The Raptors are a sleeping giant

The Raptors are a sleeping giant

welcome to P basketball live and today we are going to be talking about why the Toronto Raptors are a sleeping giant in plain sight a team that has mastered the championship formula through 10 plus years of sustained success under MSU jury um before we start congratulations to Team Canada the soccer team um advancing to the semis uh I have not been watching soccer but I know it’s a really big deal and I was told before this live started do not start this all of Canada is watching this penalty shootout I watched and I thought it was a perfect segue to what we’re going to be talking about because we’re going to be talking about winning and we’re going to be talking about the science and the math of winning because I think that there are a lot of misconceptions about what it takes to win an NBA championship I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what it takes to win a championship on any level in you know whether it’s uh High School NHL MLB what is it that unites all Champions well I decided to dig into the past 22 years of NBA champions and I decided to look for Threads and common elements because frankly NBA champions win in all sorts of different ways we are told that you need a top five player but then you have the Detroit Pistons win a championship you have the Boston Celtics win a championship you have top five players losing in the championship and so I started to think this is really a team sport Trends do change but there are certain things that stay static and while there are outliers outliers like the 73 win Warriors that very much should have won but did not win and outliers like the 2011 Mavericks that probably should have never won but managed to win there is a trend that holds through and I want to and I want to make a case that the Toronto Raptors wait wait wait wait for it because I’m G about to make my Bruno uh sorry my Bruno Fran forell moment the Toronto Raptors are one piece away from being one piece away from being two years away so they’re Two Pieces away from being two years away is is that pretty much it okay yep so let’s talk about it so first of all do I think theatron Raptors are going to win a championship next year is that why have put Scotty Barnes next to Ka Leonard no of course not but look this this live is a continuation of what we started I really appreciate the comments the subscriptions the support the super chats the E transfers and everything that has come from the last three and all of the private DMS from people saying hey this is what we want from your Channel we appreciate the rambles we appreciate the life lessons we appreciate all the openness and honesty but the truth is we come here to learn about basketball we come here to open our minds to New Concepts and if you can do more of that it would be great and I am not one to resist the the feedback obviously I I try to take feedback as much as I can and I thought to myself how do I continue this trend that we continued in the last three um where we talked about agent favors and the math of tanking and I thought well what’s the other side of tanking it’s winning championships so let’s talk about the math of winning championships first of all this guy is he a championship number one certainly doesn’t look like a lot of Championship number ones right um even though you know some people would say he has a lot in common with Magic Johnson and Yannis s TMO it certainly doesn’t look like it right now and most NBA fans probably look at the tronto Raptors and they say this is a team that is very far away from a championship and they point to the fact that it is really difficult to go from bad to Great and the Raptors were bad last year how bad were the Tonto Raptors last year well first of all in order to understand how bad things are let’s look at the net rating of NBA champions so this is the first graphic and you’re going to see a lot of graphics and a lot of graphs and I’ll walk you through all of them and if you want to pause and look back at this later you can definitely do that so since the beginning of time people have been trying to predict champions We want pre preseason predictions and everyone ends up looking stupid but in the end how often do we see that the best team in the league ends up winning a championship well not always right it’s not always the case right uh we had the Spurs in 2005 they were the best team in terms of net rating they won the Spurs in 2007 the Celtics in 2008 these teams they’re rare the Spurs in 2014 again so kind of points to how great the San Antonio Spurs were in terms of their team balance then once again the Warriors in 2015 that was that first championship with clay and Steph and Draymond then you had the Warriors in 2017 and then you had the Boston Celtics but then before that you had a whole bunch of teams that weren’t top two sometimes top three in that rating the Nuggets were an outlier they were sixth there was another outlier that was the Mavericks in 2011 that I have four Ben mentioned uh they were eighth right you had the heat with Shaquille O’Neal and Dwayne Wade in 2006 they weren’t top five so but the general rule still applies all of these teams were top 10 in that rating right and when we look at averages that’s when people start to make their mind so the average net rating of an NBA champion is third place really it’s 3.27 out of 30 teams in the NBA so on average NBA champions are three out of 30 so and they’re their 0 90th percentile in terms of net rating so the outliers as I mentioned they do exist the Nuggets sixth right and it doesn’t really matter completely to me how you formulate your net rating you could be the best defense in NBA history and a pretty mediocre offensive team you could also be the greatest offensive team and pretty okay defensively it doesn’t matter how you do it what matters is well there’s old adage there’s some old heads who be like oh defense travels on the road Etc but actually there’s a lot of fascinating research to suggest that the homec court advantage is kind of going away in the NBA as well so what matters really is how do the five people on the court score more points than the other five people on the court I hate to break it down to something that simple but really regardless of how you want to slice it you need the Michael Jordan you need the Kobe Bryant you need the Shaquille O’Neil this none of this is true you just need to score more points than your opponent this really breaks down to math and the truth is that the math does not look great for the Toronto Raptors so last year the Toronto Raptors were 24th in offensive rating 25th in defensive rating and 25th in net rating and by the way you are correct these things got worse after trading Pascal seaka and ogan anobi so a lot of prognosticators are saying yeah you missed Scotty Barnes yeah you missed yaka purle but man um there’s a really really good chance that you could be one of the worst five teams in the NBA next year and no one would be surprised I don’t think anyone would bat an ey if the Raptors finish bottom five in the Cooper flag sweep St next year because there isn’t exactly a ton of evidence here to suggest that they were ever any good last year especially after they made those big trades and obviously people really value what they think the Raptors gave up because Pascal cakam just got $45 million from a very smart executive and ogan anobi just got 43 from another pretty smart executive and one of the title favorites so those two teams are good teams they paid the guys you lost 4 5 million we’re all up in arms about the guy that we got back getting 35 million so clearly the Raptors got worse right the Raptors must have gotten worse and let’s be honest it’s not like they were Championship contenders with those guys the year before they were 11th in offensive rating 12th in defensive rating and 12th in net rating that’s probably why the Raptors are such a flop can you imagine losing in the playin with those analytics [ __ ] happens I’m pretty sure if the Raptors played a seven game series against Chicago Bulls they beat Chicago Bulls but that’s also why seven game series exists it’s to eliminate outliers like a one- game fluke the Raptors missed so many free throws the Raptors were a pretty good team I know people don’t want to admit it but 41 and 41 they were a pretty good team they massively underperformed look at the guys who got paid off that team there’s a reason they decided to put yaka purle into that core because they believed that they had a 50- win team that won 41 games because the previous year they had won 48 games without yakob purle with Kem Burch and Thaddius young and Gary Trent Jun so with yaka purle with a year older Scotty Barnes did the Raptors perhaps have a false start I think they did but now they have pivoted and they have pivoted away and they are now the 25th net rated team last year and there is a very good chance that they could be just as bad the Toronto Raptors when they won the championship 2018 2019 they were fifth in offensive rating fifth in defensive rating and third in net rating and what do we say the average net rating was for the NBA champions three out of 30 that’s exactly where the Raptors were when they won the championship so when we look at outliers we don’t look at outliers it doesn’t matter the point is at some point you have to become one of those top six teams in the NBA and the Raptors for their part right now are really far away and a lot of people are really upset with MSU jury now I’ve been critical of M jury people call me mess apologist for years people say I don’t give him enough flock I want to show you why I don’t give him enough flock and maybe you’ll see why I don’t give him enough Flack this is Messiah jury’s track record with the tronto Raptors okay yes this is Messi yuju’s track record with the Raptors that means hang on I’m missing a slide give me one second this isn’t going to get clunky one sec internet as I was uploading these I think um there was a hang on one sec I’m going to find it it was okay you know what I I I memorized that it doesn’t matter Messi jury under Messi jury since 2014 20 2013 2014 until present date which includes two Lottery Seasons which is Tampa tank and last year’s tank without a draft pick tank in which you had crazy season jonte Porter I don’t need to go through the entire list of all the crap that happened last year for the Toronto Raptors those are the two seasons in which you have not been a successful organization okay Messi jury under Messi jury the Toronto Raptors have won 47.8 now it’s important to realize where you come from sometimes to understand where you’re going this is the Toronto Raptors since 2003 you know what’s interesting the Toronto Raptors in their history their best season prior to MSI jury was 47 wins so they had 47 wins under Brian colangelo’s first year in 200 2006 2007 which is that big spike you see pre prems jury and they had another good year 20201 which is the year that they went to the Eastern Conference semifinals against alen aberson Sixers and lost in game seven and that was another 47 wins you know what’s interesting the Toronto Raptors average year under Messiah Jury has been better than their best year I want you to really think about that that’s 11 years the Raptor’s average for 11 years has been better under Messiah ujui than their single best season the year before to put this into context CU I realize numbers can be really weird and I’m not trying to dumb it down for anybody but please just understand this is what I’m saying I want you to imagine that in your life you got this is your salary 50,000 50,000 60,000 50,000 60,000 50,000 60,000 100,000 80,000 I want you to imagine that that’s your entire like life and then you get this job and then for 11 years straight you average over $100,000 a year like that’s it’s Madness the success that the Raptors have enjoyed under Messi Jerry we have a recent buys we can forget things and there is a sense of Messiah jury’s lost his Swagger he’s lost his way and I think that there has been elements of that because there have been under performances but let’s not forget two years ago they asked the Celtics to tear apart Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum doesn’t work let’s not forget that last year three years ago two years ago we were told that Kyrie Irving was washed and he was never going to be you know a playoff guy he was never going to be reliable let’s not forget that the Toronto Raptors were criticized for years for not tearing it down years why aren’t you tearing it down why aren’t you rebuilding why aren’t you rebuilding Demar rosen’s cooked Kyle L is overrated he’s not clutch he’s a playoff choker yonas found chunis is too slow and then boom you win one maybe there’s something here that we need to explore Excellence breeds Excellence maybe and I just found the I just found the graphics that I was suppos uh that I was looking for and I think that’s this is what it comes down to so I wanted to look at three years before an NBA team won a championship to see how many wins they averaged and what I found was pretty shocking that while there were some exceptions the rule pretty much stuck you had to be good for a while and take a lot of lumps and a lot of criticism and a lot of disappointment before you get to be great and so to anyone asking for a team to bottom out and be really really bad for a really long time and you’re not a free agent destination you’re aiming to lose because that formula doesn’t work take a look this is the average number of games that a team won for trailing threeyear average which means to say that before the Spurs won in 2003 they averaged 56 wins a year for three straight years before the Spurs won in 2014 they average 60 wins a year and lost every year by the way there are some exceptions and let’s talk about those exceptions because they are not really disproving the rulle the average NBA champion wins .45 games per season in the three years prior to winning a championship there are certainly outliers the 2008 Celtics what happened there well for starters Kevin mccale decided to do his old buddy a favor and traded away Kevin Garnett for not very much and they got very lucky in the draft and they decided to trade Jeff Green for Ray Allen so it required two organizations basically giving you gifting you all MBA caliber players and those players buying in and Doc Rivers coaching the hell out of that team the only credit I’ll ever give him as a coach and that’s what happened there the 2016 Cavs well what happened two years prior to that the reason that average is so low is because LeBron James decided to come back to Cleveland after being in Miami the 2020 Lakers ah another LeBron James type of thing right LeBron James goes to Los Angeles 2006 heat Dwayne Wade Dwayne Wade ascending from 2003 to 2006 taking making that team better and then Shaquille O’Neal being the penciling piece they didn’t just go from terrible to great and win a championship they replaced Karan Butler Lamar odm and that core with Shaquille O’Neal and shrunk their window if you remove those four teams the average goes up to 53.5 you know what that tells me that tells me the Raptors lost very little before they won the Raptors average 55 Games 55 wins 55 wins in the three years that’s includ that’s that’s with demard de brosen that’s with guys like d Wright Fred van vet uh ogan anobi Pascal seak that’s those guys Mark marcusa wasn’t here Kawhi Leonard wasn’t here they averaged 55 wins and here’s the here’s the crazy part the Raptors won more games or on track to win more games the year after kawhai left so Kawai wasn’t the only thing Kawai wasn’t the championship he was the cherry on top he was a major part he was a closer but Ka Leonard was not the same player defensively he was probably a massive incentive boost for the Raptors to get that Championship the desperation The Fear Factor of losing him we only have one year to do this maybe that was it but Kawhi Leonard gets a lot of credit for something that the team did but we’re not going to dismiss individual greatness here we’re definitely not because it is real it absolutely does exist okay and so we need to talk about how are NBA champions really constructed well conventional wisdom used to say you need a big two you need the Malone and Stockton you need the Kemp and Gary Trent uh sorry uh Gary Payton wow you need the Jordan and Pippen you need the Kareem and Magic you need the penny and sha you need the Kobe and Shaq the dynamic Duos that ruled and then to some extent the San Antonio Spurs had these three guys one of them is very underrated because he was definitively the second best shooting guard through most of his prime if not the third best shooting guard in the league during his Prime and that’s mono Geno chinobi and Duncan and Parker this sort of Team Dynamic do you remember earlier when I was showing you like team net ratings I don’t think people realize how goddamn dominant that Spurs Trio was because they were great and everything around them was great and then a team like Detroit wins and they don’t have a dynamic duo they have this very defensively oriented starting five with a couple of scorers and a lot of Defenders and some role players and people start to wonder is the tide shifting and then of course you get the big three era you get kg Big Ticket going to Boston you get the heatles and then you get Draymond clay and Steph and then eventually you get Steph Draymond clay and Durant and then eventually you get the Boston Celtics starting five and so I think it’s a misinterpretation to say it’s a top two oh it has to be IQ and Scotty they have to get way way better or you know it’s going to come down to whether Scotty’s as good as Michael Jordan cheat sheet he’s not as good as Michael Jordan and if you’re banking on that come you’re probably going to be wrong notice I said probably not trying to hate on Scotty Barnes but that’s a that’s a big hill to climb no what you need is a team and it doesn’t matter how you aggregate those parts I’ll give you a hypothetical if you construct a team as follows the 20th best player in the league the 19th best player in the league the 18th best player in the league the 17th best player in the league and the 15th best player in the league and you face off against the third fourth 50th 80th and 150th best player in the league if those are your two starting lineups I am betting from now on with the way the NBA has gone the way the game is played that the team with the top with the five top 20 players is going to win every time it’s no longer okay in the NBA it’s to talented it’s no longer okay to have one guy and nothing else it’s not okay to have two guys and nothing else because in a league that is suddenly defined by your weakest link it helps when you don’t have weak links we are trending towards the Celtics becoming the norm because that’s how ridiculous talented because at the end of the day what it comes down to is Advantage generation that’s all it is basketball is a game of Advantage generation space generation and if you want to generate advantages your guy on the court needs to be able to beat his guy to the advantage can’t create an advantage against a player who’s better than me on a routine basis so at some point it’s going to overwhelm and at some point having a weak link or two weak links or you know having a roster that is depleted of depth because I tell you if the big three model worked historically it has worked but if it worked today I’d feel a lot more bullish about the Phoenix Suns Championship odds next year I would have felt much more bullish about the LA Clippers odds so why is that the LA Clippers did not ever get to an NBA Finals despite having Paul George and kawh Leonard in their peak in their Prime why is it that the torono Raptors were able to do so much more with kawh Leonard they won four rounds of basketball with kawh Leonard in one year the Clippers managed to win three rounds in five years that’s less than a round per year why were the Clippers unsuccessful with Kawhi Leonard is it as simple as he was worse nope kawh Leonard had a better year for the Clippers after he left so this for his first year with the Clippers was better than his year with the Raptors I promise you there’s no statistic that will tell you that what was it I think it’s pretty simple the LA Clippers did not have the continuity to maximize kawai’s Prime oh here comes Harden oh here comes Paul George oh we’re going to mesh this new core together we’re going to find a completely different way to play basketball we’re going to have new players coming in and out of the rotation Nick batum’s in Nick Batum goes Nick batum’s back think they had the Morris twin Norman how comes it’s a flux you don’t have a existing core you know who could have won an NBA championship that year with Kawhi Leonard a lot of teams but not the Clippers they had to start from scratch they had to reestablish culture that whole thing that I told you all about continuity they sent that out the door Patrick Beverly Russell Westbrook sorry not Russell Westbrook Patrick Beverly the Neil ginari I believe who else was there Shay gild Alexander all those guys the biggest disaster and probably why the Clippers couldn’t win with Kawai is because they traded everything that was right about that Organization for Paul George because they bought themselves into this model that you need two you need three and the truth is you need five ironically you had to you had shilander right there he might have grown with kawhai what would sh Alexander have looked like on the Clippers last year they bought into the hype and frankly almost every single team that has gutted their roster to trade for one guy whether that is the Knicks trading away all those pieces for Carmelo Anthony did it work no you treed away everything that worked what if the Raptors had done the same thing what if the Raptors had decided no we need to pair demard Rosen and Kawhi Leonard what if they had traded away k Lowry and Norman Powell and Pascal seak to get kawi Leonard so that they could have this big two this conventional starting you know oh you’re Jordan and Pippen your big two Wings they would have lost they would have lost the championship formula is simple you need three things in my opinion to win a championship you need scars I’ve talked about this many times you need to go to the dance and lose several times what happened with the Boston Celtics where they were able to do it on the it is such an outlier it does not happen it rarely ever if ever happens and the only reason it even remotely happened is because those three were just that damn experienced and that damn good and there was already this sort of established route they didn’t just all show up there it wasn’t quite like the Phoenix Suns where almost everyone is new and then you send out these things that work like Cameron Johnson and Mel and Mel Bridges I mean I’m not even suggesting necessarily that the Phoenix Sun should have kept their core around Devin Booker but you shipped out everything for Kevin Durant you shipped out everything it wasn’t like the Golden State Warriors who just brought Durant into a winning situation what if the Golden State Warriors had traded away clay and Draymond for Kevin Durant do you think they would have done it sure maybe but would they have been successful would they have been successful they would have certainly gotten more talented but would they have been successful because Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are a fabric of what makes that team work why do I think the Tron Raptors are a sleeping giant so far this just this just feels like 27 minutes of clickbait I’m just talking about what makes an NBA champion well take a look at this this is the top three star players for I considered making it five but I realized NBA teams weren’t really built with five in mind and so I decided to say let’s talk about three let’s not talk about two let’s talk about three the highest rated top threes in the NBA are many years ago that number is slowly coming down it sort of peaked 2013 2018 those are the Peaks but the last few years that number has been trending down we’ve had two teams the Milwaukee Bucks and the Golden State Warriors in 2021 and 2022 win championships where the top three were under 10.2 that is a far cry from the heat in 2013 with their 15.8 and the Warriors with their 15.4 right so what we’re seeing is far less disparity between the fifth best player in the starting lineup and the best player in the starting lineup we’re seeing a lot less concentration in the value coming from your top two or three guys and we’re seeing more of a balance in terms of your top five guys six guys seven guys in fact the Toronto Raptors are building and have built frankly for years in the model of the Spurs and the San Antonio Spurs Tim Duncan are the official model for the current NBA every team that is successful is ripping them off frankly and that team started with three four five if you think about it like really great players you can always credit one guy Duncan but you have to go down that roster and you have to see how dominant it was you have to look at their bench the average Championship big three warp was 12.15 outliers included team like the Heat and the Warriors the 07 Spurs right the 08 Celtics but on the other hand you had the 19 Raptors they were under 10 2020 Warriors 2022 warriors with Andrew Wiggins you know um in in the starting lineup they had an eight and then the Mavericks they were 9.7 they were the only teams under 10 so for context the Toronto Raptors in 2023 2024 Squad was 5.1 another explanation for lower V brings can be injury lower minutes for aging rosters is not exact science just an interesting Benchmark for your top three players to clip nine but I would say it is a much more interesting Benchmark for your top five players to collectively not have as much of a disparity as we see with certain rosters rosters like the Clippers rosters like the Suns the way these rosters have been built and constructed we’re seeing them fail over and over the teams that have been success successful are the teams who have fewer holes the teams who have fewer weaknesses so I look at the Toronto Raptors and I see a real legitimate starting guard in Emanuel quickly he’s legit I see another one in RJ Barrett he’s legit I see a legit starting center in yaka purle he is legit he would start on a lot of teams maybe not all teams obviously but he would start on quite a few teams he would get rotation minutes on every single team in the league so yaka purle is a guy this I think the OKC Thunder we’re debating between him and isah hardenstein he’s a guy he’s a pretty good player we talk a lot of [ __ ] about what you gave up to get him but you gave it up for a reason he’s a good player he’s maybe earning a little bit too much at 20 million but he’s at least an 18 million 17 million Center who doesn’t shoot he’s a really good player he’s a good player in 25 minute spurts and then you have Scotty Barnes is Scotty Barnes a conventional superstar that you build around is he the Michael Jordan is is he the LeBron James not yet and he has not flashed anything that suggests that he will be LeBron or Michael but can he be at least as good as some of the guys that we’ve seen win championships like Giannis and Tatum can he be that guy we’ll see but certainly I think that relative to how how deep and good this roster can be and how many good habits they’re building I want to talk a little bit fewer numbers and right now I want to talk more philosophy the philosophy of championships the understanding of what it takes to build something up because what I’m witnessing over the last year exactly one year actually so since the departure of Fred vanon free agency last year since the slow you know departure of Nick nurse what I’m seeing is a shift a shift in culture do you know that all those teams that were repeat successful maintained culture throughout their repeat succession Dwayne Wade Pat Riley eventually Eric spola that became like a staple you know but at least Dwayne Wade and Pat Riley were constants through and then Pat Riley and Eric spoler Jimmy Butler you see how teams are successful in different iterations they always talk about heat culture Spurs culture you know how those teams keep bouncing back right it’s kind of interesting the heat went to the NBA finals and won a championship with Shaq and a very young Dwayne Wade few years later they did it with Shaq sorry they did it without Shaq Shaq was gone they did it with dwade Chris Bosch LeBron James twice then some years passed and then they found themselves back with Jimmy Butler and and Tyler hero and they went to two finals how did this happen how does such different teams B bamat bio wasn’t in the NBA the last time the Heat were there but suddenly he’s there again Jimmy Butler wasn’t on the heat back then he was on the Bulls but why is he part of this what’s the constant the constant is culture the constant is a way we do things a constant is your leadership your organizational stability and also a constant is the standard that you set as an organization had a really deep talk with my one of my best friends who’s here from Serbia right now about standards today we talked about deserving things we talked about the standards we set we whether we realize it or not are constantly changing and informing people on the standards when we walk out in public and we dress a certain way we talk a certain way we carry ourselves a certain way we are exhibiting our standards and our standards are showing people how we will be treated when you go to a building in which there is urine in the elevators that is also a standard that is an upkeep and you will feel a certain way when you walk into that building and you will contribute a certain way in that Community because that is the truth the truth is when you implement a culture of winning and it sounds stupid and it sounds floofy but tell me how the Spurs keep showing up over and over and over and over tell me why they keep winning tell me why almost two and a half decades since they drafted Tim Duncan they continue to win you will point to luck because that is the easy answer you will say oh they got lucky with David Robinson they got lucky with Tim Duncan they got lucky with you know Victor wanyama well I don’t know did the Detroit Pistons Get Lucky with Kade Cunningham organizational stability sets the standard I see these three young kids that have walked into the Toronto Raptors organization actually it’s four young kids now but one not so young but three young kids will talk about them I see a young kid who walked into the Toronto Raptors from the Kansas J Hawks last year Grady dick I saw him struggle in a way very few rookies have ever struggled in Raptor’s history I saw him basically being one of the worst players in the league I saw him struggle to basically hold his own in the G League I’ve seen better prospects than him shatter for much less and I saw him bounce back and I didn’t expect it I held out hope I supported him but I didn’t know that he could do it I kept saying I think he’ll do it I think he’ll do it but I didn’t know he could do it because I had seen so many times over the last couple of years under Nick nurse that Raptor’s prospects would start start falling and they’d keep falling and they just keep falling and falling that’s what happened with Scotty Barnes in Year too the momentum and the quicksand just got him I think it’s great that Messi jury I’ll be a little bit of a delayed reaction a little bit of a delay to acceptance of reality but I think it’s great that you have people like Messiah jur and Bobby Webster and Dan tolzman and Teresa and all these people who basically exude winning culture that can look at a team and say this is not us this is not us this is not our standard this is not how we do things I’m glad that they caught themselves because right now what they have done in my opinion is they have built it all back it doesn’t look obvious right now I tell you there was a time when Steph Curry was so injury-prone that Mont Ellis was the obvious choice they made a tough decision that was before four championships there was time when the Warriors seriously debated this before Al the hoopla now that they should trade Klay Thompson for Kevin Love That was obvious to them big man you got to trade for a big man this is small guy this is a big man come on you got to trade for Kevin Love and Jerry West basically threatened to quit if they did it there was a time when trading Kobe Bryant uh sorry trading Vlad debth a championship Center where 17-year-old Kobe Bryant was considered Blasphemous insane you don’t do this v d has one of the top top 10 centers in the league you don’t do this you can’t do this right now Jerry West did it anyway there was a time when they thought that Kobe was being given too much because they traded away one of the three four best shooting guards in the league people don’t want to remember how good Eddie Jones was for the Lakers and how good Nick Van XEL was they traded those guys away to make room for Kobe and that is not a cap that’s not cap they saw the vision they saw these were unpopular choices of the time Kyle Lowry is a championship Kyle Lowry is a championship point guard who thought that was going to happen not the Memphis Grizzlies who gave up on him not the Houston Rockets who gave him up for a first round pick and thought he was a Mal content who would never win anything it’s difficult to see winning before winning happens it’s difficult to see the emerging pieces of winning but I know one thing from being around winning organizations my whole life and being around a lot of dysfunctional and losing organizations I’ve been around winning boards winning companies losing boards losing companies I know how losers think I know how winners think I know that culture predates any winning or losing that you will do if you have a losing culture you can put every winner in the world in a losing culture they will leave they will sour they will be malcontent they will never win because seeds do not grow in bad soil there are certain people who believe for whatever reason that they can just build a house anywhere so they tried laying bricks on the mud and time and time again regardless of how many different bricks and how many different variations they put they somehow find a way to sink the bricks into the ground and they say I’ve tried every which way I tried every which way to put these bricks in this order and that order and they don’t work I tried trading for five max players I tried trading for two max players I tried trading where every draft pick I ever owned I brought in Kevin Durant and he didn’t win me a championship I I I I spent everything for Kawhi Leonard and Paul George they didn’t win me a championship I tanked for five years no championship and like I would say to the person who tried to build a house on mud I would ask them did you ever bother to lay the foundation did you ever bother to take that time to build up the structures that no one will ever see so that the structures that people will see can be on stable ground they didn’t the toron Raptors took last year to lay a foundation they shifted a culture and all people can see is 25th ranked net rating I told y’all for years that Scotty Barnes would be really really great and nobody believed me I don’t say nobody believed me I’m just capping now I’m sorry I don’t want to lie some people believe me a lot of people in this channel believe me but people when when you walked into an NBA Circle or a debate show or whatever and you tried to present that Scotty Barnes was better than Cade Cunningham people thought you were stupid I tried to say it before the draft I tried to say it at the draft Scotty’s better than Jaylen sus Scotty better than this guy Scotty’s better than Jaylen green people are like you’re stupid you’re crazy why because I see what he is you know what he is he’s a culture Builder that dude is like an extension of M jury why do you think they gave him $225 million it’s not just because of basketball it’s because of who he is I remember saying and this is a quote and some of you in this channel will remember me saying this because I said it multiple times I said that I believe that if Scotty Barnes had been drafted to the Detroit Pistons that Scotty Barnes would be in jail because Scotty Barnes probably would have taken a chair and hurled it at somebody if he was around so much dysfunction and so much losing Scotty Barnes hates losing you understand I’ve said it again and again and again this guy hates losing he’ll do everything to win if you need him to play center he’ll do that you need him to play small forward he’ll do that you need to be on time he’ll do that you need him to be 2 hours early he’ll do that you need him to be up at 2 a.m. 1: a.m. you have no no idea how hard this guy worked during that second year he was grinding himself into the ground because he was so upset that his team was losing very few Raptors in my recollection hated losing more than Kawai sorry more than Kyle Lowry it was something that just intimately just bothered him being around losing habits losing cultures and so he would butt heads he had personality he didn’t trust people this is all the stuff we heard he’s difficult he’s difficult no he’s not difficult he was not difficult he was always a good guy you hear all the stuff about him in Villanova he was not toxic or anything he butt heads with people who were idiots he butt heads with people who had losing habits he couldn’t stand teammates doing this Jimmy Butler same thing he was a Mal content he was a Mal content in Philly he was a Mal content in in Minnesota you know so they all this stuff about Scotty Barnes being a Mal content second year oh bad body language [ __ ] you bad body language yeah he had bad body language look at the culture he was around look at look at what was happening around him if you care about winning you stand up to losing and that’s why I believe the Raptors will win does it sound stupid to say this that you will win because you have someone who hates losing this much as a vital part of your organization giving the marching orders they have rebuilt this culture in such a beautiful way you know I have such an such a you know you you watch my draft coverage I did not walk in like you know some big jacobe Walter fan he was 16th on my board but I’m high on his odds of success because in the end he has come into an organization in which accountability is the norm selflessness is the norm and these things weirdly enough they breed very good basketball habits and ultimately success the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors are in fact the model but the Raptors are a model too the Toronto Raptors with MSU jury have been one of the most successful sports teams in North America for the last 11 years I think people boil it down to one single Championship because that’s what they remember but as a person who sat there and watched this team get to the Conference Finals get to the first round and lose come back refresh retool get back refresh retool I think that it took a really long time to build that culture well you lost the culture congratulations you got it back and you know what I think this time they’re going to build it even better I think they’re going to build it better because I think Scotty is an easier player to build around than anyone else you had he is younger and you’ve got him earlier you know everything comes down to age it’s one thing to get yonas Valen chunis into your development staff and not waste those years with Triano or whatever it’s easy to get him at 24 but it’s easier to develop him as a winning player at 21 you got Scotty Barnes at 19 you got Mar Rosen much later you got Kyle Kyle lry wasn’t even a raptor until he was 26 Messiah uuy didn’t show up until he was damn near 30 that’s not true he was like 28 no no no what if what if Ka what if Kyle Lowry had been developed under a Messi jury team in a winning culture could he even better could he been better sooner that’s the thing the only regrettable thing about the sh Raptor last championship is that they won it at the end of their window what if this time they win it at the beginning of the new window I believe the Tron Raptors are two pieces away from being two years away from winning a championship why do I say this and why am I such a proponent for them not tanking next year I gave you all the evidence in the last live for why the Raptor shouldn’t tank I gave you all the reasons why draft picks are not the Beall and all I told you the new odds do not allow for this to be a tenable solution this is not the way to win championships the way to win champion ships is to draft well and then start winning you must develop the culture I think the Raptors develop the culture and I I I’ll reiterate my point from the previous live I do believe that if the time comes that it’s Cooper flag time they will fully pivot and they will explain it later and there’s nobody on their to roster by the way a sort of hidden benefit of signing Scotty and signing IQ and having RJ unlock is there are no core pieces who are in contract years none believe me you may not be able to ask an NBA champion like Fred Van to tank but you can ask Davon Mitchell and Sasha venkov to tank no problem so the Raptors have set themselves up beautifully aim for the playoffs pivot to the lottery this is the way it’s going to be I can tell you how the season’s going to go pretty much it’s going to come down to how good Scotty IQ RJ yakob it’s going to come down to that it’s also going to come down to whether or not they complete this Cameron Johnson trade if they get Cameron Johnson go watch Cameron Johnson play and tell me he is not amazing they can make this work because that top five competes that top five has very few weaknesses in my opinion and yeah RJ barretts a defensive liability and yeah yako perto still can’t shoot but again find me a perfect team there’s no perfect teams Al Horford’s old christs porzingis has issues J you know uh Jason Tatum has issues Jaylen Brown is turnover prone yeah there’s no perfect basketball team team here but to get this team this young this good would be incredible to have only two guys above the age of 25 on that core would be pretty great and I think the Raptors can start building and once you start building you keep the tenant of your culture and then you start swapping you swap out little pieces here and there maybe that means eventually Grady dick is going to go for a center or maybe that means that Jacobi Walter is going to go for a power forward or maybe that means that Emanual quickly plus two of those guys are going to go for the best point guard in the league at some point it doesn’t really matter the point is you keep your culture you build stability you build those scars and you slowly climb climb climb it’s not going to happen overnight next year the Raptors best case scenario 16th in that rating might be the best case scenario but the year after you get to ninth get to ninth the year after that fifth boom Championship window open and guess what Scotty Barn’s 25 if that Championship window opens when he’s 25 consider this entire process a success because you have him under contract for three more years and you’ve already achieved what most of his draft peers will not have achieved at that point that’s important you got to bring the culture back and you did I think dark rakovich is the truth man I really do I’m not preaching y’all know me I’m not these other channels I’m not trying to Hype you up about the Tron Raptors I’m not trying to tell you what you want to hear about the Tron Raptors I’m trying to tell you that culture is real that winning happens based on culture based on pieces yes you can point to the current roster deficiencies I promise you if you looked at that team Kyle Demar gravis Vasquez Patrick Patterson that team that initially launched we the north I promise you this they did not look like a team that was going to the playoffs they looked like a team that was going to be the worst team in the league okay chemistry communication accountability development familiarity overtime defense plugging in holes development guys guys enjoying coming to work you know I’m currently embroiled am it’s a condo board Feud and it’s very toxic listening to these people being around them is honestly draining can you imagine coming to work when everything is up balance you don’t know about your next contract you don’t know if your coach is going to start you or or complete you do you you realize what a huge thing darkos communication is do you realize like last year we had so much stuff happen and then nothing happened you know how little it took to fray this locker room the previous year under Championship head coach Nick nurse I put that in air quotes Championship head coach the inherited Championship culture you didn’t have to build it you didn’t have to build it now now you go and build it build it in Philly go build it with Joel embiid build Championship habits Championship culture Championship accountability it’s not a fluke winning is never a fluke I promise you this I’m not trying to be dramatic when I say this winning is never a fluke none of these teams it was it was not a fluke there was sacrifice there was depth there were role players there were buyin there were guys who took fewer shots that starts with culture but you know where culture starts starts with leadership starts with your head coach starts with your starts with your leader Scotty Barnes has figured out things at 22 that I don’t think most NBA superstars figured out until they’re 28 that will help him and that will help the Tron Raptors I don’t think Scotty Barnes has to score 30 points for the Raptors to be really good I think he just needs to be more into himself I think he needs to grow into himself I think that he needs to be more of a vocal leader I think that the fact that he cares about defense even if you can criticize that he’s not the greatest point of attack Defender maybe he’s a little you know slow-footed in certain matchups fine this dude cares about defense he’s not going to stop caring about defense because he literally cared about defense since he was in grade six it’s just his identity is who he is selflessness defense guess what wins championships selflessness and defense this is why the Toronto Raptors are so high on Scotty Barnes and honestly the Raptors are much higher on Scotty Barnes than the media will ever be on Scotty Barnes until he eventually wins one and then they’ll be like oh I didn’t know this type of player can win a championship as the number one and then they’ll figure it out when Brian and I discuss Scotty Barnes comparisons we always shut it down right because it’s always like you don’t know who to compare him to his coach compared him to nicoa yic his pre previous coach compared him to Scotty Pippen and Mike Magic Johnson last I checked all of those guys are NBA champions Scotty Barnes is a championship player I will bet this channel that before he retires he has at least one I hope for the Raptor sake he will have at least three okay 119 comments let’s get to it three super chats holy [ __ ] whoa okay the homie Nick Messiah has been great Steward of the team overall he has been extraord extraordinarily patient and loyal during his tenure I prefer that he her by being too much that way than being the opposite nobody is perfect that is a super balanced perspective thank you very much and I believe this is not your first Super Chat you have super chatted before uh appreciate it and I believe you left a super sticker once as well so thank you so much the homie Nick um Noble Venom unrelated but lets effing go Canada I agree um I’m really getting into Canada team sports I have never really been that way I think it’s because I’m a dual Citizen and I sometimes feel like I’m betraying America by rooting for Canada but I’ve been here so long that I just feel like very adopted by the land and it wasn’t until like last year that someone asked me like are you ever going to go back to the States and I said you to visit maybe but I don’t think I’m ever going to live there I think this is it for me so yeah I’m going to retire in Canada in 30 years so yeah let’s effing go Canada I’m I’m on board uh thank you for the great content uh William seal thank you so much for the Super Chat really appreciate it um s Antonio the talent in next year’s draft is unreal yep the talent is unreal and I’ll tell you Colin Murray Bo could be um the best the fourth best player in that draft and he might go 13th and you might get him right what I’m sure about and this is what I’m sure about with Jobe Walter and the guys that we just drafted is that they’re coming into a situation that is good for them you know this is good right this is really good um ra ramanin saying what is the point of trying to compete for a playing tournament next season obviously we can’t tell our players to tank but if we trade y and Bruce does not indicate direction we’re going um if we trade yakob yes it does indicate what direction we are going yes um but we haven’t traded Yakov yet and I’m not seeing a clear Direction and honestly if the Raptors were interested in being bad once again if as I mentioned in my previous video I don’t think you draft guys as NBA ready as the rookies they drafted I think you prioritize something else and there is a word that I want to introduce to you guys and it’s called panopticism panopticism okay panopticism and it stumbled across a real with Jaylen Brown talking about panopticism a concept I believe popularized by Mel uh Mikel fold and it is really interesting about like I just I just wanted to throw that out there that I think that you guys should look at it and Alexander be saying Vibes are back from top to bottom I agree and it’s great I you know jacobe Walter is in Paris right now with Eve mey which I think is hilarious um the Raptors posting Eve Mei on their on their social media account is you know just like maybe one day we’ll see um John John P padus I I think you knew what you were doing and I think we all know what you’re doing but that’s cool um structure consistency winning culture completely agree the Raptors either need Scotty to become an elite shooter or obtain someone that can be their Kobe LeBron James so here’s the thing John I don’t think that that’s true at all I really don’t vegan grass saying half our starters are sixth men well are they good sixth men are they young sixth men because if they’re good and they’re young there’s always a possibility to get better do you know who else was a really great six man type player Derek white right I think it’s worth thinking about sometimes um you know who else was a really good Sixth Man type of player Pascal SE yakum at least when he was drafted he was like a good six-man type you know I think a lot of people probably after even year one or two would have projected him as to be more of a sixth man on a championship team you know another guy who’s a pretty good Sixth Man type um Danny Green early in his career I think that would have been probably the role those guys started you know for a championship team you never know development over time you know everything I’m seeing from Emanuel quickly I think the Raptors have really figured this out they’ve like really cracked it like this concept of like just working you know what I mean just like you think all NBA players care about working equally you think all NBA players sign a you know $175 million contract and just keep working if anything I think Mania cck’s working even harder like again not really sure why you know I would be saying that necessarily but I think he’s going to surprise some people next year with just how much better he’s gotten and I think it’s because he cares I think he cares about his personal excellence and it’s like you brought in people kol linic yaka purle that you believe fit into a culture that was disintegrating right you brought you brought back Jama he’s an architect of your initial culture the culture of collaboration the culture of sharing information the culture of selflessness the culture of you know you know doing what’s best for your teammates instead of just for yourself you know selfishness is very very very difficult it’s a you know it’s like a virus it spreads throughout your organization one person does it nobody checks it conversations happen privacy you know suddenly there’s a lack of trust right guys are like what’s his endgame why is he doing this culture is so easy to erode and so difficult to build back and that’s why I think that as much as it is seemingly abstract and hard to quantify it is also so extremely admirable the job that darkov yakovich was able to do for this team last year and trust me body language does count trust me you know these things they matter and implementing a new culture is a task in in and of itself and it’s going to take a while for teams like the Detroit Pistons and the Washington Wizards and any team really that goes out and tries to lose to rebuild culture because it’s very very difficult not only to build culture but also to build culture positive culture while losing you know what I mean build positive culture while losing through a multitude of traits I can’t wait to see dark alov with a steady roster because it felt like every single time this team got something going something stupid happened a controversy happened a major injury happened you know what I mean they’d won three straight and then Scotty goes down right it was I think it was three straight and then one loss and then Scotty went down or something there was like positive momentum right and I just feel like if you judge this team on oh 25 wins 25th in net rating if you just use that metric and say okay well how’s the 25th team in net rating going to go up to 15th Rob what is the jump what Garrett Temple jacobe Walter no I think you just need to look at internal growth consistency continuity I think you need to look at this coaching staff having the second year and not having to juggle I think in order to understand why last year went so badly I think you have to understand what a disastrous impact roster turnover has on your production there’s a reason why I showed you all like I mean another thing that I think and by the way this entire you know what a NBA champion looks like is going to be part of a bigger video I wanted to make this more Raptor’s Focus but I want to make that video and one of the other things that I want to talk about in that video is how often there’s roster continuity throughout the years how much turnover do you have in the three years prior to winning a championship or do you kind of go with the same core and then swap out one two pieces you’re not exactly seeing wholesale pieces that are swapping out yeah you can add a Rasheed Wallace you can add a Ray Allen and and a Kevin Garnett you can add a you know but some things have to remain as a base as I said you build the foundation you fit things on top of the foundation building an NBA champion is a lot like building a house in many ways if there’s anyone out there who’s in construction or whatever I think you can attest to this right okay uh I’ll get to like two or three more comments and then I’m out because we are past an hour um the LA kid won a championship in Toronto he decided to go home and kick out the Toronto kid that’s an interesting way of looking at it I never really thought about it that way that’s cool um might sound crazy but Brown and bue for Simmons or Simons would be a decent trade if we can get back something else that’s interesting I I did want to actually take a moment to address the Sasha penov issue because you know um what had happened was a lot of us right had assumed incorrectly or correctly that Sasha vov was coming here and because you know we found pictures of him with Dr rakovich they’re both European were like hey European you like European and um there was a report out of a a Greek publication that Sasha wasen of would not be reporting to Toronto that he didn’t want to be in Toronto that he wanted them to wave him Etc and then of course Michael gra comes out with his tweet and he rebukes that he says Nope the Raptors expect him to be in Camp also we finally got an answer to how much the Raptors paid for UL sham Shay answer $1 million okay so beyond that um I reached out to somebody that I that I know uh who is overseas right now and he is uh playing in the Euro league and I thought that he would be more plugged in he also speaks Greek which helps you know to understand sort of the connection and he’s pretty familiar with Olympiacos and he said um he will come to olympis like this is definitely going to happen and so that’s when I tweeted out that I think think that I’m leaning towards olympos now I don’t know if he’s wrong but this is just my you know sort of interpretation of it that I believe that he will go to olympos to understand sort of the leverage that the Raptors have in this moment is you have to understand that he has six million plus six point something uh Team option next year uh because there is an agreement between NBA and FEA teams so you know Olympiacos and NBA are under the same sort of umbrella in terms of a fee agreement that he cannot go over and play for olympos or any European Club while he’s still under contract for Toronto unless Toronto buys him out waves him whatever the other complication is if they wave him he has to clear waivers which means some other team can pick him up and so it’s very difficult of course and yes so being bought out is complicated and obviously the Raptors will play hard ball because ultimately right um pant saying what do you think of the wag Vagner contract I think it’s a no-brainer France Vagner is one of my favorite young players in the league what do I think of the Kade contract that follow us on Twitter and find out what I think about the Cade contract um yeah so I think the Raptors have like a lot of Leverage here because he can’t just sit out a year is he’s in his prime he’s nearly 30 years old obviously basketball is great love for him sitting out for six you know sitting out for an entire year and collecting $6 million right um you know you know pan saying Dam brro I think they overpaid um he’s a 22-year-old who has 15.7 win shares over his first three seasons I think they’re going to be fine he’s awesome and Scotty’s awesome too in fact here’s a fun fact so Scotty Barnes has 15.9 win shares over the first three years right France has 15.7 they are second and third in win shares for their draft class number one is Evan Mobley Kade Cunningham is 38th win shares in his draft class he has 1.1 nobody seems to think Kate is overpaid everyone seems to think fron and uh Scotty overpaid and that’s I think the big crime and fundamental misunderstanding of basketball is we don’t really do a great job of understanding how wins are accumulated at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if the Casual NBA fan thinks Jaylen green is better than Scotty Barnes but that’s okay because I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there you know who probably thought Russell Westbrook was better than Kawhi Leonard and that’s okay my point is that um Sasha venkov does not have a ton of Leverage here he can obviously sit out but then but then the Raptors don’t have to pay him so they can make this very ugly or they can make this very peaceful I suspect knowing what the Raptors like to do they’ll try to make this as peaceful as possible but it is worth noting that any amount you buy amount for is dead caps based on your roster however it does open up a roster spot and the tronto Raptors will probably do what they did last year which is they will rotate that roster spot um there’s inherently a good thing to be able to wave guys bring guys in wave guys so operating under the luxury tax never puts you a threat to clip the luxury tax and obviously the Raptor is not going to play luxury tax pay pay the luxury tax this year and so operating as a team that’s three four million under the luxury tax if you’re wondering why they haven’t signed Gary Trent Jr or offered him something or whatever it’s largely probably because if they wanted to bring him back at a reasonable amount that reasonable amount would be like $8 million he’s not taking it so I’m curious to see where Gary will end up I’m curious to see where dear will end up I’m very interested um to see how clay will do in in Dallas but yes um erri saying can we pay him zero dos for the buy out yes yes you can uh you can pay him you know nothing you can just you know buy out his contract but it is also worth noting that the tronto Raptors probably view Sasha fenov as an asset now obviously you can you know do do right by the player and just kind of like void his contract or whatever for one reason or another I’m sure like there there can be something to just clip it off but you know right now I’m looking at the Tron Raptors I’m like man they can still trade this guy there’s nothing to say that you can’t trade him he’s an expiring contract he is a $6 million expiring contract and there’s a team out there probably and he can be combined very soon if not right away so right now you have him plus bue you can get back a 20 million to your contract and then take back a pick and then they can do the bio why do this for him right so yeah uh j a p r so I guess Jasper versus the world where do you expect the Raptors to where do you expect the Raptors to be like at the trade deadline I don’t know um I could say they could be seven eight games under 500 they could be 12 games under 500 they could be two games over 500 I have no idea I don’t know the crystal ball uh it depends on whether they make uh one more trade for a really good player if they trade for cam Johnson I’m projecting playoffs but if they don’t if they trade for somebody else if they trade yako purle there’s a lot you know I cannot make season predictions right now uh Alam saying worky of the Year sophomore slump Allstar next year all NBA all defense team all defense team is going to be hard as hell but I will tell you I do see all NBA for Scotti if this if the Raptors have even 38 wins I think the voters will vote him in largely because of the contract issue um you may not like hearing that but yes it’s true I want to thank you all for uh tuning in to P basketball live I hope that these videos are getting better that I’m getting better and I want to thank you guys for all of your support the super chats of course the generous contributions via e transfer the Amazon wish list stuff but also just the subscriptions it’s really awesome to read these comments I’ve been trying to respond to as many of them as possible but um oh here we have a clarification if this is true Sasha cannot be traded with other players until August 28th that’s interesting I I didn’t know that uh that that applies in the offseason as well but as I said I’m a bit of a CBA dummy and I’m trying to learn as much as I can as I go um love the content thank you very much and yeah the the feedback has been awesome some of you have you know like left voice notes via um Instagram to talk about the last three lives and I hope that this live was a continuation of that and not a departure from that I definitely want to get better at this I don’t like fluff I don’t like puff pieces I want to know that if someone has devoted an hour or an hour and 20 minutes or an hour and 10 minutes or an hour and 9 minutes and 47 seconds to listening to me talk about basketball that they have walked away with something of substance so thank you so much have a great one talk to youall later smash the like on your way out that’d be awesome bye

The Toronto Raptors finished the 2023-2024 season as one of the 6 worst teams in the NBA. And after trading OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam, they may have been one of the three worst teams in the league.

The Raptors have an ascending if not unconventional star, a bunch of misfit toys on varying timelines, and their big move was losing one of the best shooters in the NBA and replacing him with a bunch of rookies.

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No one should be expecting the Toronto Raptors to be good. No one should be expecting a championship or even championships. But Masai Ujiri has proclaimed the Raptors will in another one with Barnes as their main piece, and I wanted to dig into the math.

So I spent 15 hours researching the past 22 champions. Patterns emerged. Outliers emerged. And through that knowledge, and many graphs and graphics later, can confidently say what the Raptors next champion will look like if it’s to be around Barnes.

So join me into a deep dive into the numbers of champions. Because as different as they look on the surface, when we account for the outliers and law of averages, most champions have a lot in common.

#Raptors #NBA #WeTheNorth