Claudius

I was thinking about this.

While the league is shut down, we're looking at re-vamping our front office and adding more knowledge to our brain trust.

On top of this, we have a high reward draft pick potentially playing for an entire season, while everyone else for the most part is sitting around (not to mention it's a prospect in a key position). Add into the fact that we're sitting with cap space (right now), a young core and a new coaching staff, we could emerge from this lock out in a real nice position.

Maybe, just maybe, we've gotten some luck, this franchise so desperately needs.

Dark Knight

My only concerns is that we have a shortened season, maybe play around 40 some games, and the Raptors have a decent start to the season and end up with a crappy lottery pick.

But you're right, I like that Jonas is over seas getting game action while the North American rookies can only train and play pick-up games. I'm also interested to see if BC will truly let the new GM call the shots, or just use him as a scape goat...

Ammo

At least, we have some idea of the positions that we are likely set at....2, 4 and maybe 5.

They are young, under control for a while and still have upside. It means they can focus on the 3 spot and maybe the 1. At worst, we currently have great backups at 3 and 1 now.

We do have to have some concern if they miss the whole season though because the other young guys are not playing high level NBA ball in order to develop more.

But as I stated before, someone's gotta go at the 4, so that trade might upgrade another position.

moremilk

you can just as well come out in a much, much worse shape. Among the ideas thrown around, here are a few that could be very detrimental to us:

1. apparently there are some GMs who are suggesting to either cancel the 2012 draft altogether, or to use a random draw where every team has the same chance of winning the #1 spot... Other ideas are to average the past 5 years and use that to seed the draw instead of the 2011.

2. even if the draft takes place, it's almost guaranteed that under any formula we'd draft higher if the season happens, there's no way we finish outside the bottom 5 this year.

3. some people are pushing for reduced rookie contracts, especially length wise. That would be very detrimental for us.

4. a hard cap is actually a bad thing for the raptors, because we, at least in theory, could spend a lot of money if the opportunity ever arises. Under a level playing field where we can't overpay for top FAs, we'd have almost no chance of attracting them here.

5. davis, derozan, bayless, jj and even amir would lose a valuable formative year, especially in a season where we could afford to let them play through mistakes. We'd also lose a year off their rookie contracts for basically nothing.

So it can go either way, from really, really good to really, really bad ...

Personally, I'd rather play the full season, although having just 52 games or in a shortened season would give us almost all the benefits with very few downsides, and the pain of seeing a crappy team for 6 months would be reduced to 4 or so

ValanciunasFanboy

whatever the benefits, young rebuilding teams need to play. Youngsters losing time is bad.

But you aren't in the worst position. At least your guys are high character. So them being left alone with no team supervision doesn't hurt you as much as some teams. Sota is not so lucky.

Metallikid

We could also just get the third pick for free sans season. In what's supposed to be a stacked draft that might actually net us another starter at Small Forward or Point Guard. Or I don't know... throw that and whatever else we can at Chris Paul?

ValanciunasFanboy

why would they give you the 3rd pick?

box1992

if the draft order is determined by the previous years standing, we would get the 3rd pick

ValanciunasFanboy

i understood what he meant, but why would that ever happen.
why would they forego lottery.
besides, they'd likely use more complex ratings in such lotto than last year's placings.

gl convincing Michael Jordan to just take no.10 or whatever pick when they just blew it up in hopes for no.1. same goes for most owners.
it's nice for Sota, Cavs and Raptors. but that's a minority vote.

i mean you are free to dream but most of those "advantages" are fools gold.
a better cba is cool in itself. but sooner is better than later. those youngsters need to play.

JoeyJoJo Shabbadu

Not so sure it's luck. Think the team was re-built around the fact that they wer e planning on a lockout happening.

BballWatcher

I think we can emerge from this lockout as winners in two ways:

-if it's a full season lockout, we will get another high draft pick.
-Most of our core of young players get another year of physical maturity and development. DeMar, Ed, Jerryd Bayless, Jonas, Alabi and to a lesser extent Amir Johnson get another year of physical development, and a summer/fall/(year?) off to develop their game. Jose, Barbosa and Kleiza get an offseason to recover from injuries. Bargnani won't really benefit at his age but won't be logging the usual NBA player mileage on his body so it should be a wash.

Meanwhile the NBA's old guard players get a year older, and many of these players are on good teams. KG, Duncan, Kobe, Nash, Dirk, Ginobili, Billups, Kidd, Terry, Grant Hill, Marion and Vince aren't getting any younger.

Our young players (DeMar, Jonas, and Davis) really need to use the time off to develop their game, especially because they all have little collegiate experience.

Ligeia

I'm a bit torn on this question.

If you'd asked me a while back, I would have instinctively answered that this team is much better off for many of the reasons that have already been provided: hopefully another high draft pick in a much better draft, more physical maturity for the young players, and the veteran teams get one step closer to retirement and re-building.

However, I feel like the things that this team needs to improve on the most are things that you learn in real game play. I'm thinking here especially of an ability to persevere through adversity, and an understanding of spacing and schemes on defense. Scrimmages and workouts don't translate much to an improvement in those facets of the game.

The good thing about being near the bottom is that it should really only be up from here, but how quickly that will come is hard to say.

Superjudge

I don't think Toronto benefits anymore than any other team.

ValanciunasFanboy

How does that make sense?

What's different if there is a season?

Do Raptors kids stop getting better?

Do vets stop aging?

No. vets get even closer to retirement because of miles. and kids get even better if there's NBA.
because, you know, there are nba games and you are allowed to use team facilities and trainers.

So, how does this help? Yes, Raptors avoid the embarassment of (maybe) losing 50 games this year.
So I guess if you hate your team so much, it makes sense.
But for 12-13 and after, it's better they play.

ValanciunasFanboy

How so?

They traded for Jared Bayless and expected to only have a couple months to try him out? They planned to resign him blindfolded?

They expected to lose Barbosa's expiring year? When he may actually be worth a pick this year to someone like Chicago?

They have 5 young guys on cheap contracts and they planned to lose a year of those? Instead of developing them and finding out who's worth extensions?

Drafting Valanciunas is the only lockout-friendly move I see. Because he's in Europe anyway.
But that was an obvious talent pick, wasn't it?

LX

It's just not going to matter too much, and that in itself is a small blessing of sucking in this situation. It would be shitty to be a fan of a team with a narrowing window, or on the cusp of winning it all, or with one more chance to keep a guy like Howard in the fold.

As for what emerges here afterwards? You'd have a team that's hit bottom, with a chance to forget about it, with a new coach given a fair chance to succeed with a much better roster, and with everyone able to look towards realizable positive goals.

ValanciunasFanboy

well that's true, crappy teams don't care as much.
you'll just miss some playing time, some trade opportunities.
but not like you are going to miss a title.

it's like a bar fight with Chuck Norris.
everyone gets beat up, no exceptions.
but if you were really really ugly, i guess you could emerge as a "potential winner" too. not like you'll lose any ladies. some guys will. you were ugly anyway. you win!
have fun recovering from the win.

DocHoliday99

sounds like a new definition of "winner" to me

DanH

Tiger blood, man.

JoeyJoJo Shabbadu

I'm sorry... what do you think they gave up for Bayless and how good do you think he is? I think your overestimating both.

Lol if you think they are going to be given a year closer to UFA. Not gonna happen. Contracts will pick back up where they let off and if not, they end up with more cap space than anyone.

5 guys getting one year older, bigger and stronger. Not sure why you see that as horribly bad for this team.

There will be a one time buyout clause to get out from any bad contracts with a small penalty against the cap.

The end up with 4 very good young players and high picks in 2 years with the only one being paid anything is derozan.

The NHL set too good a precident.