TS13

Tran905

East is too crappy too tank. Let's make a run for 6th or 7th seed!

TS13

for 3th

firecasey2013

team 0-4 second round 20th draft pick scrub or team top 5 draft pick potential Raptors dynasty


GEE I WONDER

Shifty.py

i think we have more hope of winning ECF than landing top 5 pick no matter what we do

Rudy-T

Yep. At this point we have a good chance of having home court advantage in playoffs and even greater chance to be in playoffs in general. There really isnt much competition in Atlantic. Philly is already out of the race, Boston seems to be on downhill and might start real tank soon, NY will not recover this season with all their issues, which leaves Brooklyn as our main competitor in my opinion. And even they might not really recover.

Where as our chances to get top-5 pick are very slim. We would basically need to lose 90% of the rest of the season. That would mean we have to deal Lowry/DD/Amir and get nothing usefull for this season in return. I dont see anyone giving us that kinds of trades. And with chances of home court this high, I dont see any GM really throwing it away just to chase a higher pick.

rapsmannn

the problem with tanking at this point is where going to have to lose almost every game for now just to compete with a top 3 pick,

I was all for tanking when rudy gay was here, I couldn't stand watching this team play basketball, the rudy gay era is the worst era in Raptors history when it comes to enjoyment from a fan prospective,

I hated it so much that it made me dislike other players

but now with the trade its been great, I haven't had this much fun watching the raps play since the 06-07 raptors, Jonas and ross getting more minutes was the only thing I was asking for all seaon

The Diamond Scorpion

Agree with this ^^^

Owned

Exactly, it's not like we have a choice.
Let's just get into Playoffs and have some fun.


By the way, wasn't Tony Parker a 20th overall pick or something?
Seems to have worked out well.

Febreezy

Okay so for all the anti-tankers, who want to go all in. What happens next season, when teams stop tanking? And try to actually compete? I can't believe people want to make the playoffs so bad to win some meaningless games, because regardless we're not getting past the second round. What then? Become the Milwaukee Mediocre Bucks for the next 4 years?

Gurk

yes sir, then we can go back to having years on end without making it to the playoffs

Febreezy

See, Gurk I know your joking, but it terrifies me that some people on this site actually think making the playoffs in a year where every team sucks ass or is blatantly tanking is going to do anything for us.

And for the ones saying making the playoffs will be good experience for DeMar and Val etc Milwaukee's made the playoffs and been a perennial 8th seed contender, that winning culture sure has transformed the Bucks

OT- But what you been up to Gurk? How's Ottawa treating you? I'm holding down the B for you bro

Gurk

haha I've been good, haven't seen you around in a while, and Ottawa's been good, back in good ol' Brampton for the winter break, and thanks for holding it down, Brampton would've went to shit otherwise lol

Rompeprop

As someone said, it is harder to tank than win atlantic division. So Why to scout future top10 players? why not just concentrate on scouting the guys who can be drafted from 10th to 20th? This way you can draft a really good prospect and also get your team to the playoffs first time since ..(I don't remember)

Ball Don't Lie

Its not that hard to tank, once Lowry is gone we'll be terrible, its pretty simple actually.

If MU doesn't trade Lowry in favor of being a .500 team and being a 3 seed, then we're going to miss out on an opportunity to get good value for a hot commodity who isn't going to be back with the team next year. And if you think he will be, you're short sighted. There's no way MU re signs Lowry for 8-10 million and basically caps out the team with this core and roster, it's just not going to happen.

I think Masai really has until mid January to make his decision on what to do with this team since our schedule becomes a lot easier at that point in time, and it's going to be near impossible to get into the bottom 3 of tanks if he waits until mid FEB to trade Lowry.

I'm still on the tank wagon. I dont care how terrible the East is, its in our best interest to get a top pick this year and get value back for Lowry while we can. Otherwise we're just staying on the yearly treadmill that 75% of fans now want to be on because we've won a few games since the Rudy team.

News flash, the roster still sucks, and the 3 seed with this roster is fools gold.

LET'S GO RAPTORS!!!!!

Every day the tank weakens unfortunately. KL and Amir are still here. Horford being out for a while. Lopez out. NYK being NYK. Boston not caring less about this division.

MU has to make a decision at some point about KL and every game KL plays here the tank is stalled/weakened. Like you say - if he does extend KL then this is a capped out team next year. There's no way he just hopes he resigns. I do agree that once/if he's traded for whatever, the team will take a huge hit - will the team get a top 5 pick because of it - not impossible but very hard.

I have no faith in this team as constructed will guarantee a playoff series victory, even if it somehow gets 4th or even 3rd. Thus, reinforcements will be needed to maintain a 4th seed or to claim 3rd, and guarantee 1 playoff round before decimation and a reality check at the hands of the Heat or Indiana. However, as we all know, 99.99% of the time, reinforcements = less financial flexibility. I hope that MU will not handicap the team's flexibility by say, dealing Salmons for a guy making 8-9 million for the next 2-3 years and by extending KL to 7-10 million for the next 3-4 years.

Will be interesting to see this all play out but once again it looks more and more likely that this team will lose out on the opportunity to gain a franchise player. I hope being the Hawks or Bucks is not in store for this team for the next few years.

moremilk

I don't understand why people think it's so hard to tank, we have 3 more wins than the 3rd worst team in the league. And Orlando and Utah are actually not losing any ground on us over the last games ....

jeffb

Who said it would be hard to tank?

LOG

I think Masai wants to tank, but this team is playing better than he expected (after the trade) I really hope he has more tricks up his sleeves.

Fröz-d

3rd seed! These guys have something special right now. Out of all the chaos something very interesting has blossomed! I really love the way these guys are playing right now, it's pretty incredible.

I for one am pretty speechless. I never thought trading Rudy Gay would make us look 10x's better. Our depth is great. Our chemistry looks off the chain. John Salmons actually looks really good! Let's hope they can keep it up tonight and it's not just a flash in the pan. These guy can go out and prove they belong together tonight!