>But since then they’ve been trying to make a competitive team out of a collection of seemingly ill-fitting parts.
>At the time of the deal, Toronto’s record was 26-30. In comparison, the Portland Trail Blazers were 27-28. The Raptors – sparked by Poeltl – finished the season well but ended up losing the 9-10 play-in game to Chicago. The Blazers pulled the chute on theirs, and Tuesday night had the fifth-best odds to pick first and ended up moving up to third overall in a draft that is considered top-heavy in elite prospects, but hollowing out quickly after that.
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/take-note-raptors-the-spurs-do-situational-tanking-the-right-way/
by EarthWarping
15 Comments
Gloves are off
Good. The FO needs to hear it. Every single media outlet across all fronts speculated and expected the raptors to blow it up and collect assets at the deadline. Roster didn’t work, gameplan wasn’t hitting like it used to, vibes were way off, Siakam / OG / Fred / GTJ all at peak value and tons of question marks with contracts. Instead they decide to double down to make a run at play-in while giving up a future asset and introducing more questionmarks to this roster.
Good on Grange. Shameful season from this team.
Nice I hope other media members follow up
Grange really going in on raptors hard this off season 😂, love to see it
Shame the front office
Grange is moving like a guyy love to see it
We’re gonna be top 5 seed next season
Who am I kidding, we garbage
Hot take: no tanking team has successfully won in recent NBA history.
All out tanking is a good path to being contention. No doubt: Philly, Memphis, SacTown, New Orleans all have competitive teams based largely on the foundation of years of tanking.
That said, a handful of tanking teams have seen no success at all and just are in a cycle of suck: Charlotte, Detroit, Orlando
The past few champions, really going back the past two decades, no team has been foundationally built by tanking.
Warriors, Bucks, Mavs: smart drafting and team building
Cavs/Heat/Lakers (both Kobe and LeBron versions): built through free agency
Only the Spurs you could argue benefitted from tanking one year to get Tim Duncan. This has proven to be a once in a lifetime player that you cannot easily replicate and tanking does not promise you that calibre of player.
Iterative team building is not stupidity. It’s a strategic choice and it’s not crazy, tanking is not the only way to skin a cat.
Meanwhile the Spurs got a nice FRP from us and Wembanyama. Damn.
Spurs didn’t do “situational tanking”. They full out tanked. They sucked on purpose all year.
Raptors actually pulled off the best situational tank in the Tampa year. Half way through they pulled the plug, landed Scottie, next year 5 seed.
Raptors this year did not tank. They tried to make the playoffs and made a deal to fill a critical roster gap. They just failed, miserably.
The comparison should be to cleveland, Miami or the Knicks – teams who have somewhat successfully “built from the middle” into decent teams with believable futures.
However, we are actually aligned with Chicago and Atlanta. Hopeless treadmill teams with sad cultures and too much salary and no options.
Get ‘em grange
It’s been said that the ownership does not want to tank and rebuild, so Masai has to do what they want. If you don’t agree, you can stop supporting the Raptors. No amount of complaining is going to change their minds, they pay for the team.
How many times in the past have raptors ended up with the top 3 to 8 player in a draft even though they didn’t have a lottery pick? That championship team was filled with non lottery players.
It’s simple, if you don’t like the direction the team is going in, don’t watch/go to the games, only way to get your point to the MLSE. They want money now.
I just want to say there is a difference between a team being shit for a long time and tanking multiple seasons to build their roster up from scratch versus a one year tank in a year with a generational talent and a bunch of other really good players at the top of the draft.
I don’t think when people say we should have tanked (which we 100% should have) they are saying we should toss away multiple years like Philly or other tank teams. We only had to tank a couple of months, not even a full half season. So for that reason, I don’t really buy the comparisons to other tanking franchises through history.
We got a good serviceable center for cheap that was available in the league. Filled holes.