2024-2025 NBA/Toronto Raptors thread

[Karl]

Raps steadied their ship just in time. Quick with 40 points.

[HitterD]

Is this Raptors team for real?

[The Big Chill]

They’re pretty good when healthy, but really undersized without Poeltl. If Poeltl could get healthy and one of Dick or Walter could score consistently off the bench then they could be a threat in the East with how weak it is this year. It’s not really looking promising for Poeltl though.

[devo22]

can't wait to see the complete Doncic/Davis trade tree in a few years.

https://twitter.com/user/status/2019119800098963674

[mile]

https://twitter.com/user/status/2019149993949688101

https://twitter.com/user/status/2019150626886734089

[aaronck]

Originally Posted by mile

https://twitter.com/user/status/2019149993949688101

https://twitter.com/user/status/2019150626886734089

I thought Ochai was a good player- why salary dump him I wonder? They actually gave up a second to get rid of him, and get Paul who isn't expected to even report. The NBA transactions sometimes confuse me

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by aaronck

I thought Ochai was a good player- why salary dump him I wonder? They actually gave up a second to get rid of him, and get Paul who isn't expected to even report. The NBA transactions sometimes confuse me

Get under luxury tax threshold , which when you get under resets vs escalating

[Karl]

Horrible collapse by the Raps against the T-Wolves.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Honestly, this would probably do huge numbers. Have a Chappelle's Show style draft for the mixed players, and this might outrate the NBA Finals.

https://twitter.com/user/status/2021616305325875704

[bluejays]

Basketball is pretty much dead to me these days, but fairly surprising a team couldn't fit Chris Paul heading into the playoffs, and he retires. Great player in his prime.

[powderjunkie]

I'm all-in on Olympics so I had no idea it was ASG today. But it came across my feed that Silver mused about abolishing the draft and making rookies free agents. I actually think this would fix a whole bunch of problems around tanking and silly trades.

The key would be to give bad teams the ability to offer bigger contracts, so rookies will seek immediate money and the best opportunities for playing time. The downside would be that generational talent would probably prioritize market over immediate money if sponsors make up the difference in money. But that's not really a bad thing for the league overall, and it has barely worked out for any small market teams anyways:

ORL - Shaq and Dwight got them a few years of relevance and a finals appearance. Paolo TBD.

SAS - Duncan was a bit of a fluke; maybe they still land him in this system. Wemby is less likely as he'd probably stay east - could see him strongly consider Toronto

NOP - failed to do anything with AD or Zion

HOU - probably loses Yao to the west coast but it's not like they're a small market

PHI - not a small market and the process never fully delivered

ATL/DAL/PHO/WAS/LAC/CHI are not particularly small markets and have a fair number of 1 OAs over the years, and still generally achieved little

TOR and MIL achieved nothing with their 1OAs and have since won titles built around less prominent prospects

UTAH/CHA/MEM/SAC/POR/IND are less desirable markets and haven't had great luck in the lottery and generally failed to capitalize on whatever luck they have had.

Success cases:

SEA/OKC - decent success with their original high picks, but they got over the top built differently.

MIN/DET - less desirable but fair size markets are doing well based around Ant and Cade

CLE - the most generational situation that probably wouldn't have been replicated, but who knows, maybe he would have stayed at home? MIA, CHI, LAC, and TOR were the big market bottom feeders that could have made a strong pitch in 2003. NYK/GSW had 37/38 wins and would have been around then play-in - Knicks had a fairly old roster, Warriors had been an irrelevant franchise for years. Hard to say what a UFA Lebron would have done...I think there's actually a decent chance he would have chosen Cleveland

[bluejays]

The NBA is lacking in pretty much everything these days, so Silver is right in looking at the competitive balance and shaking things up. But it seems that nothing is going right. I didn't watch the ASG, because frankly they suck for all sports, but yesterdays dunk contest was the worst I think we've ever seen. The competitors were pretty much no names, and the dunks stank. It's such a poor product. The dunks that are possible have all been done. Props are a gimmick. Time to abolish it. No stars competing just makes it worse. Last nights highlights were shameful.

[trackercowe]

100% in agreement. I saw everyone taking shots at the dunk contest, and like you mentioned for good reason. It was an absolute joke, I assumed the competitors were all in the G-League, yet they're all in the NBA as bench warmers. Not a recognizable name in the bunch... even the G-League who won the last two didn't bother, and the contest was unwatchable. Then you had Lillard winning the three point contest when hasn't played a single game this year.

The quality of the product as a whole is just gone. There's no point in watching let alone attending a game. I couldn't imagine shelling out a grand to see Lakers/Warriors with most of the stars missing. Teams are tanking, players are resting, and there are still tons on injuries. The league has fallen hard and I don't see how it'll regain form. Lebron and Curry are almost gone, and there really aren't many young stars. Wemby is injury prone, and no matter how much the league wants it he's not a generational talent yet. They're pulling at straws to make the league entertaining.

I actually think Silver is a good commissioner. He is well aware of the state of the league and is looking for ways of saving his failing league. He's thinking outside the box in finding ways of mitigating the numerous problems league wide. Yet the only way to do that is to change the mentality of the players, management, and ownership. There's only so much the commish can do here. The first step might be abolishing the all-star game for a few years, or do the Dave Chappelle Draft like SCD mentioned. I wound watch that!

[Senator Clay Davis]

The best solution to fixing tanking, IMO, is the one that has a 0% chance of happening: Splitting the league into two leagues and having a relegation/promotion model. Right now, even in a lottery system, the only risk in tanking is you don't get the #1 pick. And even if you don't you can always just tank again next season. But if trying to get the #1 pick also came with getting relegated, and the financial losses that would come with that, players wanting out etc...then teams would have motivation to avoid tanking. But it'll never happen of course. No way you'll get enough owners on board with that.

Eliminating the draft is by far the worst idea, contraction of probably 10-12 teams would be a given within 10 years as all the best players go to the major markets. Lesser markets would struggle to get 5,000 fans a night. The realistic solution is just accept this for what it is and eliminate the lottery. But, go with an Oilers rule or something where if you end up in the bottom five two years in a row you forfeit your slot and get kicked to the end of the first round.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Eliminating the draft is by far the worst idea, contraction of probably 10-12 teams would be a given within 10 years as all the best players go to the major markets. Lesser markets would struggle to get 5,000 fans a night. The realistic solution is just accept this for what it is and eliminate the lottery. But, go with an Oilers rule or something where if you end up in the bottom five two years in a row you forfeit your slot and get kicked to the end of the first round.

Where the current All NBA 1st team were drafted:

11
15
taco bell
3
13

I think it would sort itself out just fine.


For arguments sake, let's stick with the current rookie scale applied to current standings . If you're the top prospect, would you rather:

Sacramento for $14M per year
Washington for $12.5M
Indiana for $10.25M
Brooklyn for $9.25M
Dallas for $7.5M
Chicago for $6.1M
GSW or LAC or MIA for about $5M per year
LAL for $4M
NYK or BOS for about $3M

The near-term money is important, but what you really want to do is set yourself up for a Max ASAP. Being the 7th most important Knick for the next two years ain't making that happen.

It's also less likely to happen if you're not the most indispensable guy on a roster because Haliburton or Flagg are.

Is Chicago going to be competitive much sooner than Sacramento? Washington is a joke of a franchise but it's still a decent size market so I'd go there if I wanted to be in the east, but the guaranteed money and being the franchise cornerstone in Sacramento starts to look pretty appealing.

Now if I'm Lebron level of prospect then maybe Brooklyn or Dallas or Chicago are more of a consideration, but the ownership for the latter two is a joke and the Nets are still way down the NYC sporting pecking order. Will Nike really cover an extra $10M per year to get me to GSW knowing that I might turn out to be just AD or Zion and not Lebron? Maybe the Inspiring Clippers would find a way to make up that money...

[Senator Clay Davis]

But if the worse you do means the more you can offer a potential new NBA player that does nothing whatsoever to stop tanking. It's basically the same system as now where the worse you do offers you an advantage, but instead of offering a virtual guarantee of a top player in the draft to a tanking team you've now introduced the backdoor of that player going to the best team in the league instead.

And yeah big markets will have mechanisms to close the gap in terms of total compensation that small markets can't offer. The only reason the Kawhi thing went sideways was it was an actual no-show job. Better to have it be a no-work job where they show up and do nothing and get paid. And good luck stopping that. Can't ban players from earning off-court money.

And, of course, eliminating the draft would severely curtail trades and since no other league thrives off constant player movement more than the NBA, it would probably end up being a net negative for the league. I think this approach would have a small chance to improve the tanking issue, while offering a lot of risk it ends up only helping the big franchises.

[The Big Chill]

Is tanking really the issue? Seems to me like the real issue is too many meaningless regular season games. Unless a team is on the playoff bubble then there is load management going on.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Well tanking is the topic du jour because of how comically blatant it's been with some teams this year. But, yes, the far bigger issue is the quality of basketball in the regular season bordering on unwatchable most of the time. But I really don't see a path out of that that doesn't involve shortening the regular season, and we know that's probably a non-starter.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

But if the worse you do means the more you can offer a potential new NBA player that does nothing whatsoever to stop tanking. It's basically the same system as now where the worse you do offers you an advantage, but instead of offering a virtual guarantee of a top player in the draft to a tanking team you've now introduced the backdoor of that player going to the best team in the league instead.

And yeah big markets will have mechanisms to close the gap in terms of total compensation that small markets can't offer. The only reason the Kawhi thing went sideways was it was an actual no-show job. Better to have it be a no-work job where they show up and do nothing and get paid. And good luck stopping that. Can't ban players from earning off-court money.

And, of course, eliminating the draft would severely curtail trades and since no other league thrives off constant player movement more than the NBA, it would probably end up being a net negative for the league. I think this approach would have a small chance to improve the tanking issue, while offering a lot of risk it ends up only helping the big franchises.

I'd really flatten the rookie max values, maybe even make them even for all non-playoff teams. It's already happening that borderline play-in bigger market teams are jumping to the top of the draft - DAL/PHI picked 1/3 last time, Atlanta jumped 9 spots the year before. And I don't think it's the worst outcome if the 11/12 seeds land the top talent, but I'm not convinced that would even happen.

Re-do the exercise with flat money for non-play in teams and a bit less for play-in teams and I don't think it changes a rookie's thinking very much. They want the best situation to get them to a max contract ASAP. SAC/WAS/BKN are probably a better path to that than DAL or IND. You want to go to the team with the least talent but good ownership+coaching+culture. IMO that aligns incentives nicely for the league/teams/players.

I think you can sort everything out through the salary cap/luxury tax. An apron penalty could be losing the ability to sign rookies at all (or at least beyond the absolute minimum salary). Eliminating max/super max for players could be particularly interesting. Eliminate the need to match salaries in trades and cap space becomes more valuable. Mediocre players get inflated deals just so that they can be used in trades at the expense of superstars getting their true value. Player movement through trades is already pretty limited and the draft pick situation is a mess. Fewer trades and more RFA/UFA intrigue would be good.

A wrinkle I'd add is that each team can double their rookie offer once every 5 years.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Now it's getting too convoluted to solve what is really a pretty small problem. As long as a draft based system exists tanking is just something that comes with it. Eliminate the lottery, go with an Oilers tax that prevents a team from drafting in the top five in consecutive years so that tanking can only be done in isolation rather than as a multi-year strategy. Eliminating the draft just has too much risk.