Masai Approval Rating

[YogurtProducer]

Here is an interesting thought: why did we intentionally tank final 1/3 of the season after Barnes went down? Why not play all healthy bodies as much as possible to develop their skills and on court cohesion?

For certain, Masai doesn't want to do a bottom 6 tank job in 2024/2025. Given that, his choice to do an all-in tank to close out 2023/2024 means he intended to keep the 2024 FRP (a weak draft) and deliver the 2025 FRP (a stronger draft) - in Masai's mind, the new core can compete for play-in in 2024/2025 so he went all-in on keeping 2024 FRP (as a last chance to get a high lottery pick).

This shows me Masai has learned nothing from the Poeltl debacle. He wants to compete going into 2024/2025, instead of another growing pain season while accumulating a top tier asset (lotto pick) in 2024/2025.

Now that his plan has been thwarted, as the pingpongballs have saved Masai from himself again, what is he going to do? Continue to aim for compete going into 2024/2025 despite the loss of the lottery 2024 FRP? If so he deserves a F, as that demonstrates he has no plan that goes longer than 1 season - every year he plans to compete for play-in and never accumulate enough assets to become a deep playoff contender: the definition of treadmilling.

Put down the tinfoil hat man. Sheesh

why did we intentionally tank final 1/3 of the season after Barnes went down? Why not play all healthy bodies as much as possible to develop their skills and on court cohesion?

Because we were out of the playoffs, out best player was hurt, and we HAD to finish as low as possible to even have a chance at keeping our pick. Not a hard concept at all

[DelAbbot]

Here is an interesting thought: why did we intentionally tank final 1/3 of the season after Barnes went down? Why not play all healthy bodies as much as possible to develop their skills and on court cohesion?

For certain, Masai doesn't want to do a bottom 6 tank job in 2024/2025. Given that, his choice to do an all-in tank to close out 2023/2024 means he intended to keep the 2024 FRP (a weak draft) and deliver the 2025 FRP (a stronger draft) - in Masai's mind, the new core can compete for play-in in 2024/2025 so he went all-in on keeping 2024 FRP (as a last chance to get a high lottery pick).

This shows me Masai has learned nothing from the Poeltl debacle. He wants to compete going into 2024/2025, instead of another growing pain season while accumulating a top tier asset (lotto pick) in 2024/2025.

Now that his plan has been thwarted, as the pingpongballs have saved Masai from himself again, what is he going to do? Continue to aim for compete going into 2024/2025 despite the loss of the lottery 2024 FRP? If so he deserves a F, as that demonstrates he has no plan that goes longer than 1 season - every year he plans to compete for play-in and never accumulate enough assets to become a deep playoff contender: the definition of treadmilling.

Put down the tinfoil hat man. Sheesh

why did we intentionally tank final 1/3 of the season after Barnes went down? Why not play all healthy bodies as much as possible to develop their skills and on court cohesion?

Because we were out of the playoffs, out best player was hurt, and we HAD to finish as low as possible to even have a chance at keeping our pick. Not a hard concept at all

The final 25 games, we had many instances of holding starters out even for small injuries. That shouldn't have happened if the goal was development and trying to convey FRP in 2024.

[disoblige]

Here is an interesting thought: why did we intentionally tank final 1/3 of the season after Barnes went down? Why not play all healthy bodies as much as possible to develop their skills and on court cohesion?

For certain, Masai doesn't want to do a bottom 6 tank job in 2024/2025. Given that, his choice to do an all-in tank to close out 2023/2024 means he intended to keep the 2024 FRP (a weak draft) and deliver the 2025 FRP (a stronger draft) - in Masai's mind, the new core can compete for play-in in 2024/2025 so he went all-in on keeping 2024 FRP (as a last chance to get a high lottery pick).

This shows me Masai has learned nothing from the Poeltl debacle. He wants to compete going into 2024/2025, instead of another growing pain season while accumulating a top tier asset (lotto pick) in 2024/2025.

Now that his plan has been thwarted, as the pingpongballs have saved Masai from himself again, what is he going to do? Continue to aim for compete going into 2024/2025 despite the loss of the lottery 2024 FRP? If so he deserves a F, as that demonstrates he has no plan that goes longer than 1 season - every year he plans to compete for play-in and never accumulate enough assets to become a deep playoff contender: the definition of treadmilling.

Put down the tinfoil hat man. Sheesh

why did we intentionally tank final 1/3 of the season after Barnes went down? Why not play all healthy bodies as much as possible to develop their skills and on court cohesion?

Because we were out of the playoffs, out best player was hurt, and we HAD to finish as low as possible to even have a chance at keeping our pick. Not a hard concept at all

The final 25 games, we had many instances of holding starters out even for small injuries. That shouldn't have happened if the goal was development and trying to convey FRP in 2024.

You are thinking too hard. We were obviously trying to get the pick. We did this by playing Gradey and not playing Quickly and Barrett at the same game. Development is mostly done through practices, training camp and off-season.

[DelAbbot]

Put down the tinfoil hat man. Sheesh

Because we were out of the playoffs, out best player was hurt, and we HAD to finish as low as possible to even have a chance at keeping our pick. Not a hard concept at all

The final 25 games, we had many instances of holding starters out even for small injuries. That shouldn't have happened if the goal was development and trying to convey FRP in 2024.

You are thinking too hard. We were obviously trying to get the pick. We did this by playing Gradey and not playing Quickly and Barrett at the same game. Development is mostly done through practices, training camp and off-season.

[ConSarnit]

I think with the most recent (and current iteration) of this team you can see why they wouldn’t outright tank. I base a lot of this on the projections most would have made for Barnes.

2023: FVV/OG/Siakam core + 2nd year Barnes (ROY), didn’t really make sense to tank from the get go. Probably didn’t expect Barnes to regress (or stagnate at best).

2024: Barnes/OG/Siakam/Poeltl. Again, didn’t really make sense to tear that team down given the expectations for Barnes.

It could be as simple as miscalculating the rate of Barnes progress. Had 2nd year Barnes played like 3rd year Barnes things are probably different. Barnes stagnating in year 2 changed the trajectory of the team. Still a miscalculation by the FO but if they expected Barnes to progress faster than he did then keeping the team together made some sense.

I think Barnes progress (outside of 3pt%) in 3rd year is directly attributable to FVV leaving and FO making it clear Siakam is getting traded (during the summer) thus placing more offensive role on Barnes. If FVV and Siakam stayed last year, Barnes wouldn't have had that progress.

If I had to guess our FO works like this: see where we are to start the season, give the guys a chance and if we need to tank to 5th worst that’s doable (and isn’t that much different than tanking out of the gate and finishing 3rd worst). I think they think they can get near the bottom if they need to (as seen this year and in the Tampa season). Off-season moves might tip the FO’s hand to their belief in this team. I also think there could be a “no tank” mandate from MLSE, which is something we can’t really know. They are a soulless piece of sh*t company so it’s easy to see them not wanting to hurt the bottom line for an entire season.

I don't buy the "no tank" mandate from MLSE.
1. One of the keys of Masai's last extension was his autonomy.
2. If "no tank" mandate existed, why did Masai call out "play-in for what" after Tampa? He would have kept his mouth shut after conducting the Tampa tank, instead of publicly declaring his disdain for a "no tank" mandate.
3. Masai said himself, he wanted to give his guys (FVV+PS+OG) a chance, and that's what delayed this semi-teardown and cost us a lot of value.

I think the "no tank to start the season" is Masai's own preference. I think he doesn't plan a multi-year tank like Presti and he makes plan only 1 season ahead - always try to compete, and then incrementally add to it (which doesn't work if you don't already have a true #1 option).

Maybe some of Barnes progress comes from not having FVV but that doesn’t explain his complete lack of shooting improvement or the fact that he was flat out bad defensively last year. At some point it’s on Barnes. Like how many good players do we have to get off this team for Barnes to play better?

And Masai always wants to compete and won’t tank to start the season but also believes “play-in for what?”. How can both of those things be true? If he always wants to compete that means he won’t tank to start the season.

[ForeverTFC]

I don't buy the "no tank" mandate from MLSE.
1. One of the keys of Masai's last extension was his autonomy.
2. If "no tank" mandate existed, why did Masai call out "play-in for what" after Tampa? He would have kept his mouth shut after conducting the Tampa tank, instead of publicly declaring his disdain for a "no tank" mandate.
3. Masai said himself, he wanted to give his guys (FVV+PS+OG) a chance, and that's what delayed this semi-teardown and cost us a lot of value.

We only know what we're told. Based on what guys like Lowe and Bontemps have said in various pods, our ownership group is one of those that doesn't like prolonged tank jobs. Lowe said that Tampa gave us the perfect "one time" opportunity to tank because the team wasn't at home and there were no seats to fill.

The most notorious anti-tank owner is apparently the owner of the Pacers. Even he allowed a one-year tank for the Pacers, but Bontemps said that the mandate was this is 1 and done and the team will build to win after that. It was during this conversation that he called out our ownership as one similarly not aligned to tanking as a strategy to team building.

[DelAbbot]

I think with the most recent (and current iteration) of this team you can see why they wouldn’t outright tank. I base a lot of this on the projections most would have made for Barnes.

2023: FVV/OG/Siakam core + 2nd year Barnes (ROY), didn’t really make sense to tank from the get go. Probably didn’t expect Barnes to regress (or stagnate at best).

2024: Barnes/OG/Siakam/Poeltl. Again, didn’t really make sense to tear that team down given the expectations for Barnes.

It could be as simple as miscalculating the rate of Barnes progress. Had 2nd year Barnes played like 3rd year Barnes things are probably different. Barnes stagnating in year 2 changed the trajectory of the team. Still a miscalculation by the FO but if they expected Barnes to progress faster than he did then keeping the team together made some sense.

I think Barnes progress (outside of 3pt%) in 3rd year is directly attributable to FVV leaving and FO making it clear Siakam is getting traded (during the summer) thus placing more offensive role on Barnes. If FVV and Siakam stayed last year, Barnes wouldn't have had that progress.

If I had to guess our FO works like this: see where we are to start the season, give the guys a chance and if we need to tank to 5th worst that’s doable (and isn’t that much different than tanking out of the gate and finishing 3rd worst). I think they think they can get near the bottom if they need to (as seen this year and in the Tampa season). Off-season moves might tip the FO’s hand to their belief in this team. I also think there could be a “no tank” mandate from MLSE, which is something we can’t really know. They are a soulless piece of sh*t company so it’s easy to see them not wanting to hurt the bottom line for an entire season.

I don't buy the "no tank" mandate from MLSE.
1. One of the keys of Masai's last extension was his autonomy.
2. If "no tank" mandate existed, why did Masai call out "play-in for what" after Tampa? He would have kept his mouth shut after conducting the Tampa tank, instead of publicly declaring his disdain for a "no tank" mandate.
3. Masai said himself, he wanted to give his guys (FVV+PS+OG) a chance, and that's what delayed this semi-teardown and cost us a lot of value.

I think the "no tank to start the season" is Masai's own preference. I think he doesn't plan a multi-year tank like Presti and he makes plan only 1 season ahead - always try to compete, and then incrementally add to it (which doesn't work if you don't already have a true #1 option).

Maybe some of Barnes progress comes from not having FVV but that doesn’t explain his complete lack of shooting improvement or the fact that he was flat out bad defensively last year. At some point it’s on Barnes. Like how many good players do we have to get off this team for Barnes to play better?

And Masai always wants to compete and won’t tank to start the season but also believes “play-in for what?”. How can both of those things be true? If he always wants to compete that means he won’t tank to start the season.

As you can see, Masai said "play-in for what" to mean we should be aiming for championship, and not just play-in. This is not consistent with his approach of planning to compete each season with a core barely making the play-in (last 2 years) and not taking rebuilding & losing seasons to accumulate top lottery talent.

[DelAbbot]

I don't buy the "no tank" mandate from MLSE.
1. One of the keys of Masai's last extension was his autonomy.
2. If "no tank" mandate existed, why did Masai call out "play-in for what" after Tampa? He would have kept his mouth shut after conducting the Tampa tank, instead of publicly declaring his disdain for a "no tank" mandate.
3. Masai said himself, he wanted to give his guys (FVV+PS+OG) a chance, and that's what delayed this semi-teardown and cost us a lot of value.

We only know what we're told. Based on what guys like Lowe and Bontemps have said in various pods, our ownership group is one of those that doesn't like prolonged tank jobs. Lowe said that Tampa gave us the perfect "one time" opportunity to tank because the team wasn't at home and there were no seats to fill.

The most notorious anti-tank owner is apparently the owner of the Pacers. Even he allowed a one-year tank for the Pacers, but Bontemps said that the mandate was this is 1 and done and the team will build to win after that. It was during this conversation that he called out our ownership as one similarly not aligned to tanking as a strategy to team building.

I deduced from Masai's press conf that he has a lot of the final say, and not bounded by a "no multi-season losing" ownership mandate.

All Masai needed to do was hold out Siakam (shoulder surgery) for a few more months in 2021/2022 and then let FVV sit out after All-star game (hip), sit out OG more often, and try Achiuwa at PG like Spurs did Sochan and we would have had a top pick in 2022 draft - get a Chet / Murray / Mathurin / Sharpe and pair with Barnes. That would have been a good season to lose again because it was still impacted by Covid and we lost a lot of talent (Gasol, Lowry, Norm etc) from the championship team - brand it as rebuilding a new generation of Raptors. No way ownership shoots that plan down, even though we lost money in Tampa.

If the ownership aim is more $$$, Masai could have stayed under the cap to save on spending in salary, by trading away Siakam after 2021/2022 All-NBA appearance for future assets (and $$ savings) in summer 2022.

I believe Masai really made his bed over these years, not because of ownership mandate, but because he only trusted and was attached to Siakam, FVV and OG, and was desperate to make them the post-Kawhi / new generation core.

[Tor_Raps]

So looks like the poll has yielded a C result. Its a fair grade given hes given us a 48 wins or whatever that fluke year in 2022 was.

Seems like the complaining about Masai comes from people expecting A's from him, which is reasonable given his track record and what hes being paid.

Massive offseason for him but losing our pick was a big setback to being able to add young impactful talent this offseason. Let's see how the draft, free agency and the trade route go.

[Scase]

Idk about that one....I also lost faith in FO but its not logical for Masai to trade another pick ....He traded a pick in a draft that is considered the weakest in a long time....Ik thats no excuse and costed us bad this year but i feel since the deadline trading Siakam/OG for young/draft picks i think he finally made his choice in the direction hes going....I think this is the year he goes for a top pick instead of trying to compete....Lets be real even if we try to compete we still a bottom 5 teams in the league....Only way we screw outselves from getting a top pick is like you said Masai trades the pick...But at this point that would be a fireable offense.

I would have agreed 5 or so years ago. But this aint the same FO. Masai has never tanked hard his entire career, he aint starting now. This is a retool through and through.

I think with the most recent (and current iteration) of this team you can see why they wouldn’t outright tank. I base a lot of this on the projections most would have made for Barnes.

2023: FVV/OG/Siakam core + 2nd year Barnes (ROY), didn’t really make sense to tank from the get go. Probably didn’t expect Barnes to regress (or stagnate at best).

2024: Barnes/OG/Siakam/Poeltl. Again, didn’t really make sense to tear that team down given the expectations for Barnes.

It could be as simple as miscalculating the rate of Barnes progress. Had 2nd year Barnes played like 3rd year Barnes things are probably different. Barnes stagnating in year 2 changed the trajectory of the team. Still a miscalculation by the FO but if they expected Barnes to progress faster than he did then keeping the team together made some sense.

There is also the newest iteration of the lotto odds which had made outright tanking not as effective as it used to be. The FO will tank if the season is going bad. The 5th worst team has a 41% chance to move into the top 4. The 3rd worst team is only 50%. Not a huge difference. Is that 9% increase in lotto odds worth not giving your team any chance to start the season? If you have these young guys who might be ready to make a leap are you going to kill their season for a 9% better chance to get a top 4 pick?

If I had to guess our FO works like this: see where we are to start the season, give the guys a chance and if we need to tank to 5th worst that’s doable (and isn’t that much different than tanking out of the gate and finishing 3rd worst). I think they think they can get near the bottom if they need to (as seen this year and in the Tampa season). Off-season moves might tip the FO’s hand to their belief in this team. I also think there could be a “no tank” mandate from MLSE, which is something we can’t really know. They are a soulless piece of sh*t company so it’s easy to see them not wanting to hurt the bottom line for an entire season.

Even if you were right, it's still a horribly stupid decision. We've had damn near a decade of seeing the FVV/Siakam core, it has never ever worked as the starting players/1+2 options. Even if 2nd year Scottie had 3rd year production, you still have a massively flawed team. Same with the Jak acquisition.

[binjumper]

Those things were all going to happen. SA had out pick, we sucked. It's called defending your pick.

We saw him break his hand on tv lol. They didn't fake it.

Yea, sure. I also saw him dancing on the sideline. They pulled the plug to keep 6th.

He broke his hand not his foot. Dude is a positive high energy guy. Good for him for being happy all the time.

[Chandan]

I don't buy the "no tank" mandate from MLSE.
1. One of the keys of Masai's last extension was his autonomy.
2. If "no tank" mandate existed, why did Masai call out "play-in for what" after Tampa? He would have kept his mouth shut after conducting the Tampa tank, instead of publicly declaring his disdain for a "no tank" mandate.
3. Masai said himself, he wanted to give his guys (FVV+PS+OG) a chance, and that's what delayed this semi-teardown and cost us a lot of value.

I think the "no tank to start the season" is Masai's own preference. I think he doesn't plan a multi-year tank like Presti and he makes plan only 1 season ahead - always try to compete, and then incrementally add to it (which doesn't work if you don't already have a true #1 option).

When in doubt:

1 blame Ed Rogers
2 blame Bobby
3 blame Canada
4 look at detroit
5 you are not even a GM

[CazOnReal]

I would have agreed 5 or so years ago. But this aint the same FO. Masai has never tanked hard his entire career, he aint starting now. This is a retool through and through.

This is simply not true; the Raptors traded Rudy Gay with the explicit goal of tanking for Andrew Wiggins before they managed to turn that season around.

Likewise, the Tampa season was rather explicitly a tank job; Masai himself even referred to it as the "Tampa tank".

Read on Twitter

You don't call a given season a tank job (and avoid getting fined somehow) without some level of autonomy or taste for tanking. Masai has a propensity for making trades designed to speed up a rebuild a la the Melo trade or the O.G. trade (Both involving New York, ironically) but he's not anti-tanking when it suits the team or it becomes clear more talent is needed.

I don't think the Raptors will go in to the season attempting to tank for Bailey/Flagg but if injuries start to occur, I can see them waiving the flag early and trading Poeltl, Brown, etc. to get picks, prospects or otherwise pivot to a full-on youth movement.

[raptoradical]

A for me. Show me a GM that can retool a team as quick as he did, and in mid season. Nobody can’t say they weren’t the least a bit surprised, unheard of imo. In comparison everything else is basically up hill now.

[ConSarnit]

I would have agreed 5 or so years ago. But this aint the same FO. Masai has never tanked hard his entire career, he aint starting now. This is a retool through and through.

I think with the most recent (and current iteration) of this team you can see why they wouldn’t outright tank. I base a lot of this on the projections most would have made for Barnes.

2023: FVV/OG/Siakam core + 2nd year Barnes (ROY), didn’t really make sense to tank from the get go. Probably didn’t expect Barnes to regress (or stagnate at best).

2024: Barnes/OG/Siakam/Poeltl. Again, didn’t really make sense to tear that team down given the expectations for Barnes.

It could be as simple as miscalculating the rate of Barnes progress. Had 2nd year Barnes played like 3rd year Barnes things are probably different. Barnes stagnating in year 2 changed the trajectory of the team. Still a miscalculation by the FO but if they expected Barnes to progress faster than he did then keeping the team together made some sense.

There is also the newest iteration of the lotto odds which had made outright tanking not as effective as it used to be. The FO will tank if the season is going bad. The 5th worst team has a 41% chance to move into the top 4. The 3rd worst team is only 50%. Not a huge difference. Is that 9% increase in lotto odds worth not giving your team any chance to start the season? If you have these young guys who might be ready to make a leap are you going to kill their season for a 9% better chance to get a top 4 pick?

If I had to guess our FO works like this: see where we are to start the season, give the guys a chance and if we need to tank to 5th worst that’s doable (and isn’t that much different than tanking out of the gate and finishing 3rd worst). I think they think they can get near the bottom if they need to (as seen this year and in the Tampa season). Off-season moves might tip the FO’s hand to their belief in this team. I also think there could be a “no tank” mandate from MLSE, which is something we can’t really know. They are a soulless piece of sh*t company so it’s easy to see them not wanting to hurt the bottom line for an entire season.

Even if you were right, it's still a horribly stupid decision. We've had damn near a decade of seeing the FVV/Siakam core, it has never ever worked as the starting players/1+2 options. Even if 2nd year Scottie had 3rd year production, you still have a massively flawed team. Same with the Jak acquisition.

As I said, it depends on what you think of Barnes and his ceiling. If you think Barnes has #1 upside then the core of the team fits decently around him. They aren’t trying to build a team with Siakam and FVV as 1/2, they are building a team where Barnes supplants them and moves them into their more natural roles of a 2/3. Masai also seemingly operates under the idea that everyone is tradable. Aside from Carroll we have not given out a bigger contract that has proven to be unreadable. So you try to lock in everyone on moveable deals, have a team that might hover around 50 wins and then go from there (similar to the Lowry/DD teams).

A FVV/OG/Barnes/Siakam/Poeltl team probably performs much better if Barnes can actually shoot (teams literally didn’t guard him in year 2). It’s not some horrible thought process like you’re suggesting, and I’m saying this as someone who wasn’t a fan of keeping the core together. If the front office thought Barnes was going to be a star then keeping the supporting cast makes some sense. It’s not all predicated on “this is who we’re rolling with the next 4 years” but “the core of this team can be good and if we need to tweak it we can move someone because they’re all on reasonable deals”. The Houston offer killed the “reasonable deals” part.

[Scase]

I would have agreed 5 or so years ago. But this aint the same FO. Masai has never tanked hard his entire career, he aint starting now. This is a retool through and through.

This is simply not true; the Raptors traded Rudy Gay with the explicit goal of tanking for Andrew Wiggins before they managed to turn that season around.

Likewise, the Tampa season was rather explicitly a tank job; Masai himself even referred to it as the "Tampa tank".

Read on Twitter

You don't call a given season a tank job (and avoid getting fined somehow) without some level of autonomy or taste for tanking. Masai has a propensity for making trades designed to speed up a rebuild a la the Melo trade or the O.G. trade (Both involving New York, ironically) but he's not anti-tanking when it suits the team or it becomes clear more talent is needed.

I don't think the Raptors will go in to the season attempting to tank for Bailey/Flagg but if injuries start to occur, I can see them waiving the flag early and trading Poeltl, Brown, etc. to get picks, prospects or otherwise pivot to a full-on youth movement.

In Tampa we were playing 3-4 starters, 30+mpg up until like the 63rd game in a season with 72 games, that's not tanking. And the Rudy Gay trade being explicit tanking is absolutely revisionist history. Trading one player is not a tank job, maybe it was the beginning of one, but it ended up being a re-tool.

This season was the closest thing to tanking he has ever come to in his entire career, and even that was half assed.

[YogurtProducer]

So now Tampa was not a tank and trading Rudy Gay (and attempting to trade Lowry) was not an attempt?

I am waiting for Scase to tell me the grass is orange and the sky is purple. I bet he could convince himself of it to.

[Los_29]

I would have agreed 5 or so years ago. But this aint the same FO. Masai has never tanked hard his entire career, he aint starting now. This is a retool through and through.

This is simply not true; the Raptors traded Rudy Gay with the explicit goal of tanking for Andrew Wiggins before they managed to turn that season around.

Likewise, the Tampa season was rather explicitly a tank job; Masai himself even referred to it as the "Tampa tank".

Read on Twitter

You don't call a given season a tank job (and avoid getting fined somehow) without some level of autonomy or taste for tanking. Masai has a propensity for making trades designed to speed up a rebuild a la the Melo trade or the O.G. trade (Both involving New York, ironically) but he's not anti-tanking when it suits the team or it becomes clear more talent is needed.

I don't think the Raptors will go in to the season attempting to tank for Bailey/Flagg but if injuries start to occur, I can see them waiving the flag early and trading Poeltl, Brown, etc. to get picks, prospects or otherwise pivot to a full-on youth movement.

In Tampa we were playing 3-4 starters, 30+mpg up until like the 63rd game in a season with 72 games, that's not tanking. And the Rudy Gay trade being explicit tanking is absolutely revisionist history. Trading one player is not a tank job, maybe it was the beginning of one, but it ended up being a re-tool.

This season was the closest thing to tanking he has ever come to in his entire career, and even that was half assed.

Tampa was definitely a tank year. I’m genuinely surprised to see that some people on here believe they didn’t try to tank. I thought it was common knowledge at this point. We were one of the first teams that year to start sitting our players. I remember that some people on here actually thought that picking up Khem Birch was a sign that we were going for the playoffs.

[Scase]

This is simply not true; the Raptors traded Rudy Gay with the explicit goal of tanking for Andrew Wiggins before they managed to turn that season around.

Likewise, the Tampa season was rather explicitly a tank job; Masai himself even referred to it as the "Tampa tank".

Read on Twitter

You don't call a given season a tank job (and avoid getting fined somehow) without some level of autonomy or taste for tanking. Masai has a propensity for making trades designed to speed up a rebuild a la the Melo trade or the O.G. trade (Both involving New York, ironically) but he's not anti-tanking when it suits the team or it becomes clear more talent is needed.

I don't think the Raptors will go in to the season attempting to tank for Bailey/Flagg but if injuries start to occur, I can see them waiving the flag early and trading Poeltl, Brown, etc. to get picks, prospects or otherwise pivot to a full-on youth movement.

In Tampa we were playing 3-4 starters, 30+mpg up until like the 63rd game in a season with 72 games, that's not tanking. And the Rudy Gay trade being explicit tanking is absolutely revisionist history. Trading one player is not a tank job, maybe it was the beginning of one, but it ended up being a re-tool.

This season was the closest thing to tanking he has ever come to in his entire career, and even that was half assed.

Tampa was definitely a tank year. I’m genuinely surprised to see that some people on here believe they didn’t try to tank. I thought it was common knowledge at this point. We were one of the first teams that year to start sitting our players. I remember that some people on here actually thought that picking up Khem Birch was a sign that we were going for the playoffs.

If you want to think that 4 starters playing 35mpg is tanking with 10 games left in the season, then be my guest.

[MiamiSPX]

Tampa was most definitely a tank. Lowry basically admitted that he wasn't sitting out due to injury and laughed about it.