Locked on raptors pod talked about lineups that have played over 150mins…raps are ranked 3rd. Wondering if that is a part of the not selling at the deadline. Maybe sign and trade GTJ, prescious (if he can’t figure his sh!t out) gone for parts, etc and try to build a better bench to let us actually achieve what we can. Thoughts?
by SnooHesitations1965
10 Comments
I mean anyone watching the last stretch of games can tell our starting lineup is very good, it’s just a matter of being good enough to offset serious depth issues and what I perceive to be some flaws in our defensive scheme.
Starters are good
The bench is bottom 5, and they’re not 5 or 4
We’ve got a great starting lineup now with Poeltl, absolutely. I think a lot of people are coming around to the idea that this starting lineup can be competitive with anyone in the East (outside of the Bucks and Celtics for now) if we can get enough bench production. That’s a big if right now though.
Sure, we still don’t have that superstar, but we did our tank year and got Scottie, who has looked dominant in stretches despite not yet having a reliable shot. You could easily tank for the next 3 years and not get a player with the ceiling of Scottie.
At this point we need to fill out the bench and ensure we have good young talent coming into the system that can develop into the starters of the future around Scottie.
I think that means this off-season is going to have 1 big question, and it’s whether you keep OG or GTJ. You’re not likely going to give Gary $20+ million to come off the bench, so a spot would need to be opened up and OG is the most likely candidate to be moved.
Obviously in a 1:1 comparison you take OG, but you have to consider that letting GTJ walk nets you nothing, whereas trading OG would bring back significant assets.
Shouldn’t be surprising – even our 3 game losing streak we had good leads for a big chunk of the game and then bench combos weren’t doing it
Our schedule since the deadline has been quite soft, it just started getting tough lately. Also, our starters play together way more than any other starting lineup in the league, so they get to beat up on other teams’ benchs.
[for example against the lakers the starters played over half the game together](https://twitter.com/johnschuhmann/status/1634578175412797441?s=46&t=RQgUla3bIMAGLLEy1w1cug)
Not saying they’re a bad starting group, I think theyre pretty good. But they certainly aren’t elite. Their numbers are probably inflated due to scheduling and minutes distributions.
From a conversation I had with my friends about this:
The raps only games against current Top 8 teams in their conference since getting Poeltl are: W Vs Memphis (without all their best players) L by 3 vs Cavs, L to the nuggets, L to the clippers, W Vs the nuggets. More importantly than the Ws and Ls is the fact that they’ve only played 5 games against playoff type teams (call it 6 if you throw in the Lakers) so I don’t really think the sample size is nearly big enough.
VS Cavs (Feb 26): all starters were negative +/-
VS nuggets (Mar 6): all the starters were negative including Barnes at a whopping -14.
VS clippers (Mar 8): All starters were negative
VS Lakers (Mar 10): this is the only feather in their cap, all starters were POSITIVE bench was ASS
The starters are good. Especially if Pascal evens out by end of season. Just need three bench players to show up.
Too many identical players. Boucher, precious, thad young and so for. Power forward. Great depth at PF position but not at PG,SG position.
Need a competent PG (Downtin?) on the second unit to organize the offence, also – wouldn’t be against trying Koloko again for stretches to help protect the rim
Not a shock to any Raptor fan.