Toronto

[Appostis]

lol. The Nick Nurse disciples are grasping at complete rubbish now that their messiah has been exposed as a fraud.

How does it feel to be the dumbest guy in the room?

Seeing as we are posting in an online internet forum, and not a conversing together in room, we can conclude that there’s at least one poster called Apostis who is dumber than all of us.

You tried.

Better luck next time at displaying some wit.

[Quattro]

I feel like Raps vibe has been absolutely awful ever since their prophet Kawhi forsake them.

Nah. They won 50+ games the year after. More like after Lowry left and they lost the leader of the team, then their bench turned into hot garbage, nobody could shoot, and the rest is history.

[TravisScott55]

Pascal, OG and Barnes all play the same position, it was a horrible fit.

[cgf]

Too much overlap between the 3, not enough creation from the backcourt since moving Lowry, a crap bench that forced Nurse to overplay them, and the vibes didn't seem great.

[swyftdahoe]

No pg (fvv is really more of a combo guard), not enough shooting

[tsherkin]

How did Toronto w/Siakam, OG &Barnes leading the way not do better in the playoffs the Last few seasons ? Had Trent Jr to shoot & a decent pt guard too + Nic Nurse is a damn good coach, smh

Well... they won a title in 2019. They took Boston to 7 in the Conference Semis in 2020, and they were 4th in both O and D that year. They were riddled with injuries in 2021 and missed the playoffs as a result.

Embiid and Maxey ripped us apart in 2022 as we gave up like a 121 ORTG to Philly in that series, and we weren't good on O with our wide variety of inefficient scorers. We were post-Lowry and a .500 team which missed the playoffs last year. Kind of bleh team, very bad at making shots (28th in both 3P% and 2P%), low volume from 3, weak draw rate... we were only 11th on O because we didn't cough up the ball and were quite good on the offensive glass. But we sucked major ass at making shots, and there was nothing Nurse could do about that with Masai's rosters of tall, lanky dudes with no shot-making.

And then we were a 25-win team this year with the trades and stuff, post-Nurse.

It's pretty clear. VanVleet wasn't the guy to choose, but we did. Siakam wasn't the guy to choose, but we did. Barnes is young and not there yet, though showing signs of improvement. Anunoby had health issues and a cap to his offensive contributions.

A better wonder would be "why is this a question?" Coaching isn't magic, man; there's only so much the best coaches in league history can do with some rosters, and some rosters are built better for regular season mediocrity than postseason success.

[___Rand___]

How did Toronto w/Siakam, OG &Barnes leading the way not do better in the playoffs the Last few seasons ? Had Trent Jr to shoot & a decent pt guard too + Nic Nurse is a damn good coach, smh

Not enough guard play. When you're starting Poeltl Siakam Barnes and OG along with a PG, you basically have 4 front court players starting and that just doesn't work. Gary Trent Jr entirely too inconsistent. Point guard not enough. Pascal and Barnes are ill fitting on the floor at the same time.

I thought it would've worked better once we traded OG and got RJ and Quickley. RJ Quickley, Barnes Pascal and Poeltl as a unit should have worked. Didn't have time to jell before Pascal was traded. Darko isn't very good at implementing his schemes on a team. It takes entirely too long before you can see stuff working.

[Jadoogar]

How did Toronto w/Siakam, OG &Barnes leading the way not do better in the playoffs the Last few seasons ? Had Trent Jr to shoot & a decent pt guard too + Nic Nurse is a damn good coach, smh

bad fits. Siakam, OG and Scottie all like to operate from teh same areas of the floor (siakam and Barnes in particular). Too much overlap in strengths and not enough variety to offset weaknesses.

[ItsDanger]

Players were more interested in their own individual aspirations, not team goals. This isn't uncommon in many workplaces.

[Statlanta]

I actually don't blame Nurse though I think he's overrated. It was the players who regressed under Ujiris watch. The East also got massively better since the Toronto championship

[oldncreaky]

How did Toronto w/Siakam, OG &Barnes leading the way not do better in the playoffs the Last few seasons ? Had Trent Jr to shoot & a decent pt guard too + Nic Nurse is a damn good coach, smh

Not enough guard play. When you're starting Poeltl Siakam Barnes and OG along with a PG, you basically have 4 front court players starting and that just doesn't work. Gary Trent Jr entirely too inconsistent. Point guard not enough. Pascal and Barnes are ill fitting on the floor at the same time.

I thought it would've worked better once we traded OG and got RJ and Quickley. RJ Quickley, Barnes Pascal and Poeltl as a unit should have worked. Didn't have time to jell before Pascal was traded. Darko isn't very good at implementing his schemes on a team. It takes entirely too long before you can see stuff working.

Agree, especially with the bolded.

You can get away with only having journeyman centers, but you can't get away with only having one playable guard. FVV is fine, but he can't be the only guard capable of handling the ball and initiating. During the 2 year run with Siakam-OG-Barnes-FVV:
- the team was 89-74 in the RS (good, but not great) and 2-4 in the PS
- the best backup PG, the only backup PG with positive VORP, was . . . 2-way player Jeff Dowtin, who played in a total of 25 games

[Johnny Bball]

How did Toronto w/Siakam, OG &Barnes leading the way not do better in the playoffs the Last few seasons ? Had Trent Jr to shoot & a decent pt guard too + Nic Nurse is a damn good coach, smh

Players continually hurt because Nurse wouldn't develop a bench or youth. So no bench at all, no depth for injuries and not one viable player emerged. FO wasn't helping with better choices either, but they weren't flush with talented youth at the end of their winning cycle.

Vs the sixers two years back, nobody to play C vs Embiid. Playing small is great, but not 48 minutes of it when you are already hurting.

I disagree that Nurse was a damn good coach there the last 2 years.

[Johnny Bball]

Why not sign Siakam, & OG, trade,Fred,& Poetel, smh

OG was always leaving for NY. That became apparent through his actions. Most loved player by fans though.

[Jabroni Lames]

I actually don't blame Nurse though I think he's overrated. It was the players who regressed under Ujiris watch. The East also got massively better since the Toronto championship

FVV, Siakam, OG, Barnes, Poeltl, Trent, Precious, Boucher all regressed? To the point of not even making the playoffs? Nurse clearly underperformed the talent of that roster.

FVV, Siakam, OG and Precious are all doing great in their new situations. And Barnes massively improved to all-star level, after stagnating and getting his reputation slandered under Nurse.

[Wargreymon]

Sometimes the parts just don’t fit well.

You win the thread

[ConSarnit]

32
28
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Those were the 3pt shooting % of Siakam, Barnes and Poeltl. Which recent team has had success while having their entire front court be that inept at shooting?

The entire reason the Raptors had any success is because Nurse “janked” up the offense. We were only able hold up offensively because we forced turnovers and offensive rebounded which let us win the possession battle by 7-8 fga per game. Our half court offense was horrible because we had no shooting and no high end offensive creator. If we didn’t have Nurse we would have been even worse over that period because the pieces were so ill-fitting.

Nurse was not a good development coach but the scheme he put in place was the only reason the Raptors had any success post-Kawhi.

[ATLTimekeeper]

Nurse didn't know that covid impacted stamina and got mad that OG and Siakam couldn't play at top form for 39 minutes a night right after coming back from their first bout.

Overall I think it's a situation where a lot of people took individual credit for their part in the success of the team and didn't check their system for bugs, and hubris hit them all big time. Chemistry has been in the toilet for years, when they thrived off sterling vibes for so long.

[jbk1234]

I'd argue that it was more than just the shooting/spacing issues. FVV is okay, not great, at taking his guy off the dribble (and then runs into issues finishing due to his size). Presently, Barnes is okay, not great, at taking his man off the dribble. O.G. is bad at taking his man off the dribble. Siakam prefers to play closer to the basket and is a meh 3 point shooter. In sum, the Raptors struggled to force the first defensive rotation and almost never forced the second rotation. As a result, the Raptors played as though executing a half-court offense was a heavy lift and it often was.

[Jcity08]

Our Bench has been depeleted of talent, too much overlap between Siakam, OG and Barnes, we never really had a true PG (FVV is an undersized combo guard), our Center depth sucks and the one we got isn't ideal since he cant shoot but a mm away from the basket and is better as a backup C rather than as a starting C. Injuries havent help either.

Roster construction is just as important as talent. Our roster construction really suck(s)ed.

I would have rather kept OG but the FO at least saw the writing on the wall, that he was going to walk in FA and found a way to get some value back and avoid a Vanvleet situation.

[hugepatsfan]

As others have said, the pieces just didn't fit. The players they had took away from their teammates in a lot of cases rather than complimenting them. The fit of the team was clunky and duplicative in different ways. They were doubled and tripled up in some skill sets while totally lacking in others.