Quote:
Originally Posted by howard_the_duck
Which is the frustrating part.
How do you become a contender without a ready-to-contend core? You might as well fast forward 2.5 years to the inevitable rebuild.
It shouldn't take this long to decide whether or not to rebuild.
I look at the Raptors as an interesting comp. As a fringe playoff team that's battle tested, they could trade picks/prospects to add to the core and take another run at it. Instead, they appear to have acknowledged where they're at, will sell on some tradeable assets, and bottom out to build through the draft and their young talent. In the span of 2.5 years they'll have won it all, rebuilt, and very well have a ready-to-contend playoff team if they play their cards right.
Unlike the Raptors, the Flames are living in the 'one last run' approach through two roster cycles and it's incredibly painful to watch again.
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Funny that you bring the Raptors up. In 2013 they looked to be ready to tear the team down. They sent Rudy Gay to Sacramento and came extremely close to trading Lowry to the Knicks. The team took off after their deal with the Kings and it sparked the best run in franchise history. Had the Knicks not pulled out of the Lowry deal the Raptors don’t win a championship in 2019.
This current Raptors team is looking at moving potential UFA players and doing nothing different than the Flames would do if they completely fall out of the race and sell of their pending free agents as rentals. The Raptors are also on a 9 game slide and not a fringe playoff team anymore. Just a bad comparison in my opinion.
I think there is a large chunk of this team that needs to be turned over. I don’t think there is a hope that the Flames do anything other than try and win as long as they employ Sutter as coach. There is no rebuild coming this summer but I think we see massive changes. I am prepared to be extremely underwhelmed by the returns our former core players get in trades.