CazOnReal wrote:Post-championship:
Positives
+++Drafting Scottie Barnes; self-explanatory.
++Drafting Koloko; yes it's unfortunate his career might be over but no one expected him to have blood clots
++Ochai/Olynyk trade; giving up a bottom 3 pick in this draft, salary filler for a former lottery pick and a good rotational player who gives you a look at what a stretch 5 would look like next to Scottie is somehow better than the players we got in return for Pascal from the Pacers. Ochai and Olynyk have opposite problems (Former can't shoot, latter can't defend) but I have some faith Ochai can work on his corner 3s to become at least neutral on the floor offensively.
+The O.G. trade; yes we're searching for our new O.G. but IQ is a great option for a starting PG and RJ has been a complete revelation since changing his game in Toronto. That 2nd is going to be pretty valuable too with the new 2nd round exception and a potential for draft night negotiations leading in to the 2nd day of the draft.
+Grabbing a hold of 6'7 Dick; haha funny penis joke. Yes the start was rough, yes they did struggle when Scottie went down and yes their post-New Year stretch is still a limited sample size, but I do think Dick has shown enough to consider this a win. This offensive system is great for him and his strengths, he's a fun personality, his shooting is invaluable for floor spacing given we might lose Trent Jr. for nothing and I would not be surprised if he starts next season (though that's mostly because I have no idea who this FO is drafting/signing and if they're going to pull the trigger on a Poeltl trade).
Neutral
+/-Powell for Trent; hasn't aged well but it made sense at the time and I do think Gary can be a part of this core going forward. The PPP him and Scottie generate via DHO is amongst the highest in the league, the real question is price and if Darko can get him to be more consistent on defense. It's a slight lean negative because they might end up losing him for nothing but i'll tentatively put it in neutral for now if we can either re-sign him or work out a sign and trade.
+/-Bruce Brown; I don't think missing on Brown is as big of a mistake as people will say. Not all 1sts are equal, we don't know what picks/player(s) were out there sand there's still an opportunity to trade him/get some value out of him. What that trade looks like i.e. getting a first in this draft, moving up or getting a 2025 1st, and whether it improves how I feel about the Siakam trade remains to be seen. It really depends on the salary they presumably would have to take back.
+/- Free agent signings/re-signings; also leaning more negative than positive but no one could have seen Otto Porter Jr. or Khem Birch disintegrating, even with OPJ's history. The Thad Young re-signing remains baffling but Dennis was a decent signing in a vacuum. A downgrade from Fred but his production was solid.
+/-Darko; evaluating a coach is very, very difficult since we don't see some of the more important parts of their job that happen behind the scenes. That said, Darko was not a perfect rookie coach (which honestly I can't think of a rookie coach who had it all go right for them...did Pop win a chip in his first year as head coach? I can't remember.), mostly due to his rigidity when it came to making adjustments. I'm willing to give him a slight pass for the defense being bad overall because it was fine with O.G. and Siakam when both were still here/playing to win, and the players he's had to work with post-trade were mostly not good defenders (Except RJ and Quickley, both of whom were much better defenders as Knicks) but Rajakovic has to show his own development, not just his players.
Negatives
-Talent drain (sort of); we all knew Kawhi was leaving, and i'm doubtful we could have gotten a sign and trade worked out if we talked to the Clippers before a deal was finalized but Fred VanVleet's UFA status absolutely should have been taken more seriously since the Rockets needed to send out salary to make the money work for signing Fred & Brooks, and the players the Rockets sent out - while not amazing - would have been better than nothing. Oh and you'd get a big extension out of it. I can't be too made about losing Ibaka, Gasol or Green given their age/general decline but letting Fred walk and going for a downgrade in Dennis Schroder was not the move. And this is before we account for them allegedly getting a 1st offered to them for Fred.
-General lack of draft movement; no attempt to move up, down, etc. unless you believe the Thad Young trade was "moving down" (1st round contracts are not the same length as a 2nd rounder so that's just incorrect) when you lost a lot of talent and need to replenish it. Even if we ignore them having to start a rebuild/retool a year too late, cheap bench talent is what made that 2019 team so effective so why they didn't decide to rebuild the bench from the draft is beyond me.
-Lack of development success/impatience with what few prospects the team has had; I do not understand them letting Banton walk for nothing and for the bizarre treatment of David Johnson. Not saying either were future All-Stars but they never really got a run with the team unless injuries forced them to be played.
-Lowry sign and trade/not trading him at the deadline (sort of); I get that they couldn't just trade away Lowry against his wishes but they should have had a serious conversation with Lowry about the direction the team was going at the 2021 deadline and more thoroughly worked with him to get him traded. I doubt Maxey was seriously on the table but there were assets to be had in the trade.
-The Dragic salary dump; set aside whether or not the Raptors would have drafted Kessler, Nembhard, Koloko or whomever with their pick and where it ended up. The Raptors 1st got them...Thad Young and a 2nd. The Celtics used a first to get Dereck White (They also gave up a swap but...it's not like the Raptors couldn't have done the same with similar protections). Honestly, I don't understand why they didn't go for Poeltl this year since Young was apparently going to be waived and they knew they had issues going up against teams with a dominant big man.
-Not acquiring a center for essentially 3 seasons; there were so many names linked to the Raptors but not a single center to be added to the roster after Aron Baynes presumably scared them away from signing big men.
-The 2023 trade deadline; not just the Poeltl trade and the context around that i.e. taking the but the lack of serious consideration for trading Siakam, Fred, etc. which would likely have set the team up for better success. We don't know what a serious talk with Portland, Brooklyn, etc. would have looked like but they probably would have brought back a young player better than Jordan Nwora.
-Siakam trade; it's been litigated to death - both the circumstances and the return - and it only looks mediocre as opposed to terrible because they turned one of the worst 1sts into two potential rotational players. TBD on how the trade will age but dropping to 19th is probably not going to work in their favor.
- Ochai + Kelly O is a Neutral move
- Dick is a Neutral move (he has not proven himself)
How can you possibly say Norm for GTJ is a neutral move? It's a big fat loss. At similar AAV, GTJ today has no value but Norm is a perennial 6th man candidate, worth a low FRP.
