That’s basically what I’ve been saying this off-season. I don’t have to squint very hard to see this team and the year at .500.
WeBelieveIn4
Good watch. I think Zach makes a lot of good points, we have some good young talent. I think the tricky part is going to be whether they are good enough relative to the rest of the league to get us to the playins or better.
Scottie is for sure. It’s everyone else who is kind of a question mark.
5fives5
Great points. We gotta see how everything gels but we are definitely going to be a fun team to watch.
LemmingPractice
They make some good points.
I’m kind of split on the upcoming season. On one hand, I think the team is better than people are giving it credit for. They mentioned the stats for Scottie, IQ, RJ and Poeltl together (around +14 per 100 possessions over 200 minutes) which are really good, and that was after a midseason trade without a training camp to develop chemistry. We saw what RJ looked like at the Olympics, and, if he’s our third best player, that display looked pretty promising.
I think there is absolutely a team here that could drastically outperform expectations and be around that .500 mark…but, I’m not sure I want that.
When you look at the Siakam deal, we got three draft picks for an All-NBA’er who was 29, at the time. If the plan was to reload and compete this year, then what was the point of that trade? A starting lineup with Siakam in that 5th spot is undoubtedly a lot better than the same lineup with Gradey in it. If we wanted to compete this year, then keeping Siakam was the call. So, presumably, the decision to trade him for future draft picks was deciding to rebuild, but we haven’t really done a rebuild yet. We didn’t even get to use our pick at the draft.
So, for the long term, it feels like we should be soft tanking for a good pick in a loaded draft, before we try to rebound and turn the corner on the rebuild. But, barring injuries, are we really a team that’s bad enough to tank with the likes of Detroit, Washington, Brooklyn, Portland, etc?
It kind of feels like our talent level is too high to properly tank, while it might also not be high enough to compete for much more than a play-in spot.
I know a year ago people on this sub were screaming for “just pick a direction”, and then said once the OG and Siakam trades happened “Great, now we picked a direction”, but did we? If so, what’s the direction this season? Because it feels like it might be to snag the 10th seed, lose the play-in and get the 12th overall pick. I would love to be proven wrong, either with a breakout for a couple of our guys that make us look like a team on the way to legitimate contention, or, alternatively, a clever soft tank strategy that lands us in position for a high pick in a loaded draft, but I don’t know that I can really look at this team right now and say that I understand our direction.
LastNightsHangover
It’s great to see an NBA media personality who is consistently high on the Raps.
The Jack impersonation was great.
Much love, Lowe
pakattack91
Fully agree about his IQ comments and I’m all in on IQ. He is going to be main leading scorer (imo) but not what they call the “main ball handler” running him through a ton of PnRs. His partnership with Scottie has a very high ceiling.
CanadaBBallFan
25-57 last season. No chance this team is sniffing .500 ball next season. We don’t even have a starting 5. We have a starting 4 and then we’re like … I guess Dick may be the fifth guy? That’s not a sign of a good team. Its going to be a rough year winning wise.
7 Comments
That’s basically what I’ve been saying this off-season. I don’t have to squint very hard to see this team and the year at .500.
Good watch. I think Zach makes a lot of good points, we have some good young talent. I think the tricky part is going to be whether they are good enough relative to the rest of the league to get us to the playins or better.
Scottie is for sure. It’s everyone else who is kind of a question mark.
Great points. We gotta see how everything gels but we are definitely going to be a fun team to watch.
They make some good points.
I’m kind of split on the upcoming season. On one hand, I think the team is better than people are giving it credit for. They mentioned the stats for Scottie, IQ, RJ and Poeltl together (around +14 per 100 possessions over 200 minutes) which are really good, and that was after a midseason trade without a training camp to develop chemistry. We saw what RJ looked like at the Olympics, and, if he’s our third best player, that display looked pretty promising.
I think there is absolutely a team here that could drastically outperform expectations and be around that .500 mark…but, I’m not sure I want that.
When you look at the Siakam deal, we got three draft picks for an All-NBA’er who was 29, at the time. If the plan was to reload and compete this year, then what was the point of that trade? A starting lineup with Siakam in that 5th spot is undoubtedly a lot better than the same lineup with Gradey in it. If we wanted to compete this year, then keeping Siakam was the call. So, presumably, the decision to trade him for future draft picks was deciding to rebuild, but we haven’t really done a rebuild yet. We didn’t even get to use our pick at the draft.
So, for the long term, it feels like we should be soft tanking for a good pick in a loaded draft, before we try to rebound and turn the corner on the rebuild. But, barring injuries, are we really a team that’s bad enough to tank with the likes of Detroit, Washington, Brooklyn, Portland, etc?
It kind of feels like our talent level is too high to properly tank, while it might also not be high enough to compete for much more than a play-in spot.
I know a year ago people on this sub were screaming for “just pick a direction”, and then said once the OG and Siakam trades happened “Great, now we picked a direction”, but did we? If so, what’s the direction this season? Because it feels like it might be to snag the 10th seed, lose the play-in and get the 12th overall pick. I would love to be proven wrong, either with a breakout for a couple of our guys that make us look like a team on the way to legitimate contention, or, alternatively, a clever soft tank strategy that lands us in position for a high pick in a loaded draft, but I don’t know that I can really look at this team right now and say that I understand our direction.
It’s great to see an NBA media personality who is consistently high on the Raps.
The Jack impersonation was great.
Much love, Lowe
Fully agree about his IQ comments and I’m all in on IQ. He is going to be main leading scorer (imo) but not what they call the “main ball handler” running him through a ton of PnRs. His partnership with Scottie has a very high ceiling.
25-57 last season. No chance this team is sniffing .500 ball next season. We don’t even have a starting 5. We have a starting 4 and then we’re like … I guess Dick may be the fifth guy? That’s not a sign of a good team. Its going to be a rough year winning wise.