Dario

A Championship head coach thinks that much of us? 22-60 to playoff contender yay! really unlikely, oh and wait is tanking is out the window? I'm seeing a lot of good feedback on the raps. Thoughts?

LX

He's supporting his former assistant

Shadowfax

agreed
you beat me to it

Dario

+1 Good ol' Rick

Rudy-T

Yep. Thats just a pat in the back for Dwayne.

So far we have shown that we are now a team with some mentality, but with very little talent. We might be way better defensively (atleast stat wise) than we have been, but we give up more on the offense. Its all about seeing if there are guys you want to see long term

Jeremy

Maybe but it has got to be a little deeper than that. If we were God awful he would have complimented the team without predicting the playoff appearance.

bladeofBG

I think Coach Carlisle is sincere in his praise.

-Quality head coach? Check.
-Versatile top scorer? Check
-Versatile 2nd scorer? Check (Let Andrea & Demar choose between themselves who is 1st and who is 2nd; both are unselfish and work well together so I'm happy with them & Jose leading us).
-Top notch playmaker running our offense? Check (Jose).
-Good defenders everywhere else on the 1st & 2nd units? Check.
-Good shooters, finishers & part-time primary scorers to compliment Andrea, Jose & Demar? Check.
-Chemistry due to pieces fitting well & respecting the hierarchy? Check.

Not yet contender material, but to me there's no doubt this is a playoff team here (but I also believed we were truly a playoff team each year since 06-07, but Bryan's directives always fucked things up). I'd like nothing more for the 11-12 Raptors to face either the Lebitch Heat or the Chicago Bulls in the 1st Rd, and push them to their limits. I sincerely think we got what it takes to beat either of them, or at least expose them enough our series against one or the other for Boston and/or Orlando to rip'em apart.

b55bgc

The Raptors have officially become the kid at the special olympics when some star from the actuall olympics comes over and sends congrats and says your the best.

Is this what we need. praise from a team that just beat us?

jeffb

Yes.

DDUnreal

lmao a simple yes. I don't see how getting compliments form other teams of how we're a more difficult opponent then on paper is a bad thing?

BballWatcher

I lol'ed, but I still see this praise as a compliment.

There's definitely a 'giving props to Casey' aspect to this comment, but I also see the vastly improved D and think we will be one of those teams that overachives compared to what people were expecting of us.

We're 2 stars away from being a contender, but we're also 1 star away from being a legit playoff seeded team.

Sean

I don't agree with Carlisle and figure that the lack of talent will eventually come to the forefront and result in the Raptors falling into their rightful place in the standings (bottom 5 or so in the league).

However, you could make the argument that if the stars align, the Raptors could fight, not make but fight, for the playoffs considering how terrible the bottom half of the East is. New Jersey, Washington, Cleveland, Detroit and Charlotte are all absolutely awful as well and say the Raptors finish ahead of these teams, that would put them just on the outside of the playoffs at 9th or 10th. I highly doubt that happens, and even if it did they would still be a fair number of games away from actually making the playoffs, but if that is where Carlisle is coming from, it makes sense.

Of course I hope the Raptors finish in the bottom three to basically assure themselves of at least coming away with a top 5 pick in the draft unless they get completely screwed over in the lottery, which is likely to happen anyways, haha.

Beans

LOL. This might be my candidate for post of the year.