Gary Trent Jr. gone, Ulrich Chomche signs & breaking down Team Canada’s 12-man Olympic roster

Gary Trent Jr. gone, Ulrich Chomche signs & breaking down Team Canada’s 12-man Olympic roster

on your Wednesday episode of lockon raptor some news some notes and a damn good team Canada men’s Olympic roster you are locked on Raptors your daily Toronto Raptors podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every [Music] day hey what’s going on and welcome to another episode of lock on Raptors part of the lock on podcast Network your team every day it is Wednesday July the 10th and I’m your host sea Woodley I’ve been coming the Toronto Raptors now for 10 seasons on various platforms you can all my work over on the hell website at Woodley Shan you can find the show on Instagram at lockon Raptors and of course you can join us in the locked on Raptors Discord server it is sicko season indeed in there talking about the upcoming 2025 NBA draft talking about summer league if you’re a sicko who wants to talk about basketball with other sickos the lockon Raptor Discord is a little sicko pen full of sickos to do said discussion with please come join us in our little listener family link in the description of the podcast free to join as always of course you can find the show for free wh get your podcast follow subscribe rate review tell a friend always appreciated when you support the show however it is you choose to support the show on the audio side of things you can also go and support us on YouTube find just find the lock on Raptors YouTube channel subscribe and then hit the little notification Bell you get a heads up via push notification every single time The Show Goes live or premieres which is a wonderful thing also a wonderful thing is our sponsor for today which is our pal at game time download the game time app create an account use the code locked in NBA for $20 off your first ticket purchase terms apply all right on today’s show got a little bit of everything to dig into today we’ve got some news updates regarding uh Gary Trent Jr maybe not news necessarily but sort of clarifying details from Michael Gra uh alris shamay signs a two-way deal with the Raptors that’s a bit surprising we’ll get into that uh the team Canada Olympic roster on the men’s side has been announced we will dig into that very very talented lots of expectation as there should be and then we have a mailbag questioner to tune around the show out we’ll get to a whole bunch of stuff today let’s start however with the Gary Trent Jr of it all yesterday Michael Grange had some reporting on Twitter uh regarding the situation around Gary Trent Jr and the sort of internal valuation from the Raptor side of things and it seems as though there was a bit of an impass with the contract talks before their contract talks ever even actually happened uh you know reporting sort of clarifying things today from Michael bra Michael Grange suggests that there never actually was a formal offer on the table from the Raptors but internally the suggestion from Grange is that about 15 million bucks was the limit of what the Raptors were willing to pay Gary Trent Jr uh the reporting also is that his representation was looking for 25 mil as a starting salary an increase on the 18.5 million he was making over the past three seasons with the Raptors understandable to want to raise for a guy who’s now 25 and is theoretically in his prime but pretty hard to not look at this Gary Trent Jr situation and think Gary Trent Jr is like an exhibit a victim of the new CBA and the restrictions around uh spending that are just being imposed on the entire League by the owners themselves of course they made the bed they now lie in and Gary Trent Jr is one of these role player type guys who in a previous world where the second apron wasn’t a concern and there wasn’t these really strict limitations on teams and the luxury tax might be the kind of guy that a very good team goes out and says hey let’s spend a little extra cake they’ll get ourselves a Gary Tren Jr to help us with our shooting and give us an extra jolt um you know going into a season where we’re hoping to contend and that’s just not the market that Gary Trent Jr found for himself this summer and that sucks for him right it sucks to see guys not get paid what they perceive their value to be what they’ve been used to earning in the NBA but the sort of reality of the new CBA is that the upper class is going to take up a lot of the sort of big chunky salary cap parts for these teams and role players are going to be kind of left to fight for the scraps and that seems to be where Gary Tren Jr has found himself and look I think $15 million from the Raptor side of things would have been a pretty generous offer to Gary Trent Jr considering the sort of landscape of the league and of course we saw them draft jacobe Walter they have grd dick in h it seemed as though the draft pick of Walter signaled that hey we’re not super willing to you know negotiate too much from this number we’re pretty far apart we’re just going to move on and we’ll sort of you know part part our ways and and say goodbye and say thanks for your service Gary Trent Jr I think ultimately that’s probably the right call even if there will be I think a Gary Trent Jr sized hole in the Raptor core lineups this coming season that they’ll need someone to step into and evolve into right it’s not that Gary Trent Jr is this really difficult to replace player he’s very one-dimensional he you know does a lot of things on offense reasonably well you know the the three-point shooting the mid-range stuff maybe that is the end of the line of the stuff he does really well but uh you know he was a useful piece and a guy who fit nicely with Scotty Barnes and played well off of him historically going back many years ever since Scotty Barnes joined the Raptors those two have had really nice offensive production when playing together um it’s not that Gary Trent Jr you know didn’t do anything there are going to be things that need to be replaced here but that said I do think in the next season or two there’s a very real chance that Grady dick and or jacobe Walter end up stepping into that role as that sort of fifth option play finishing three-point shooting type guy who brings spacing and will ultim Ely be possible upgrades on that position over Gary Trent Jr obviously a lot to be worked out with Brady dicks defense and jacobe Walters uh you know the the sort of drop off he had shooting wise in college despite the clear shooting Talent he has can he replicate you know the sort of expected three-point percentage that people were looking for from him and not be in that 34% range he was in in college like that’s a real open question the defense for jacobe Walter is a big question all these things have to come along but I do think the easiest type of player to replace in the modern NBA is a one-dimensional three-point shooter and I do think that Grady dick and jacobe Walter brings something that I don’t think Gary Trent Jr really ever had in his tool bag which is movement shooting which is you know weaponizing flying around screens using an off ball actions to divert the attention of defenses draw you know extra defensive attention to open up Avenues Elsewhere on the floor Gary Trent Jr was never really that type of shooter he was very stationary sure you know he could go and make something happen when the came to him late in the clock that was a nice thing that he brought to the table but for the most part his three-point shots came as the result of you know pretty stationary three-point shooting or sort of two three four five dribble pull-ups I think that’s a pretty easy sort of collection of Threes to replace and I do think what Grady dick and jacobe Walter figure to do if everything hits for them is going to be a a a better long-term Fit For What the Raptors want to do than Gary Trent Jr making $15 million a year especially when you consider that you know there are guys in this free agent Market who are like two-way Wings guys who have played High leverage playoff minutes Derrick Jones Jr Caleb Martin these types of guys barely scraping to make $10 million a year 15 mil for what Gary brings to the table would I think have been a little bit too much and so I’m glad the Raptors didn’t make the sort of mistake of worrying about losing him for nothing right yes you know you you t quote unquote Lose a Guy for nothing but Gary Tren Jr gave you three and a half seasons of pretty solid production he was there to help facilitate the development of Scotty Barnes you didn’t get nothing for Gary Trent Jr maybe in the grand scheme if you take back the the transaction tree and you know you sort of look at the norm Powell situation you look and say hey like maybe they should have just kept Norman Powell I think the upside play of trading for a guy who at the time was 21 22 years old who was six years younger than Norman Powell both going into contract Summers you know to to get new deals I think it was a perfectly fine upside play and I’m not sitting here ruing the trade of Norman Powell I think ultimately guys move on this is the turn of the NBA this is what happens with NBA bench guys they walk and they go elsewhere and you often don’t get anything back it kind of reminds me of like the Patrick Patterson loss from last decade where it felt like it was the end of the world to lose Patrick Patterson but in the grand scheme of things he was a nice seventh or eighth man and you know those guys walk for nothing all the time and nobody is worse for wear and so it’s kind of my read on the Gary Trent Jr thing I I think um ultimately might it might have a a one or twoyear sort of um you know decreasing effect of the potency of the the sort of best core lineups for the Raptors but I think the skill sets of Grady dick and and jacobe Walter should eventually fill in that slot pretty nicely and we’ll get in a little bit more into Grady dick and his potential to start for the Raptors coming up in the final segment when we have a mailbag question to get to very quickly before we get to the break want to just hit on alus shampay as well the other bit of news from the rap out of the last day or so signs a two-way deal with the Raptors maybe a bit of a surprise I think there was maybe the suggestion they might stash him keep him over in the Bal in Africa maybe put him on a team in Europe whatever it might have been you know still pretty raw pretty far away from making a serious impact in the NBA as the youngest player from this past draft and by all accounts the rawest player as well but I do think that this is the luxury now of having that third two-way spot that came in what was it last season the year before you know if this is still a world where you have two two-way slots he probably doesn’t get this kind of opportunity to come over and effectively be what I expect will be kind of like a stash but a stash in Miss a saga and not somewhere overseas I think that’s a nice thing the Raptors are going to get a chance here to do with ALR shamay I don’t think we should be seeing ALR sh Shay playing any NBA minutes outside of the odd garbage time appearance this coming season maybe no NBA minutes for two seasons frankly he’s got a lot lot of work to do to just sort of grow into his body and you know be become an adult on a basketball floor the G League can very much help with that and because they have those three two-ways to play with I think it gives them the leeway to sort of reserve one of those two-way spots just to have all sham sha be developmental piece for them for years to come and maybe he hits and becomes something and maybe he doesn’t and that’s just what happens with the second to last pick in the second round but I do think the three two-way contract slots opens up this possibility and I think it’s pretty interesting we’re get to see him in summer league which is very exciting wasn’t sure we’d see that um and so you know I think it’s going to be cool to kind of see where he’s at gauge his level of you know progression and where he’s got to get to from where he is right now that’s going to be a big story line of Summer League I think but an interesting note I I think you know again if we see him doing anything but playing in the g- league next season I maybe that’s the signal that something horrible has gone wrong or that the Raptors are trying the most brazen job of all time by Rolling him out there for heavy minutes but I am glad we’ll get to see his development up close and in person in Miss Saga with Raptors 905 and he gets to be around the NBA team as well which certainly has to have some impact and positive um sort of long-term effect in some way that’s pretty unquantifiable going forward as well so yeah those are the news and notes Gary Trent Jr Al shamay we GNA come back on the other side talk about another bit of news from today which is Team Canada’s men’s Olympic roster fully announced we’re going to get into the roster some quick takeaways on the 12-man group they put together remind you all of the sort of landscape of the tournament and The Gauntlet they have to go through in group a in the Olympic field we’ll get into all that coming up mailbag questions coming up later on in the show but uh yeah Team Canada stuff coming up in just one sec today’s episode is brought to you by our friends over at game time the single best place to buy tickets for your favorite sporting events and it is an authorized ticket Marketplace of Major League Baseball which makes getting tickets faster and easier prices on game time on the app go down closer to the first pitch which is pretty sweet maybe you want to go check out a Blue Jay’s game they’re not very good but you can go and get yourself some cheap tickets because they’re not very good or maybe you’re like me and my wife we like to travel around in the summertime go see some baseball games at various Parks down in the states if you want to go do that it’s a wonderful way to get very cheap tickets a lot of baseball teams not selling a ton of tickets 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they have yet to play any summer league games uh as of yet so we’ll run through the news the team Canada Olympic men’s roster announced today not a ton of surprises will run through the roster for you the 12-man group going to Paris to compete for an Olympic medal nil Alexander Walker Toronto Raptor RJ Barrett former Toronto Raptor Kim Burch Dylan Brooks Lou Dort Melvin edum is the one non-nba guy who makes the team a long time main stay of the national program very cool to see edim who has been through all kinds of ups and downs with this program get himself an invite to Paris very very cool indeed Shay gildas Alexander will be the best player on this team and one of the best players in the tournament pretty awesome Trey ly from the Sacramento Kings we’ll get into him a little bit pretty important player on this team I think Jamal Murray Andrew nard Kelly oen from your Toronto Raptors and Dwight Powell that’s your group going to uh Paris for what is probably going to be the single best best on best uh international basketball men’s tournament we’ve ever seen it’s going to be absolutely stacked and Canada’s group is very much much uh going to fall under that distinction it’s Canada it’s Australia at number five in the world Greece with yanis aent kmo so yeah terrifying and then Spain number two in the world maybe don’t have the high-end Superstar Talent anymore to really scare you but former Raptor Lorenzo Brown absolutely killing it for the Spanish national team and they always just are there because they play an incredibly feeba friendly style of ball tough group for Team Canada a reminder of the other groups Group B you’ve got France with Victor wanyama and Rudy goar like running pick and rolls and stuff together in a truly horrifying future basketball situation you’ve got Brazil Bruno kaboko lots of uh you know Raptors ties there of course uh Japan and then Germany and then Group C you’ve got the states Puerto Rico South Sudan and Serbia loaded field man and look this is this is a tough field to be going to work and looking for your first medal and looking to make good on you know frankly more than a decade of leadup of expectation for this team you know they were supposed to be there in Tokyo in 201202 uh that was really supposed to be it they and they failed in that qualifying tournament I think it was against the Czech Republic if I’m not mistaken Thomas zaransky ruining their their hopes in Victoria BC yeah like this is this is it like this is what this has been building to and it’s going to be a real let down if Canada can’t make it out of the group if if they can’t advance to the point where they have a shot at a medal yes there is a lot of talent in this tournament but you could argue no team is deeper than team us than Canada outside of Team USA and topend talent wise it’s right there Jamal Murray was just the second best player on the NBA champions a year ago Shay guildas Alexander is a perennial at this point top three to five MVP candidate he’s unbelievable RJ Barrett is a very good player and you know down the line Dylan Brooks absolutely killed it for Canada last year when they won bronze at the feeo World Cup this team is stacked even with the absences of Andrew Wiggins and uh you know Zach Edy among others this team is loaded and should be going in with very high expectations the expectation should be to at least be in the conversation for medals and if they’re not I think it’s fair to call it a disappointment to say that there was failure in some way shape or form obviously got to we see we got to see it happens if they lose three narrow close games with Australia Greece and Spain maybe that colors it differently than if they were to get blown out in those games or whatever um you know we have to see the actual context of what happens in the tournament before we declare anything a failure or success but uh I think there really should be super high expectations going into this tournament and there should be belief they’re very good they just won the the the bronze in the fee World Cup a year ago there is a lot of reason to believe that this team can you know weather the group stage even though it’s a difficult group I think topend talent wise outside of Greece Canada is right at the top and I think you know I think inarguably Canada’s deeper in top end talent beyond the best player on each respective team so they should have a shot at winning every single one of their group games even though it’s a gauntlet and then beyond that obviously you know what happens to you know what is the bracket do what you know where do they end up in the Knockouts do they play the states early does that send them home early like all this inform our feelings and our sort of takeaways on what this tournament was for Canada when it’s all said and done but uh I do think there should be some pretty serious expectation going in for some real success and unquestionably this should be the best result they ever get in an olympic tournament to this point and look it’s it’s not going to be easy and I think a big reason is that the big man spot for me if you’re looking at this team Canada roster it’s the bigs who are the real question I think there’s like a lot of interesting stuff they’re going to be able to do with multi-g guard lineups multi-wing lineups and things like that you know I would pencil in the starting five probably to be sheay gildas Alexander Jamal Murray RJ Barrett Dylan Brooks Kelly o lenck maybe the the maybe you swap in O Lin for a more defensively oriented Center like Dwight Powell or Trey Lyles even maybe even Kem Burch but I I think most likely that’s your best five I think you roll with that I think that’s a really good offensive five and there’s enough Wing defense there with Dylan Brooks to throw on the best you know opposing star for the other team he’s going to guard Giannis like that’s gonna be a thing um sheay gildas Alexander a fantastic point of attack Defender as well and then you can sprinkle in your Andrew nard also a great defender nikil Alexander Walker a total stud on that end Lou dor like they have lots of different guys and combinations they can throw in on the wings for defense and that’s going to be essential because the rim protection the interior defense just the general interior side is going to be I think the sort of Achilles heel of this team and they’ll have to overcome it with their excellent guard play they’ll have to overcome it with really dogged you know point of attack defense from guys who are all capable of doing that exact thing doesn’t have to be a death nail for this team’s metal hopes that they don’t really have a traditional rim protector it’ be so nice if Zack idy were on this team just to plant him in the paint with those feber rules with no three in the key have a s foot four dude hanging around the rim catching lobs getting put back things like that um they don’t have it though and they’re going to have to overcome that big time I think Kelly oen is going to be huge but his defense we saw with the Raptors last year that’s not the strength of him he’s a very good FBA player and it’s a different ball game of course with the the NO3 in the key rule but I I do think Kelly oin is going to be in tough to be the sort of backline of defense for this team and I think Trey ly might sneakily be the most important player in the front court for this team right like I I think Trey ly he’s got the size at 610 he’s got some shooting and sort of offensive skill and Pop I think there’s a world in which he ends up being their closing big man in a lot of these games if you know it’s not working defensively with oen you know they’re going to be in tough right if they come across a Serbia I’m not sure what they do with Nico yic if they come across France good luck with weni and goar like it’s going to be a challenge no matter what I do think though in their group with Australia Greece Spain they can probably weather the big man um sort of concerns and lack of super high-end talent in that position just to get out of the group beyond that it gets a little trickier and very much dependent on matchups as any you know single elimination tournament is always going to be but yeah those are the kind of things I’m keeping an eye on I I think they’re going to score just fine I think the guard play is going to be exemplary arguably the best guard play of any team in the tournament you know with with Shay and Murray and nard coming in off the bench like that is a a lot of really talented guards to go and create for you I think Dylan Brooks he we’ve seen it he ratchets it up for FEA as well um I I I’m pretty bullish we’ll talk a lot more about this and the women’s tournaments as we get closer to the Olympics as well it’s going to be a big part of the show once we get into August and things like that but uh yeah that’s just sort of the first 10,000 foot view of Team Canada and their 12-man roster be cool if they had more bigs if you are a young Canadian basketball player uh be tall and you might have yourself a future with the Canadian national team team damn shame there’s no Zach man that’d be a very nice thing to have just for you know matchups in particular that you need some size for it’s uh it’s going to be tough to overcome not having the 7 foot4 dude but again very very talented roster the most talented roster they’ve ever sent to an Olympics and I cannot wait to watch and we’ll cover Lots on the podcast as we always do with Canada basketball in the summer um the one advantage I have over most of the other podcasts on the lock on network is I can basically just cover Team Canada and be like yeah it’s basically Raptors adjacent it’s a beautiful thing we’re going to come back on the other side and we are going to get into a couple of mailbag questions that came in regarding starters and fitting around Emanuel quickly and Scotty Barnes picking up the thread of yesterday’s episode where we talked with Lewis about Scotty and quickley and the bet the Raptors are making on those guys being the pillars of a contender going forward we will get to that coming up in just one second all right rounding up the show here on your Wednesday thanks so much for hanging out just a heads up tomorrow on the show Jamar Hines will be here we’re going to play a little game called who’s going to play more just some either or heads up questions between two guys on the Raptors vying for similar positions we’re going to get into that and I’m very much looking forward to that we also we’re gonna have a Jacob on Friday for his usual weekly chat uh also programming note regarding the over under spectacular we are going to take that up probably a Late July thing scheduling sahal has been on vacation VC was on the road with with the cricket national team uh we are going to get it all sorted out but it might be a later July August thing for the over unders but we will still be handing out a winner for the over unders contest for the Year from all those who submitted submissions and we’ll also figure out who won between the three of us as I look for my first ever title and our annual lock on Raptors over under spectacular uh just a little later than usual getting to it but we will get to it I promise for those who are anxiously waiting to figure out if they have actually won the contest and are taking the crown from our pal J Rich who won last year um all right let’s get to it couple mailbag questions this one here comes from Bon in the Discord asking after Scotty IQ RJ and Yak who is the most likely to be the fifth starter for each of these three Windows of the season one before Christmas two after Christmas before the trade deadline and three after the trade deadline this is a good question I think that fifth starting spot is uh one of the more interesting things coming into Camp I think there will be a pretty Earnest battle for that job between a lot of guys I think I would put you know my my money on a couple of guys more than others but I do think there’s a lot of ways the Raptors could go with this you know I think the sort of common first two answers you think of are okay well Bruce Brown’s gon to be on the team he probably starts in that two spot if he is better than he was down the stretch of last season which I think is likely if he’s playing with better players and is not dealing with the Neath thing that hampered him down the stretch and you know the team is playing competent normal basketball I think there’s a real chance Bruce Brown finds a niche within the team I do not think it’s going to be as a starter over the course of the Season though I think to answer this question we could see Bruce Brown be the starter out of the gate and maybe lose the job eventually when the sort of spacing concerns pop up and maybe the lineup is sort of begging for a little bit more shooting juice that’s where Grady dick comes in I I don’t think grd dick is going to start from the very beginning of this season I I think um there’s a couple other candidates that I think I’d may be penciling is more likely than him and I don’t think they want to rush Grady dick I don’t think they should want to rush Grady dick it’s very easy to get excited about the back half of his season last year which I don’t think was fake I know it happened during the fake part of the season but I think his February is kind of the month you circle before the season got fake when the team was actually playing at its best and he was playing with good players he was playing quite well he had easily his best month of the year and kind of showed that you know play finishing three-point shooting off ball you know off screen shooting secondary you know connective passing things like that I think that’s all there for Grady dick and if you’re you know thinking about the geometry of your lineups Brady dick is going to make a lot of the Raptor lineups just that much more suited to Modern basketball suited to playing Darko rakovich is system where the space he’s going to provide for others to create advantages and then capitalize on those advantages that is like the the gry dick promise of you know whatever he’s going to be once he reaches his Peak two three three four five years down the line from now but he can he can get started on that this year it would be a lot they’ll probably lose minutes with Grady dick in there just because you lose minutes with young players on the floor all the time but you know if you think about what the starters were last year with Gary Trent Jr again very limited sample I think they played only 10 games together they were still the number two most used lineup for the Raptors last season so that’s maybe worth noting a little bit just about a plus 12 net rating per 100 possessions that is very very good and even if there’s some drop off when grd dick is in there can that lineup be a positive I think it can be it requires RJ Barrett to step up on defense a little bit and figure out what he could not figure out last year requires Scotty Barnes and yaka purle to be airtight as the last liner defense at The Rim like but I do think the offense for that group could be pretty potent and because Grady dick as I mentioned off the top of the show is a bit more of a dynamic shooter than Gary Trent Jr was I think he’ll fit into the offense even more seamlessly than Gary could and I I think it could be a pretty damn potent offensive lineup with some defensive issues sure but uh one that I think can kind of tread water at the very least and be a decent core base lineup that’s not hemorrhaging minutes to open games every single night um and maybe that is something they get to more close to the middle of the season so yeah he’ll be my answer for that second stretch and I’ll just say he sticks with the team and is the starter throughout the entire season after he ends up taking the job around Christmas I suppose if I’m going with the confines of this question um the other guy I think I guess there’s two other guys who could in theory find their way into the starting lineup think Davon Mitchell is kind of a stealth candidate I don’t think I want to see that but as a uh point of attack Defender next to Emanuel quickly to kind of alleviate that burden a little bit I could see the argument for him it will absolutely require that he hits threes at or better uh at the same rate or better that he did last year where he was about 36% on you know middling volume if he can be a 37 38% guy on you know three four five attempt a game then I think Davon Mitchell is a starting caliber player I’m just not super sold on the shooting and you know the size is still a concern if you’re rolling out a backourt that is Emanuel quickly at 63 and Davon Mitchell at six foot all the wingspan in the world is not going to make those guys not 63 and six foot in the grand scheme of things and so that’s my hangup with the Mitchell idea as a starter the other one too and I don’t know if a lot of people have talked about but like Kelly o Len could start Kelly oen could start next to yaka purle they could go big Scotty Barnes could be your nominal three Barett at the two and quickly as the one that’s a pretty big beefy lineup there’s some insulation for oin with purle at The Rim you know it makes your second units pretty hard to sort of put together obviously there’s going to be some serious staggering of quickly and Barnes one would assume um and you know I I wouldn’t mind seeing like second units anchored by quickly and yaka purle pick and roll and you kind of fill in the gaps around them but you know oen is one of the better Shooters on the team he’s a very good passer he would fit nicely into what they want to do on offense you could run him or yaka purle from the elbows kind of get creative with the way you leverage purle Rim pressure and oen three-point shooting and both of their passing in concert with one another that seems like something that could fit a Darko style um and maybe if you get some steps from Scotty Barnes and RJ Barrett defensively that makes that viable I actually think there’s you know I’d probably say Bruce Brown’s like 55% the starter from day one but I do think there’s like a 40% chance that Kelly oen slides in there as well maybe not the perfect lineup by any means you know but they would be big which is a useful thing in the NBA if you’re rolling 66 69 7 foot 7 foot across your 2 three four five that at least gives you like functional size to maybe overcompensate for the lack of great individual defense you have at least some length out there um to be imposing and all that good stuff so that I I think is kind of my read on the starting situation I am uh intrigued by you know maybe someone else is like a stealth candidate who appears out of nowhere I’m not super sure who that would be frankly but you know maybe they throw Jonathan mobo out there is the starting three and everyone’s very very happy and by everyone I mean me exactly and only me but uh yeah I I I think it’s pretty likely that Bruce is going to be the day one starter and it very much could evolve from there with Grady Kelly uh Davon Mitchell all figuring into the mix there last question here from Calvin asking with IQ and Scotty locked in as our future which players or types of players at the two three and five would be the perfect fits to make us a contender again I love this question because I think my favorite thing about thinking about basketball about analyzing basketball is imagining fit imagining complimentary skills working off of one another and we’ll just go Pie in the Sky we’re not going to go individual player names right now but we’ll go with the sort of archetype I think the Raptors would really be looking for here I think with Scotty Barnes on the team there’s a reason to want to prioritize scoring from other positions right like we’re going to see quickly average a bunch I would I would think you know I don’t think Scotty’s ever going to be your classic 28 29 point a game best player on on a great team type guy I think he can be the best player on a very good team but I don’t think it’s going to be in the same shape as say a um you know Giannis where he’s averaging 30 a game or an embiid or anything like that he has a little bit more of a well-rounded game he’s a jack of all trades and you know I think he does a lot on defense to kind of cut into maybe the energy he’s got to work with on offense things like that I think surrounding Scotty Barnes and his Visionary passing with all kinds of scoring juice is a pretty interesting way to go about building this team um I think as is the case with most modern NBA teams if you can get yourself a a spacing and rim protecting big man to play the five that’s the dream fit next to Scotty Barnes um you know you’re Serge a baka from 2018 type of thing what a wonderful fit that would be um you know it’s hard to find those guys right marasol would be an outstanding fit marol is a oneofone type of big man from the last 25 years of basketball and so it’s really hard to find those guys but if for going Pie in the Sky ideal archetypes then you’re spacing Rim protecting big I basically think is the best kind of Center for any team in the modern NBA there just happen to be like seven guys who fit that description at any given time and getting one of them on your team is very difficult the two and the three like I think honestly like RJ Barrett can be beautiful fit at the two for this Raptor team especially if you have a spacing big at the five you know I don’t know if I trust RJ Barrett to be a 40% three-point shooter all the time again but I think the way he provides Rim pressure the way he gets downhill the way he leverages screens from his big man to get to the rim the way he finished last year like if RJ Barrett can be the player he was last season he is a perfectly fine starting to for this team I think they can legitimately say quickly Barrett Barnes is the trio to build around and then you sort of fit the pieces in from there and you know maybe he doesn’t replicate that it’s a very hard thing to do he was fantastic last season wildly efficient in a way he’s never been but the team context the different change of scenery playing at home all seem to inform the change in his game and I think there’s a real chance it sticks and so you can get that RJ I think at the two he’s a perfectly fine guy to have long term and then you’re looking at look every team is bested off with a three who is a two-way large wing who can handle the best defensive assignments and give you a little bit of juice offensively the sort of dream outcome like you know a player like Tracy McGrady what a perfect fit Score first can defend his ass off is huge like a Tracy McGrady type shocking hot take would be a really good fit on this type of team next to a Scotty Barnes someone who could be maybe the number one scoring option in your team and you feel pretty good about it um you know if you’re looking at the draft for next year if that your thing a guy like Ace Bailey comes to mind right 6’10 super electric scoring Wing the defense is maybe more of a question um but he’s 6 foot1 and maybe that becomes your guy to slot in there long term if you get the insane Lottery luck of getting to draft Ace Bailey um you know obviously you probably got to scale it back a little bit in terms of expectation because there’s only so many of those Superstar wings out there I mentioned an ogan and Obi type throughout the the leadup to free agency what a perfect fit he would be he would be an awesome fit I think that could bring them to something close to contention with the right pieces at the five and whatnot and the proper development of course from quickly and Barnes I think I got like Trey Murphy a 6 foot1 Wing who can bomb threes and defend for you would be a really nice piece to fit in there as well that’s the dream archetype it also happens to be maybe the hardest type of player to find so it’s going to be a SLO until they can get that you know there might be a few Joey Grahams before they find themselves their kawh Leonard 2.0 and that’s maybe upsetting to think about but it’s a tough position to fill and as I said during all of the leadup to OG and anobi getting traded OG anobi is the type of guy who you trade and then instantly spend the next 20 years looking for that might be the case and you know if they don’t find that type of wing guy then yeah the ceiling of this roster is probably capped unless of course Scotty Barnes can himself become that type of wing guy I just think Scotty has proven he’s probably more of a playmaking four type of dude who with some you know positional versatility to play all over but a four on defense and they sort of do everything creative type on offense um you know that that’s kind of the the read there so yeah I don’t know if I answered the question well but that is the sort of read for me on the ideal archetypes to fit around Scotty Barnes and if you can find sort of a a guy who can sort of light it up from the three and an offensive structure where Scotty doesn’t have to be the clear number one offensive option all the time at least scoring wise he can use his passing and you the attention he draws the double teams he draws to create for others that feels like basketball Utopia for Scotty Barnes and the Emanuel quickly Scotty Raptors we’ll leave it there we’ll come back uh tomorrow with Jamar Hines to play a little uh who’s going to play more another one of our wonderfully named and crafted game show segments here on the podcast and we got lots more of course this week next week we’re g to talk uh next week we’re gonna have an episode with Parker answorth from lockon cougs talking about Jamal shed recorded that one earlier this week it’s great it’s super fun very informative on Jamal shed and what to expect from him love summer league stuff as summer Le gets kicked off on Friday with the Raptor’s first game as well so all sorts of stuff for you on tap in the days to come thank you so much for hanging thank you for supporting the show thanks for following subscribing rating reviewing etc etc always appreciated when you support the show however it is you support the show and we’ll talk to you again on Thursday another episode of lock down Raptors thanks for hanging bye-bye

In Episode 1674, Sean Woodley goes solo to run through all kinds of news and notes about the Toronto Raptors and the Canadian men’s national team, including Michael Grange’s latest reporting on the Raptors’ parting ways with Gary Trent Jr., second-round pick Ulrich Chomche signing a two-way deal with the Raptors, and the announcement of the Canadian men’s Olympic team’s 12-man roster for this summer’s tournament in Paris. Off the top, Sean digs into the reporting by Grange around the Raptors decision to ultimately not offer Gary Trent Jr. a new contract to stay in Toronto, and why it will be probably end up a good decision in the long run even if they miss GTJ this coming season before talking about the Raptors signing Ulrich Chomche to a two-way contract. Next, Sean shares his initial impressions of Canada’s official men’s Olympic roster, sorts through how they stack up in a loaded field and absolutely gauntlet of a Group A along with Australia, Greece and Spain, and why Trey Lyles could sneakily be one of the most important players on a Canada team that is light on big men. Lastly, Sean digs into a couple listener questions about who will be the fifth starter next year, and what the ideal player archetypes around Immanuel Quickley and Scottie Barnes might be going forward.

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