Why do Raptors fans think we are better than Wizards and Hornets?

[iblastoff]

You could make a case for each team being "best" of this group.

Washington appears to be the best on paper, but Pierce is not going to contribute what Ariza did. Martell Webster is out for most of the season with back surgery. Otto porter is unproven, I don't care how he looked in Vegas. This lack of depth will hurt them against the top teams, especially if injuries becomes a factor with any of their "big 3," Wall, Beal and Gortat.

Charlotte is improved, no doubt. Al Jefferson is hard to contain for any team and they have depth at guard now. But on paper this team still looks the least scary out of the 3. Loss of McBob is huge for their offence and Stephenson could go either way without a legit running mate like Paul George on the wing.

I guess I'm just saying the Raps have more depth and no glaring weakness in their lineup (relative to Wiz and Hornets). I worry about a regression on defence, but apart from that I would take the Raps in a playoff series over Wash or Cha all biases aside.

And I don't understand your assessment of the raps as a middling, treading team. We have as much/more young talent than both Wash and Cha? And more draft picks over the next 2 yrs.

wouldn't backup center be our obvious glaring weakness?

[stooley]

no no no. its not because the wiz were doing good, its cause chicago were horrible! etc etc excuses i keep seeing on this board.

well, its not that crazy.

pacers lost to miami in 6. brooklyn lost in 5.

we lost in 7, wizards lost in 6.

[2kfeen]

Wow are you guys delusional. Im a raptors fan but I keep it real.

Otto Porter is not a factor? He was injured most of last year, and he has broke out in Vegas. Under Pierce's mentorship, I can see him establshing himself as a rotation player at least.

And Wall and Gortat completely raped us last season. Offensive bigs really take advantage of us, and with the Polish Hammer, perhaps a healthy Nene, Humphries, thats a dangerous frontcourt.

You cant really say that Hornets have 0 spacing when they have Gary Neal, Walker, Henderson, Stephenson, and Marvin Williams serving as a stretch four. They had our number last season, and they have a great cohesive system that covers up their defensive deficiencies, especially for Big Al.

[stooley]

Wow are you guys delusional. Im a raptors fan but I keep it real.

Otto Porter is not a factor? He was injured most of last year, and he has broke out in Vegas. Under Pierce's mentorship, I can see him establshing himself as a rotation player at least.

And Wall and Gortat completely raped us last season. Offensive bigs really take advantage of us, and with the Polish Hammer, perhaps a healthy Nene, Humphries, thats a dangerous frontcourt.

You cant really say that Hornets have 0 spacing when they have Gary Neal, Walker, Henderson, Stephenson, and Marvin Williams serving as a stretch four. They had our number last season, and they have a great cohesive system that covers up their defensive deficiencies, especially for Big Al.

Breaking out in Vegas means nothing. Remember Buycks? Or even Will Cherry?

Wall and Gortat may have 'raped' us, but we still won 3 of 4 games against the Wiz last year, so they can't have raped us that badly.

Marvin Williams is a stretch four in name only, he's a SF. Neal and Henderson are essentially non-factors and Stephenson isn't a great long range shooter. So the spacing concerns are real. Although they did have our number last year, once again, they finished with a significantly worse record than ours.

I'm just keeping it real

from SI.com:

Don’t look now, but Toronto may be the most stable franchise in the conference. The Raptors took care of coach Dwane Casey early, signing the coach to a new three-year contract. Casey’s defensive minded philosophy helped Toronto become a top-ten defense last season and he has been instrumental in the development of young players like Lowry, Demar DeRozan and Jonas Valancunias.

The Raps scored big by locking Lowry up to a reasonable four-year, $48 million contract and followed it up by bringing back reserves Greivis Vasquez and Patrick Patterson and acquiring scoring guard Lou Williams to bolster the second unit. Floor spacing forward Steve Novak was traded to Utah in the offseason, but Novak averaged just ten minutes per game last season and had two years and $7.2 million left on his contract.

No question, drafting Bruno Caboclo was a risk. Toronto G.M. Masai Ujiri left more NBA-ready players on the board (Rodney Hood, Shabazz Napier) that could come back to haunt him if Caboclo turns out to be a bust. But with a strong starting lineup and quality depth the Raptors could afford to take a chance at the lanky Brazilian with enormous upside. Indeed, just by bringing the team with the third best record in the conference back together, Toronto will have an edge in a wide open field of contenders.

[Pong]

Simple: It's because they're FANS of raptors and not fans of wizards and hornets. They view this team with rose colored lenses.

From what i've seen on RR, many people are straight up writing off wizards and hornets and say that we're simply better.

Regarding wizards:
- Ariza played great last year, but you're making it seem like they lost a superstar. Sure they lost some defence with him gone, but Wall's still one of the best defensive PGs in the league. Beal is a much better defender than DD and Gortat is a good post defender

- While you shouldn't expect porter to perform like in did in SL no one should be writing him off either

- Paul pierce is much better offensively than Ariza. He's much better at drawing fouls and that's going to be an issue against our team. He's old but he's still clutch. If i get to choose any current raps or wiz player to give the ball to in end game scenarios, I'd go with paul pierce. I don't think anyone can argue with that point.

- DD may be a bit better than beal right now, but that's mainly because DD is more consistent (which isn't surprising considering this was beal's 2nd year) and his ability to draw fouls. I don't think many here watched Beal in the playoffs, because he was killing it.

- The main reason why people keep saying wiz's player growth will be higher than ours is because we're talking lottery picks here. Wall was 1st overall, beal and porter were both 3rd. Sure you can argue the draft classes may have been weak, but these guys are in the top 5 for a reason. They are already great players and they have a high ceiling. I love tross, but he was already considered a reach at 8th. Patterson's already been through a couple teams. He's a young big, but I just don't see how else he will develop significantly. He's a good, athletic stretch 4 who's good in the pick and pop. He's not going to turn into blake and dunk on people. I don't think he can change his game to become a great post player and he's not the tallest/longest guy either.

-You guys can talk about Nene's health all you want, but Amir's no iron man any more either. If Nene was able to handle noah/taj gibson/boozer, he can handle Amir. No questions about it.

Regarding hornets:
- They beat us last year
- They had a worse record than us? Well that's because Al Jeff was injured at the start of the year, and it took a LONG time to get full steam. They also got a new headcoach in Clifford just last year, so it took time to work out the kinks. But for him to turn hornet's into a top defensive team with Al Jefferson in the paint is impressive. Think of what they can do now that he's got a year with the team under his belt.
- You can't write off lance and say he's going to be an issue chemistry wise. He's got talent. You can't pin all of pacer's issue on him. There're probably a number of issues behind the scene that we're not aware of. It's well known that MJ has set his expectations for Lance and he could very well take it to heart.

[YoungGunRaptor]

no no no. its not because the wiz were doing good, its cause chicago were horrible! etc etc excuses i keep seeing on this board.

In all honesty, that was a team designed to be carried by Derrick Rose. After losing D Rose, they did end up trading Luol Deng,who was arguably their best offensive player, to the Cavs. They looked like a team primed to tank until DJ Augustin and Taj Gibson played like stars off of the bench for them and helped them win many games.

Washington exposed the Bulls' flaws in the playoffs, particularly their lack of offensive game. Aside from Mike Dunleavy's 36?(not sure of the exact number) point game, which led the Bulls to their only win, the Bulls offense was atrocious, and it exposed to the Bulls front office the ailing need for them to surround Derrick Rose with more scorers.

The result? Doug Mcdermott, Pau Gasol, Nikola Mirotic, Aaron Brooks, and a rejuvenated, hopefully-not to be injured-Derrick Rose surrounded by players like Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson, Joakim Noah,Kirk Hinrich, Aaron Brooks, that 2nd rounder whose name I always forget, and Tony Snell.

Chicago looks primed to contend for a title this season.



That being said, John Wall and Bradley Beal were terrific in the playoffs, and I was actually rooting for them in the Pacers-Wiz series. But turnovers, plagued them and the Pacers fed off of their mistakes. If the Wiz can grow internally the way some of the Raptors players have, then they should be primed to be a better team next season. They did bolster their bench nicely.

Time will tell though, not only for the Raptors, but for the Wizards, Cavs, Bulls, Hornets, and many other teams.

One thing I know for sure is that the ECF will be MUCH more competitive next season. Looking forward to it.

[stooley]

Simple: It's because they're FANS of raptors and not fans of wizards and hornets. They view this team with rose colored lenses.

From what i've seen on RR, many people are straight up writing off wizards and hornets and say that we're simply better.

Regarding wizards:
- Ariza played great last year, but you're making it seem like they lost a superstar. Sure they lost some defence with him gone, but Wall's still one of the best defensive PGs in the league. Beal is a much better defender than DD and Gortat is a good post defender
- While you shouldn't expect porter to perform like in did in SL no one should be writing him off either
- Paul pierce is much better offensively than Ariza. He's much better at drawing fouls and that's going to be an issue against our team. He's old but he's still clutch. If i get to choose any current raps or wiz player to give the ball to in end game scenarios, I'd go with paul pierce. I don't think anyone can argue with that point.
- DD may be a bit better than beal right now, but that's mainly because DD is more consistent (which isn't surprising considering this was beal's 2nd year) and his ability to draw fouls. I don't think many here watched Beal in the playoffs, because he was killing it.
- The main reason why people keep saying wiz's player growth will be higher than ours is because we're talking lottery picks here. Wall was 1st overall, beal and porter were both 3rd. Sure you can argue the draft classes may have been weak, but these guys are in the top 5 for a reason. They are already great players and they have a high ceiling. I love tross, but he was already considered a reach at 8th. Patterson's already been through a couple teams. He's a young big, but I just don't see how else he will develop significantly. He's a good, athletic stretch 4 who's good in the pick and pop. He's not going to turn into blake and dunk on people. I don't think he can change his game to become a great post player and he's not the tallest/longest guy either.
-You guys can talk about Nene's health all you want, but Amir's no iron man any more either. If Nene was able to handle noah/taj gibson/boozer, he can handle Amir. No questions about it.

Obviously we're not a lock to finish ahead of them.

It's wide open.

But we deserve the benefit of the doubt given that we were better than both teams last year and neither us nor the wizards have made any significant upgrades.

Wall was first overall but has already played 4 years in the NBA. Beal will get a lot better.

Porter has shown nothing to indicate that he isn't a complete bust.

[raptors999]

Obviously we're not a lock to finish ahead of them.

It's wide open.

But we deserve the benefit of the doubt given that we were better than both teams last year and neither us nor the wizards have made any significant upgrades.

Wall was first overall but has already played 4 years in the NBA. Beal will get a lot better.

Porter has shown nothing to indicate that he isn't a complete bust.

Regular season we play teams within the division more and outside less. Its like being up 12 games before the season starts. Conversely Wiz play in the toughest division in the East.

[Pong]

Obviously we're not a lock to finish ahead of them.

It's wide open.

But we deserve the benefit of the doubt given that we were better than both teams last year and neither us nor the wizards have made any significant upgrades.

Wall was first overall but has already played 4 years in the NBA. Beal will get a lot better.

Porter has shown nothing to indicate that he isn't a complete bust.

Wall was out for pretty much a whole season (knee injury and return). But last year he already showed a significant improvement in 3pt shooting. No doubt he'll improve even more, especially with the significant playoff run he and beal had together.

[MACK11]

Well I believe us and Washington are gonna be fighting for that 3rd seed and the Horncats will be fighting for 5th seed along with Miami and Atl.

Washington is replacing Trevor Ariza with Paul Pierce and Otto Porter which is gonna be a downgrade
PP cannot defend 3s well in the NBA anymore, that's why when he was moved to the 4 Brooklyn started winning.
Otto Porter played well in the Summer League but its just summer league. Porter next year is gonna play like Tross in his rookie season.
So when the Wizards run into a team with a good SF, they're gonna get abused like we did in the Brooklyn series

And about Horncats, Im gonna be honest I just dont like that team personally because they beat our ass 3x last season and now there fans think adding Lance Stephenson and 2 rookies is gonna make then a contender or something haha

[raptors999]

Predict Wizards, Raptors and Cavs pick #1, 2 and 3 in the 2015 draft and 76ers reach ECF losing to the Hawks in 6. Pels win first NBA title in 5 over the Hawk.

[Shantz]

4. how good are they with pierce instead of ariza? That's a major change to their lineup, and it might not be positive.

I think this is what makes me most curious about the Wizards coming into the season. The Nets season turned around when Lopez was injured and Kidd was forced to play plenty of small ball. Pierce was central to this as he was able to be their small ball power forward. As the season went on he played almost primarily at power forward.

Pierce played a total of 368.25 minutes in the playoffs. These are the lineups that he played in:

Rk	Lineup	MP
1	iercpa01:willide01" align="left">K. Garnett | J. Johnson | S. Livingston | P. Pierce | D. Williams	115:30
2	iercpa01:willide01" align="left">A. Anderson | K. Garnett | J. Johnson | P. Pierce | D. Williams	36:45
3	iercpa01:willide01" align="left">A. Anderson | A. Blatche | J. Johnson | P. Pierce | D. Williams	30:18
4	iercpa01lumlma01:willide01" align="left">J. Johnson | S. Livingston | P. Pierce | M. Plumlee | D. Williams	20:58
5	iercpa01:willide01" align="left">K. Garnett | J. Johnson | A. Kirilenko | P. Pierce | D. Williams	17:06
	Player Average	368:25

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/5/2014.

Each of these lineups have only 1 big involved, meaning that Pierce only saw playoff minutes at power forward (in lineup 5 I could see Pierce and Kirilenko as interchangeable between SF and PF).

How will Pierce make the transition back to SF? I can't help but feel that he has lost enough of a step that he will struggle guarding other small forwards, which he will be asked to do in Washington.

Pierce is sure to add some veteran leadership to Washington, but will he be able to replace the wing defense that Ariza provided last year?

[Uncle_Si]

I think this is what makes me most curious about the Wizards coming into the season. The Nets season turned around when Lopez was injured and Kidd was forced to play plenty of small ball. Pierce was central to this as he was able to be their small ball power forward. As the season went on he played almost primarily at power forward.

Pierce played a total of 368.25 minutes in the playoffs. These are the lineups that he played in:

Rk	Lineup	MP
1	iercpa01:willide01" align="left">K. Garnett*|*J. Johnson*|*S. Livingston*|*P. Pierce*|*D. Williams	115:30
2	iercpa01:willide01" align="left">A. Anderson*|*K. Garnett*|*J. Johnson*|*P. Pierce*|*D. Williams	36:45
3	iercpa01:willide01" align="left">A. Anderson*|*A. Blatche*|*J. Johnson*|*P. Pierce*|*D. Williams	30:18
4	iercpa01lumlma01:willide01" align="left">J. Johnson*|*S. Livingston*|*P. Pierce*|*M. Plumlee*|*D. Williams	20:58
5	iercpa01:willide01" align="left">K. Garnett*|*J. Johnson*|*A. Kirilenko*|*P. Pierce*|*D. Williams	17:06
	Player Average	368:25

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/5/2014.

Each of these lineups have only 1 big involved, meaning that Pierce only saw playoff minutes at power forward (in lineup 5 I could see Pierce and Kirilenko as interchangeable between SF and PF).

How will Pierce make the transition back to SF? I can't help but feel that he has lost enough of a step that he will struggle guarding other small forwards, which he will be asked to do in Washington.

Pierce is sure to add some veteran leadership to Washington, but will he be able to replace the wing defense that Ariza provided last year?

THANK YOU! Thats what Ive been saying the whole time. If the wizards got Pierce to come off the bench behind Ariza, I'd hand them the keys to a top 3 and probably top 2 position in the east. But Pierce was a nightmare at the 3 and theres no chance in hell hes playing at the 4 with Nene and Gortat there. The Wizards best chance at using Pierce effictively will be when Nene goes down and Pierce can play along side gortat in the front court.

Still, the raps match up really well with Washington, but I think our back court depth beats their front court depth and thats why i think were better.

As far as the hornets? Thats a disaster waiting to happen.

[GLF]

THANK YOU! Thats what Ive been saying the whole time. If the wizards got Pierce to come off the bench behind Ariza, I'd hand them the keys to a top 3 and probably top 2 position in the east. But Pierce was a nightmare at the 3 and theres no chance in hell hes playing at the 4 with Nene and Gortat there. The Wizards best chance at using Pierce effictively will be when Nene goes down and Pierce can play along side gortat in the front court.

Still, the raps match up really well with Washington, but I think our back court depth beats their front court depth and thats why i think were better.

As far as the hornets? Thats a disaster waiting to happen.

But what happened with Brooklyn might just happen with Washington. Nene will get injured, Pierce will take his place, they start winning more games, Nene then comes back and comes off the bench for good. Vola they are a better team than us. Well that's only if Pierce at the four has the same positive effect for Washington as it had for Brooklyn.

[raptors999]

But what happened with Brooklyn might just happen with Washington. Nene will get injured, Pierce will take his place, they start winning more games, Nene then comes back and comes off the bench for good. Vola they are a better team than us. Well that's only if Pierce at the four has the same positive effect for Washington as it had for Brooklyn.

If Pierce plays the 4 the reason they got him becomes moot. Also means Hump or Blair sits. Porter at the 3 as a starter means .500