The Fans View of the Future

[INFO]

So im just wondering about your feelings towards the future of the Raptors

I have come to the realization that a rebulid would be the best thing for the Raptors, but this was something i realized when the season ended. But after hearing people complain (!) about us taking a high upside "project" player im just a little confused if people are against a rebulid.

I think thats the best option for this team at the moment. To start fresh but a core of young athletic players. I really dont mind losing Bosh even having him go to Miami is not a bad option. Beasley isnt the greatest character, hes far from it, but you cannot deny he has the talent to be an impact player and when heading into a rebulid you want to add as many potential impact players as you can. Then if we get our conditional 1st round pick we dont have to worry about giving up a high 2nd round pick if we have a bad season (as is expected in a rebulid).

Im a Raptor fan through the good and the bad, and im pretty sure most of you are too. I know that if we win 50 games or lose 50 ill still cheer and watch every game.

So basicly im just wondering if you guys are against rebuilding? Im not, i know people who are, so im just curious guys

[Bendit]

I prefer to call it re-tooling even without Bosh. It remains to be seen what comes back as well as other moves. I am a team fan as well rather than an individual player follower. I'd rather have a team of no-names/equals who play hard and a non-iso brand of ball than have the megastar whose ego needs to be stroked or demands to be the option 1 and you have to clear out for his shot. Sometimes this cannot be avoided because the player is in fact that good...but it somewhat takes away from the true team concept . The last Detroit champ. team had it and the current OKC team as well though Durant is a rung above.

[bayanmn]

I also believe that the only way to have meaningful, long-term success (ie. contenders year in and year out) is to do a full rebuild, a la Oklahoma City Thunder. Start with a core of young athletic guys that will grow with each other and become like family, and add pieces as you see fit. I think we have a good start with the young gunz and ed davis (and Alabi). Jarrett provides experience and leadership, and Bargs is just there. We're on our way, but we still more pieces. A young, athletic, lightning-quick PG (like Bradley), and help at the wing. I think DeMar and Ed can start on our team of the future, with Sonny and Amir being solid backups. That's just my opinion though.

[Quixotic]

I've been a Raptors fan since Day 1, so you can tell whether or not I'll stick by this team, good or bad. The only thing I will not stand for is what happened with the Blue Jays (team hires GM; GM turns out to be an incompetent idiot that the rest of the league, GM and players alike, disrespects; team gives incompetent GM big extension). Maybe that makes me less of a "true fan" but it's pretty depressing to know that no change is on the way for the good part of a decade. Even with Babcock, it wasn't as bad because the team recognized his incompetence and canned his ass, nor was he as big an idiot as Riccardi (Riccardi might have been a better talent evaluator, but Babcock didn't think he was "the man" while pulling a scorched earth routine).

Anyway, long off-topic rant aside, I think despite the lack of success from BC's recent moves, I could go with a retool but I'd prefer a rebuild. At least with BC, you know your retools are going to be interesting. It's time for BC to take a step back though, and re-evaluate the team without worrying about immediate success.

It's clear that our players don't fit together well. They may all be good on paper, but right now it's a case of 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4 (if even). You don't need the best players at every position, but you need players that can play D and also cover for each other's deficiencies. I don't think Milwaukee has a better team, but they sure fit together a lot better. I'd even say Utah doesn't necessarily have a better team (on paper), but they fit together much better (courtesy of Deron Williams + Sloan). And then there's teams like the Lakers and Magic who simply have way more talent than us.

I think the best case scenario is having a quick turnaround like the Thunder, but that's probably a reach. There's a chance we might end up like the Wolves, Clippers or Hawks from before the last few years, but provided BC is still here, I think we have an advantage over those mis-managed teams (the Hawks of old did a pretty piss poor job of drafting). It'd be awesome if we had a Presti or Buford level GM (though maybe not Buford -- Raptors fans would have his head for constantly picking international players), but I hope we don't go back into the GM hunt just to end up with someone inferior or a total rookie.

p.s. I know Jack has endeared himself to a lot of Raptors fans, but I don't think he is the PG to go with if we rebuild. We need our starting PG to be someone who can make the youngsters better, while being a good leader to keep everyone together. Jack is more of a starting PG on a bad team (and I don't mean rebuilding) or a good backup on a good team. He's too much of a scoring PG, which is fine on a team that needs it, but we need a playmaker to put our youngsters in the best position to grow. Also, his body language wasn't the greatest during our losses. That's not to say we should have players who are happy with losing, but if we are going to have a team that will definitely lose more than it will win, someone who can display grace while losing (without any defeatist attitude) would be a better example for the kids. We want them to have a short memory -- come in and play hard, regardless of what happened the last game. Oh, and being vocal and being a good leader are not necessarily synonymous.

[OzRapFan]

I'm all for a rebuild if it is done in an Atlanta/OK/Portland kind of way & not a Clippers/Warriors/Minny way. I have a feeling that they will keep on taking on Turk like contracts though just because MLSE would be happy to keep being mediocre as long as it brought in the dollars $$$$$$$. I hope i'm wrong though.

[Tim W.]

I prefer to call it re-tooling even without Bosh. It remains to be seen what comes back as well as other moves. I am a team fan as well rather than an individual player follower. I'd rather have a team of no-names/equals who play hard and a non-iso brand of ball than have the megastar whose ego needs to be stroked or demands to be the option 1 and you have to clear out for his shot. Sometimes this cannot be avoided because the player is in fact that good...but it somewhat takes away from the true team concept . The last Detroit champ. team had it and the current OKC team as well though Durant is a rung above.

Detroit was an anomaly and not exactly a blueprint you want to use to build a team. Every other Championship team has had at least one MVP calibre player on it surrounded by complimentary players. In the NBA, you win with your top 2 or 3 guys. Durant is one of the top 5-10 players in the league now. It's his team.

If Bosh leaves, there is no one to replace him as the alpha dog, but hopefully they'll get a great player in next year's draft who can become that player. Of the 8 teams that made it to the second round, six of the teams either drafted their best player or traded for him before he played in the league (seven if you count the fact that Phoenix actually drafted Nash, but then later traded for him). It's far more common to draft a franchise player than trade for him or sign him, and without a true franchise player, the probabilities of becoming a contender are low.

[Jive]

I am a raptor fan through thick and thin and have missed only a handful of games. I would love to see the raptors make the playoffs next year but it seems unlikely if Bosh is staying in the Eastern Conference and last year's bottom feeders look to improve drastically, ie. wiz, knicks and nets.

Ideally I'd like to bring in more young players and extend the "young gunz" family. That way the team can grow together and develop for the future. I am not against a team rebuild but if they could also compete for a playoff spot I'd be even happier.

[ChrisR]

it seems we've been rebuilding for 15 years. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I have to say that it's been very frustrating trying to be a fan of this team.

[Tim W.]

it seems we've been rebuilding for 15 years. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I have to say that it's been very frustrating trying to be a fan of this team.

If it's been from day 1, it's not rebuilding, it's building. And the Raptors did go through their period during Vince's peak years, where the team was on the right track. The problem was that Grunwald went with the Danny Ferry approach, by surrounding Vince with older veterans in order to get immediate wins instead of taking the slow and steady approach of surrounding him with young players. The veterans declined quickly and the team basically imploded.

In between then and the Colangelo years, the team was not rebuilding as much as just kind of wondering around rudderless. Rebuilding takes some semblance of a plan. At that time, there simply was no plan, or at least not one that I could see or worked.

Rebuilding right takes a clear plan and vision, a little luck and the guts to follow through with it.

[Quixotic]

it seems we've been rebuilding for 15 years. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I have to say that it's been very frustrating trying to be a fan of this team.

Well, if you consider that expansion teams start off slow, especially when the league puts in an arbitrary rule that you can't have the #1 overall draft pick, then we haven't done as poorly as you think.

I'm only going to take a few teams here as examples (you can look up the rest if you like); some have been good franchises, and some have been bad, so it's not all just the worst I'm bringing up here.

The Clippers (#29 franchise according to ESPN) have been "rebuilding" for 40 years. They had one tiny 3-year stint at the very beginning where they did decently, but after that, they only broke .500 four more times, and never more than two years in a row.

The Wizards (#23), for the past 31 years, have never won more than 45 games, and only 9 of those 31 seasons did they break .500. Four of those barely .500 seasons came a few years back, and now they're back to square one.

Only in their 18th year did the Pacers (#9) win more than 44 games in a season. Only five of those first 17 seasons were .500 or better, and three of those five were exactly .500.

After McHale retired, the Celtics (#2) spent 14 years in mediocrity, bottoming out twice along the way. Only three of those 14 years were .500+, and they even had more to work from than we did coming in picking up only the dregs.

The Detroit Pistons (#13), after they moved from Ft Wayne, took 14 years before they had their first .500+ season and only had two more over the next 12 seasons. That's 3 .500+ seasons out of 26, and each time it seemed like their team was getting good, they'd head right back down again.

This is not to say we've done well at all. But plenty of fans of other teams have been through this (or worse) before, and some still are going through it.

[Bendit]

Detroit was an anomaly and not exactly a blueprint you want to use to build a team. Every other Championship team has had at least one MVP calibre player on it surrounded by complimentary players. In the NBA, you win with your top 2 or 3 guys. Durant is one of the top 5-10 players in the league now. It's his team.

If Bosh leaves, there is no one to replace him as the alpha dog, but hopefully they'll get a great player in next year's draft who can become that player. Of the 8 teams that made it to the second round, six of the teams either drafted their best player or traded for him before he played in the league (seven if you count the fact that Phoenix actually drafted Nash, but then later traded for him). It's far more common to draft a franchise player than trade for him or sign him, and without a true franchise player, the probabilities of becoming a contender are low.

You are correct. But there are also 22 other teams who didnt make it also having an alphadog (or pseudo) player on their roster. The league's team composition is a result of the cba rules, league boosterism of the star player and the marketing ($$) opportunities that provides the team/league rather than the game itself. And lets not forget the refs who swallow the whistle sometimes when its the big boy. But this is another argument and somewhat moot because we have a current system to operate under.

I was just citing a team composition preference which I believe would lead to a better brand of ball. Hard as it is to concede the Celtics displayed much of this but they had a bunch of topdogs (making for a v. expensive payroll) who subjugated their individual game for the prize.