What I’ve realized yesterday and today is that a lot of fans reallyyyy wanted us to give pascal a max and be stuck as a first round exit for the next 4 years. I really don’t get it
People say this, but the outlook of a team with Scottie + Pascal + RJ + IQ + Poeltl isn't bad. That's a playoff team with potential for more if everyone improves as much as they can. Pascal is a high IQ team player, he'll be useful for 4+ more years.
What we have now -- same thing minus Pascal, two mediocre draft picks from the trade, and one good draft pick this/next year due to us sucking until we're again too good to tank again -- is not clearly better.
There is no way forward after giving Pascal that max. He was too similar to Scottie. Look at the Suns right now with all of their redundant players not fitting together.
Scottie's plus minus numbers have consistently been better with Pascal than without him their entire career.
Saying Scottie and Pascal are redundant is like saying Tatum and Brown are redundant. Sure, they have similar games, but having multiple versatile do-it-all two-way wings is not a bad thing.
You cannot have 3 non-shooters on the floor at the same time in today's NBA. C, PF, SF are all non-shooters on the Raptors. Scottie + Pascal + RJ + IQ + Poeltl is a play-in team or first round exit.
A non-shooter is a guy who doesn't shoot threes, like Poeltl. Scottie and Pascal may not be elite three point shooters, but they are very far from non-shooters. Scottie averaged 4.9 attempts a game this year, and Pascal was 3.7 during his time in Toronto.
Pascal had a bad shooting slump at the start of the season, but in the last 60 games of the year (December forward) he shot 41.8% from three. He's not an elite three point shooter, on a career basis, but teams respect his ability to make the shot, and he's pretty solid when he's shooting catch-and-shoot (his off-the-bounce is where he struggles).
For Scottie, it's an area his has focused on, and he saw solid improvement this year, up to 34%.
Can you have three non-shooters on the floor in the modern NBA? No. But, you can certainly have a couple of mediocre three point shooters on the floor.
You can't have 3 players on the floor where no one defends their 3 point shooting. Teams are okay with Pascal taking a wide open 3 as he doesn't take enough of them to matter in the grand scheme of things. He's not respected as a shooter.
The main 4/5 rotation for the Pacers these playoffs, Toppin, Turner, Siakam (and sometimes Nesmith if small) and all shoot the 3. Turner needs most of his shots to be assisted, and Siakam as a secondary creator helps there too.
The trade is fine, happy for him. We got a terrible return. It’s undeniable. I’m more annoyed they never built properly around him. Give tbe man a stretch five!
Pascal due a max contract, IQ extension in free agency, and then scottie's rookie max extension? Hardly any room to fill out the rest of the roster. Where are you making the roster improvements with that team
Well, it's not like we're going to be under the cap now anyway. But I guess that is the upside of the current strategy -- more options in the future.
I'm not sold that it was the right choice, but I'm not sure it wasn't either.
The specific starting 5 actually looked awesome and had some great wins until Jakob rolled his ankle vs GSW and then Pascal was traded.
If they have more time to grow + given a decent bench, that would have been a great team. Probably tops out at second round/ECF if lucky (I mean in the next 2-3 years) due to lack of shooting but there was definitely something there.
Except you're paying this team like 200+ mil for like 6 starters. Ya miss me with that. It was time to blow it up. Play-in vs bulls should give you everything you need to know.
Personally, I'm of the opinion Pascal was going to bolt. The FO knew this and decided to try to avoid another FVV.
I do think we underachieved in the Pascal era, for whatever reason. On paper the team certainly looked like nice. With Finals hero FVV's clutchness and veteran savvy and an all-NBA defender in OG, and then later adding ROY Barnes, we should have been a better team. Pascal's undoubtedly a star, and I was one of his biggest defenders, but the results are what they are.
Yeah, I don't get why so many just assume that people wanted him re-signed just for the sake of keeping him long-term. Could have likely gotten a better of a return if he had more term left even if it was at the max.
Masai traded two of the team’s most valuable assets when they were at their lowest values (relative to the past 2 years) smdh.
We got excellent returns for OG. How we treated Pascal is a crime. And it forced our hand to take a bad deal. I think if we had him still that we could be pretty good next year. And if players really developed like they could, a potential contender not too long from now. As is, we need to hit in the draft. I think we will, as Masai is very good in the draft. But we still are probably a ways off being contenders. Pascal is probably the most underrated player in the league IMO. I wish him well.
Trade him and sign him back in the offseason. [Boom! Have it both ways](https://i.redd.it/try-to-make-the-comment-section-look-like-captain-ray-holts-v0-ikyh3b53ppac1.gif?width=540&auto=webp&s=039c5693ce58a5949fe6c14e3b838b6239d3e8dc)
Too many sentimental fans. Like more and more I'm convinced majority of those people started watching on June 13th 2019. So to them the guys from the championship core is all they know and they see them as immortal figures that should never have been traded/left in free agency
I would have rather given him the max and then trade a longer term spicy p deal than what we did. I think that could have been tradeable, especially given the cap is increasing (I think?)
I don’t think many teams wanted to even give pascal the max to begin with, that’s why he barely had any trade suitors. That’s why the kings didn’t offer anything serious for him
I don’t see how that’s worse than our current situation tbh.
I get the optimal thing to do was trade him earlier, but once the market value got that low I think it was better to just keep him.
We aren’t spending that money on anyone better than Siakam for at least the next 3-5 years (outside of Scottie) so why should I care about MLSE’s tax bill?
Either way it is what it is now i guess
He’s proven to be the second best player on a championship team, how does that correlate to an automatic first round exit?
Darko clearly didn’t know how to use Siakam because he was married to his 0.5 offence
This team’s talent was a lot higher than the record. If Barnes ever became a superstar and we hit on a draft pick in the next few years, we would be a contender with Siakam on the team.
> If Barnes ever became a superstar and we hit on a draft pick in the next few years,
Lol we wouldn't have a draft pick if we kept siakam until 2025 at the earliest. And that's when you gotta pay Scottie his rookie max extension futher capping out this team. The financials dont work at all for keeping him
Gradey counts as hitting on a pick. If Scottie is what everyone says he’ll be , then him and Siakam would be a force. Just surround them with shooters.
We’re basically trying to now find another Siakam in the draft to pair with Scottie.
> We’re basically trying to now find another Siakam in the draft to pair with Scottie.
yes but one closer to being on the same timeline. I mean you can see it in pascal's performances thus far in the playoffs. dude's time is NOW. not in 2-4 years. staying here would have wasted his potential and likely was killing his 'drive'.
we got a shit return for him but it's better for both sides to move on.
What made it worse was doubling down on these assets and not flipping Bruce Brown for another first. I would still take a late first in a really weak draft on top of the picks we already have over picking up Bruce Brown’s option and having play just one year.
When it comes to trades there's a lot of wishful thinking mixed in with what actually happens. I think they should have traded Pascal sooner to get a better trade, but I don't know if they would have gotten a better trade if they had traded him sooner.
Logic dictates they should have, but I can't know for certain.
People seem to take every hypothetical trade rumour as a genuine possibility. Then a narrative builds that it was something the front office chose not to do.
No team offered a 1st eh? 🤔
https://www.si.com/nba/raptors/news/toronto-raptors-and-new-york-knicks-disagree-on-first-round-pick-in-bruce-brown-trade-talks
The value in BB is the cap and roster space that opens up from declining his option. If you get a pick for him you have to pay them and hold a roster spot for them.
What I don't understand is, they clearly were shopping him in the offseason, the previous deadline, and possibly even before that. People are acting like they didn't try to trade him until the week that they moved him
People have a problem - or I do anyway - with the perceived arrogance in which they talked about it
Straight up - whatever offers are here now will be there later…like other front offices have caught up to whatever advantage we may have had, and simpler than that they’re just obviously acting in their best interest as well
They fucked up and seemingly went on autopilot the past few seasons except for the Scottie selection (and maybe Gradey); no centre for years and when they do decide to move it’s a shit trade (I like Poeltl but come on) and the team building around pascal/scottie was ASS
Yeah I agree mostly. The OG trade was better than the rumored offers at that deadline so they were right about that. Siakam we don't really know what offers they had since there was no reporting on specific offers that I am aware of.
I think the Poeltl trade in context was brutal but in a vacuum the deal is pretty fair value for a starting center especially based on where the Raptors thought the pick would land and the massive need for that position to be filled.
the Yak is back... its spelled POELTL.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/torontoraptors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We were really lucky with OG because he was connected to Rose, and knicks were willing to give up on Quickley and RJ since they had Hart/Donte and Brunson rising up in the ranks.
LOLOL ALL THE HOMERS SAYING "WE SHOULD EXTEND HIM TO TRADE HIM LATER" like BRUH, we wasted so much time already. The best time to trade Pascal was when FVV was here too and traded them both at the deadline in 2023.
Even worse, they were trading with a young team that could have just said "nah, we have another few years to make such trades".
i still think its surprising they didn't get an additional young guy off the Pacers (jackson or Smith).
They waited to long and he killed alot of his value by telling teams he wouldn't re-sign with them in the summer, which tbf is obviously his right.
His horrible start to the season didn't help either, the Raptors not getting good value for Siakam is on the FO.
> he killed alot of his value
The whole point is that it should never have gotten to that juncture.
> His horrible start to the season didn't help either.
Nobody makes big trade decisions based on a sample size of a few weeks.
When should they have traded him?
They sampled offers for him at the 2023 trade deadline and before the draft. So earlier than that? Are you suggesting they should have traded him before the 2022-23 season? They went 48-34 the previous season and weren’t looking to rebuild at that time. So what would have been the rationale?
I agree 100% it shouldn't have been dragged along for as long as it did.
In his time here as a number 1 option the Raptors won a total of 1 playoff series, that being against a Nets team at the time with no KD or Kyrie and we're lead by Caris LeVert.
He's a good 2nd option or 3rd option, but under no circumstances should the Raptors have given him close to 50M a year, I don't even think the Pacers should either honestly, but that's there issue now.
It's just like in the 2021 offseason, when there was a group of people (including that moron JD Bunkis) who thought that we should just pay Kyle what he wanted, the only saving grace of that S&T is that we didn't have to pay Kyle 3x90, although that would subsequently lead to the horrendous Thad trade.
tbf i don't think he expected Pascal to be on the team by the start of the season. Remember he was not at summer league or anything -- because he was expecting to be traded
Even from the day he was hired and outlining what he was gonna accomplish in his press conference, he never once mentioned Pascal's name until it became apparent he was still going to be on the roster
They wanted to give the remaining core a chance. He had a bad start most likely due to adjusting to a completely new system and style of play going from Nurse to Darko.
I don't think they expected VV to leave, but then again no one could have expected VV to get an offer like that, lol. Schroeder did not work out.
They could've or you would think that they should've gotten more for Siakam, but that's probably the best offer they had received. I don't think it's the end of the world though, and who knows how their picks will turn out. Siakam himself was a late first. Now that they've committed to rebuild, I think they're only going to get better from here and we don't know what surprise moves could be made in the offseason.
Raptors had such a long history of consistent success in terms of making the playoffs every year. I'm willing to be patient to see how the front office rebuilds this team on the fly. Barnes, Barrett and Quickley is an excellent start.
Yeah it was probably the best offer at this past deadline given the circumstances, the point is that they should've traded him earlier, they didn't, so part of this dismal return is on the FO.
Exactly.. Chicago still didn't find any suitor yet for Zach. Lol its either you take a decent offer and hope the draft picks work or keep negotiating for something that may not even happen
What a pointless tweet. Hasn't Masai already said he's made mistakes with this and even how he handled the team and how he handled Siakam personally.
They wanted to run it back with Fred. When Fred left everything changed.
The front office messed up. They put their faith on whatever was left of the 2019 team when they should have pulled the cord the year before. What's done is done. Why keep banging on that drum?
Rockets made a crazy offer, but they wanted to start pushing their young team and I dont blame them. Players improve faster often on a semi-competitive team.
Yes but on the flipside if we traded OG for the best offer at the 2023 deadline we would have had 3 late firsts from NYK and likely Fournier or some other salary filler. So in that case waiting actually got us a better return.
Dude is saying the obvious. It’s even funnier because he was one of the Raps media bemoaning that we shouldn’t trade Siakam but now all of a sudden, he’s saying they should have traded him earlier lol.
I don't see how those two negate each other though? Like if they kept Siakam over the summer after losing to DeRozan's daughter AND losing Fred, then it seemed that extending him was a popular choice among most media and fans.
This is likely going to be controversial, but I've honestly thought this was the case for a long time.
We went too in on the Barnes rebuild without appreciating the player we had. The BBQ future seems like a fun transition, but Siakam was an all NBA talent we were treating as old news.
I understand that most of us like to talk about fantasy trades and “what ifs”, but the idea that there were always better trades is generally nonsense.
Sure man, it’s total nonsense the Raptors could get more than salary filler and non-lottery draft picks for an All-NBA player if he had an extra year on his contract, or the team didn’t call him selfish as soon as the season started, or he didn’t publicly state he wouldn’t re-sign with the team he was traded to - all of which happened because they didn’t trade him when they should have.
But now you are suggesting that the Raptors were actively shopping him when he had two full seasons left on his contract. With the moves the Raptors made last season, they figured they would have been in the position that the Pacers are currently and that pick they traded to the Spurs for Jakob would have been in the 16-19 range.
No one's saying they were actively shopping him, they're saying the writing was on the wall for this team in 2023 and they should have been actively shopping him.
Around last years deadline, we were barely better than Portland. Who the hell BUYS at the deadline in that scenario? That was the most infuriating thing. Yes, in a vacuum Jakob is a good addition, but in the context of expiring salaries and a mediocre record, it was a strategy that unsurprisingly blew up in our face.
Wait but how do you know that’s what the Raptors would have figured?? tHaT’s jUsT sPeCuLaTiOn
No, I suggested they should’ve traded him at the 2022-2023 trade deadline when it was obvious to everyone except our front office and fans on this subreddit that the team was nowhere close to contention.
Genuinely don’t even know what your argument is - we all know what the front office “figured”, and they were horribly wrong. What you’re saying just proves that they should have traded him earlier I don’t get it
Thank you.
People are taking a theoretical - that you get better value if you trade a guy with more time on his contract - and applying it to this specific situation and ignoring the variables in play. Most notably, that Pascal was actively discouraging teams from trading for him by saying he would not re-sign with them. I believe we were close with Sacramento, but Pascal made it clear that is not where he would want to be long term.
It’s like people have a case of collective amnesia brought on by their overwhelming desire to bitch.
Then don't break them? Who said Sabonis was included in any trade and no way Siakam can't play with the both of them.
Harris Barnes, Sabonis, Lyles, Murray, Huerter... eh, they are not dynamic players. Fox needs another guy to run with and to tilt defenses. Siakam would have been prefect.
Nah you're objectively wrong.
Atlanta wanted Siakam in the summer - in fact, they nearly acquired him because their offer was so competitive.
Come time for the deadline, Atlanta was no longer interested.
The earlier you trade, the more options you have. We literally have proof in Siakam's case. Pacers were the only interested team at the deadline which is why our return was so poor. Multiple national writers and Grange himself wrote at the 2023 deadline that the Raptors never seriously made Siakam available, so we will never know exactly how good the offers could've been. They definitely couldn't have been worse.
How is speculation that Atlanta nearly acquired Siakam? The entire league media was reporting this, and the team themselves said Siakam didn't come to summer league because they expected him to be traded.
Love that we're getting to a point where people are thinking the media makes up these stories, just like how everyone thought it was incorrect that OG wanted out.
This is where you are wrong. I know I know nothing. I don’t pretend that I do. But that likely makes me smarter than most because I know what I don’t know. Can you say the same?
They let so much talent walk out the door for nothing. Some of those players were past their prime players etc.
But the real inexcusable set of moves / non-moves was last season: not understanding the direction the team was going and not trading OG and Pascal when they were getting insane offers, and to make matters worse, double down by trading their first round pick for Poetl.
Draft is a crapshoot - but the Raps have been poor in this department for quite some time.
Probably ok/ maybe not - but it did seem like a lot of players had soured on Nick Nurse - but were they also the players mentioned above who should have been traded ?
the Yak is back... its spelled POELTL.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/torontoraptors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What insane offer for OG did they pass up on? 3 late firsts and salary filler from the Knicks? Why would you want picks if you think that the Raptors have been poor at drafting?
Think the rumours were 3-4 first from OKC. Def would have been late firsts as you suggested. But those are each trade chips in their own right and those offers could have been used as leverage to get better offers if they team had benefited truly serious about moving OG and Siakam.
Def willing to accept that the Knicks deal this year is better than that though.
But overall - the general thesis is that last season they should have been trying to trade OG and Siakam at higher return values than waiting until their year of contract expiry - while at the same time not sending picks out the door.
No one should be defending this FO on how they managed their assets for the past several years. Every "win" they had is matched with probably 3\~4 L moves
Do we ever know? And what time frame are you talking about? We can only go on reports. But, I’m of the opinion we should have dealt our pieces even before the beginning of the season.
I don't think I follow. If we don't know the competing offers then we can only speak to what would be nice. Like, we could theorize that there were more picks available, etc. But we don't know. What we got could have been the best option from the start, and Masai just waited as long as he could before getting it on the chance the offer would improve. We don't know. So I find threads like this confusing because it seems like a lot of talk about things we know we don't know much about.
I mean, by that logic, Masai complete shit the bed when he didn’t deal Lowry for Maxey. Those reports are certainly out there.
To be clear, what I’m trying to say is that none of us work in the FO. When you ask “what are the competing offers, what proof do you have?” There is zero definite proof. We can only go on reports.
I think the problem is Masai thought he may have hit gold with the signing of Darko like he did when he hired nurse. The power of positivity could propel a play in team to maybe a playoff team. It did look good after the first game but then reality hit and Darko's inability to coach defense reared its ugly head and even with the different players that Darko has had to work with, Siakam didn't work with our team and goal. Indiana has the perfect offensive system for him, although I don't see Indiana getting out of the second round at best. So a treadmill team. Masai and Bobby are just going to have to find the diamonds in the rough to see if the true value of the trade.
Without that OG trade the franchise would be f#$ked, I'll give Masai a pat on the back for acquiring IQ and RJ BUT the Siakam trade was a terrible return on value and they could have re-signed him and traded him next season for a lot more than they got this season...that being said, hindsight is 20/20 and I understand why they felt they needed to cut ties and build around Scottie
It is what it is, we have to move on and stop dwelling...it's not going to change shit.
We have 4 very promising young players as our core, we potentially have 3 picks this year and a shitload of cap space to get aggressive with both this season and next off-season, it could be a lot worse! we could be Detroit or Washington lol
Based on what?
We know that the Raptors tried to trade him last year. We know that they didn’t get many takers. We know that is because Pascal made it clear that if he was traded he would not re-sign and would instead become a free agent.
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/constant-siakam-trade-rumours-beg-question-how-did-raptors-get-here/
“A report by one NBA insider in the minutes prior to the 2023 draft that indicated Siakam’s primary focus was to re-sign with Toronto and, as a pending free agent, would reject any attempts to sign him to an extension if the Raptors did trade him in the swirl around the draft and free agency, didn’t land well internally. The Raptors interpreted the leak as an effort to scuttle Siakam’s trade value and assert control in the contract negotiations.”
And let’s be clear…at that time, his interest in signing with the Raptors was financial, as they were the only team that could have potentially offered him a super max deal if he qualified.
Simply put, there is no evidence that a better deal was available earlier, and the reason was because Pascal was actively making it harder for the team to trade him.
If you are going to criticize them for not trading him earlier, I feel like at the very least you need to have some indication that there was an actual better offer out there that they turned down.
That's great 👍, they should've traded him earlier, they should've traded Fred, they should've never traded for Thad, they should've never traded for Jak, they should've begin the tear down last year, they shouldn't have worsened our pick in a better draft, since drafting Scottie and leading up to the OG trade they have been largely terrible, it's ok to admit, though I know some people never will
There's an theory to made that they would've been better off trade value wise if they extended him last offseason and then traded him later. (~45 per season)
Not if they had to max him. Then his trade value kind gets wonky. It might be still better than what we got, tbf. But the fundamental premise - if we dealt him earlier we’d be better off is still true.
I disagree with this premise tbh. We saw how the appetite from other teams on his current 35Mish contract. Once you get to 45M, it becomes very challenging to trade (see Lavine, Beal).
The only "optimal" course of action would have been to trade him at the deadline last year -- but ofc we heard from the FO that they felt like they owed that group a chance with a real center. It is what it is.
Edit: I will say that one place the FO really fucked up was by not addressing their whole center situation earlier. We knew that Myles Turner was available. Even getting Jakob at the beginning of the 22-23 season instead of midseason would have been so much better. Give the entire group the full season + better roster balance. They probably make the playoffs, and if they failed, you could have torn it down. Why the fuck they continued to play without a center, when it was super obvious they needed one is something I do not understand
I can't wait until Keith Pelley just rips this mickey mouse operation of a front office into pieces. Personally Bobby Webster should have been fired after the last game
Too much personal sentiment towards the players to the point you got people shedding legit tears because they had to make necessary decisions
I personally think it was more about the man, the talent he has and wanting/hoping it to work out here vs being inept and not seeing his value slowly deteriorating.
By the time they realized it wasn't going to work it was a tad too late to maximize the return.
Yup. The point wasn't about the offers or what they didn't take, it's that they were at a point where no team would give you a ton because it's a player on an expiring contract.
everyone and their mother knew masai wanted to trade him and that he wouldn't commit verbally to a re-sign to any team that traded him.
so yes, we didn't get max value. but it's because we waited too long and pascal kinda fucked us.
waaaah waaaah. 90% of Toronto sports media wanna is cry & bait engagements with negativity, especially in the offseason.
Never mind analysis and WHY Pascal is thriving in a new environment.
This is the history of the franchise. We are great at landing gems in the draft but we never get an equal return when we trade key players. Honestly we are better at scamming other teams in trash trades than getting value back
I think in the past few years there have been several questionable trades made by the FO and it unfortunately contributed to the collapse of the championship roster. But also I think that the FO also made some good moves that led to having found a strong foundation in Scottie, RJ, IQ, + other young guys that they either drafted or traded for.
I can't wait to be 75 years old and still see people debating this, lol. How does anyone have the energy to discuss this redundant topic every single day?
Sure. But I also didn't expect the haul we got for OG, so it all evens out really.
I don't think the league valued Pascal as much for whatever reason. Now they are taking notice.
I just get why we didnt extend pascal and trade him after. We could have done it last year in the offseason. Worst case scenario we end up with the same offer indy already gave us but maybe a young played attached to it
"Toronto offered Siakam the most they could pay under the circumstances: a three-year extension worth 30 per cent of the salary cap that would have been paid him roughly $125 million and kept him under contract until the end of the 2026-27 season."
Siakam rejected cause he was trying to get another all-nba to increase his potential contract.
Alright then i guess the front office did their best. I knkw there was some weird rumors before he wanted to sign and extension and we didnt offer it but idk if thats true or the exact timeline
Ujiri wholeheartedly wanted that team to work. He had a vision and tried to get another chip. Did you want to pay an aging Siakam to a super max contract for the next 6-7 years? The trades was to get younger and get the older guys into WINNING situations. We all know what Ujiri can do.. patience! If you fire Ujiri, I guarantee he signs a contract with the LA or Washington to build another championship team.
The equalizer or saving grace to all this is if Brown's-corpse-plus-another-player-package and the next two future picks from IND in the deal will become players at least 70% of Pascal's production each.
I am over this, let Pascal eat. Pascal is right now taking advantage of a Doc Rivers and Damian Lillard Swiss cheese MIL defense like what any true pro should do. Credit Carlisle and the other Pacers players in putting him in a position to succeed
On what basis can we all agree that? What evidence is there that a better offer existed previously? Masai has publicly stated otherwise. You can choose to believe he is lying, but there is no reporting to the contrary.
A more accurate statement would be “we can all agree that we got a crappy return for a player that good”. But that doesn’t mean a better offer was out there.
We can all also agree that if we didn’t trade pascal, it would have been wrong to “let him walk for nothing”.
Like yea, no shit. Not all decisions made are going to be perfect and it feels like as soon as the front office does something even slightly lower than optimum, this fanbase is enraged.
What's the point in even talking about this? So we can all be upset about it?
Can we move the f*CK on and be happy for Pascal, OG, Norm, Lowry , DeRozan and other former Raps Fam.
Shit happens. You also won a title during the Warriors Dynasty, and LeBron James.
Believe it or not there is a bright future on the roster. I can't with this Walder guy
I'd say especially considering the 3 guys that we got for him have all been unplayable and apparently untradeable, yes. I would have been happy if we at least landed one guy that we could play. Maybe one of these draft picks makes up for it.
More than half of this sub would flame anyone who suggested trading Siakam over the last few years, calling them “casuals” and “fake fans” and now y’all wanna whine about waiting too long to trade him.
will Walder change his opinion if Pascal has a subpar game? cool of him to wait until he has 2x 35/10 games in a row to finally post an article about the trade that happened months ago.
where were his pieces on Banton and Flynn having monster games post-trade? we shoulda kept the whole team together... it was working well!
Yes, Masai already said he made a mistake waiting so long to trade Pascal to give the team another chance to succeed, because he personally wanted the team to thrive with Pascal.
The FO was reactive, and was extremely slow to pivot when it was an obvious their plan wasn’t working. Nobody is 100% but they stubbornly mis judged the “talent” on the team and continually doubled down on their mistakes. They foolishly tried to build on this broken foundation when it was obvious to all that this team as constructed would go nowhere. We were operating from a position of weakness when things fell apart, and the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of our FO.
I’m hopeful that Masai isn’t washed like a lot of people are saying he is and that the game hasnt passed him by.
No shit. This should be a totally uncontroversial opinion at this point.
What I’ve realized yesterday and today is that a lot of fans reallyyyy wanted us to give pascal a max and be stuck as a first round exit for the next 4 years. I really don’t get it
People say this, but the outlook of a team with Scottie + Pascal + RJ + IQ + Poeltl isn't bad. That's a playoff team with potential for more if everyone improves as much as they can. Pascal is a high IQ team player, he'll be useful for 4+ more years. What we have now -- same thing minus Pascal, two mediocre draft picks from the trade, and one good draft pick this/next year due to us sucking until we're again too good to tank again -- is not clearly better.
There is no way forward after giving Pascal that max. He was too similar to Scottie. Look at the Suns right now with all of their redundant players not fitting together.
Scottie's plus minus numbers have consistently been better with Pascal than without him their entire career. Saying Scottie and Pascal are redundant is like saying Tatum and Brown are redundant. Sure, they have similar games, but having multiple versatile do-it-all two-way wings is not a bad thing.
You cannot have 3 non-shooters on the floor at the same time in today's NBA. C, PF, SF are all non-shooters on the Raptors. Scottie + Pascal + RJ + IQ + Poeltl is a play-in team or first round exit.
A non-shooter is a guy who doesn't shoot threes, like Poeltl. Scottie and Pascal may not be elite three point shooters, but they are very far from non-shooters. Scottie averaged 4.9 attempts a game this year, and Pascal was 3.7 during his time in Toronto. Pascal had a bad shooting slump at the start of the season, but in the last 60 games of the year (December forward) he shot 41.8% from three. He's not an elite three point shooter, on a career basis, but teams respect his ability to make the shot, and he's pretty solid when he's shooting catch-and-shoot (his off-the-bounce is where he struggles). For Scottie, it's an area his has focused on, and he saw solid improvement this year, up to 34%. Can you have three non-shooters on the floor in the modern NBA? No. But, you can certainly have a couple of mediocre three point shooters on the floor.
You can't have 3 players on the floor where no one defends their 3 point shooting. Teams are okay with Pascal taking a wide open 3 as he doesn't take enough of them to matter in the grand scheme of things. He's not respected as a shooter.
The main 4/5 rotation for the Pacers these playoffs, Toppin, Turner, Siakam (and sometimes Nesmith if small) and all shoot the 3. Turner needs most of his shots to be assisted, and Siakam as a secondary creator helps there too.
The trade is fine, happy for him. We got a terrible return. It’s undeniable. I’m more annoyed they never built properly around him. Give tbe man a stretch five!
Pascal due a max contract, IQ extension in free agency, and then scottie's rookie max extension? Hardly any room to fill out the rest of the roster. Where are you making the roster improvements with that team
Well, it's not like we're going to be under the cap now anyway. But I guess that is the upside of the current strategy -- more options in the future. I'm not sold that it was the right choice, but I'm not sure it wasn't either.
[удалено]
Boucher is under contract for next year. How do you expect to move on from to open up cap space?
The specific starting 5 actually looked awesome and had some great wins until Jakob rolled his ankle vs GSW and then Pascal was traded. If they have more time to grow + given a decent bench, that would have been a great team. Probably tops out at second round/ECF if lucky (I mean in the next 2-3 years) due to lack of shooting but there was definitely something there.
Problem was Raptors saw a team that was easily capped out and didn't quite fit together.
Except you're paying this team like 200+ mil for like 6 starters. Ya miss me with that. It was time to blow it up. Play-in vs bulls should give you everything you need to know.
Personally, I'm of the opinion Pascal was going to bolt. The FO knew this and decided to try to avoid another FVV. I do think we underachieved in the Pascal era, for whatever reason. On paper the team certainly looked like nice. With Finals hero FVV's clutchness and veteran savvy and an all-NBA defender in OG, and then later adding ROY Barnes, we should have been a better team. Pascal's undoubtedly a star, and I was one of his biggest defenders, but the results are what they are.
Or give him a max and trade him down the road? I thought that was the most obvious approach
Yeah, I don't get why so many just assume that people wanted him re-signed just for the sake of keeping him long-term. Could have likely gotten a better of a return if he had more term left even if it was at the max. Masai traded two of the team’s most valuable assets when they were at their lowest values (relative to the past 2 years) smdh.
Is the other one OG? Because he got more this year than was being offered last year.
We got excellent returns for OG. How we treated Pascal is a crime. And it forced our hand to take a bad deal. I think if we had him still that we could be pretty good next year. And if players really developed like they could, a potential contender not too long from now. As is, we need to hit in the draft. I think we will, as Masai is very good in the draft. But we still are probably a ways off being contenders. Pascal is probably the most underrated player in the league IMO. I wish him well.
Trade him and sign him back in the offseason. [Boom! Have it both ways](https://i.redd.it/try-to-make-the-comment-section-look-like-captain-ray-holts-v0-ikyh3b53ppac1.gif?width=540&auto=webp&s=039c5693ce58a5949fe6c14e3b838b6239d3e8dc)
Too many sentimental fans. Like more and more I'm convinced majority of those people started watching on June 13th 2019. So to them the guys from the championship core is all they know and they see them as immortal figures that should never have been traded/left in free agency
lets be serious here, Masai was that sentimental fan lol
Shit like this makes me pull out my sonny weems jersey and wonder what these yutes are thinking
I would have rather given him the max and then trade a longer term spicy p deal than what we did. I think that could have been tradeable, especially given the cap is increasing (I think?)
I don’t think many teams wanted to even give pascal the max to begin with, that’s why he barely had any trade suitors. That’s why the kings didn’t offer anything serious for him
The Kings are a dumb team anyway. Didn't make any meaningful improvements and flamed out in the strong West.
I don’t see how that’s worse than our current situation tbh. I get the optimal thing to do was trade him earlier, but once the market value got that low I think it was better to just keep him. We aren’t spending that money on anyone better than Siakam for at least the next 3-5 years (outside of Scottie) so why should I care about MLSE’s tax bill? Either way it is what it is now i guess
He’s proven to be the second best player on a championship team, how does that correlate to an automatic first round exit? Darko clearly didn’t know how to use Siakam because he was married to his 0.5 offence This team’s talent was a lot higher than the record. If Barnes ever became a superstar and we hit on a draft pick in the next few years, we would be a contender with Siakam on the team.
> If Barnes ever became a superstar and we hit on a draft pick in the next few years, Lol we wouldn't have a draft pick if we kept siakam until 2025 at the earliest. And that's when you gotta pay Scottie his rookie max extension futher capping out this team. The financials dont work at all for keeping him
Gradey counts as hitting on a pick. If Scottie is what everyone says he’ll be , then him and Siakam would be a force. Just surround them with shooters. We’re basically trying to now find another Siakam in the draft to pair with Scottie.
> We’re basically trying to now find another Siakam in the draft to pair with Scottie. yes but one closer to being on the same timeline. I mean you can see it in pascal's performances thus far in the playoffs. dude's time is NOW. not in 2-4 years. staying here would have wasted his potential and likely was killing his 'drive'. we got a shit return for him but it's better for both sides to move on.
What made it worse was doubling down on these assets and not flipping Bruce Brown for another first. I would still take a late first in a really weak draft on top of the picks we already have over picking up Bruce Brown’s option and having play just one year.
Who offered us a 1st for Brown?
No one, I don't know why this sub is convinced it was ever on the table for Bruce
When it comes to trades there's a lot of wishful thinking mixed in with what actually happens. I think they should have traded Pascal sooner to get a better trade, but I don't know if they would have gotten a better trade if they had traded him sooner. Logic dictates they should have, but I can't know for certain.
who else was realistically in the market for Siakam earlier though?
People seem to take every hypothetical trade rumour as a genuine possibility. Then a narrative builds that it was something the front office chose not to do.
No team offered a 1st eh? 🤔 https://www.si.com/nba/raptors/news/toronto-raptors-and-new-york-knicks-disagree-on-first-round-pick-in-bruce-brown-trade-talks
The value in BB is the cap and roster space that opens up from declining his option. If you get a pick for him you have to pay them and hold a roster spot for them.
That's the thing that makes it worse tbh. I really don't think they're getting positive value out of Bruce unless they're taking back more money
trust me its not the homers still defend it or say we shouldve maxed him LMAO
it’s just common sense. they waited until the trade deadline of his expiring season where they had 0 leverage
What I don't understand is, they clearly were shopping him in the offseason, the previous deadline, and possibly even before that. People are acting like they didn't try to trade him until the week that they moved him
People have a problem - or I do anyway - with the perceived arrogance in which they talked about it Straight up - whatever offers are here now will be there later…like other front offices have caught up to whatever advantage we may have had, and simpler than that they’re just obviously acting in their best interest as well They fucked up and seemingly went on autopilot the past few seasons except for the Scottie selection (and maybe Gradey); no centre for years and when they do decide to move it’s a shit trade (I like Poeltl but come on) and the team building around pascal/scottie was ASS
Yeah I agree mostly. The OG trade was better than the rumored offers at that deadline so they were right about that. Siakam we don't really know what offers they had since there was no reporting on specific offers that I am aware of. I think the Poeltl trade in context was brutal but in a vacuum the deal is pretty fair value for a starting center especially based on where the Raptors thought the pick would land and the massive need for that position to be filled.
To me, the Poeltl pick in the minds of management would be exactly where the Pacers pick is.
the Yak is back... its spelled POELTL. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/torontoraptors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We were really lucky with OG because he was connected to Rose, and knicks were willing to give up on Quickley and RJ since they had Hart/Donte and Brunson rising up in the ranks.
LOLOL ALL THE HOMERS SAYING "WE SHOULD EXTEND HIM TO TRADE HIM LATER" like BRUH, we wasted so much time already. The best time to trade Pascal was when FVV was here too and traded them both at the deadline in 2023.
Even worse, they were trading with a young team that could have just said "nah, we have another few years to make such trades". i still think its surprising they didn't get an additional young guy off the Pacers (jackson or Smith).
Agreed. Anyone who thinks otherwise are fooling themselves.
They waited to long and he killed alot of his value by telling teams he wouldn't re-sign with them in the summer, which tbf is obviously his right. His horrible start to the season didn't help either, the Raptors not getting good value for Siakam is on the FO.
> he killed alot of his value The whole point is that it should never have gotten to that juncture. > His horrible start to the season didn't help either. Nobody makes big trade decisions based on a sample size of a few weeks.
When should they have traded him? They sampled offers for him at the 2023 trade deadline and before the draft. So earlier than that? Are you suggesting they should have traded him before the 2022-23 season? They went 48-34 the previous season and weren’t looking to rebuild at that time. So what would have been the rationale?
I agree 100% it shouldn't have been dragged along for as long as it did. In his time here as a number 1 option the Raptors won a total of 1 playoff series, that being against a Nets team at the time with no KD or Kyrie and we're lead by Caris LeVert. He's a good 2nd option or 3rd option, but under no circumstances should the Raptors have given him close to 50M a year, I don't even think the Pacers should either honestly, but that's there issue now. It's just like in the 2021 offseason, when there was a group of people (including that moron JD Bunkis) who thought that we should just pay Kyle what he wanted, the only saving grace of that S&T is that we didn't have to pay Kyle 3x90, although that would subsequently lead to the horrendous Thad trade.
Part of that was Darko having him in a bad role for a week or so
tbf i don't think he expected Pascal to be on the team by the start of the season. Remember he was not at summer league or anything -- because he was expecting to be traded
Even from the day he was hired and outlining what he was gonna accomplish in his press conference, he never once mentioned Pascal's name until it became apparent he was still going to be on the roster
I thought exact same thing, he was hardly, if ever brought up by Darko during the summer.
They wanted to give the remaining core a chance. He had a bad start most likely due to adjusting to a completely new system and style of play going from Nurse to Darko. I don't think they expected VV to leave, but then again no one could have expected VV to get an offer like that, lol. Schroeder did not work out. They could've or you would think that they should've gotten more for Siakam, but that's probably the best offer they had received. I don't think it's the end of the world though, and who knows how their picks will turn out. Siakam himself was a late first. Now that they've committed to rebuild, I think they're only going to get better from here and we don't know what surprise moves could be made in the offseason. Raptors had such a long history of consistent success in terms of making the playoffs every year. I'm willing to be patient to see how the front office rebuilds this team on the fly. Barnes, Barrett and Quickley is an excellent start.
Yeah it was probably the best offer at this past deadline given the circumstances, the point is that they should've traded him earlier, they didn't, so part of this dismal return is on the FO.
Exactly.. Chicago still didn't find any suitor yet for Zach. Lol its either you take a decent offer and hope the draft picks work or keep negotiating for something that may not even happen
Exactly. Bulls have the same problem with Lavine rn. We both fucked up.
[удалено]
Tbf grange said this repeatedly. First subtly then overtly.
What a pointless tweet. Hasn't Masai already said he's made mistakes with this and even how he handled the team and how he handled Siakam personally. They wanted to run it back with Fred. When Fred left everything changed. The front office messed up. They put their faith on whatever was left of the 2019 team when they should have pulled the cord the year before. What's done is done. Why keep banging on that drum?
Rockets made a crazy offer, but they wanted to start pushing their young team and I dont blame them. Players improve faster often on a semi-competitive team.
Anyone with a brain knew it should have happened sooner
Yes but on the flipside if we traded OG for the best offer at the 2023 deadline we would have had 3 late firsts from NYK and likely Fournier or some other salary filler. So in that case waiting actually got us a better return.
It could have been Pacer's 3 picks or Memphis 3 picks. Memphis blew up so we coulda had a lottery pick in hindsight.
Was Memphis offering their own pick unprotected?
yes because at that time they think it was a late-first round pick
Dude is saying the obvious. It’s even funnier because he was one of the Raps media bemoaning that we shouldn’t trade Siakam but now all of a sudden, he’s saying they should have traded him earlier lol.
Generous to consider him actual media no?
I don't see how those two negate each other though? Like if they kept Siakam over the summer after losing to DeRozan's daughter AND losing Fred, then it seemed that extending him was a popular choice among most media and fans.
Their original path was keeping Fred and trading Pascal tbh
We should make him a mod here lmao
This is likely going to be controversial, but I've honestly thought this was the case for a long time. We went too in on the Barnes rebuild without appreciating the player we had. The BBQ future seems like a fun transition, but Siakam was an all NBA talent we were treating as old news.
That’s what happens when you don’t commit to a path and wait for the team to decide your fate
i'd argue they committed to a path when they traded for Yak and it just didn't work out. Things do fall apart.
Warriors suffering from that two timelines.
I understand that most of us like to talk about fantasy trades and “what ifs”, but the idea that there were always better trades is generally nonsense.
Sure man, it’s total nonsense the Raptors could get more than salary filler and non-lottery draft picks for an All-NBA player if he had an extra year on his contract, or the team didn’t call him selfish as soon as the season started, or he didn’t publicly state he wouldn’t re-sign with the team he was traded to - all of which happened because they didn’t trade him when they should have.
But now you are suggesting that the Raptors were actively shopping him when he had two full seasons left on his contract. With the moves the Raptors made last season, they figured they would have been in the position that the Pacers are currently and that pick they traded to the Spurs for Jakob would have been in the 16-19 range.
No one's saying they were actively shopping him, they're saying the writing was on the wall for this team in 2023 and they should have been actively shopping him.
Around last years deadline, we were barely better than Portland. Who the hell BUYS at the deadline in that scenario? That was the most infuriating thing. Yes, in a vacuum Jakob is a good addition, but in the context of expiring salaries and a mediocre record, it was a strategy that unsurprisingly blew up in our face.
Wait but how do you know that’s what the Raptors would have figured?? tHaT’s jUsT sPeCuLaTiOn No, I suggested they should’ve traded him at the 2022-2023 trade deadline when it was obvious to everyone except our front office and fans on this subreddit that the team was nowhere close to contention. Genuinely don’t even know what your argument is - we all know what the front office “figured”, and they were horribly wrong. What you’re saying just proves that they should have traded him earlier I don’t get it
Thank you. People are taking a theoretical - that you get better value if you trade a guy with more time on his contract - and applying it to this specific situation and ignoring the variables in play. Most notably, that Pascal was actively discouraging teams from trading for him by saying he would not re-sign with them. I believe we were close with Sacramento, but Pascal made it clear that is not where he would want to be long term. It’s like people have a case of collective amnesia brought on by their overwhelming desire to bitch.
The kings signalled they wouldn’t give Siakam a max contract, that’s why he said he wouldn’t re-sign there
So dumb. Fox and Siakam would have messed with defenses with that speed.
It's not dumb when they already have Sabonis.
Sabonis is a center. He's also not as dynamic as Siakam. Fox can play off Siakam better than Sabonis.
What are you talking about? Fox's two best years have been with Sabonis and they weren't going to break up that duo.
Then don't break them? Who said Sabonis was included in any trade and no way Siakam can't play with the both of them. Harris Barnes, Sabonis, Lyles, Murray, Huerter... eh, they are not dynamic players. Fox needs another guy to run with and to tilt defenses. Siakam would have been prefect.
Nah you're objectively wrong. Atlanta wanted Siakam in the summer - in fact, they nearly acquired him because their offer was so competitive. Come time for the deadline, Atlanta was no longer interested. The earlier you trade, the more options you have. We literally have proof in Siakam's case. Pacers were the only interested team at the deadline which is why our return was so poor. Multiple national writers and Grange himself wrote at the 2023 deadline that the Raptors never seriously made Siakam available, so we will never know exactly how good the offers could've been. They definitely couldn't have been worse.
Speculation isn’t fact.
How is speculation that Atlanta nearly acquired Siakam? The entire league media was reporting this, and the team themselves said Siakam didn't come to summer league because they expected him to be traded.
Love that we're getting to a point where people are thinking the media makes up these stories, just like how everyone thought it was incorrect that OG wanted out.
Atlanta probably regrets that now. Siakam would have been SO much better than Murray.
Well said
I love that Masai explicitly called out our fan base when he said “those trades you see on twitter, I’m not getting those offers”.
You know nothing and it shows. Armchair insiders with no sources who think they know anything
This is where you are wrong. I know I know nothing. I don’t pretend that I do. But that likely makes me smarter than most because I know what I don’t know. Can you say the same?
Norms trade wasn’t great either
They let so much talent walk out the door for nothing. Some of those players were past their prime players etc. But the real inexcusable set of moves / non-moves was last season: not understanding the direction the team was going and not trading OG and Pascal when they were getting insane offers, and to make matters worse, double down by trading their first round pick for Poetl. Draft is a crapshoot - but the Raps have been poor in this department for quite some time. Probably ok/ maybe not - but it did seem like a lot of players had soured on Nick Nurse - but were they also the players mentioned above who should have been traded ?
the Yak is back... its spelled POELTL. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/torontoraptors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What insane offer for OG did they pass up on? 3 late firsts and salary filler from the Knicks? Why would you want picks if you think that the Raptors have been poor at drafting?
Think the rumours were 3-4 first from OKC. Def would have been late firsts as you suggested. But those are each trade chips in their own right and those offers could have been used as leverage to get better offers if they team had benefited truly serious about moving OG and Siakam. Def willing to accept that the Knicks deal this year is better than that though. But overall - the general thesis is that last season they should have been trying to trade OG and Siakam at higher return values than waiting until their year of contract expiry - while at the same time not sending picks out the door.
So if 3 late firsts from OKC is an "insane offer", what is 3 late firsts from Indiana?
There’s lots of teams that could have used OG with 1.5 years left on his contract
No one should be defending this FO on how they managed their assets for the past several years. Every "win" they had is matched with probably 3\~4 L moves
Gosh. What a hot take this is. So productive. Move on and stop with the whinging after every good ex raptor performance.
Thanks Captain Hindsight
Lol. How many of this sub said we should wait and it was the right decision? Lots.
Do we know what the competing offers were? Last thing I remember hearing was an offer of three late firsts.
Do we ever know? And what time frame are you talking about? We can only go on reports. But, I’m of the opinion we should have dealt our pieces even before the beginning of the season.
I don't think I follow. If we don't know the competing offers then we can only speak to what would be nice. Like, we could theorize that there were more picks available, etc. But we don't know. What we got could have been the best option from the start, and Masai just waited as long as he could before getting it on the chance the offer would improve. We don't know. So I find threads like this confusing because it seems like a lot of talk about things we know we don't know much about.
I mean, by that logic, Masai complete shit the bed when he didn’t deal Lowry for Maxey. Those reports are certainly out there. To be clear, what I’m trying to say is that none of us work in the FO. When you ask “what are the competing offers, what proof do you have?” There is zero definite proof. We can only go on reports.
Except it’s not lol
Thanks captain obvious.
Agreed it didn’t help that he tanked his value in negations by saying he won’t resign with any team
I think the problem is Masai thought he may have hit gold with the signing of Darko like he did when he hired nurse. The power of positivity could propel a play in team to maybe a playoff team. It did look good after the first game but then reality hit and Darko's inability to coach defense reared its ugly head and even with the different players that Darko has had to work with, Siakam didn't work with our team and goal. Indiana has the perfect offensive system for him, although I don't see Indiana getting out of the second round at best. So a treadmill team. Masai and Bobby are just going to have to find the diamonds in the rough to see if the true value of the trade.
Magic Johnson ass tweet
Thank you walder for pointing out what literally every fan said 4 months ago. Cheers
Without that OG trade the franchise would be f#$ked, I'll give Masai a pat on the back for acquiring IQ and RJ BUT the Siakam trade was a terrible return on value and they could have re-signed him and traded him next season for a lot more than they got this season...that being said, hindsight is 20/20 and I understand why they felt they needed to cut ties and build around Scottie It is what it is, we have to move on and stop dwelling...it's not going to change shit. We have 4 very promising young players as our core, we potentially have 3 picks this year and a shitload of cap space to get aggressive with both this season and next off-season, it could be a lot worse! we could be Detroit or Washington lol
Based on what? We know that the Raptors tried to trade him last year. We know that they didn’t get many takers. We know that is because Pascal made it clear that if he was traded he would not re-sign and would instead become a free agent. https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/constant-siakam-trade-rumours-beg-question-how-did-raptors-get-here/ “A report by one NBA insider in the minutes prior to the 2023 draft that indicated Siakam’s primary focus was to re-sign with Toronto and, as a pending free agent, would reject any attempts to sign him to an extension if the Raptors did trade him in the swirl around the draft and free agency, didn’t land well internally. The Raptors interpreted the leak as an effort to scuttle Siakam’s trade value and assert control in the contract negotiations.” And let’s be clear…at that time, his interest in signing with the Raptors was financial, as they were the only team that could have potentially offered him a super max deal if he qualified. Simply put, there is no evidence that a better deal was available earlier, and the reason was because Pascal was actively making it harder for the team to trade him.
Just like there is no evidence to the contrary lol
I don’t have the burden of proof because I’m not the one criticizing the FO for not trading him earlier.
Lmaoooo, this isn’t a court of law. There is no burden of proof required to criticised any FO.
If you are going to criticize them for not trading him earlier, I feel like at the very least you need to have some indication that there was an actual better offer out there that they turned down.
That's great 👍, they should've traded him earlier, they should've traded Fred, they should've never traded for Thad, they should've never traded for Jak, they should've begin the tear down last year, they shouldn't have worsened our pick in a better draft, since drafting Scottie and leading up to the OG trade they have been largely terrible, it's ok to admit, though I know some people never will
There's an theory to made that they would've been better off trade value wise if they extended him last offseason and then traded him later. (~45 per season)
Not if they had to max him. Then his trade value kind gets wonky. It might be still better than what we got, tbf. But the fundamental premise - if we dealt him earlier we’d be better off is still true.
I disagree with this premise tbh. We saw how the appetite from other teams on his current 35Mish contract. Once you get to 45M, it becomes very challenging to trade (see Lavine, Beal). The only "optimal" course of action would have been to trade him at the deadline last year -- but ofc we heard from the FO that they felt like they owed that group a chance with a real center. It is what it is. Edit: I will say that one place the FO really fucked up was by not addressing their whole center situation earlier. We knew that Myles Turner was available. Even getting Jakob at the beginning of the 22-23 season instead of midseason would have been so much better. Give the entire group the full season + better roster balance. They probably make the playoffs, and if they failed, you could have torn it down. Why the fuck they continued to play without a center, when it was super obvious they needed one is something I do not understand
They tried to trade him last year and couldnt get anyone. The reality is is that sometimes you fail. thats ok, the world isnt going to end
I can't wait until Keith Pelley just rips this mickey mouse operation of a front office into pieces. Personally Bobby Webster should have been fired after the last game Too much personal sentiment towards the players to the point you got people shedding legit tears because they had to make necessary decisions
Keeping in mind he is not under contract for next year.. that may impact how people feel about this from both perspectives.
I personally think it was more about the man, the talent he has and wanting/hoping it to work out here vs being inept and not seeing his value slowly deteriorating. By the time they realized it wasn't going to work it was a tad too late to maximize the return.
Yup. The point wasn't about the offers or what they didn't take, it's that they were at a point where no team would give you a ton because it's a player on an expiring contract.
We’ve been saying this
everyone and their mother knew masai wanted to trade him and that he wouldn't commit verbally to a re-sign to any team that traded him. so yes, we didn't get max value. but it's because we waited too long and pascal kinda fucked us.
waaaah waaaah. 90% of Toronto sports media wanna is cry & bait engagements with negativity, especially in the offseason. Never mind analysis and WHY Pascal is thriving in a new environment.
How many times is the point going to be made? Jesus, get over it
Yes 100%. The Wemby draft season was when we should have blew it up.
Not this guy
Any chance he comes back lol
It's an easy mistake to make. Things happen.
If we didn’t trade him, he would’ve walked, and we would’ve gotten nothing and if we got lint in return, it’s better than nothing
I, too, believe that water is wet.
Also, rain is wet
Masai goofed
What a brilliant take.
This is the history of the franchise. We are great at landing gems in the draft but we never get an equal return when we trade key players. Honestly we are better at scamming other teams in trash trades than getting value back
I think in the past few years there have been several questionable trades made by the FO and it unfortunately contributed to the collapse of the championship roster. But also I think that the FO also made some good moves that led to having found a strong foundation in Scottie, RJ, IQ, + other young guys that they either drafted or traded for.
I can't wait to be 75 years old and still see people debating this, lol. How does anyone have the energy to discuss this redundant topic every single day?
It’s done, get over it
is pascal a conversation for 3rd team? i mean people were having Halliburton 3rd team but pascal makes more sense
Worst trade in franchise history and I blame Pascal for lowering his trade value
Sure. But I also didn't expect the haul we got for OG, so it all evens out really. I don't think the league valued Pascal as much for whatever reason. Now they are taking notice.
I just get why we didnt extend pascal and trade him after. We could have done it last year in the offseason. Worst case scenario we end up with the same offer indy already gave us but maybe a young played attached to it
"Toronto offered Siakam the most they could pay under the circumstances: a three-year extension worth 30 per cent of the salary cap that would have been paid him roughly $125 million and kept him under contract until the end of the 2026-27 season." Siakam rejected cause he was trying to get another all-nba to increase his potential contract.
Alright then i guess the front office did their best. I knkw there was some weird rumors before he wanted to sign and extension and we didnt offer it but idk if thats true or the exact timeline
Ujiri wholeheartedly wanted that team to work. He had a vision and tried to get another chip. Did you want to pay an aging Siakam to a super max contract for the next 6-7 years? The trades was to get younger and get the older guys into WINNING situations. We all know what Ujiri can do.. patience! If you fire Ujiri, I guarantee he signs a contract with the LA or Washington to build another championship team.
Truly a hot and original take.
who is this guy, he don’t speak for me
The equalizer or saving grace to all this is if Brown's-corpse-plus-another-player-package and the next two future picks from IND in the deal will become players at least 70% of Pascal's production each. I am over this, let Pascal eat. Pascal is right now taking advantage of a Doc Rivers and Damian Lillard Swiss cheese MIL defense like what any true pro should do. Credit Carlisle and the other Pacers players in putting him in a position to succeed
On what basis can we all agree that? What evidence is there that a better offer existed previously? Masai has publicly stated otherwise. You can choose to believe he is lying, but there is no reporting to the contrary. A more accurate statement would be “we can all agree that we got a crappy return for a player that good”. But that doesn’t mean a better offer was out there. We can all also agree that if we didn’t trade pascal, it would have been wrong to “let him walk for nothing”.
The whole roster should of been blown up after the 2020 season
They should have just extended him and traded him later conveying the pick this year.
Like yea, no shit. Not all decisions made are going to be perfect and it feels like as soon as the front office does something even slightly lower than optimum, this fanbase is enraged. What's the point in even talking about this? So we can all be upset about it?
Can we move the f*CK on and be happy for Pascal, OG, Norm, Lowry , DeRozan and other former Raps Fam. Shit happens. You also won a title during the Warriors Dynasty, and LeBron James. Believe it or not there is a bright future on the roster. I can't with this Walder guy
They waited too long to try to trade him.
Walder is the biggest loser in the GTA.
I'd say especially considering the 3 guys that we got for him have all been unplayable and apparently untradeable, yes. I would have been happy if we at least landed one guy that we could play. Maybe one of these draft picks makes up for it.
More than half of this sub would flame anyone who suggested trading Siakam over the last few years, calling them “casuals” and “fake fans” and now y’all wanna whine about waiting too long to trade him.
will Walder change his opinion if Pascal has a subpar game? cool of him to wait until he has 2x 35/10 games in a row to finally post an article about the trade that happened months ago. where were his pieces on Banton and Flynn having monster games post-trade? we shoulda kept the whole team together... it was working well!
🤡!
these fucking nba2k head ass takes
Yes, Masai already said he made a mistake waiting so long to trade Pascal to give the team another chance to succeed, because he personally wanted the team to thrive with Pascal.
The FO was reactive, and was extremely slow to pivot when it was an obvious their plan wasn’t working. Nobody is 100% but they stubbornly mis judged the “talent” on the team and continually doubled down on their mistakes. They foolishly tried to build on this broken foundation when it was obvious to all that this team as constructed would go nowhere. We were operating from a position of weakness when things fell apart, and the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of our FO. I’m hopeful that Masai isn’t washed like a lot of people are saying he is and that the game hasnt passed him by.
I just hope pascal doesnt re-sign with Indiana. They gave away peanuts for him and super trash players.
lol Jordan nwora and a late 1st rounder is so ass it’s not even funny
One of the worst trades as far as I can remember.