r/torontoraptors

People are saying we're a top 4 team in the East with Kawhi joining. On paper sure, but what should be our conservative expectation?

Here are some assumptions:

- It will take a quarter of the season for the team to build decent chemistry with Kawhi.

- Kawhi will be having some form of load management. Conservatively, he would play 50 games. Let's say we win 80% of the time he is playing, how do we fare as a team if he's not?

- IQ, RJ, Poeltl will miss some games as well (50 combined?)

- We won't be adding anybody significant anymore

Given those assumptions, are we guaranteed a playoff spot still? Or we fall in the play-in territory?

The Blazers is a team full of PG's and SG's and I figured that they might trade a few of them.

personally, I think we should trade for Krejci (3pt shooting) or Thybulle (extra stapling defense) as they can probably be sold for cheap, but what do you guys think?

…ends with a call with Deebo! My heart can’t 😭

World cup has me hype but I'm an American who has never watched soccer in any regularity, who do y'all think is the equivalent team (vibes based) in the EPL

ChatGPT claims Aston villa

WE ARE SOOOOOOOOOOOO BACK

pls excuse my French

Any cap experts here I'm wondering if the Raptors have any options to stay under the apron to improve the roster

The defence is about to be suffocating holyyy

I’m ngl I’m sorry if I’m coming off negative but I’m a bit pessimistic about his ability to endure a season + long playoff run. Can anyone give me reasons for optimism?

This seems to have been glossed over but note that the Grange report (https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/kyle-lowry-to-retire-with-toronto-raptors/) suggested that the Raptors were calling the press conference a "monumental moment" with Grange using the quotation marks as a direct quote from his Raptors source. Why use the word "monumental" to describe a press conference or an announcement of a jersey retirement?

This means they will use that 14th spot on a FA.

The minutes-per-game in the image were pulled from basketball reference.

By position most played, I'd expect something this coming season along the lines of:

C:
Poeltl 20
CMB 30 (of which half C, half PF)
No one else majority minutes at C

PF:
Scottie 33 (of which 5-8 at C)

SF:
Kawhi 28
Jamison 20
Kyle Anderson 8

SG:
RJ 33
Ja'kobe 25

PG:
Quick 30 (of which some at SG)
Shead 25+

First: numbers don't total 48 per position. Minutes are averaged only for games players play in, so totals would end up higher anyway.

Just looking at numbers:

• Kawhi's 28 is probably too much load management, but I couldn't bring myself to put him higher in the regular season.
• Jakob's 20 is only 5 minutes per game down from last season.
• A lot of minutes that were spread among our bench boys move to the survivors of our youth movement. Gradey, Ochai, Mogbo and Sandro minutes head mostly to CMB, Jamison, Ja'kobe and Shead.

If this minutes breakdown ends up anything near reality, I see slightly better 3-point shooters popping up in more minutes next season across the board.
I'm particularly interested in the effects of Kawhi's gravity on offence - does Scottie get more space and maybe an extra tenth of a second to execute his decisions with the ball in his hands? Do 3-point shooters get incrementally better?

On defence, having a true C on court less than half the time means defence by swarm. A C feels less important in minutes where Kawhi/Scottie/CMB perform the dance of aggressive windmills. I look forward to seeing plays where our defence frustrates opponents and then rubs salt in the wounds in transition offence after. Opposing timeouts after such exchanges will taste like victory.

Am I giving too few minutes to anyone? Too many to anyone? Shead's minutes might deserve to grow more based on last season, but with what our defence will bring, I picture reliable offence driving more growth in minutes. What do you see?