The Toronto Raptors REFUSE to tank

The Toronto Raptors REFUSE to tank

Welcome to pensar basketball live today we’re going to be talking about the Toronto Raptors direction for the rest of the year are they tanking there was a lot of talk about development playing youth planning for next year typically the things that people say when they’re

About to punt the season but I got news for you I don’t think the Raptors are about to tank I think they’re about to go the completely opposite direction and I’ll tell you why about that um we will definitely listen to what Darko rakovich had to say some very interesting sites

Also a very articulate player uh for the Toronto Raptors newly signed jonte Porter uh who’s been with the team for a little while now but has been playing more recently and I think he had some really interesting things to say and also a player after my heart he also

Mention chess again he does one chess mention every single uh media availability and I appreciate that about him also to those of you who didn’t catch the earlier live yes I did have an interview with Scotty’s trainer Brian Mak this morning it was a super cool 50-minute conversation which I got to

Whittle down to about 35 minutes and hopefully get it out tomorrow I am in the home stretch of you know doing all the Penance planning so it’s it’s it takes a long time to edit some of these videos but I’m going to do my best to get it out because the Raptors don’t

Have a game tomorrow they didn’t have a game today and it feels like these game these days between these games can be a bit of a pause but for the Raptors it’s a great thing they’re implementing a whole bunch of new players and here’s a little sneak preview of that

Conversation that Brian and I had earlier it’s it’s funny I promise the rest of the conversation was a lot more insightful we had a conversation context has changed team has changed how are you doing I’m doing well man how are you congratulations on your success as we

Talked about off air nothing yet I think your your uh your temperament is a lot better this year we like you and that could that could be a metric that shows why your channel is growing so much this year because you’re me So okay so that’s definitely coming out tomorrow I hope I’m gonna pray I’m I’m I don’t need to pray I’m just going to work at it but absolutely um Paul’s saying LOL yeah well I mean you know everyone’s noticing the temperament is getting a little bit better of course

Why wouldn’t the temperament get better Raptors are building around um the player that I wanted them to build around for the last two years so of course that’s funny um also before I launch into this live I just want to say one quick uh little thing uh this is not a another

Exaggerated long thank you for 8,000 subscribers yes our channel is growing yes people are noticing yes people are reaching out suddenly it’s not just the sponsorships it’s it’s just people like people within the MBA people within the community who are just like hey this this seems cool and you don’t seem

Completely unhinged anymore that’s great let’s let’s talk that’s been great I just want to share a little bit about what’s been pushing all the content I saw a comment earlier um on the live this morning that said let’s be honest this is just about the ad

Revenue and you know it’s not and it is and I just want to be a little bit transparent about that just before I start it’s usually good to not do these things too early in the video because it usually tanks the video but I just want

To share this to those of you um you know those of you who know like my dog is super sick and vet bills are expensive and so yes that is a huge motivation to why I’ve been pushing out like so much content and I want to make sure that that’s

Um that’s clear you know it’s it’s not I don’t think I’m spamming anything I don’t think I’m making useless content I don’t think I’m making clickbait but yeah it’s it’s driven me a lot and I um you know I’m happy that the channel is growing but yeah I mean it’s

Uh um watching him suffer is is hard so um knowing that people are supporting the community and supporting the videos is great I’m glad that a few of them blew up um I’m glad that this has been our best month financially of of the year so far and of our Channel’s history

And that’s that’s very important to me because it helps it helps uh it helps my dog so yeah that’s that’s that’s a big part of it uh thank you um yeah anyways let’s let’s move on so why don’t I think the Raptors are going to tank I mean obviously they have uh

They’re six seventh you know uh from the bottom uh they’re sixth currently but obviously you know the losses count and they have they have a tough road to be worse than some of the teams that are going to be tanking around them and there’s also

Not like a clear path to being a playin team right I mean the teams that are currently in the playing picture are teams like Indiana uh Chicago um Orlando Brooklyn these teams are clearly better than the Raptors right but I don’t necessarily think they’re that much

Better than the Raptors and I think it is just hard to explain to somebody that a team is good when they’re not good like what is this nugget inside this team Rob that you see that can spiral off eight straight wins are we crazy here what are we talking about you know

And um I think it just has a lot to do with what perceptive value leaves versus what perceptive value stays right um yeah um oh gez thanks a lot man I really appreciate that Jason we’ve been in touch a lot so thanks um so what I want to say is that you

Know Pascal seak going out this feels like a massive massive L for your win loss column and and a lot of people would say that that’s true but analytically speaking it may not be so true Pascal yakum the player in terms of reputation around the league and and

Again I’m going to take a sidebar into Moneyball talk for a second here we don’t always correctly like we don’t correctly understand like where wins come from in the team Dynamic especially when we start isolating for individuals like for instance shooting variance plays a huge huge part so if

You’re doing all the right things and you just have like a half seon of like abysmal luck shooting it’s certainly possible that you’ll lose more games than you should have similarly you know strength of schedule matters shooting luck matters Health matters and there’s no obvious thing to point to with the

Raptors and say well that’s why they were losing they were missing that guy in the lineup or they had a really tough schedule or they had a ton of road games or whatever but I I do think that the Raptors have had something else that’s been you know off

About this team which is there is this Transit Factor where guys don’t know that they’re supposed to be here right they don’t know if they’re going to be here and it’s unclear whether or not the Raptors are going to clear that up in time to really get some chemistry

Going and of course Darko rakovich talked about you know he talked I’m sorry I’m losing my voice of course Darko rakovich talked a lot about um implementing new guys implementing jonte Porter implementing you know even you consider Grady dick has been with the team all year but he’s going to have

To get a new Rhythm he hasn’t played a ton of minutes with these new guys either now he was down in the gague today had a really interesting performance I think Javon Freeman Liberty could probably get some run get some minutes you’re talking about playing all these young guys and clearly

When you start playing young guys the writing started gets on the wall of like okay they’re clearly trying to lose basketball games but I don’t think this team has any incentive to lose nor do I think they are going to lose a lot of basketball games going forward there’s

Of course the added wrinkle of okay well when Bruce Brown is traded boom now you have to implement another guy or you know if you trade Chris buet boom there’s another guy that you gota you got to implement or if Gary Trent goes out or Dennis schroer goes out so it

Just might be like a little too too little too late to save the season right but if you looked at some of those charts that I was pointing out a couple of weeks ago or sorry a couple of days ago about the shot quality of the Raptor’s offense in terms of like the

Quality of looks that they actually generate is pretty positive you know like this is a team that if you could just take some some of your process and convert it into actual finishing Talent like the team is not bad um I’m just going to download these really quickly

And I I think I actually already did let me just pull it up here one sec so we’ll we’ll just go over this real quick um there we go my bad my bad my bad sorry guys let me just give me one second here yeah so like I mean this would be

One example of it right here you know like come on like half court shop making you think that’s all Pascal zakum it’s not right and in terms of talent and in terms of you know finishing ability like how much worse can it get right that’s that’s one

Way of looking at it you know Rim field goal percentage uh you know let me pull this super chat off off the oh thank you so much uh Ramsey um I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly thanks for the amazing content hey man I appreciate you man thank you so much

Um yes we are we are absolutely just give me one second here let me just set the table for a second so Rim shot quality I mean again the Raptors are right up there right and you could argue RJ Barrett is a hell of a rim finisher a

Lot of this is Scotty a lot of this is RJ a lot of this could be yaka purle finishing near the rim so I don’t think that you’re losing a lot and I think like you know when the Raptors came out and they blew the doors open on Miami

There was a lot of talk about okay well come on you know this is very senting circumstances the coaches one of his friends just passed away their team is all amped up they’re feeding off of adrenaline surely when teams Scout this when teams so every time I hear the

Charge against this team being successful for the next 37 38 games I always he while you lose Pascal SE yakum so you’ve taken all this attention off of Scotty Barnes and this of course would make a lot of sense if Scotty Barnes was not the type of player that

Was the type of player that I would be worried about getting doubled and I’m not I’m not at all worried about him getting doubled because him getting doubled is to his advantage and to articulate that point more clearly I’ll actually point to something that Caitlyn Cooper you know someone you know that a

Lot of people are familiar with in this community because of all of her frequent collaborations with the Raptor Republic something she mentioned yesterday while watching the Indiana Pacers play against the Denver Nuggets was that hey like you know they’re doubling Pascal SE yakum on the Block the nuggets are and the

Nuggets you know the Indiana Pac are simply not making shots out of those actions but why are the Pacers not doing the same thing to yic and to answer that question of course you just have to watch a history of teams trying to double yage it’s not actually to your

Advantage to do that too often unless the shooting Talent around him is absolutely crap because he will just shred you and I feel that Scotty is while not anywhere close to yic right now he does have yic is qualities in that sense that if put in the right

Positions and if you know manual quickly can start hitting his shots and stuff I think clearly clearly this team has the talent to Rattle off eight out of 10 you know and then where are you right so the only thing really that I believe is stopping them at this point is you know

Clearly yako pto’s health I do believe that that’s very important I think it it kind of sucks that auto porter is not playing and I I understand maybe for preserving his trade value making sure he doesn’t get an injury that might be the case that you know we’re we’re

Keeping him off the support but I think he would help you a lot a lot more but one thing that Darko laid out very clearly during today’s M availability was that the priority is the priority right so let’s take a listen to that that media interview and also they

Talked to Scotty barens and jonte Porter and certainly I’ll I’ll give you my my read on what what is being said here for sure further along in the process you know hon to be selected with those group of guys um you know hopefully I’m able to participate with them this Summer um

But if not you know you know I got I just hope for it in the future you played for obviously your country 18 um how different is it than the NBA and what do you like about it I would just say well I was younger

So um I play for the u5 U6 U u19 uh you know it was it was incredible um being able to go overseas just see what the basketball is like see what the time like is like uh just seeing all the different brands of basketball how other

Teams play and how they you know how fundamental they are uh it was fun it was physical you know uh it was it was a great experience uh you know it’s something that I look forward to doing in the future as the process of CH tripe situ I have no clue

Scotty give given the newness of of the roster new guys coming in over the last few weeks how helpful is it to have three days in between games a couple of practices like is this something that you think you guys need oh for sure just keep getting to know each other um keep

Learn our offense learn how to play with each other um you know it’s not going to happen overnight you know you just got to keep working on it keep getting through it uh it’s going to help us have you learned about Emanuel in his game specifically since he’s been there yes

So you know he he’s been great for us uh you know teams they have to they have to respect his shooter and how he comes off the screen and have to have to get over and you know he makes those read out of those screens um hit in the pocket uh H

The next action so keep going and then just be able to just make shots and shoot the ball really well so to attract attention attention towards that and him just trying to talk be a lead leader out there on the floor as well dark mentioned kind of C the next couple days

Training camp the other day does it feel like he starting fresh with some of these guys and having these these days off sort of got that training camp feel say it again does this period right now with a couple days off Darko compared to training camp does it feel more like

That with so many new guys compared to just a regular practice um I going to say for me uh you know I feel like these guys they already know how to play basketball so I know how to blend in and you know fit themselves into the system uh you

Know just learn each other games and going from there on Friday um it’s going to be the last home game before you is that going to be an advantage being on the road away from of the noise being away from ton uh I think so you know I think great

Terrible more of a Home Advantage but you know it’s fun playing on the road as well uh I don’t really think it matters for me uh it’s fun playing on the road it’s fun playing at home uh at this point you know what’s what’s been happening you know I don’t think

Nothing can really take your attention off more than what happened what’s the biggest challenge that comes with trying to learn your teammates games while still in season um just learning the right way to play I think last game you know we got a little stagnant out there um but just Hing up

Fixing that getting through it having that mental toughness and knowing what we need to get to you know it helps um so quick quick question for the chat and I wish that I could access YouTube on um first of all Cersei cats for the Super Chat bro awesome thank you so much

Go go team p go team go raps go thanks a lot man I really appreciate it um it’s a very generous of you I just want to ask this chat a question is the current Raptors more talented or less talented than this team Kari okay this is before allar Superstar

Grow stuff this is you know was about to be traded for scraps Amon Shumpert and scraps uh to the New York Knicks kyari you know Jonas Valen chunis Terence Ross Amir Johnson deard Rosen Patrick Patterson gravis Vasquez John Salmons Landry Fields Chuck Hayes is the current

Team RJ Barrett Jonas whoa RJ Barrett uh Scotty Barnes Emanuel quickley just just a answer it honestly like don’t don’t lead like with the end in in mind just if I if I told you and you didn’t know anything about what that team was going

To do if I told you that team on paper if you’re a fan from 10 12 years ago you remember that team and I was going to say that team or this team which team do you think is better I mean yeah the analytical impact of Kyle Lowry was

Immense and really good he was like a 23 35 3.5 boxes minus guy at the time and he certainly like took took off you know dear was an ascending guy you know still hella young he became a much better player later right yonis Val chunis was a serviceable center with some significant defensive

Gaps there was no Sergi Baka at this point there was no Norman pow there’s no ogan anobi this is pre I mean that team ended up winning 47 games right and they were completely dead in the water I’m just saying what is stopping this team from

Winning the way that team won I’m not saying 47 games you don’t need to get 47 games to to get to the play in you need 37 to 38 38 will get you will get you to the dance I think it’s possible it seems impossible right now but you look at the

Teams ahead of you some of them might drop out Brooklyn’s been in freef Fall they may trade a whole bunch of players who knows what they get back I’m just saying it’s totally totally possible with my family in uh in Memphis uh we got in uh touch with uh St Jude

Hospital uh Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis Tennessee and it really touched our heart to see um all you know the care that’s there for the kids that that all the Care is is for free for them um and that uh everything is coming through donations you know so uh uh it’s

It’s a it’s a good cause we believe and uh it’s something that we really are passionate about and uh we wanted to uh to uh you know collect some uh uh resources there and to help hospitals in uh St Jude in in um Memphis but also

Sick kids in Toronto and uh one of the children hospitals in Serbia so all the money that we’re going to collect this year we’re going to divide between three hospitals I imagine it wasn’t a coincidence that you chose a CIS to kind of connect with this right like something that you’ve been emphasizing

And kind of a positive stat that for sure I mean uh we were thinking about this and this was the idea from the start of the Season just uh today we’re going to have pay a visit to the sick kids hospital it was just good timing to announce it today

But yes assists are something that uh they are important on the court but also of the Court you know uh when when we’re in the position to help uh to help others to help those in need that’s kind of like our civil Duty so uh we would

Just like to to to make little contribution from our side what does it mean to just also you know just taking on to that not just a monetary but also to spend time in these places and get to know the staff and the kids that you’re actually helping what does that mean to

You um means so much because uh you you can see what they’re really going through you know I always say like when we’re healthy all all of us we have thousand desires thousand things that we would like to to to happen when you’re sick you have only only one desire just

To to get healthy you know and to see those families and those kids fighting so bravely and uh all the support stuff that’s there for them day in and day day out it’s something that’s very very inspiring and it’s it’s a great cause you obviously have a great

Passion for FIFA basketball what do you think Scotty will learn being around that Amer I think uh the being uh surrounded with the with the best players on on the national team uh it just uh gives you different perspective how they’re working uh how how they’re approaching

Preparation for the game uh I think that that’s that’s amazing amazing opportunity and then playing uh FBA International game the rules are a little bit different uh you’re playing different styles of basketball different different teams I I think it just like pushes you forward to see the game with

A different set of eyes you know and good example this year was um Anthony Edwards who played the USA basketball and he took a lot of positive things with him into this season and and um I first of all hope and believe that that Scotty is going to make the team and and

Be on the team and take a lot of lot of from there but being around those like the veteran Pro for two weeks or whatever you learn right you learn how to prepare you learn how to go through practice and how important is that for a

2 for sure it’s it’s a huge importance like a lot of times like young players they they think they have answers for many things but once they uh they they’re surrounded with vets and they see how they’re operating how they’re working when you see one uh Steph Curry

The way he’s working when you see one uh Kevin Durant the way he’s working how every rep is is so important how they’re taking care of their bodies of the Court uh it just goes long way and sets you for a long-term success excuse me uh in what what what regard talking on

Defense talking teames yeah he he’s he’s uh learning you know it’s it’s hard U it’s hard to be a good communicator on on defense when you don’t really know what to say you know so uh we’re really uh trying to implement those two days are kind of

Like first practices that we having a long time to teach those guys where they need to be on the floor what they need to say how to how to communicate that’s that was big big part of our practice today and on offensive ENT is just like recognizing the spacing on the court and

Uh how he can get us in offense and inside the offense how he can get uh his looks and and open open shots you know so it’s it’s a work in progress but he is very willing actually to to to say say things on the court and uh and to help

Teammates he he did a half court stuff today with the team uh he started running and jumping he was doing more today uh he’s still not cleared for a full contact and with with him we’re just going to go by day at this point correct correct it’s a fitness is

A big part of it now uh getting his conditioning back and feeling him comfortable you know we want to get him in a good spot so he can finish the season Health what do you see uh Jon’s Ro being for these guys uh once he acts back like

More in the 905 or bench big and how do you think that’ll Che out uh I mean when when Yak is back I still see jont staying with us and and getting his development with us as much as possible um I like his game I think he’s a young

Player with with really good potential and definitely we want to give him a chance and look uh you know we are learning a lot about the team we’re building a new team over here so uh we got to give a give him a really good

Look uh so we know what we have with him and then coaches overall because you said earlier this week that you know these next two days could feel like a training camp potentially how did today go today was great day uh we had out Raptors 60 which is 60 Minutes of work

Before the practice where players are getting on court work individually they’re getting uh lift they’re getting treatment for some of the new guys that was like kind of like new what is this to have all that kind of structure but so introducing them for to that was very

Important and also we went uh practice today it was around hour 10 hour 15 uh and we were able to do a lot of stuff offensively and defensively we played live at the end as well just just to get those guys you know acclimated you know

At this point we have pretty much like five new players in rotation of nine 10 diak did not play whole season he’s playing now jante RJ uh quickly and now Bruce Brown like there is a lot lot lot of people over there like you guys are

Lucky to have a lot of to report on um what’s the balance between you making those adjustments for those new talents and like understanding their style of play versus incorporating them into a system that’s already established uh I think uh the big picture uh of

Where team is going and how we need to develop this team to towards the end of this season and into the summer and into next season that trumps everything you know so uh if that means we’re going to play less Zone uh so we can get better in our individual defense and really

Focus on that then it’s going to be that you know we’re not going to sacrifice anything uh uh on on our team development and player player development that’s most important important thing for us establishing a Chemistry Between the players and and uh developing those guys on the court and

Of the Court that’s Absolut priority for us all the new on the um just to give a pause for a minute from jonte Porter who had a lot of really fascinating things to say um let’s talk about those for a second first I just want to say thank

You to um Mariam Mariam Booth thanks first of all for following us on Instagram and always reacting to our stories that’s super cool and thank you very much for that um also thanks for the Super Chat and um yeah um I hope Polo is okay it is

Hard to to travel with pets and whatnot um yeah I’ll I’ll I’ll update you guys a little bit towards the end I don’t want to spend like half the live talking about what’s going on with my dog but I I’ll update right at the end um what’s

Going on with him but thank you so much for for this um and also rank scrub we need an athletic power forward Center who help def fund the rim if you caught my earlier live um I did present a whole bunch of options and this is a quick

Look at those guys just for anyone who didn’t catch it so um so quickly about really what I see with the Raptor’s culture and you know why I think that things are so good and why I think the Raptors have reset this culture and why I think certain things

Just had to click into place for the Raptors to be successful so first of all the Raptors didn’t lose any favors with their current Locker Room by how they handled the trades right now I hope it’s not a secret to anybody that the Raptors did not just trade OG and Pascal to the

Highest bidder right there were probably other teams that may have offered something more competitive but they didn’t do that thing that a lot of teams do which disrupts the locker room I want to point to a team like the Brooklyn Nets right what they did resting their

Starters asking them to sort of fold the game against the Bucks and what a disastrous consequence that has had and a bleed over that’s had to team chemistry team morale and ultimately you know you got you got the Nets playing against the Knicks at home

And they got go Nicks go chance now I understand it’s Brooklyn Nicks Rule New York the Knicks are actually really good OG and anobi is clamping everybody getting defensive player of the year buz so I fully understand that but also try to understand this from the human

Element side how do you get it back once you lose it chemistry is really really fickle thing and I think the Raptors have a chance to build good chemistry once they finally clarify who’s actually going to be here and who’s not again make the move sooner in my opinion so

That you can start integrating the second thing that I want to say is that there’s is a notion of trying to view everything by calendar years right I have a habit of actually trying to make pre- New Year’s goals I like to meet the new year as the person I want

To be at New Years or after New Year a lot of people set their goals at New Years I’m I’ve done that too but I have this notion like around November when I’m like okay here’s my New Year’s goal and I try to go into New Year’s it’s a

Different way of thinking about it I think the Raptors can look at this the same way I think they can start to ask themselves what kind of team do we want to be in training camp next year hit reset and if history has taught me anything it’s that this front office is

Really bad at calculating stuff sometimes what do I mean by this well when they tried to tear down the K Lowry you know era trade everybody whatever they were trying to tank Messi jury’s been trying to tank forever that may seem very out of character for a guy who talks about

Winning winning winning every single you know post game he talks about winning but he’s been trying to tear this down for a long time problem is when you’re successful as Dwayne Casey says you telling yourself you can’t really tear it down because there’s too much dollars there’s too there there’s too much at

Stake to just become a losing team and losing has a fundamental impact on valuation ban interest Etc it’s not always easy to get it back so the way mlsc looks at this is obviously you know if you can win win and it’s really difficult to take a 47 win team or a 50

Win team or a 55 win team and maybe you see what they’ve done in the playoffs and you’re just like this is just not working and just tear it down just be like nope the Raptors weren’t going to do that but once you trade pakum just like once you traded Rudy Gay there

Suddenly like there’s freedom to tank but if history has taught us anything it’s that this team will go the opposite direction in which they are trying to aim last year they tried to aim for the playoffs and they missed it right believe it or not even in the Tampa year

They tried to make the playoffs that year they just failed it’s weird how often this team goes in the opposite direction of which it is aiming and so in a weird way trading Pascal cakam and trading ogan anobi MSI J coming out and saying everyone’s got to be patient this

Isn’t going to be this isn’t going to be a quick fix dark alov preaching patience talking about playing the playing the young guys I got to tell you it certainly feels like winning is going to take a backseat to development and I get that and I fully get that but

Also when winning is going to take a backseat to development suddenly there’s like a free flow of like the pressure you know like that that that day-to-day pressure that that that s thinking feeling of oh my God now we’re 13 games under oh my God now we’re

14 games under we were supposed to be better than this that pressure kind of goes away and you start to have fun again because the focus shifts right I’m not trying to like pseudo science this but it’s true it’s what you focus on amplifies if I ask you right now how

Many red things in your room red what’s red what’s red and you close your eyes and ask you what’s blue you’re not think you’re not going to be able to think of anything and that’s the whole point the Raptor’s entire Focus this entire season so far has been in my opinion just wrong

They’ve been trying to implement a new offense all the while trying to appease you know a new system while trying to also fit in a guy who wasn’t really fitting into what they were trying to do they had a whole bunch of mishmash pieces that weren’t supposed to be there

And sort of clearing the deck now and clearing all the pressure and just saying okay guys let’s go out there and have fun which is not exactly what they’re saying but also like you got to understand like the system they’re putting in place is the system that wins you basketball games moving the

Basketball this entire initiative by Darko rakovich and his wife dragana this idea that they were so adamant about passing that they would basically be donating money to children’s hospitals in exchange for the Raptor passing I think it communicates very well who and what Darko rakovich is as a basketball

Man as a basketball coach as a teacher I think the fact that he devotes so much time one-on-one and will from jonte Porter later and talking about like how he builds people up because I think jonte is a great micras for what he’s doing with the rest of the team a lot of

Guys have talked you know certainly in today’s interview with with Brian Scotty’s trainer I talked to him about you know how great Darko has been and how great drama has been for Scotty’s development every player who’s on record can tell you that he’s just been good for them and sometimes you don’t feel

How good it is until the guy goes away now everyone’s talking about OG and anobi being you know 50 40 90 and they’re like where was this with us and I’m like well he did spend like 40 nearly 35 games with this excellent development staff we sent the New York

Knicks I think a better player than the guy who entered the season I was seeing a lot of good stuff from ogan and Obi maybe we did so what I’m saying is like you keep building these guys up and then you hit the critical mask the gap

Between winning and losing in the NBA is so small it’s like one rebound one Miss shot one tip one failed rotation one minute that’s it that’s that’s the difference between winning and losing last night I watched the Denver Nuggets versus the uh Indiana Pacers it was a super close game no

Tyres halberton joic was playing Jamal Murray’s playing Michael Porter Jr’s playing I swear joic doesn’t hit that three that game is probably leaning Indiana they were at you know I mean it just to me it’s like it’s so close and and you know you you read the record you

Read the record and you think okay 11 games below 500 this is a trash team but try to ask yourself how they’ve lost these games and who they’ve lost to I mean they’ve lost to the Detroits the Memphis they almost lost to San Antonio they almost lost to Washington this to

Me is a team that has massively underperformed now you can say well they lost two really great players they lost Pascal caku and they lost OG anobi OG anobi I con seeed very very very impactful player Pascal cakam yeah but I can see a world in which RJ Barrett and Pascal yakum edges

Out to I don’t want to say neutral but like close at least offensively defensively work in progress but so far to me it’s like the spacing that you get on the upgrade from Emanuel quickly to uh from from Dennis schroer to man quickley in itself creates so many advantages for your offense that

Basically right now you’re just dying on defense your offense is working right it’s been trending up for a while and there are some very smart people out there who are going to tell you man without SE yakum your half court offense is dead in the water but I don’t think

It is I really think there is going to be a surprise push and I you know one of the biggest reasons I was such a happy proponent of this trade was because I wanted to test the hypothesis that Scotty could lead an offense that felt like he was better than people often

Gave him credit for um geez Larry thanks a lot man so everyone’s like really pouring out the love today thank you so much Larry um yeah you you’ve actually made myh experience with this channel a lot better too man and thanks for calling in as often as you

Have um so specifically to the point of like punting the season there’s no point to people who want to tank honestly the best you’re going to do is you’re going to have a 50-50 chance at keeping your pick and okay fine you know you could win the lottery but I don’t think the

Raptors are thinking that way number one I don’t think they can be that bad I think the Memphis Grizzlies will beat you for that six spot it it would be very hard but this idea of punting the season I think this creates the exact counterculture to what you’re trying to

Build you’re trying to build winning habits you’re trying to build positive chemistry going into the summer the ideal goal for this team would be Grady and RJ and and Emanuel quickley and Scotty Barnes working together in the gym during the summer the ideal for this team would be right now like what Darko

Mentioned not doing zone defense playing man-to-man defense and working on all these Kinks the ideal goal is that every single player on your roster right now that you intend to keep next year and maybe even some guys you don’t intend to keep you want them to be 10% better at

The end of the season now does that result in winning does that result in enough winning to beat out teams like Chicago Brooklyn maybe it could right they’re not that far off now obviously you almost got like blown out by Memphis Grizzly so it’s really difficult right

Now for me to say oh they’re not that far off and for you to actually take me seriously like I’m not crazy person but removing that pressure from these guys developing these good habits coming together you really have to understand how much focus and chemistry matter in

This right this is a team that I hope right now as we speak at 6:10 p.m. is having a team meeting hopefully led by one of the players and is saying guys there’s one of two ways we can go about this let’s choose the better way

Let’s go out and try to win let’s go out and be the hardest working team you know good habits have a really weird way of giving you good results you know what I mean there is a strange like I’m trying to find my point as I’m talking and I’m

Just like oh come on man rob Land This Plane get somewhere here it starts with like really really small steps right I remember to to give a personal anecdote that may make sense to somebody out there I remember around March 2020 the whole world shut down right that was the global pandemic that

We all faced April 2020 a friend of mine from the hedge fund World reached out to me and said Rob we need someone to run stats for this Think Tank we’re doing we’re leading policy in these countries that are trying to weed out like the statistics and how to how to how to

Ensure higher survival rates and to those of you who live in Canada you may not realize that a lot of countries were not super well equipped to deal with uh a pandemic like this right so I started to use what I knew which was I started

To use my stats degree and I tried to help I tried to use data but often in the context of trying to Crunch all the numbers and figure out the data and plot the graphs and try to come up to inform conclusions and spot the patterns and

Trends I had to deal with a whole bunch of people that were just way way smarter than me way smarter than me I’m not a science person I don’t know a lot about this stuff viruses and you know I just don’t and so I had to email so many

People in the group asking for clarification on oh what does this mean what what does that mean can you explain this further sometimes I’m Googling stuff sometimes I’m reading peer- reviewed articles and my girlfriend was there with me at the time and she’s like it’s like you’re a completely different

Person for those like for those three months like you just your entire Focus things you were talking about everything changed right and at the end of it it was done my my three months were done I think we did good work people asked me why I did it it wasn’t you know it

Wasn’t for money it was because at some point I felt in the future my children would ask me what I did during that period of time just like I’m sure I asked my grandparents what they did during World War II or the Vietnam War and I just wanted to have a good answer

For that I wanted to have an answer to say I did something that helped somebody live and I’m not a doctor so that was the best thing I could do at the time and so that conscious you know thing but what I didn’t realize what I didn’t realize was that through those three

Months of being around these super smart people talking about the body all day and talking about how viruses attack the body that I completely learned like a thousand things about health that I had just never thought about before and suddenly all I couldn’t eat sugar

Anymore I just I I didn’t want to eat sugar anymore I I wanted to work out more I I wanted all of these things started to change and it led to such an infusion of Health in my life life it was a completely unintended consequence playing together the way

Darko has been preaching to play a lot of people mock it a lot of people call it like hot potato with the basketball you you’re just passing passing passing they they mock the pizza party they mock the assist I’m sure some out there in Twitter is going to even mock

The donations for the assists you know for the children’s hospital but what you’re not really realizing is that the culture is changing assists passing the basketball everyone playing free everyone playing together accountability there is so much accountability across this team you know when Scotty Doesn’t play well Scotty gets benched have you

Notice that like if he doesn’t play well he does not play a lot there’s no Superstar demanding that he’s gonna play 40 minutes A Night to chase his stats nobody’s stat padding here nobody not Emanuel quickley not arj be everyone’s gone Boom game plan you have a complete

Buy in on this roster make matters better you have veterans on the team who are echoing the same sentiment this is a team right now that feels more together than they have in years okay now get the center and the middle back stop losing every single rebounding battle and stop getting

Blitzed in the paint is there a chance this team could be good like I’m not kidding like is there a chance that this team could rattle off eight wins in 10 games maybe it won’t happen against the Clippers Clippers are freaking awesome I’ve watched I watch a ton of that

Team but is there enough here to win basketball games on a consistent basis I hope the men in that locker room know that in my opinion there is enough to win in that locker room I believe that all of this 0. 5.5 preaching drills jamas development I believe all of this

Has infused a lot of basketball BB IQ and good habits into these players I don’t know this for sure but I can tell you from reading the T leavs around the team that it seems like practices are a happier place right now there aren’t a lot of people hanging

Their heads there’s a lot more chatter there’s a lot more communication if you look at the bench there’s a lot more communication even during timeouts you see there’s more engagement I’m telling you all of these things are what what create success and I’ll tie it back to something that is from Atomic habits

Which is about the 1% the 1% better at this the 1% better at that you know sometimes it comes down to something as simple as fixing your sleep by 2% fixing your diet by 1% and you would never think that fixing your sleep by 2% and

Fixing your diet by 1% is going to make your relationship healthier but it does you would never think that improving your job satisfaction by 5% or improving your health and fitness or your you know cardio level by 1% is going to make you I don’t know a better parent but it

Might and what I’m talking about is it is in the smallest things it is in the margins oak tree saying margins yes sir it is in the margins defensive communication Darko has talked all year about a few things not boxing out I believe that one of the largest culprits

Of not boxing out and not rotating is currently in Indiana not to talk shade about that guy but I didn’t like his defense all year okay so that guy’s gone okay he was not a bad Defender I just feel like at times there were times where he would go outside of the offense

And defense and I thought that that was hurtful for the team once you remove that okay you can fix some of those issues you talk about communication on defense guys aren’t talking guys aren’t talking well maybe the three days here of practice in all the sample size now that the coaching

Staff has had to study this team and see where their holes and deficits are maybe that’s enough for them to be like you know what this is where we’re screwing up this this communication this pick and roll how we’re switching this is not correct I need you guys to do this this

This I think they have plenty of data right now on who these players are and what they can do I think they have just enough of a sample size to understand what Emanuel quickly can and cannot do what RJ Barrett maybe can do a little bit more than they thought he could when

They brought him in from from New York I feel like there’s multiple ways there’s different ways to motivate people you know you can motivate people with accolades and and contracts you certainly can right you you can you can say you know what RJ Barrett I’m gonna

Make you a $50 million player are you with me and he might be with you you can dangle that carrot for sure you might say Scotty Barnes if you do this I’m gonna make sure you’re an All-Star this year you can definitely dangle that carrot right I don’t think that’s the

Carrot that Darko rakovich is is is dangling I don’t know this for sure but it doesn’t strike me as that’s how he motivates I believe how he’s motivating is more so I want you to be the best basketball player you can be is that something that

Appeals to you and if you love the game how could you reject that message now how does he do it I think he does it like this has this sort of been a helpful stretch with three days in between games a couple practices a chance to go back to the basics a little

Bit I’d say so for sure a lot of these guys have referenced it’s kind of like a mini training camp in a lot of ways um we have five new guys in the rotation myself included so um with that is going to come a lot of uncertainty a lot of

Jelling it takes time to gel I mean most teams they have a full six weeks of training camp to like get together and learn each other’s game and all that we’ve had you know two days in some instances to incorporate Bruce Brown and all them so uh days like today are going

To be really helpful for us and who knows what’s going to come with our next slate of games our next road trip and all that but I know for one thing um we’ll definitely be much better teammates we’ll be sharing the ball all learning each other’s Tendencies and all

That which typically leads to success you learned you yeah I’d have to write a book to write down all the things I’ve learned in this short period of time every game every matchup it seems like I’m learning something new um a lot of the times it’s from mistakes I’m making which you know

It sucks to make mistakes but at the same time you’re learning from those to not make those mistakes again in the future so every game I’m having uh a lot of EXP experience and I’m just happy to be out there but at the same time I’m learning so that hopefully the next game

Out I can do better eliminate those mistakes and help our team win um but for the steady minutes and the steady gameplay it’s just a blessing man and uh yeah it’s been a lot of fun to just play basketball Journal going over film and cut for sure

Yeah and I was just getting with Drew one of our assistant coaches he shows me all the film every every day and uh points out the mistakes but also Praises me pass me on the back for what I do do well to not kill my confidence all the

Time but uh no I think I’m doing all right man I’m doing my best to go out there and compete and in the meantime learning like I said from those mistakes but also leaning on my strengths and um you know it sucks to be losing but at

The end of the day we’re all getting better and hopefully those turns into wins really soon what’s the tougher end to sort of get the habits down correctly the tougher end like offensive oh oh s um definitely defense those I mean offense comes naturally just passing the

Ball and then knocking down your shot that’s really what I’m asked to do um which I haven’t been doing amazing at but that’s just something that you know you don’t have to think too much about it defense it’s like a game of chess out there especially with these matchups I’m

Going against whether it’s porzingis or vuich or every big you play against you have to do a different coverage and uh not make a mistakes my leash is a little bit shorter naturally so I’m always thinking out there like don’t make that mistake or else you’re going to get

Yanked I mean we saw that with the Memphis game right so uh that’s not a bad thing necessarily it’s stuff to learn from but defense is definitely the side of the ball that um though I do do some things good naturally and uh you know pick and World coverage is one of

Them you always have to be thinking like your mind has to be racing 100% of the time you can’t just like autopilot it out there or else you know you’re going to get yanked whether you’re Scotty Barnes or John C Porter so what’s your biggest takeaway style of playwise from

This team that is maybe bit a bit more unique uh my me personally saying or the team just the team and then also you can insert yourself the team is interesting um like I said we haven’t had too much time to Jael and there’s been a lot of

Your faces if you asked me this day one when I got here with Pascal and OG it’ be a different answer than it is now so we’re still learning those Tendencies and you know who demands the ball when there’s 5 seconds left on the shot clock

Like who’s the guy to get it to with the grenade situation um but with this team in general I think an big heavy emphasis Darko has put on is just you know the point by basketball Swinging The Rock getting everyone involved it’s really contagious I felt that in a certain some

Some games we played where we’re winning by um a lot of points where we probably don’t have business winning those games but it’s because of the way we play the way um we’re getting Shooters open passing the rock getting everyone involved it’s contagious makes everyone happy to be there and uh that’s the

Thing we really got to get down he was emphasizing today we played a little bit about play a little bit of five on five is like get the B get the rock make a decision we don’t want to take 10 pounds and you know hoist up a jumper that’s

Not the right way to play basketball especially with the Personnel we have on this team so that’s going to be a season long process and I know every team kind of puts an emphasis on that 0. five it’s a you know a trendy topic nowadays but I

Think that’s something that this team in particular can really hammer down on and that’s going to lead to a lot of wins in the future dark has talked about positivity and coming in here this season and stilling confidence in the eyes uh how has he done that for you

Yeah I’m in a tough position as a young guy signing a 2A and then instantly kind of being brought up in the rotation it comes with a lot of nerves and I think I’m naturally a little bit more nervous of a guy you know before going into a

Game like there’s just a lot of nerves you was shaking a little bit so um I think it was really important for me in my confidence to have a coach like him who’s constantly um pulling you aside sharing what he sees sharing how you can be better even after practice before he

Came over here and talked to you guys or sorry after practice before we came over and talked to you guys he pulled me aside and just shared a couple tips on defense like if it’s one through five red and we’re switching and I’m on a guard the right footwork when uh a guard

Tries to blow by you which happened a couple times I think in the Chicago game which is why I got yanked in the fourth quarter so things like that I’m just super appreciative of that he’s not just throwing me out there with the sharks and just like you know hoping I don’t

Sink but uh he’s helping me actively swim he’s teaching me new things every day along with the rest of the coaching staff um that’s going to lead to a lot of success in the future not only for our team but hopefully for myself so he’s been awesome through and through

You’ve gotten this opportunity to start with Yak out and you’ve talked a lot about your history in the game going up playing with some really good players and learning to complement those really good players has that kind of helped prepared you in a sense has made it a

Bit of a natural fit to to play with some of these guys in the starting lineup for sure yeah and um just you know I first got here and I wasn’t playing just watching these guys watching how Yak is a good connector and he doesn’t demand shots you know it

Comes to him sometimes he’ll shoot 10 shots a game sometimes he’ll shoot two it just depends on the matchup and what’s going on that’s kind of the same role I’m in and obviously our games are a lot different I kind of stretch the floor he’s more of interior guy but I

Think he does a tremendous job at uh knowing his role as a big man and really excelling at it and that’s something I admire so our games couldn’t be further from each other’s I guess in a sense but um look into him especially as well as

The Vets Garrett and uh Thad and them kind of just teaching me along the way has really helped prepare me to kind of be in the starting lineup um and who knows what the future holds minutes wise but whenever I’m out there I know I’ll be better prepared than I would be

Without the guys at my side I know you pride in your passing has watching been sort of even more instructive given howly Mo the yeah for sure it’s been a bit surprising actually I wasn’t too familiar with this game I mean obviously like I grew up I

Was a baby and he was probably playing in the NBA but um I I never really saided his Darko literally calls me Thad junor because he says he should be my dad the way we’re both lefties and he’s been 30 years older than me but um we both pass

The ball and kind of under the rim players but yeah watching him him just the way he threads threads the needle pretty much every time it’s open um not only you know encourages the guys to do more cuts which helps me um but it kind of just shows similar to football you have

Quarterbacks like Mahomes that are just like Gunslingers and they aren’t afraid to make mistakes I think Dad really takes that characteristics where it’s like he’s going to make risky passes and um you kind of have to to be considered a really good passer yic Luca all them

Make you know behind the back passes and all that stuff and it’s risky sure but if you’re going to be a good passer you have willing to take risks and that’s something I’m going to have to do as a two-way player being kind of put in this

Lineup I’m going to have to take risks and uh luckily I have coaching staff that believes in me and he’s going to let me make some mistakes um but that in particular the way he passes the ball and you know I try to model that a

Little bit and even if that comes at the turnover uh someone already asked I was finishing up with Coach but um D was saying just now to us that he’s imagines that you’re going to stay with this team continue to practice and learn when Yak

Comes back you hope your role will be on this team going forward and what you hope to continue to learn yeah I don’t know I I haven’t really thought too much in the future I’m kind of taking it day by day at this point and like like you

Said like yeah expect to come back who knows what my role will diminish to or grow into eventually I don’t know but every day that I’m you know assigned to the Raptors as a two-way I’m going to try to learn and whether I don’t whether

I’m with the play groups or I’m in the starting group like I’m I’m going to try to learn from these guys cuz all of them literally all of them have more experience than me in the NBA um so yeah I’m not sure I don’t really have any

Expectations or hopes as it pertains to minutes played or whatever but um as long as I’m continually getting better so that when my time eventually does come to kind of step into a bigger role I’m ready for it and ready to excel so yeah okay so quick little note

Um I love Shante Porter he’s just the person after my heart like literally if I was a b player I would probably approach every single question exactly the way he does um remarkable cander remarkable self-awareness was literally talking with my girlfriend about this yesterday it’s like if you don’t have

Self-awareness you pretty much have nothing it doesn’t matter that you work hard if you can’t you know we were specifically talking about Scotty um and how I thought and knew that he was going to be successful right and one of the reasons that I thought and knew that he was going to be

Successful is that in grade 11 I remember watching an interview with him in which every weakness that I saw in his game when asked was a weakness that he saw in his own game he didn’t come out and say I’m this I’m that I’m great at this I’m great at that he was

Actually pretty clear about who he was as a basketball player that is rare very rare almost every young Hooper and these guys are very very confident people in general like John Porter may seem like you know he’s a little bit timid and shy and all all that stuff and you know

Maybe some people might criticize that but I I assure you he is a considerably more confident human being than the average person and I was working on a jonte porter video that may or may not come out at some point um maybe next month or something I don’t know we’ll

See there’s nothing pressing about it but it’s a lot of history about this guy and what an interesting guy and I just want to say like you know you get good people in a room and good things start to happen right but to the point of like

How I knew Scotty would be successful it’s just the self-awareness right you get people who understand who they are as basketball players it makes it much easier to coach them because the things that you’re seeing as weaknesses they’re also seeing as weaknesses and that helps right um there’s a comment here first of

All a quick quick quick quick quick little thing here this is absolutely um humbling but uh BK here saying I’ve been here from the beginning Rob and it’s great to see your channel feeling posit getting positive support from knowledgeable basketballers good luck with your pup as well as your Film

Festival thank you very much yes and yes right after I do this live I got to go right into pendan stuff so thank you so much for that and um myth R and Deer uh thank take care of that pup man thank you very much for that and I hope RJ

Breaks out with us to the note of RJ breaking out with us observe so take look at RJ Barrett’s stats with the Tron Raptors if you see it right here I wish I could make this a little bit bigger for you could I make this

Bigger for you I might be able to hang on Chrome how do you zoom in Chrome is this one of those Rob is not very technically Savvy things hang on okay I don’t know if that worked but did it work did it not work have I totally screwed myself over here

Okay we will try we will try to make it a little bit smaller I want to respect people who are on their mobile app or whatever but let me try to make it a little bit smaller and boom okay so if you can see this I hope you can right I

Mean just check out RJ’s numbers with the Raptors right I mean we are seeing positive box plus minus for guess what the first time in his career at the age of 23 but worth noting also like many years have passed since RJ came into the league right so we had rookie year Nega

4.3 uh second year negative 1.2 then third year and fourth year were a bit of a regression like uh both kind of like if you drew a if you drew a line for RJ it was kind of like right so now 0.7 is incredible and honestly a 1.6 offensive boxes minus is

A career-high as well um weirdly enough 0 point negative 0 .9 defensive box of finus is the second highest Mark he’s posted in his career he’s on track for career high and valuable replacement he is definitely hitting a career high in Wind shares per 48 um he’s already he’s

Already registered one winshare with the Raptors he is having the lowest usage season of his career apart from his second year he’s doing it on less usage at 23.4% if you look at his at Rim percentages and everything it’s been better his three point percentage is

Where is he where is he where is he so true shooting percentage 63% true shooting that’s also career high take a look here 37.5% from three is decent per 100 possessions he is taking fewer threes here than almost any year in his career so there’s a lot more downhill attacking

In transition and obviously transition Darko is like hey man hey RJ your career has not turned out to date do you want to play basketball in a way that players like you are B built to play basketball hell yes right so any smart person who’s watched RJ Barrett long enough in New

York knows that he needed an offense like this to thrive and clearly so did the Raptors they took the contract and said okay toxic asset BET right free throw percentage has been down but honestly like 66% that’s like I mean that might just that’s probably small sample size but let’s hope that gets

Better but he’s been pretty like he’s been trending up as a free throw shooter right so like with New York this past year he was an 83% free throw shooter I expect that to get better per 100 possessions he’s never rebounded better this is the tops like do you realize per

100 possessions this guy’s putting up 30 10 and five that’s crazy that is legit crazy it’s been awesome like RJ Barrett has been incredible for the Raptors right I already talked about Eman Quickly’s analytics profile and said how it’s much much closer to his second year

As well let me give you the opposite endend of this and this is going to paint a very very good picture in my opinion of what I call the Darko drama effect take a look at Pascal siakam’s Indiana versus Toronto splits it’s exact opposite it’s the exact opposite take a

Look uh where are we here he’s gone from positive 1.4 boxus minus to negative 0.9 he is posting career lows it’s a career low in Wind shares per 48 he is he has registered 0.1 win shares in um he has not blocked a single shot he has a 0%

Block percentage his assist percentage is down from all these previous years and and worth noting two of these games have been without Tyrese halberton they’ve been relying on him to be more of the man and it hasn’t necessarily worked out as well as they would have

Liked it to his rebound percentage is a little bit higher than it was in Toronto uh but overall all his impact metrics are terrible he is posting a career low since his rookie season he has not shot so poorly from the field now granted everyone’s going to say three games

Three games yes I get it but look man like three games are three games you know what I mean like RJ was better in his first three games with the Toronto Raptors then then Pascal has been with his three games there so I’m just saying like I am yes Jacob Isaac’s small sample

Size 100% it’s a very very very small sample size and I do not believe this is going to be an indication of how he’s going to play for the rest of the year but it might be some indication of how he’s going to play for the rest of the

Year which is what I’m saying is I’m not expecting him to suddenly beat his Toronto production in Indiana right even with much much more talented um you know Shooters around him and all that stuff and better spacing and better pacing and whatever I think there’s a very good

Chance that I mean by the way this is with him super hard trying okay like he’s flashing positive defensive box mins for the first time in you know a couple years now now cuz he’s been negative defensive Ox finest for a few years there with the Raptors but here

He’s positive he’s been much better defensively and you don’t need analytics to tell you Pascal been better defensively for the Indian Pacers all you have to do is watch the games he’s communicating better he’s he’s actually like rotating he’s contesting shots he’s he’s like really trying to move his feet

East west on the perimeter he’s been good defensively like better than the player I saw in Toronto not great but good and I just think it’s offense that’s struggling anyways my point is darko’s system creates easier offense I believe that is a good pitch for players

To come here and play with this team right um Abu saying I’m excited about that Indiana pick I mean sure maybe it could turn out to the 14th 13th pick who knows like let’s see if they miss the playoffs that would be crazy but the the larger point of this is that

I think the Raptors are building great habits I believe great habits have a weird way of eventually potentially eventually turning into the types of results you actually want to see as a basketball team I think there are a lot of positive things that the Toronto Raptors have done this year from a

Locker room standpoint from implementing and changing some of the culture I think from changing and shifting some of the focus that might have been there like in terms of all the you know stat padding you know there’s a lot of guys in contract years or whatever so um I just

Think like changing the conversation and ultimately when you remove a top guy like when you remove a couple top dogs from from the from the pecking order you leave a vacuum for someone else to rise into that space right like when a president is shot the country doesn’t

Just go rudderless somebody else assumes the position of President it just happens that way now will that be Scotty right now I don’t know I hope he grows into it will it be a little bit of RJ will it be a little bit by committee

Will Scotty and RJ have to have a moment where you know grabbing a taco or something they’re having a conversation and like hey you want to try to spark we the north part too let’s do it bet and you know have that momentum what I’m

Trying to say is to the fan base out there who’s you know just talking draft picks and just squash it for for just do me a favor just don’t talk about tanking for like at least a month just give it a chance give this team a chance right you

Might think it’s too late right you might think it’s too late but I don’t think it’s too late I think there’s so much value to be had by trying because in the pursuit of that in the pursuit of winning not at the expensive development I’m not suggesting go out and play auto

Porter 30 minutes a night bench Grady dick I’m not saying that but in the pursuit of actually trying to win and go for something you might just develop better habits than you would had you not aimed at that thing it’s very difficult to concede a season you know 44 45 games

Into the season and just you know say okay but I have seen too many teams go down this road of tanking and then just tank forever right and then then they can’t stop tanking because the losing is just it seeps into your culture and I

Know there’s a lot of people that say no there’s plenty of examples of teams that do a one-year tank are there are there so many teams that have been successfully able to be bad for one year look at the Toronto Raptors I mean the one year they were bad did they ever

Completely recover look at the team you know after Leonard left how was that team so successful you know you can say yes you had marasol yes you had Serge B you had continuity you had continuity you had winning habits do you know what a winning basketball team looks like at

Any level aou high school you know college whatever I know what it looks like I’ve seen it I can watch one minute of a basketball game and tell you that’s a winning team that’s a losing team losing teams have bad body language winning teams have accountability when

They go to the bench they listen to their coach there’s dialing there’s buying there’s sacrifice there’s passing there’s making the extra pass there’s no predetermination of oh we’re going to do this and then we’re going to do this and this guy’s going to get the shots there’s no you know like there’s like

Like what the what the Minnesota symbols just did uh with Carl Anthony towns right like blowing that game I believe against Charlotte in which the last two- minute report basically confirmed that there were 10 missed calls in that entire thing what did you really show with the 62 with the 62 points you

Showed that you are a losing team you know your leaders showed that they were losers I think Joel embiid showing up in you know his his leopard skin whatever today after scoring 70 points I think he’s showing that he’s a loser too you know these are losing habits I think

Winning teams communicate on defense winning teams make the extra pass winning teams get back on defense they don’t just hang their head and fall out of bounds these are things that losing teams do winning teams address problems in the locker room as they come up these are habits these are winning habits and

It’s very easy to just say that the Charlotte Hornets suck because their roster sucks but trust me take some of those players out and put them into a different situation suddenly they’re winning players again you know so this culture of losing that Messiah jery addressed when he hired Darko rakovich

The talking point of last season of The Vibes and people like to mock it you know they really like to mock it because they’ve never been in that locker room they’ve never played the professional sport or played Sports at any level you know that there are certain teams where

When the vibe is good the shot feels better the layups go in it’s like it’s it’s just momentum you just have more juice in your legs right Scotty addressed it too he talked about you know last year it was just depressing it was kind of like hard to come to work

Sometimes you know um he addressed it in the summer you know there was there was like there was just this energy that was lacking well look you’ve countered that energy en and it wasn’t an easy energy to just get out of the door but you’ve

Gotten a lot of the people out of the door that had that energy look at what the Milwaukee Bucks are going through right now you know like they just fired their coach after being 30 and 13 it’s not all about winning it’s how you’re winning it’s how you’re communicating

It’s how you’re jelling and if you can look at that Milwaukee team even at 30 and 13 you know there’s no chance in hell they were going to win a championship that’s why they fired the coach everyone’s on them about it no man you need buyin you need your star

Players to lead you need your star players to accountable you know you want to show me a losing team start player comes into the locker room and says y’all suck it’s not my fault bam losing team Scotty’s never going to do that so the Raptors have a chance they have a

Chance so let’s stop talking about draft picks for you know a month have some Faith it’s probably going to be pretty bad pretty pretty pretty bad against the Clippers but hopefully after that they can get on the road they can Bond and pick up some surprise wins and you know

Momentum is a strange thing try do me a favor anything that you’re putting off doing taxes workout whatever do it for one minute do it for one minute and see how much easier the second minute is winning is like anything else in life it’s a habit winners win they say that

Right the Raptors have a lot of winners in this locker room Scotty Barn’s a winner RJ Barrett’s a winner these guys have won everywhere Emanuel quickle is a winner you’ve basically orded winning culture do you understand that you understand what I’m saying yako perto is a winning player right Scotty Barnes is

A winning player these guys have winning habits Bruce Brown just won a championship Dennis schroer won like he just won Gold like they you see what they’re doing right Darko rakovic was a very successful coach as an assistant last year weirdly enough when he left the winning left with him right it’s not

Just him obviously there’s been a slew of health issues johnar that whole thing Dylan Brooks leaving but man and I tell you sometimes it’s hard to act like a winner when you’re losing it is it’s much easier to give into the record give into the scoreboard but I think what this team is

Slowly starting to develop is that maturity that good teams have which is hold your head high Like A Champion hold your head high like a winner even when you’re losing that even when you’re 10 games under 500 go out and do all the right things don’t become the Detroit

Pistons or the Charlotte Hornets or the Washington Wizards especially the Washington Wizards don’t go out and just be like gunning for numbers and stuff like that don’t do you know the Raptors last year were like that they had a lot of losing habits there was tons of bad body language there was no

Accountability you had a leader leer whatever the hell you know coming out every single day and talking about his younger teammates and how the offense wasn’t you know funky lineups and all that stuff these were all losing habits you had a you had a max player saying

It’s not my job it’s not my responsibility I don’t need to be these guys psychologists all that is gone and I believe those are all losing habits I believe those are all Hallmarks of losing teams bad body language bad you know Court awareness guys yelling at

Each other on the court Gary Trent Jr like throwing his arms up look man I’m not saying it’s all perfect but you’ve implemented a lot of guys who do nothing but win dadus young that’s a winning player right Garrett Temple uto Porter these guys have won a lot in their lives

And they understand what it takes to win so I hope this team bonds over this three days I hope it’s magical for them I hope all of this practice time and the Reps that they get the communication hopefully some tough conversations that they have I hope it renews the juice in

Their legs Allstar Weekend will be very important I think this is a pretty tired team I think this is especially Scotty you’re seeing like a lot of the short jumpers and a lot of the exhaustion if he doesn’t make the All-Star game which he could he might not he might probably

Won’t the Raptor’s record is pretty bad but maybe he get gets voted in by the coaches um maybe that’s the time for him to recoup and then you know I’ve said it many times Scotty hates losing he hates losing enough that when his team is losing he goes out and plays center and

Gets six blocks and career high wait till you see what this guy’s willing to do to make sure this is not a losing season because I can tell you just from talking to Brian today it doesn’t feel like they’re conceding the season at all so yeah uh let’s get some comments here I

See he’s fine but being a guy on the ball court and having some bad Vibe and it shows because you see things differently than the others I get it but he has shown a bit of attitude I’m not really sure who you’re dressing Scotty um sorry John I’m not fully

Understanding consider his age John yeah millionaire getting see John I don’t mean to blast you or call you out but it seems like you know anytime someone starts out a uh conversation pay you know counting somebody else’s money he’s one of like Scotty Barnes I’m assuming you’re

Talking about Scotty he’s one of the top 25 to 30 basketball players in the world at the age of 22 would you do that for free or do you believe that that’s something that deserves to be compet ated he makes $8 million my analytics tell me he’s worth

Around 40 can you imagine a guy being $32 million underpaid cuz that’s kind of what he is right now he goes out and plays two way for you he plays five positions for you and then we got to deal with the stupid like this right and then we got to deal with no

Offense people like you saying oh well but he makes millions of dollars and he has stinky attitude bro come on man I’ve gotten better at I want to say like dealing with with comments like this right um but you know it never it never shocks it never stops

Surprising me um when I meet the people you know because I’ve actually had a chance to meet some of the people who say these things and they look so similar they you know when I talked about like winning people like winning habits winning mentality you know winning to me is accountability show me

A loser and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t own up to their mistakes show me a loser and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t involved someone who doesn’t learn someone who’s not curious you know uh his trainer Brian Mon I knew from our first conversation that that guy was a

Winner like a winner in life Messi jery I met MSI JY when he’s an assistant general manager before all the hype and whatever man five seconds of talking to that guy you’re like whoa this is a winner I was a kid I was like what 20 19

Or whatever I was like 19 or 20 years old at the time right you can tell with some people and I can tell with you no offense yeah again this is neither here nor there no one is denying that he has growing pains and he’s going to have to

Evolve as a leader and he’s gonna have to do this and do that right it it doesn’t you know of course there’s so many so many 22 year olds 23 year olds I think maybe the best thing to do would be to look back on your own life for

Mebe me I look back on my own life at the age of 22 what were we doing right were we the leaders of men did our bad days or good days or you know what we said to our teammate or how we reacted to a teammate calling us out did that go

On the Toronto Star Toronto Sun imagine you know if someone had taken you at your worst moment and put you on a newspaper I think it’s crazy dude Rob the other day you were saying plus minus doesn’t mean anything you don’t even look like you can play ball

Then the next day you’re saying plus minus matters okay so plus minus as in like in the Box Score doesn’t matter to me box plus minus is different right now I don’t look like I can play ball cool man that’s cool um I can but cool I gotta

Say looking at some of your comments um makes me think of a Chris BR uh Chris brousard meme which I won’t say out loud but it’s like just show us your shooting form oh my God John how small are you yikes you’re weird man you weird anyways I mean publicly being called a

Loser is not fun for anyone so I empathize with you as well you’re probably having an existential crisis you’re probably thinking about everything you didn’t do with your life and it sucks you know I get it but at the end of the day like it’s a 22y old

Kid and he makes $8 million and you can either be celebratory of that you can celebrate it or you can be envious of it criticize it and do whatever no one is arguing that he’s a perfect leader with the first person to say he definitely needs to stop complaining to the refs he

Definitely needs to you know um maintain more of a composure uh but you know like I’ve noticed something with the Pascal stuff and sometimes it’s a good moment to just reflect right when you see somebody else doing something that other people have accused you of doing you get

A different perspective on it and one of the things I’ve noticed with Pascal stuff is how um misguided some of the support can be there’s no admission that it can have a bad game right so like if he’s having three bad games in Indiana they can’t just say say oh it’s three

Bad games in Indiana he’s played poorly they have to create the excuse in the narrative and if I did the same thing last year with Scotty where I just couldn’t admit that he was having a bad game I apologize this year I think I’ve been a hell of a lot more fair right

H I don’t understand is this is this directed to me or to somebody else I have no idea what’s going on with the chat man what I will say is that I intend I hope that this can be a pretty positive community dude you look at the bags around your

Eyes you’re 42 looks like you’re going to have a heart attack plus I entered into the stream hearing you complain about body language o do I look 42 to you I got I I got ID checked like three years ago so I mean sure I’m 36 by the way not

42 you wanted to take something out of context and act like you’re Scotty Barnes number one what’s Sy I’m curious yeah block that guy no man you you could rant off by yourself anyways I think this is about as well as I’ve ever handled someone this ridiculous in my

Life so this is growth this is progress hopefully you know we live up to the to the billing of evolution it’s yeah I mean anyways ending this note it takes a winner to it takes a winner to know a winner I think it sometimes takes you

Know that and I think watching some of Pascal Sak’s most staunch Defenders like go overboard and trying to defend him and create all these narratives about like okay well it’s a new system it’s this and that it seems it seems sometimes disingenuous like people kind of like reveal what their motiv is like

For instance like Scotty Barnes came out last year and had a terrible you know shoot uh season and there was a lot of talk about didn’t work hard enough but they didn’t do that with Pascal right things of that nature where it’s like the bias

Starts to show and it starts to lean and it shows that I don’t take people who have such strong biases very seriously as analysts and so allowing my own bias to um you know um allowing my own bias to taint my basketball analysis is is bad

It’s bad like it’s just bad it’s bad practice and I felt so strongly that I had to defend Scotty last year because I felt there was such a pylon but I felt like it made me a weaker analyst because I didn’t want to talk about his bad

Games I would just kind of rush over it I’d be like if Scotty had a bad game he’d be like yeah Scotty didn’t play that well let’s move on you know I didn’t want to pile on to it because I kind of had a lot of empathy for a 21-year-old trying

His best in this completely dog system that that was there last year this year I think that was a a very big concerted effort on my part coming into this year especially even towards the end of last year I wanted to be a little bit more fair because Brian had said

Like hey man if he has bad games need you to call it like it needs to be fair and I think that that’s been great um I think this channel has been very fair Fairly critical of his bad games I think it’s been very complimentary of his good

Games I think we’ve kind of leaned both ways we started out very very complimentary of Pascal zakum buying in we were very um critical of his screen set setting and his boxing out so there’s a lot of stuff like that right um oh the troll left that’s good I think

I hope I don’t know um James saying most people don’t understand competitive nature athletes have and the ones that want to be great it’s all consuming remember LeBron having leading the court when he loses yeah Scotty did the same thing Scotty did the same thing in the playoffs year

One against the Sixers he left and when he was asked to the media like why didn’t you stick around he just said I don’t know and I just thought that was like that’s exactly who he is right so anyways I think that this team has developed some great winning habits on

The court hopefully they can Shore up some of the defense I think the Darko mentioned that they did a lot of defensive drills today and trying to like learn how to call switches and it’s really difficult to play new guys into your system like Bruce Brown and they

Don’t really know what you’re doing so they’re just going on Instinct and you see break Downs everywhere right so I think that anyone expecting us to be bad this year you might be right you might be right and and I might be totally wrong and maybe I’m delusional and I’m

Just hopeful that this team will have an opportunity to be in the play and and potentially even compete in the playoffs man it would be my dream to see this team go and be e seed and just try to be competitive against Boston I don’t know

Win a game that would be great anything more than that would be super cherry on top right and I think we as fan base would really appreciate that that would be awesome but I don’t think that there’s any chance in hell this is going to be a

Bad team next year like I feel like there’s too many things that will go right and I think when you listen to that interview with Brian Mak Scotty’s trainer that drops hopefully tomorrow at some point I don’t want to drop it on Friday because there’s a game on Friday

I want the content to really blow up and have like because that was my beef last year like the the we did a we did a great interview with Brian and it was like an hour long and it got like 8,000 views I’m like you know like I need

This to get get wider get further right so I hope that we can drop it tomorrow I think when you hear that you’ll see like the type of player he’s trying to be next year is the type of player that you get like Contender status with you know

What I mean like he’s going to be better than Julius Randle next year in my opinion he’s gonna be better than Jaylen Brunson I think he might yeah I think he’s going to be better than like I think he might be a top five player in

The East next year so if you have that then really it’s just the pieces around him right so hopefully we’re not going to have a short-sighted coach who’s going to compromise development but also I believe in the prioritization of development and building good habits that the winning will be done almost by

Accident that’s my hope that’s my hope and let’s see if it happens and I can pull up this live when the Raptors are like 22 games under 500 and be like wow I was so stupid I can’t believe I thought they were going to be good um or

Thought they had a chance to be good but let’s see I I think I think maybe maybe fingers crossed I hope so yeah um James senson saying what would it take to pursue herb Jones or what would it take to get herb Jones I think

I posted earlier in a in a live I posted this trade herb Jones Larry Nance for Bruce bound and three first round picks I think that would be pretty much what gets it done I know some people might say whoa whoa whoa three first round picks for herb Jones that’s crazy it’s

Really not that crazy he’s a really valuable player um again I flash to this as well these are some other Defenders they’re not herb Jones like six of these guys are not herb Jones but I think they have like positive defensive metrics there’s another player that I really really like defensively and that’s

Payton Watson for Denver Nuggets I just don’t think they’re going to give him up worth noting there’s a thinking basketball video that I highly encourage people to watch and it’s about how good rookies are nowadays and I think while I was watching that video just like an

Five minutes before I started this live and I was like I don’t have enough time to finish this video what I think is possible also if the Raptors do hold on to all these draft picks is given where they probably will be picking the draft might they get

A few more Brandon pimpies and Hae Hawes as opposed to Scotty Barnes and Grady dicks which is not to say that drafting under classman or drafting you know freshman is necessarily a bad thing but could they go for the more Julian strawther Trace Jackson Davis like could

They look at guys who are already pretty good like a guy like herb Jones he was a contributor on day one ogan anobi completely different situation he was a contributor on day one to but he was young I think like these later picks because of Team control for the four

Years they offer like a really unique path to getting rotation players um and again like I think man quickley is going to be a much better player next year I think R.J is going to be a much better player next year you know there’s a lot

Of pressure in playing in New York I feel like RJ plays with pressure I think he’s going to be a lot lighter and again development doesn’t show up just like you know me doing that think tank for uh covid-19 that didn’t show up right away it was in the months that followed that

I could really really feel that you know I could feel the effect of it so anyways I say that to say that I expect a better second half for the Raptors than the first half and I hope that that results in playing yeah all right take care and

Um uh okay also uh I’m GNA go back and find sorry Larry thanks a lot for the support there man I’m just going to go back and find John and his comments where is he where is is he where is he okay here we go ban user delete their comments I

Didn’t want to do that before but I I felt a really strong need to do it now and um thanks a lot appreciate it um SG say I don’t want a second better dude at the end of the day you gotta be good next year right Scotty is way too good

To tank for Cooper flag I think RJ might be too good next year emanu quickley yaka purle if he sticks around you got draft picks coming in you got cap space you’re not going to be bad enough to be as bad as Detroit’s and Charlotte’s right so honestly you don’t you have to

Consider the the consequences of not conveying this pick now is that you will have to convey it later this is like not doing your taxes you know what I mean like yeah you can you can put it off but eventually you get arrested right so there in lies the point like you

Should try to convey this now in a weaker draft regardless of how hype you can get yourself about Alex are or you know one of the one of the top prospects the odds and the math on it are so so limited that the chances of you actually

Communicating a really high pick to the Spurs and also not developing winning habits and also kind of like killing your brand I mean there are fair weather fans in Toronto that are not going to support a losing product so from an ml mlsc standpoint right now if I’m mlse

I’m totally saying like yo you guys got to you got to get some momentum if nothing else if nothing else don’t you want that solid momentum going into the offseason so these guys don’t you know identity is a weird thing I don’t want to like harp on this too

Much but like you identify as a team that lost like 60 games or 50 games it can wear on you a little bit it changes how you work out a little bit it shouldn’t but it does so you don’t want the identity to seep in of we’re a

Losing team we’re losers because trust me the Detroit Pistons under no circumstance under no reason under God’s witness they should not be as bad as they are but they have an identity as a losing team and so losing teams lose it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and I think you know if Larry

Was still here I wish you can just call in and just explain it but like being a winner is is a mindset you know it is a it is a self-fulfilling prophecy of being a winning team being a winning player and you know it doesn’t happen

Overnight and the odds of you kind of tanking this season and just turning a magic pill next year and being this great team next year that’s going to compete for the playoffs it just doesn’t happen that way you need to start implementing those habits now and to

Look at this season as a Lost season is is misguided you should look at it as almost like a ramp up for next season and if you end up winning a whole bunch of games and end end up making them plan say love I think that should be the

Mentality I wish I could have said this in like two minutes and end of this live but apparently you know I had to egg it on for an hour and 33 minutes until I figured out where I was going with this um let me just flash this on the screen one

Last time um to those of you who don’t know this is coming out tomorrow maybe some people who saw it in the beginning aren’t going to see it at the end uh this is totally coming up it’s been a while since we had a conversation context has changed team has changed how

Are you doing I’m doing well man how are you congratulations on your success as we talked about off there nothing yet I think your your uh your temperament is a lot better this year we and that could that could be a metric that shows why your channel is growing

So much this year because your temperament Is definitely definitely definitely coming out man like I can’t wait I love that conversation so much there’s so much I learned um I think it’s so funny and yeah I really appreciate Brian for doing that he’s like sometimes watches these live sometimes he’ll like throw in

A Super Chat every now and again he’s super super cool man and I’m really happy Scotty has them and I’m really proud of both of them see you guys have a good one thanks for joining us I’m off to penance planning and apparently apparently I got

To do something with these bags under my eyes and the pending heart attack um what a shitty thing to put on someone crazy all right make sure to hit subscribe I think we’re like super close to 8,100 is that going to happen are we going to hit like 10,000 subscribers

Before Penance that would be super cool yeah thanks a lot guys cheers

Toronto Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic talked to the media about the plans for the second half of the season after a tough practice. Many media members who heard words like development and “long-term” might be quick to assume the Toronto Raptors, sitting comfortably outside the play-in picture after loosing to the Memphis Grizzlies are on the verge of punting the season.

On the contrary, it feels the team is gearing up for one final push to make the play-in. They just aren’t quite willing to sacrifice development in order to do it.

In this episode we talk about winning habits, culture-building, and how the Raptors can use the final half of this season to build positive momentum going into next season. And also, let’s take a look at how and if the Toronto Raptors can sneak themselves into a date with destiny in the NBA play-in tournament.

#Raptors #nba #ScottieBarnes