to fully inform what their next

Decisions are going to be obviously there’s still information to be gleaned to see how the starting lineup looks I think Gary Trent Jr in particular his future becomes very much into Focus between now and deadline if he’s in fact starting with this group um but it might

Just be too late in the game they wasted a lot of time collecting information about a lineup that we knew all the information we needed to know about we knew that Dennis shuder was not cut out for the role he was asked to play over sort of extended miscast as a lead guard

You know we’ll get some good information about what he can do as a backup sure but like we already know that that that’s you know that that’s not part of really the the equation here we missed a lot of time getting information about what Scotty Pascal and OG look like as

More Central sort of of a trio with less in terms of interference from a guy like Dennis shuder coming in I’m not surprised Dennis looked great coming off the bench he’s looked great coming off the bench his entire life and I would hope that you know the just this this

You know the first game out obviously it’s one game it’s the Wizards it doesn’t mean a whole lot but I hope that we can kind of have a realization here that it’s way cooler and better to have the third best backup point guard in basketball which I think Dennis shuder

Kind of is if he’s in that role than the 28th best starting point guard in basketball and hopefully that sort of slight reshuffling of role really helps him kind of take off and whether building up his trade value or just helping the second unit be more functional that’s all very good but yeah

We’re we’re kind of late now to get information on this starting group we know there’s a lot of data that suggests that Scotty Pascal OG and Gary together are very very good they’re a plus 21.6 net rating over just 163 possessions this season I don’t think that’s enough

Possessions and I don’t know if they have the runway now to get those guys enough possessions to really have enough data to go on to make Grand sweeping conclusions and it’s probably problematic if they’re waiting till right now to make those grand sweeping conclusions but yeah it just it’s not

Going to be enough to a change the information we’ve gleaned really or give us enough of a sample to really know anything for sure and it’s also not going to be enough for the Raptors to kind of crawl themselves back into this thing in a meaning ful way they’re 12

And 18 that’s a big hole they have to play at a pretty serious Pace if they want to even get back to 500 and look the Eastern conference after the top seven is kind of not great right now the Pacers are not playing very well uh the

Hawks and the Nets and the Bulls are not exactly inspiring competition and so there’s a chance here that the Raptors with this reshaped lineup could go on a bit of a run but does that in turn cause them to make decisions that are based on very short runways of sample it’s all

Very problematic and this lineup change should have been made way way way way long ago and it wasn’t so we got to live with the results of that so that’s kind of where I’m at on the lineup change I’m glad it happened I think they looked

Good uh again against the Wizards so all of the caveats all of the grains of salt being salt baed upon the result like it’s it’s only so much you can take from it we’ll get a lot more information I’m sure against the Celtics and maybe a desperate Pistons team that is like

Trying to get a win and really playing like every game is the playoffs for them um you know maybe we start to get more info here as we get into a tougher part of the schedule as well but again it just feels like so late in the game for

This change to be made that I’m not sure the fruits of that change are really going to Bear much between now and the deadline maybe it does maybe they’re so good between now and the start of February maybe they just Blitz teams and the the Wizards were just the first of

Many casualties on the Raptor steamroll up the standings that’s possible sure the the the Li the team makes more sense right now definitely but I I you know I think that’s probably considering what we’ve seen so far this season not the most likely thing in the world the

Roster is still very very flawed has a lot of issues guys not playing well etc etc um the defense remains a total mess and if the defense isn’t good no lineup change is going to do anything to fix what this team is doing so yeah it just

Feels like it could have been done way sooner I’m happy it’s happened now and I hope we see the sort of commitment to a revamped rotation going forward one thing I will say I would like to see precious atua more involved you know they played 10 minutes and I think it

Was mostly because yaka Perle gotten foul trouble it seemed like he was on track maybe for a dnp CD or at least very sparing work in the game against the Wizards I think precious has been one of their better players over the last month damning with faint praise to

Be sure but I I also think there’s some juice there with precious playing with the big three plus Gary Trent Jr that lineup has been pretty fun um in very very small samples but I think think we got to see more of that they’ve played exactly six possessions together this

Season I think there’s more there I would like to see more from that group uh over the course of the next little while here and more precious involved but that’s kind of my 10,000 foot Takeaway on the lineup change happy it happened not sure it changes all that

Much considering how late it is in the game and if it does change a lot that probably raises some questions about the decision-making process of the front office if you don’t already have them uh we’ll come back on the other side we’ll get into some mailbag questions we got

Questions about dick who we had an appearance from in that game on Wednesday against the Wizards he was one for one from three a beautiful step forward we’ll talk about Grady talk about some other stuff uh coming from the mailbag which is of course in the Discord if you want to get those

Questions in next time get in the Discord ask the questions when I demand that people ask them either way we’ll get to all of that coming up in just one second but first Today’s Show is brought to you by our Pals over at prize picks

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Bucks that’s prize.com loock to NBA code locked in NBA for first deposit match up to 100 bones with prize picks daily fantasy sports Made Easy all right we continue on here your first listen to the day thank you so much for tuning in again reminder there will be Saturday and Sunday episodes

This week talking about Raptor Celtics and Raptor Pistons so keep an eye out for those as your weekend progresses and we’ll get back to the regular run of things we’ll take Monday off for New Year’s New Year’s Day and we’ll get back to the regular routine of daily episodes

Beginning on January the 2nd uh but yeah let’s dive into some listener questions shall we I put the call out in the Discord there’s a couple that were kind of hanging around from before as well so I’ll try to do a mix of uh you know

Recent and uh out out outdated ones I have not yet gotten to entertain on the show not outdated just uh been there for a while but yeah let’s first dive in to a question from R pal Ben Chapman of the Discord asking given the needs of the roster what motivation would the

Organization have for not having Grady as part of the rotation other than he looks extremely not ready in a practice setting um I think this is a good jumping off point you just talk about Grady dick and I do think now is the time to probably reincorporate Grady dick

Into what the Toronto Raptors are doing they are 12 and 18 they are not very good what they have been doing so far has not been working and it feels like Brady Dick’s skill set is desperately needed still on this basketball team I have talked about this the offense is

Getting there they have been a little bit improved kind of week over week month over month throughout the season and it’s been encouraging you know credit to Darko rakovich WS do they have become basically a functional offense which is very nice to in December they’re number 15 in offensive

Efficiency they are 18th on the season as of right now most recently I checked on nba.com that’s like nice that is like where this team could have like where you would hope this team would be if you wanted them to have sort of designs on anything this season of course it’s been

Offset by a miserable defense that is not good has no identity no real plan all that stuff it’s just not been there but the offense to its credit has been improved despite the significant lack of Point shooting and I maintain the biggest issue with the offense right now

It’s they get bad shooting variants Knights they really really kind of run hot and cold as you will when you have a lot of guys who don’t shoot a lot of Threes on your team and are not very effective at it you’re going to have nights where you’re hot and cold and I

Think Grady dick just given his pedigree as a shooter gives them a chance to dodge the shooting variance bullet a little bit more often if he’s playing you know 12 15 minutes a night I think there’s a perfect place to drop him into some of these lineups I think uh Dennis

Schruder if he’s going to be running the bench perfect guy to play alongside Grady dick you can have grd dick kind of run around off ball while Dennis runs you know traditional pick and roll with whoever is playing at Center whether it’s precious atua maybe it’s yaka purle

Staggered into with bench units maybe it’s Scotty Barnes having Grady dick work off ball from that I think is a good idea I I think you know I’m actually a pretty big proponent of running some bench units here with Dennis plus yak and a bunch of shooting

Between them Grady dick could be perfect there you can run dribble hand off stuff with yaka perto with grd dick I think there are ways to implement him that amplify what he does and yeah he’s not hit his shot so far this year he’s had

His you know moments in the G League Of course where he’s had really hot nights really cold nights he’s been mostly cold at the NBA level outside of one or two games but I I think now is the time when you don’t have anything else to lose

Really what you’ve been doing is not working why not have Grady dick occupy say the role Jaylen McDaniels occupied in that game against the Wizards on Wednesday I’m also not opposed to more Jaylen McDaniels if he can kind of get into into a rhythm here I think the

Ideal version of Jaylen McDaniels is a useful player we’ve not seen anything close to what that player is so far this year and it’s been troubling but I do think there’s got to be some room here for grd dick to get into the mix because he offers the one thing that this team

Badly needs and is three-point shooting and accurate three-point shooting in theory the sort of idealized version of grd Dick offers that and again I think the offense right now is getting into its stuff pretty well it’s the play finishing that’s the real problem not having these long spells of oh God they

Can’t get even into a set because there’s no Advantage creation no like they are running their stuff getting into their actions it’s just the finishing has not been there specifically from three for a lot of these games and I think Grady dick stands a chance of offering a little bit

More finishing from that spot than say jayen McDaniels would at this point or like a Chris bue I don’t think there’s any downside to it and frankly to answer Ben’s question I don’t think there is a sort of reasonable motivation other than what we’re not seeing stuff going on

Behind the scenes you know just not looking like he’s ready forward in practice to keep him out of the mix and hopefully he can kind of get back into the good graces here in the second half of the season after some run with the G League that’s how these things are

Supposed to go right uh another question came on this topic from loquacious Drew in the Discord what lineups would you like to see Grady play with to get him confidence and some shots uh like I said I I think playing in between Dennis shuder and yaka purle is one of the

Shooting options playing off those guys sounds pretty exciting to me I think if you could roll out lineups you know if Dennis is coming off the bench Yak is maybe the first sub out you roll with a Dennis yach sort of spine of your team

With uh you know you can have Grady dick you can have OT Porter Jr Gary Trent Jr you know maybe staggers in oan anobi might be a really nice fit there as defense uh offset by the not the sort of non-defense of a shreer right now he’s

Not been very good there this season or a Grady dick that could make some sense um obviously playing with the good players as well would make a lot of sense having him be a fifth guy an agent of spacing playing alongside Scotty Pascal and OG would be pretty nice you

Know I’m very Pro testing it out to see what you can get with a lineup of Scotty OG Pascal Grady dick and Gary Trent Jr the full extreme shooting lineup it might be terrible at defense but this team is terrible at defense most of the

Time so what is there to lose those are a couple examples of lineups I’d like to see Grady get worked into let’s get into one last question here and it’s a bit of a look back a retrospective on the news and the rumors and scuttlebut of the summer Gabriel asks during Christmas me

And my uncle discussed at the front office should have made the poll for damee in hindsight I believe they should have as Daman Lillard would be addressing some of the biggest huge concerns on the team and they’re lacking a floor spacing and lacking floor spacing in guard play do you think it

Was a mistake that the front office didn’t pull the trigger on a deal for Damen Lillard uh look I I think my feelings were pretty known on this I would have loved to trade for Damen Lillard I think with the Raptors with Damen Lillard are a pretty damn good

Team right now he’s very good if you’ve seen what he’s doing in Milwaukee he’s like captaining one of the best offenses in basketball and up to very very Daman Lillard things he’s excellent he would have been awesome on this team him in the Dennis shudder spot just like a

Massive massive upgrade talked about Dennis being like the 28th best starting point guard in basketball Damien Lillard’s like a top five point guard in basketball it would have been a pretty substantial upgrade obviously here you know if it was the sort of posited Scotty Barnes for Dame thing obviously

You don’t do that and I think the Raptors were smart uh in hindsight despite me being a big dumb dumb with no future thinking in my brain uh being like ah trade Scotty for Dame who cares uh that would have been bad and they’re right to have not listened to me on that

One that was me being a little bit overzealous and a little bit I think skeptical about Scotty Barnes and maybe fairly so he’s of course blown all of that skepticism to Pieces Scotty Barnes is the truth he’s incredible and he should be intouchable in any conversations going forward he is that

Good um credit to him for making a Fantastical unbelievable uh sort of unprecedented leap it’s been an absolute treat to watch even when the team’s been not very fun to watch but anyway uh on the Dame thing if it was an ogan and no stuff package yeah obviously I think OG

For Dame you do that if you’re the Raptors IT addresses the need that you badly need filled all that stuff I think you do that the problem is I don’t think it was all that realistic in you know sort of now taking account of all the reporting that’s come out that Dame sort

Of secretly behind the scenes went to Joe Cronin the GM of the Blazers and said yeah the Bucks would be fine figure something out there uh when the heat thing kind of fell apart and I do think Drew holiday the sort of Premium that the Blazers could get back for Drew

Holiday from a contender like the Boston Celtics that was I think a thing they felt better about than getting a premium back for an expiring OG and anobi I really think that’s kind of what it came down to the Raptors could have had OG on the table they could have had a big

Offer on the table Bobby Webster said on media day that it was basically the biggest offer they’ve ever put on the table for a guy uh that that they had on the table for Damen Lillard they of course they’ll say that because the deal didn’t happen and they can say whatever

They want but I don’t have any reason to not believe that they didn’t push hard for Dame hell like it seems like sham terania had a raptor Dame trade tweet ready in the drafts like it did feel like a thing and so I don’t think you

Can really look back and say as much as the Raptors have missed on some opportunities here and there I actually don’t think they missed on the Dame thing that badly it seems like they put a put a pretty competitive offer out there but the forces at play Dame

Wanting to go to Milwaukee the Drew holiday of it all I think that is kind of what tilted them I also o think if they get OG the DeAndre Aton thing maybe doesn’t happen I think that was important for the Blazers as well here so um yeah Damen Lillard would be

Awesome on the Raptors there’s no doubt they would not have the problems they currently have they would probably be a top six team in the Eastern Conference right now considering how Bloody well Scotty Barnes is playing but alas didn’t happen can’t dwell on it too much and

Again I don’t think it’s that big a mistake if it came down to you know you give us OG and he’s on you know Dame’s on the Raptors and you don’t do that sure I think that’s bad but from the reporting I don’t really think that’s

How it went down and the Raptors were maybe kind of drawing dead anyway so uh it is what it is we’ll come back on the other side we will round out the show with a fake trade Friday of course the new thing we’re going to try to do every

Friday leading into the deadline uh this will be the second one we get to because we skipped it last week because Dave duor was on to just talk about ball which was decidedly not fake trade Friday friendly either way we will get to this week’s fake trade Friday coming

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Really fun way to do it and so much more of course the Toronto Raptors play the Detroit Pistons on Saturday it’s a game where the Raptors will surely be favored heavily just because Vegas does it that way but man oh man if you want to do the happiness hedge and prepare yourself for

The worst in the Raptors losing to the Pistons which I don’t think they’re going to do but knock on W all over um maybe you go and put a little money on the Pistons at least covering maybe winning and so if the Raptors do lose at

Least you get some money out of it you don’t feel too too bad I don’t know that’s that’s just a suggestion it’s going to be bad if they lose that game but you can make it less bad by going to FanDuel visit fanduel.com lockon and kick off the NFL season or continue the

NBA season whatever your fancy FanDuel official partner of the NFL and of the locked on podcast Network okay rounding out the show here thanks so much for tuning in making us your first listen of the day reminder you can go and find locked on sports today 247 on YouTube actually you’ll be

Directed there if you’re watching this video right now on the YouTube You’ll Be directed right to lockon sports 247 it is all day 247 locked on podcast covering the biggest stories in all the the big Sports and of course the local stories covered by the local experts on

Those biggest stories as well as you come to know and love from the lockon network so go check it out over there lockon sports today 247 okay rounding up the show it’s uh fake trade Friday time of course the rules of this are I’m very good at fake

Trades and so I’ll share a fake trade it’s very good it’s unsalable and all that and I’ll just talk about why it works for both teams why it probably won’t happen because that’s the deal with most trades unfortunately and you guys can tell me if it was good or bad

Of course it’s good all of my trades are good there’s just nothing you can do about it it’s just the way of the world uh of course tongue and cheek all fake trades are bad on some level uh because they you know lack full context they lack uh proper player valuation and all

That good stuff but they’re fun and silly and I think in some cases pretty informative about like what teams can expect and hope to do come deadline time and so today based on you know the reports from you know Michael Scotto and others about the Indiana Pacers maybe

Being in on Pascal seak o anobi I’ve got myself a Raptors Pacers fake trade for fake trade Friday and it goes as such I’ll show it on video for those watching I’ll read it off for those listening of course the Toronto Raptors here receive Miles Turner TJ McConnell Aaron n Smith

And Ben Shepard for yakob purle OG an anobi and precious Auua that’s a big one uh yeah Turner McConnell n Smith Shepard for purle an anobi precious atua no picks involved maybe there will be picks involved I don’t really know um a thing to note here Aon n Smith’s contract is poison pilled so that kind of screws with the

Math a little bit here but I think it’s workable considering what Aaron needs smth is going to make on his next contract and all that stuff um either way the the the the finer particular points of these deals are the types of things where there’s a will there’s a

Way and teams will figure it out if they really want to get a deal done this is more just thought exercise and not you know salary cap approved Ironclad trades that will you know certainly pass through on a trade call legality wise either way there’s a few reasons why I

Like this trade kind of for both teams again it’s a big one Miles Turner being involved is surprising probably it’s a big one he’s been on the Pacers forever he’s avoided trade speculation forever or sorry been in trade speculation forever avoided being traded forever but

I do think this one kind of makes sense for both teams and here’s why the Raptors in this case of course they’re getting I think basically the perfect Center to pair with Scotty Barnes and Pascal SE yakum if they want to go forward with those two guys as their

Core I think a SE yakum Barnes Turner front Court you get shooting from two of those spots in Turner and Scotty Barnes you get Rim protection from Turner of course he’s been pretty damn good you know he’s at like 54% allowed at The Rim this season for a team that’s otherwise

Really bad at defense he’s been asked to clean up all sorts of messes on the Pacers so far this year and he’s doing a pretty darn good job while also being a very nice offensive player who would fit absolutely perfectly next to Scotty Barnes and Pascal SE yakum clear space

For those guys to go to work knockdown threes he’s got some close out attacking juice as well so that could kind of keep the 1.5 flow of the offense moving and constantly in harmony I really think Miles turning around the Raptors I’ve said this before but man how Bloody

Perfect would that be it would make me very happy to see um the other part of this too for the Raptors is Aaron n Smith feels like a very very good role player guy someone who’s going to be around the league a long time doesn’t

Need the ball a ton it’s going to hit threes play Maniac defense you know rebound better than his size would suggest I think Aaron n Smith’s a guy and I think he’s a guy who would fit really beautifully alongside Scotty Barnes you could roll out for example

Like a starting five of Scotty Barnes Gary Tren Jr Aaron n Smith uh or sorry that’s not five that’s six guys but Scotty Trent nemith SE yakum Turner is your top six not so bad there’s lots of shooting there there’s lots of sort of Multiplicity you can go with your

Lineups you’ve got Dennis shuder t T.J McConnell of course comes back in this deal as well to make it so we never have to watch Malachi Flynn play basketball again uh Ben Shepard’s like a nice shooting Prospect who who’s kind of blocked right now by all the guards they

Have in Indiana I think this trade Works nicely for the Raptors of course you got to have it work for both teams here’s why I think it kind of works for the Pacers you know we’ve seen the effect a pull-up shooting pick and roll partner

Can have on yaka Purtle and boy oh boy do I think playing with Tyrese halberton would just totally amplify what yaka purle does well I think he would be just like a guy with some really nice dive gravity probably more dive gravity than Miles Turner had right now Miles Turner

Feels like more of an outside in type player and I I think yaka purle playing with tyres halberton you would see him kind of achieve the levels that he hit with Fred Van vet and then some Tyrese halbert’s the type of dude who amplifies guys makes them better than they might

Look like they are on paper and the fit between those two guys I think will be bloody fantastic you know it’s not to say the fit between Turner and halberton isn’t awesome right now I just think Yak might give them a little bit more balance and you know a little more sort

Of roll gravity going towards the rim and also the big one here for the Pacers is oan and noi gives them the big Wing Defender they desperately need and a guy who because of his ties to Indiana feels like a pretty realistic dude to resign if you’re the Pacers as well which

Obviously is very important they do this trade without having to move on from jerus Walker their their recent High pick who you know I can’t imagine they’d be thrilled about moving in a trade so they get to keep him they get to add precious auua to the mix as like another

Big man Prospect in a bunch of guys who all have like various possibilities of hitting between Isaiah Jackson J Jaylen Smith precious um you know you could have jerus Walker like you have a bit of a big man stable there where not everyone’s going to hit but you have a

Lot of bites at the Apple there for someone to hit as sort of the long-term backup behind yaka prle who by the way at four years 20 million bucks a year is cost controlled two years Beyond Miles Turner and 20 million bucks for yaka purle where he’s playing in a context

That works for him feels like a pretty reasonable deal it’s probably a bit of a drop back defensively um as like a rim protector but I think you make that back with OG being on the wings for this Pacers team and I think in general like

Those two guys would really give them a little bit more stability around the Tyrese Halbert Nu and all you could roll at a starting lineup of halberton Buddy heeld OG Obi toppen who’s shooting like 37% from three this season and yaka purle and have I think a pretty good bit

Of balance that they don’t have in Indiana right now is we’re seeing their defense is just so bad it’s COs in them games and Miles Turner is like kind of part of that a little bit obviously he’s in a very difficult context but he’s not exactly like the guy who’s saving their

Defense so maybe there’s some Flex there on moving on from him potentially if you’re the Pacers as well as much as you know iner as powerful and Miles Turner has been a Pacer for a very long time uh maybe this is the time to sort of shake

Things up it’s a proactive move it’s a move that is maybe surprising considering Turner’s importance to that Pacers team’s success this year but I do think a move like this could sort of better set them up with fit and balance and stuff like that going forward um

Yeah I don’t know I I kind of feel like this works a little bit obviously precious is just kind of like another bit of defense for them he can play the four he can play uh small ball five if you need him to he can kind of slide in

And do a bunch of different things they get a look at him before he hits RFA this summer um you know I think there’s some value to that there as well you have Andrew nard kind of gets his Avenue to minutes cleared up with T.J McConnell

Out of the mix you just kind of have him be your backup point guard Bruce Brown Jordan noar fill in the second unit alongside jerus Walker Jaylen Smith precious Isaiah Jacks and on down the line I don’t know it’s maybe not a trade that happens like I said most of these

Trades don’t happen it’s like a zero to two and a half percent chance that any for fake trade will ever happen or come to life in even sort of a close approximation to what the the layout is but I do think this probably addresses both teams biggest

Issues I don’t know I I think it sets up the fit around seak and Barnes obviously very very well but I do think OG and Yak help give a little bit of structural Integrity to that Pacers defense that they haven’t really had so that’s kind

Of where I’m at here I think they can survive in Indiana a lack of shooting from Yak as well because of the rest of the shooting they have on the roster and halberton just being this sort of unbelievable Force for offensive creation I think Yak also offers a

Little bit more playmaking to kind of give halberton a hand Than Miles Turner does right now too so there’s that I don’t know I I guess I’m just trying to do anything to get Scotty Pascal and Miles Turner together on the same team just to see if it can work because I’ve

Been thinking about it for three years but um yeah that’s my fake trade Friday for this one one last look for those who are watching if you haven’t seen it Miles Turner T.J McConnell Aaron n Smith Ben Shepard for yaka purle ogn and Obi precious auua just a good old basketball

Trade I’m intrigued let me know if you think it’s bad or if I’m stupid or whatever uh of course I’m not stupid all my trades are good we’ll leave it there thank you so much for tuning in we’ll back again on Saturday to break down Raptors Celtics so keep an eye out there

Should be a fun one hopefully the Raptors can you know translate over the nice changes we saw against the Wizards against a real basketball team and not a g-league team uh that would be pretty swell either way thank you so much for tuning in we’ll talk to you again

Saturday enjoy the game tonight and uh keep on enjoying this weird weird week between Christmas and New Year’s where calories don’t count and time is fake and all that good stuff thank you so much for hanging talk to you soon bye-bye

In Episode 1542, Sean Woodley goes solo after a bit of a holiday break to share his biggest takeaways from the week that was for the Toronto Raptors, answers some listener questions, and bust out another fantastical trade idea for Fake Trade Friday. Off the top, Sean talks about the Raptors embarrassing loss to the Utah Jazz, the comfortable win over the Washington Wizards, and the long-awaited lineup change that could very well prove to be a jumping off point for a better version of the Raptors than we’ve seen so far — but is it too little, too late? Next, Sean’s fields some listener questions about whether Gradey Dick should be back in the rotation mix, and revisiting the Damian Lillard sweepstakes from this past offseason. Lastly, Sean shares another one of his brilliant Trade Machine creations for Fake Trade Friday with a seven-player swap that sees the Indiana Pacers get their big wing defender, while the Raptors get the ideal big man to pair with Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam for the long haul.

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