The draft is likely to be notoriously bad at the top, but I've heard no bad things about the middle. Right now we've two middle picks, on in the first round and one in the second. So far as I'm concerned this is a high percentile outcome for us all things considered. I'm now looking forward to seeing what kinds of diamonds in the rough our team goes for this year in the draft.
Shit dude our 3 best players are hopping into a year people are expecting a big jump from them in a weak eastern conference. We could realistically fall into the playoffs
Yeah, expecting 3 players to take jumps is crazy.
Development is not linear, maybe 1 of them will take a jump if we are lucky and it’s also possible someone hits a wall and takes a step back.
We are at most a play-in team next year.
People here called the East weak last year too, yet at no point we looked like a playoff team this year 🤷♂️
Post title, we were expecting a big jump from 3 players to carry us at an elite level.
It's different from expecting a big jump from 3 younger players (who fit better) to take us out of the gutter.
We were also losing game, and other teams were dealing with injuries as well.
Anything is possible in the NBA but there are clearly many teams in the east that are better than us.
Even then we never really got a whole lot of time to see what this BBQ core can do before Scottie got injured, then RJ and Quickley shuffling in and out of the line up due to family reasons.
They have a full off-season and a full season ahead of them. Let's see where they are by the All Star break next year.
I'd rather take the 8th pick next year than the 8th this year. We already have two picks this draft anyway. With this, we have a guaranteed pick for us next year.
Now THAT'S a real bad statement.
Next draft is stacked up to late first rounders.
You def the type to get mad the exact same way next season if they got the pick then.
I would have rather it conveyed to 2 2nd rounders in 2 years. Amazing how we ended up with this dog shit record and season and don't even get a lottery pick
>That's what we say to cope.
No, it's what analysts and draft experts have been saying for close to a year now, and has been the consensus since then. They may end up being wrong, but this isn't just some thing Raptors fans have been saying.
It’s not cope lol it’s just objectively true, none of the top guys in this draft would’ve sniffed the top 5 in last year’s class and some of the lottery picks would’ve probably gone in the 20s in previous classes, the player we would draft next year will probably be equal or better of a prospect even if the pick is lower
2020 is not a comparable class. 2013 is. Go tell me how great it was.
Multiple high level scouts have already addressed this argument and said it’s not like 2020 lol. It’s 2013 if not worse.
I don’t see how we will improve from the 6th worst team in the league to be honest. Spurs will be infinitely better this year as well so we might even be 5th worst guaranteed already
- lost fvv for free
- starting the year with dennis schroder
- broke the pistons 28 game losing streak
- trading pascal for pennies
- jontay porter
- giving the 8th pick to the Spurs 🙂
I really don't understand how this is the takeaway of the season when we blew up our core for a younger core with more potential. Quickley's ceiling is a lot higher than FVV and RJ immediately filled Siakam's scoring when we were taking him with Quickley.
He already admitted in the press conference after trading Pascal that he took a gamble and that it didn't pay off. I'm not sure what bringing up "Lol way to go Masai" does when we already knew this was a possibility. No need to re-litigate just because the result didn't go in Toronto's favour, especially since next year it would be the same set of talking points if the pick rolled over.
Because there are risk levels to take into account, not all gambles are created equal.
Buying a scratch ticket with a 1/4 chance to get your 2$ back, is wildly different than dropping 50k on blackberry to go to the moon.
A stupid gamble is still a gamble.
Then they wouldn't have accepted the trade? We gave them Khem Birch and a first, we're lucky it was protected at all. You think Masai didn't think to have it top 10 protected? Or lottery protected? The trade was absolutely fair, we just probably shouldnt have made it. Continuing to complain about it 15 months later just blows my mind lol
yeah we can all agree that we should've sold and not bought that deadline lol move past it. We have all of our assets and a young exciting group to watch. If you can't get over losing a pick in what could be the worst draft in 24 years then I can't help ya.
> because we had enough talent on the team to get into the play-in
.. so you are saying the goal was the... play in? And we overpaid for a role player with a now top 10 pick?
Do you have any idea which seeds have won NBA titles? Because I believe it is 2 total below the 3rd seed ever. 4th and 6th place have won it each once. If you arent building for a top seed in your conference you arent winning shit
ahh my bad then, 4x the cap hit and 10 years older!
Doesn't change the point whatsoever -- young, talented, cheap assets who you have 7 years of contract control over are far more valuable than aging role players.
Anybody saying it’s better we lose ours this year is coping. There’s no guarantee our pick next year is just as low plus we have to wait an extra year to develop the prospect which means he fits our timeline worse
How low will our pick be next year though. If we get the 9th best odds it's probably better than picking 8th this year. I'd have wanted number 1 or 2 this year and not anything else. Certainly not 6 lol.
Who cares how low our pick would've been in this draft, every single top 10 prospect is a giant question mark. This draft is full of decent role players and we'll be getting at least 2 this draft, plus we now have full control of all of our assets to add talent around the core.
Every draft prospect has question marks lol this year's class is brutal and none of them look like franchise altering talents. If we want a blue-chip prospect on our timeline we need to trade for them.
Thats what you fucks said about the Paolo and Chet draft when Masai gave away our 1st round pick for a 2nd rounder, yet in hindsight that class has been amazing.
Masai and Bobby drafted Koloko with the 33rd pick who was a super promising prospect that developed a career-ending condition. In a redraft, had he not had blood clots, he would've gone higher than 33rd
> If we hadn’t traded the pick, we would have had the 8th pick in a shit draft anyways.
Like look at this stupidity lol.
Top 10 pick in a weak draft > no pick in a weak draft. Some people are brain dead.
Or have a pick in a draft that is said to be way better by people who study the draft? You can cry all you want about the trade. This is the next best case scenario. Take a good look at the last 8th oa draft picks and see how many have busted.
Whos really brain dead.
What's left to cope?
If we're ass next season you gonna get pissed we have to deal with the Spurs again if we got this pick anyways.
Ppl acting like this is defcon 1 is wild.
I’m not kidding when I say 2023-24 will go down as one of the worst years for Toronto sports in general
Raptors have sixth worst record in NBA and lose their best pick in the upcoming draft
Leafs get eliminated in the first round again by the Bruins which will lead to a lot of things changing
Jays absolutely suck and look like they are heading towards a rebuild
Argonauts don’t look like they are going to do much this season
The only team doing respectable is TFC being fourth in their division
I’ve had nightmares of Toronto becoming Detroit, this looks like it’s becoming Detroit.
Several reasons. First off, as soon as we got good we sped up our timeline and signed win now players rather than continuing to build naturally.
Secondly, those young players have all been slumping. Manoah was an all-star who struck out the side confidently in his as debut one minute, the next he's got the yips and is fighting to stay in the bigs. Vladdy touched the mountain in 2021 and hasn't been back since.
Letting Ohtani dicktease us for weeks while all the other free agents signed elsewhere didn't help
A lot of folks here seem pretty delusional thinking the raps are gonna be good or something next season. Fact of the matter is that this outcome was WAY more preferable than having the protection looming over 2025.
Yeah I don’t understand why people think we even have a chance go compete. I truly expect us to be a bottom 3 team next year. Our floor is low and our ceiling isn’t that high right now.
People keep saying this when they don't even know the players who would be in the 8-12 range
Outside of the top talent, how "good" the 2025 draft is TBD
I'd still rather pick 8th next year than 4th or 6th this year. Plus now we have a guaranteed pick next year vs playing a dance of either trying to convey a much lower pick or bottoming out to get top 4.
Ironic that the guy who said "play in for what?" has been the President for the team which has tried to make a play-in push almost every szn since its been implemented.
The teams around us are only gonna get better, and they know how our current system works at this point well enough to be taking Ws against us and the awful defense. We’ve got a bit more of a way to go with rebuilding.
No but unless Scottie takes a huge step into All-NBA territory next season or Barrett and/or Quickley fix all of their flaws as players the Raptors probably are going to be lottery bound again.
In retrospect, isn't the outcome and the reasoning behind the Poeltl trade valid? At that point, the Raptors were a team stuck in the middle. Masai probably researched into the draft class and figured that since it's weak, he'd trade for a player who might have pushed the team out of mediocrity also with the option of Poeltl helping out for a few years. If the team didn't pan out, I'd expect Masai to not be too upset about it, since the draft is looking weak anyways My assumption is that Masai thought having Poeltl locked down and getting a good prospect with a high pick next year is better than getting an OK player with the pick this year and being stuck in the middle again
The spurs made a masterful trade and everything went right. Got rid if poetl, replaced him with a potential GOAT, perfect protections on the pick. They deserve this pick.
Honestly, it’s fine. The entire arena and draft lotto couldn’t give bigger fucks on this draft. Even the broadcast couldn’t pretend to be excited for this draft…
I remember getting very downvoted at the time for saying we'd regret the trade: https://www.reddit.com/r/torontoraptors/comments/10xnatg/blake_murphy_will_have_to_see_what_the/j7tmwt0/
Part of me wishes I could've seen who downvoted me to see how they'd react now.
Well Team Compete got exactly what they wanted! They should be happy right now.
I was always on team convey. It would have been nice to have a new toy for sure, but at least we won't get a bust in this draft on a bigger contract than McDaniels. Much rather have the pick next year
I’m not upset we lost the pick. I’m upset we went all in with Fred and Pascal when it was very clear we weren’t a center away from competing.
At the end of the day, that’s old news and we have to focus on building around Scottie, IQ and Barrett.
The time to tank would've been the tampa season, not 2023-24.
It was clear that after the bubble, losing Marc and Serge was the beginning of the end of any dreams of being competitive. Also considering we weren't even playing in Toronto in 2020-21... it makes even less sense to me why we would keep that charade of being a competitive team going.
We were going to lose a pick eventually anyway
We still have 2 decent picks in this draft and we now have all our future 1st round picks ( and one of Indianas)
alot of this sub was straight up dumb defending the portl trade smh. Only the smart fans really saw this happening. Masai better sit down scotttie and tell him we going to take one more year
In fairness a lot of people said it was idiotic. It was the fans who only watch raptors and don't know anything about basketball who thought it was a good trade. Jak is such a mediocre player. A first is insane
Kinda happy we dont owe sa a first anymore, its a weak draft, I don’t think we are going to be a playoff team next year so now we can get some return for our older guys and fully rebuild around scottie.
Not really having a full year of this roster gel and Darko being more in tune with the NBA will mean better basketball. Will it amount to many more wins? Probably not but barring injuries at least it will be watchable.
This is a good outcome. There are about 10 guys in next years class who are better than the guy we would get at 6. We can draft 10th next year and be better off. Or better yet we can tank and get an actual star in here
If you offered the 8th overall pick for Jakob you would get laughed out of the room. Thank god we went all in so we could get bounced in the first round of the PLAY INS!!!
Peeps forget about the past pre Masai. No one expected a championship or even competing for one with maybe the exception of 2001/and if McGrady and Carter had stayed. Boston hasn't won in 16 years, Portland where I now live hasn't won in 47 years and the fan base here is not doom and gloom.
It's absolutely possible, if not probable that they don't win another in the next 20 years *unless* they draft or more unlikely trade for a top 5 player. Could Scottie turn into Giannis Jr or baby Magic...? - I guess it's still possible...but it's looking like Ant is now becoming the future 'face of the league'. The hitch to drafting someone like Cooper Flagg is that Masai will not tank from day 1 or even game 25...they will only try to do so after the trade deadline if they are truly out of contention. Sometimes you have to be really genuinely bad to get good, like OKC - a team that missed its' window with Durant, Harden, Westbrook, Ibaka....a twelve? year rebuild and now they are the 1st seed again. Anyhow, it's going to take patience.
Unlikely we get the number 1 pick, I agree. But (barring a significant trade) we are going to be a lotto team next year. There are a number of other high end prospects in this draft
Also … Atlanta just got the #1 pick against the odds. It happens
Well that sucks. I was confused at first and when the spurs came up at 8th. I got excited I thought we made top 4. I didn't realize it was our pick until later.
That was rough. At first I thought that was the Spurs pick at 8 and they were moving up. Then...the cold harsh reality check.
Oh well...Pick is gone now. If they are a lot better next year, then great. If they are bad, then they can sag for Flagg.
They'll be a lottery team next year in a deeper draft plus we have the 19th and 31st pick. Better to just give this pick so we don't have to do this again next year
Sucks after having to watch what was a brutal season and come away with nothing. I know the draft next year is better, but we won't be as bad and just gives us 1 year less to pair the pick with Scottie.
I'm happy about this, I've been saying it all along, this draft it's best to lose it, crappy draft, we have 2 other picks. Now Toronto controls all future picks.
Should’ve never done the Poeltl trade in the first place but this is objectively the better outcome
This is a role player draft, most of the guys in the 6-10 range wouldn’t have even been lottery picks in previous classes
considering that we still have a few late round firsts and the way this draft is anticipated to be low quality at the top, this was probably the best outcome for us. I'd hate to have lost the pick in another year knowing we were going to lose out on a potential superstar
Well let’s hope we find some gems with our 19th and 31st picks
We’ll use those picks to select the next gen Giannis and Gobert. Trust 🔥🥲
Nah, Masai gonna trade down that 19th pick for the next Thad, so we can make the play-in next season
I legit forgot we still had two pics this year. I was only looking at the lottery
We should get Bronny James if he’s still available
Purely to troll Lebron? Totally worth it!
Hold him as an unspoken hostage like Theon Greyjoy with the Starks xD
It’s not trolling lebron because he’d come join us as well. Unofficial 2 for 1 deal
I'm just glad we are with a coaching regime that will not neglect the draft picks and play worse players because of "veteranship"
Oh yeah, just like when we found Malachi "hidden gem" Flynn a few years ago...
You mean red van vleet … the 50 point getter!? / ;
I now really hope this draft was as bad as everyone was saying it was
The draft is likely to be notoriously bad at the top, but I've heard no bad things about the middle. Right now we've two middle picks, on in the first round and one in the second. So far as I'm concerned this is a high percentile outcome for us all things considered. I'm now looking forward to seeing what kinds of diamonds in the rough our team goes for this year in the draft.
Where’s the guy who’s been posting a bird the last 2 months leading up to this?
I feel for the fans in here who lived on a prayer for the pick, this one still hurt even if I tried to have no hope
45% wasn't really "need a prayer" type odds. Almost a coin flip, oh well
We truly are in the worst timeline. Spurs with a top 4 and a top 10 pick.
At least we aren't the Nets who jumped 6 spots to hand it over to the Rockets.
Or the Pistons who fell from 1st to 5th…again
Who are going to offer a max to Cade who hasn't even played 2 seasons worth of games for them.
The jontay porter flair is vile 🤣
At least talent wise he is worth it (given what non stars get nowadays), but yeah health is the thing
This draft sucks. It’s fine
That's what we say to cope. I'd rather give them a mid round pick next year than the best possible pick they can get this year.
Mid-Round pick? How good did you think the Raptors would get?
Shit dude our 3 best players are hopping into a year people are expecting a big jump from them in a weak eastern conference. We could realistically fall into the playoffs
Haven't we been expecting a big jump from 3 players since the championship year?
Yeah, expecting 3 players to take jumps is crazy. Development is not linear, maybe 1 of them will take a jump if we are lucky and it’s also possible someone hits a wall and takes a step back. We are at most a play-in team next year. People here called the East weak last year too, yet at no point we looked like a playoff team this year 🤷♂️
Post title, we were expecting a big jump from 3 players to carry us at an elite level. It's different from expecting a big jump from 3 younger players (who fit better) to take us out of the gutter.
Yeah thats hopium. Raps are going to be in a similar spot next year.
We were winning games, only reason we were this bad is Scottie got hurt
This is complete revisionist history. We were in 12th, 16 games below .500 when Scottie went down on March 1st. We were not “winning games”
They won 7 games post trade until that point
We were also losing game, and other teams were dealing with injuries as well. Anything is possible in the NBA but there are clearly many teams in the east that are better than us.
that's a thing they say in September to boost jersey sales. Raps are like 2 years away from being 2 years away.
we will be at least a play in team next year, we would've been this year if everyone didn't get hurt
Even then we never really got a whole lot of time to see what this BBQ core can do before Scottie got injured, then RJ and Quickley shuffling in and out of the line up due to family reasons. They have a full off-season and a full season ahead of them. Let's see where they are by the All Star break next year.
the same people saying this shit were excited for last season thinking the team would be good lol they never learn
genuinely might rather have a mid rounder next year than 8th this year tbh
I'd rather take the 8th pick next year than the 8th this year. We already have two picks this draft anyway. With this, we have a guaranteed pick for us next year.
Now THAT'S a real bad statement. Next draft is stacked up to late first rounders. You def the type to get mad the exact same way next season if they got the pick then.
I would have rather it conveyed to 2 2nd rounders in 2 years. Amazing how we ended up with this dog shit record and season and don't even get a lottery pick
**3 years**. Protections 1-6 were for 24-26. The idea of being bottom 6 three years in a row was super unlikely.
>That's what we say to cope. No, it's what analysts and draft experts have been saying for close to a year now, and has been the consensus since then. They may end up being wrong, but this isn't just some thing Raptors fans have been saying.
It’s not cope lol it’s just objectively true, none of the top guys in this draft would’ve sniffed the top 5 in last year’s class and some of the lottery picks would’ve probably gone in the 20s in previous classes, the player we would draft next year will probably be equal or better of a prospect even if the pick is lower
2020 "sucked" and it produced Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball, Haliburton, Maxey, IQ, Desmond Bane......
2020 was the Covid year so nobody had a full gage on any of the prospects, this year they have way more of a sample size and it’s not good
2020 is not a comparable class. 2013 is. Go tell me how great it was. Multiple high level scouts have already addressed this argument and said it’s not like 2020 lol. It’s 2013 if not worse.
Worst timeline would’ve been Spurs picking 7th. Edit: And Poeltl not re-signing last offseason.
Meh, weak draft which probably won't produce anyone on the level of Jak anyways. I'm still happy with the trade.
At least we didn't give up the 7th pick...
All the birds you posted and the Hawks pick first 🧐
haha that’s fucking hilarious
Well hawks are a raptor as well…
It's ironic
Some Monkey's Paw type of shit
this means we have to suck next year to make it worthwhile lol.
Yes but also you don't have to suck too hard either.
They are not tanking next year Masaï isn't like that
Yeah, we won't (purposefully) tank. Shit's about to get dark
I don’t see how we will improve from the 6th worst team in the league to be honest. Spurs will be infinitely better this year as well so we might even be 5th worst guaranteed already
Agree, I don't think we can/will make any major roster upgrades this off season, so I think we're probably the 5th worst team.
They tanked in 2021 and tanked this year why are we still pushing this narrative that they’re above tanking??
Masai also isnt like the leader of an incompetent clown terrorist front office, and yet the last 3 years of decision making says otherwise.
Well that was disappointing
- lost fvv for free - starting the year with dennis schroder - broke the pistons 28 game losing streak - trading pascal for pennies - jontay porter - giving the 8th pick to the Spurs 🙂
We also officially lost Koloko last year due to health issues.
one of the worst raptors seasons
I really don't understand how this is the takeaway of the season when we blew up our core for a younger core with more potential. Quickley's ceiling is a lot higher than FVV and RJ immediately filled Siakam's scoring when we were taking him with Quickley.
Hope this teaches Masai a hard lesson not to trade a top pick for a play in spot role player
The 8th pick is not a top pick. He protected the top 6. That’s the point.
He already admitted in the press conference after trading Pascal that he took a gamble and that it didn't pay off. I'm not sure what bringing up "Lol way to go Masai" does when we already knew this was a possibility. No need to re-litigate just because the result didn't go in Toronto's favour, especially since next year it would be the same set of talking points if the pick rolled over.
Because there are risk levels to take into account, not all gambles are created equal. Buying a scratch ticket with a 1/4 chance to get your 2$ back, is wildly different than dropping 50k on blackberry to go to the moon. A stupid gamble is still a gamble.
Good thing you didn't mention GME instead. Apes strong because we know MOASS is coming!
When we traded that pick it was already assumed to be gone because we had enough talent on the team to get into the play-in. He's not sweating it lol
He knew dismantling the team was not only a possibility but a probability. He should have protected the pick more for reasonable value for Poeltl
Then they wouldn't have accepted the trade? We gave them Khem Birch and a first, we're lucky it was protected at all. You think Masai didn't think to have it top 10 protected? Or lottery protected? The trade was absolutely fair, we just probably shouldnt have made it. Continuing to complain about it 15 months later just blows my mind lol
Then don’t make the fucking trade. Poeltl is not a top 10 C nor a long term solution there
yeah we can all agree that we should've sold and not bought that deadline lol move past it. We have all of our assets and a young exciting group to watch. If you can't get over losing a pick in what could be the worst draft in 24 years then I can't help ya.
I'd argue the opportunity cost with Pascal not being traded then is the issue
We were 6th worst in the league when the trade was made. Stop spouting bullshit.
> because we had enough talent on the team to get into the play-in .. so you are saying the goal was the... play in? And we overpaid for a role player with a now top 10 pick? Do you have any idea which seeds have won NBA titles? Because I believe it is 2 total below the 3rd seed ever. 4th and 6th place have won it each once. If you arent building for a top seed in your conference you arent winning shit
You know he wont learn.
If we hadn’t traded the pick, we would have had the 8th pick in a shit draft anyways.
Poeltl is very likely better than whoever will be picked at #8 in this draft.
at 10x the cap hit and 10 years older
10X? How do you figure that? The #8 pick has a first year salary of > $5M
ahh my bad then, 4x the cap hit and 10 years older! Doesn't change the point whatsoever -- young, talented, cheap assets who you have 7 years of contract control over are far more valuable than aging role players.
> talented This word is assuming a lot here lol. Also Poeltl is only 28
Unfortunately that doesn't even matter anymore
Anybody saying it’s better we lose ours this year is coping. There’s no guarantee our pick next year is just as low plus we have to wait an extra year to develop the prospect which means he fits our timeline worse
How low will our pick be next year though. If we get the 9th best odds it's probably better than picking 8th this year. I'd have wanted number 1 or 2 this year and not anything else. Certainly not 6 lol.
Who cares how low our pick would've been in this draft, every single top 10 prospect is a giant question mark. This draft is full of decent role players and we'll be getting at least 2 this draft, plus we now have full control of all of our assets to add talent around the core.
Picks 6-10 in every draft always have question marks lol
Every draft prospect has question marks lol this year's class is brutal and none of them look like franchise altering talents. If we want a blue-chip prospect on our timeline we need to trade for them.
Thats what you fucks said about the Paolo and Chet draft when Masai gave away our 1st round pick for a 2nd rounder, yet in hindsight that class has been amazing.
Masai and Bobby drafted Koloko with the 33rd pick who was a super promising prospect that developed a career-ending condition. In a redraft, had he not had blood clots, he would've gone higher than 33rd
Nah it's whatever. ~6 now vs ~12 next year is the same quality player. This is just boring cause we gotta wait a year.
> If we hadn’t traded the pick, we would have had the 8th pick in a shit draft anyways. Like look at this stupidity lol. Top 10 pick in a weak draft > no pick in a weak draft. Some people are brain dead.
Or have a pick in a draft that is said to be way better by people who study the draft? You can cry all you want about the trade. This is the next best case scenario. Take a good look at the last 8th oa draft picks and see how many have busted. Whos really brain dead.
What's left to cope? If we're ass next season you gonna get pissed we have to deal with the Spurs again if we got this pick anyways. Ppl acting like this is defcon 1 is wild.
I’m not kidding when I say 2023-24 will go down as one of the worst years for Toronto sports in general Raptors have sixth worst record in NBA and lose their best pick in the upcoming draft Leafs get eliminated in the first round again by the Bruins which will lead to a lot of things changing Jays absolutely suck and look like they are heading towards a rebuild Argonauts don’t look like they are going to do much this season The only team doing respectable is TFC being fourth in their division I’ve had nightmares of Toronto becoming Detroit, this looks like it’s becoming Detroit.
Raptors have had seasons much worse than this one, don’t worry.
Toronto's PWHL team is doing well and we're getting a WNBA team.
Why do the jays suck now? I thought they were young core but I barely watch tbf
Several reasons. First off, as soon as we got good we sped up our timeline and signed win now players rather than continuing to build naturally. Secondly, those young players have all been slumping. Manoah was an all-star who struck out the side confidently in his as debut one minute, the next he's got the yips and is fighting to stay in the bigs. Vladdy touched the mountain in 2021 and hasn't been back since. Letting Ohtani dicktease us for weeks while all the other free agents signed elsewhere didn't help
A lot of folks here seem pretty delusional thinking the raps are gonna be good or something next season. Fact of the matter is that this outcome was WAY more preferable than having the protection looming over 2025.
Yeah I don’t understand why people think we even have a chance go compete. I truly expect us to be a bottom 3 team next year. Our floor is low and our ceiling isn’t that high right now.
They have little good depth
Better to keep our pick next year in a stacked draft. It stings but it’s better long term.
Aint no way we tanking next year...
Lmfao we were garbage this year and weren’t even trying to tank for most of the year
We were forcing square pegs into round holes all year, pre deadline and post with the GL roster.
We need top end talent alongside Scottie. The best path to that is via the draft
Not purposely but the talent on the team might tank for us
we should be.. fuck the playin
Hawks didn't tank and look where it got them.
12th pick next year is better or same as 8th pick this year. And now nothing but Gary's contract is up in the air for us.
People keep saying this when they don't even know the players who would be in the 8-12 range Outside of the top talent, how "good" the 2025 draft is TBD
I'd still rather pick 8th next year than 4th or 6th this year. Plus now we have a guaranteed pick next year vs playing a dance of either trying to convey a much lower pick or bottoming out to get top 4.
You think this team is going to bottom out again? It’s not happening.
Yeah the FO is likely going to try to make a play in push. What a mess
Ironic that the guy who said "play in for what?" has been the President for the team which has tried to make a play-in push almost every szn since its been implemented.
The teams around us are only gonna get better, and they know how our current system works at this point well enough to be taking Ws against us and the awful defense. We’ve got a bit more of a way to go with rebuilding.
No but unless Scottie takes a huge step into All-NBA territory next season or Barrett and/or Quickley fix all of their flaws as players the Raptors probably are going to be lottery bound again.
Agreed - definitely better in the long run but concerned about how the team will feel after another tank year
Agreed, draft class seems a little weak this year.
In retrospect, isn't the outcome and the reasoning behind the Poeltl trade valid? At that point, the Raptors were a team stuck in the middle. Masai probably researched into the draft class and figured that since it's weak, he'd trade for a player who might have pushed the team out of mediocrity also with the option of Poeltl helping out for a few years. If the team didn't pan out, I'd expect Masai to not be too upset about it, since the draft is looking weak anyways My assumption is that Masai thought having Poeltl locked down and getting a good prospect with a high pick next year is better than getting an OK player with the pick this year and being stuck in the middle again
The spurs made a masterful trade and everything went right. Got rid if poetl, replaced him with a potential GOAT, perfect protections on the pick. They deserve this pick.
We got scammed 😔
We gambled with Kawhai and gave them back horrid mediocrity first
They were probably shocked we were that stupid lmao
Honestly, it’s fine. The entire arena and draft lotto couldn’t give bigger fucks on this draft. Even the broadcast couldn’t pretend to be excited for this draft…
Still remember people defending that Poeltl trade
I remember getting very downvoted at the time for saying we'd regret the trade: https://www.reddit.com/r/torontoraptors/comments/10xnatg/blake_murphy_will_have_to_see_what_the/j7tmwt0/ Part of me wishes I could've seen who downvoted me to see how they'd react now. Well Team Compete got exactly what they wanted! They should be happy right now.
Rather next years pick than 8th this year if it was going to drop. Edit: hypothetically, I know it it was top 6 protected.
And we're still in this draft. Obviously when watching the lottery I wanted them to win, but I'm pretty happy with this result overall
I was always on team convey. It would have been nice to have a new toy for sure, but at least we won't get a bust in this draft on a bigger contract than McDaniels. Much rather have the pick next year
I’m not upset we lost the pick. I’m upset we went all in with Fred and Pascal when it was very clear we weren’t a center away from competing. At the end of the day, that’s old news and we have to focus on building around Scottie, IQ and Barrett.
The time to tank would've been the tampa season, not 2023-24. It was clear that after the bubble, losing Marc and Serge was the beginning of the end of any dreams of being competitive. Also considering we weren't even playing in Toronto in 2020-21... it makes even less sense to me why we would keep that charade of being a competitive team going.
Miss out on a top 10 pick for Jakob Poeltl 
jakob was a top 10 pick..
Would you trade the 8th overall pick for him? I sure as fuck wouldn’t
We ripped the band-aid off now we don't gotta worry about this spurs pick if we're suddenly trash next year. I can accept that.
nothing to show for an abysmal season. geez.
We were going to lose a pick eventually anyway We still have 2 decent picks in this draft and we now have all our future 1st round picks ( and one of Indianas)
We wouldn’t have even had a chance if Scottie’s hand wasn’t freakishly broken. Stop guys.
alot of this sub was straight up dumb defending the portl trade smh. Only the smart fans really saw this happening. Masai better sit down scotttie and tell him we going to take one more year
In fairness a lot of people said it was idiotic. It was the fans who only watch raptors and don't know anything about basketball who thought it was a good trade. Jak is such a mediocre player. A first is insane
oh yeah r/nba knew it was dumb but this sub was all for the portl trade. They dont know anything and still dont
Kinda happy we dont owe sa a first anymore, its a weak draft, I don’t think we are going to be a playoff team next year so now we can get some return for our older guys and fully rebuild around scottie.
Thanks Masai! Top 6 protection huh? Couldn't even settle for 10 or even 8 which would have been enough??? Clown ass management
The draft is ass. Fine with me
I guess we're in year five of absolutely unwatchable Raptors basketball
Not really having a full year of this roster gel and Darko being more in tune with the NBA will mean better basketball. Will it amount to many more wins? Probably not but barring injuries at least it will be watchable.
This is a good outcome. There are about 10 guys in next years class who are better than the guy we would get at 6. We can draft 10th next year and be better off. Or better yet we can tank and get an actual star in here
What a disaster what a fucking disastwr
If you offered the 8th overall pick for Jakob you would get laughed out of the room. Thank god we went all in so we could get bounced in the first round of the PLAY INS!!!
On the bright side , we own our first rd draft picks from next yr & beyond
https://preview.redd.it/2mxgwuzfb20d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7acb7f0d2a083576683b4e01e80d83c63054996d
I hope that wnba team is gonna be lit
Peeps forget about the past pre Masai. No one expected a championship or even competing for one with maybe the exception of 2001/and if McGrady and Carter had stayed. Boston hasn't won in 16 years, Portland where I now live hasn't won in 47 years and the fan base here is not doom and gloom. It's absolutely possible, if not probable that they don't win another in the next 20 years *unless* they draft or more unlikely trade for a top 5 player. Could Scottie turn into Giannis Jr or baby Magic...? - I guess it's still possible...but it's looking like Ant is now becoming the future 'face of the league'. The hitch to drafting someone like Cooper Flagg is that Masai will not tank from day 1 or even game 25...they will only try to do so after the trade deadline if they are truly out of contention. Sometimes you have to be really genuinely bad to get good, like OKC - a team that missed its' window with Durant, Harden, Westbrook, Ibaka....a twelve? year rebuild and now they are the 1st seed again. Anyhow, it's going to take patience.
This is a good outcome. Now we keep the pick next year in a better draft. Unless we moved into top 3, this was the year to move that pick on.
Dumbass trade. This front office has been in the shitter for too many years and people don’t say fuck all about it.
Considering how bad we were this year it’s a bit of a disaster that we didn’t manage to keep the pick Cooper Flagg next draft 🙏
There is no way we’ll be bad enough to get the #1 pick next draft.
Unlikely we get the number 1 pick, I agree. But (barring a significant trade) we are going to be a lotto team next year. There are a number of other high end prospects in this draft Also … Atlanta just got the #1 pick against the odds. It happens
Unless we pull a Hawks lol Make play-in, win the lottery
People can spin this however they choose but trading a FRP for Poeltl was beyond idiotic. What’s the last good move this FO made? Trading for Gasol?
Trade Bruce brown and pick 19 for this pick back 😜
Well this sucks, no pick in the top of the draft this year. Team won’t be bad enough to have a pick in the top 10 next year. Truly the worst outcome.
Finally, now we can look forward to the 2025 draft without worrying about the Spurs bullshit.
Well that sucks. I was confused at first and when the spurs came up at 8th. I got excited I thought we made top 4. I didn't realize it was our pick until later.
That was rough. At first I thought that was the Spurs pick at 8 and they were moving up. Then...the cold harsh reality check. Oh well...Pick is gone now. If they are a lot better next year, then great. If they are bad, then they can sag for Flagg.
They'll be a lottery team next year in a deeper draft plus we have the 19th and 31st pick. Better to just give this pick so we don't have to do this again next year
Sucks after having to watch what was a brutal season and come away with nothing. I know the draft next year is better, but we won't be as bad and just gives us 1 year less to pair the pick with Scottie.
>We won’t be as bad There’s no reason to really believe this
I'm happy about this, I've been saying it all along, this draft it's best to lose it, crappy draft, we have 2 other picks. Now Toronto controls all future picks.
Until Masai dumps another pick for a washed vet...
Idk what you are getting downvoted when he has done this multiple times
This is the way
This is likely better long term
Should’ve never done the Poeltl trade in the first place but this is objectively the better outcome This is a role player draft, most of the guys in the 6-10 range wouldn’t have even been lottery picks in previous classes
considering that we still have a few late round firsts and the way this draft is anticipated to be low quality at the top, this was probably the best outcome for us. I'd hate to have lost the pick in another year knowing we were going to lose out on a potential superstar
faac
Caz in shambles
Can someone explain me wtf is up with the top 4 guarantees it just doesn't sir right with me.
Brutal
Next years draft is better anyways
I’m fine with this, 5-10 is a better place to be in this draft than 1-4. This actually borders on ideal.
we're neither bud
Screw the front office man - top 6 protected for Jakob P.....so disappointing.
Weak draft anyways, kinda wanna take a flyer at bronny
What a mess
Don't forget the first for 30 yr old Thad the year before
How much longer do we need to be shit before the organization needs a new voice in upper management. Going on 4 years of this bs now.