Fear Amir

[Soft Euro]

SoftEuro - I think size is an incredible asset to have in this league. But moving Jonas to PF and trading one of our better players in an attempt to win in the short term is not a good idea in my opinion. This team will not be a contender for a while anyways.

It would be to attempt to win in the long turn as well, as we wouldn't give up talent, just allocating it to another position via an extra pick or player. Saying that we won't be a contender for a while blocks creative ideas to improve more quickly (and improve more)... I'm just throwing some ideas out there which might not be the cure for all things bad, but with some changes might lead to speeding up the process.

[Tim W.]

There are a lot of teams with talent, only one that wins the championship. I'm not trying to match-up with teams, I happen to think that combining talent with size is the way to a championship (of course more things are important, but that's evident). I showed the size-stats of those teams bigs to indicate what I think is the way to go, not what we need to match-up with. From that viewpoint (good or bad) it follows that you have to beat those teams to win, but that does not mean I try to match-up with them.

Chicago does good in the regular season and can come far in the east because there are few teams in the east (at the moment) with championship caliber bigs. In my opinion that's what's holding back the Hawks; they got plenty of talent, but not enough talent is combined with size at the position of the bigs.

We'll see about Memphis (if they can keep their players and Randolph doesn't come back out of shape (or in jail) after the lockout). I think with Gay healthy next year they'll go 50+ and will be contending.

I have no problem with having a big front court. I just don't think it's necessary to have two big men the size of centers. In the early 80s, everyone wanted to have twin towers to compete with Houston. Of course the Lakers won and they never had a big PF.

Then in the late 80s and early 90s, the trend was towards big PGs, but no big PG ever won a Championship after Magic. Then a bunch of small PGs like Isiah, Kevin Johnson, TIm Hardaway and and their like started dominating.

It's the same with scoring PGs, now. On the other thread, Ambidextrious is convinced you need a scoring PG because of guys like Chris Paul, Derrick Rose and John Wall.

I'm all for making sure you don't get left behind, but it's not as if a frontcourt of Valanciunas, Davis and Amir would be a weak link, here. You're talking as if it would be an undersized frontcourt that would be towered over by the rest of the league.

I can't see why we can't be speeding it up; as you correctly pointed out this would be almost remaking the roster, so indeed more than a few moves. I also think that it would not be gambling away the future as it wouldn't be trading away all young players to get veterans to win now.

Speeding what up? Player development or team development? DeRozan isn't going to develop faster with Gasol as the center rather than Valanciunas. As for speeding up wins, it seems to me that you're looking for a short cut. Short cuts, in the NBA are dangerous. It's usually the road to mediocrity.

Besides, I LIKE a frontcourt of Valanciunas, Davis and Amir. I can see it being one of the better frontcourts in the league in 3 or 4 years. Why the hell would I want to screw with that?

I like both and don't see why that's not possible. Why can you only have young players or veterans? Why not have a mixed roster (with an emphasis on youth). Btw wouldn't another problem with waiting for all your players to peak be that their contracts will also peak at the same time).

The problem is that it creates a conundrum for the coach. Does he go with the veterans to try and win, or does he play the young players and live with the consequences. Most coaches try and win now, because that's how they will be judged. Ask long time Raptor fans about why Brendan Malone was fired.

Now I have no problem with sprinkling a couple of veterans in for leadership, but the best players on the team should be the young guys.

As for the contracts peaking at the same time, unless you've got a roster full of All-Stars, it shouldn't be a problem unless you start overpaying people (like signing big name free agents). And since it's so difficult to win, having your top players peaking at the same time is optimum.

[Tim W.]

It would be to attempt to win in the long turn as well, as we wouldn't give up talent, just allocating it to another position via an extra pick or player. Saying that we won't be a contender for a while blocks creative ideas to improve more quickly (and improve more)... I'm just throwing some ideas out there which might not be the cure for all things bad, but with some changes might lead to speeding up the process.

None of us are against acquiring players, especially young ones. But what you're proposing is getting rid of players which, I believe, are Championship calibre players, and replacing them with an unknown. It's not as if the Raptors have a dearth of Championship calibre players. And it's not as if they grow on trees. To me, it makes much more sense to hold onto the few Championship calibre players you have and attempts to add more of them.

The gist of your argument seems to be that Valaciunas can't play the center position, because he's not strong enough, and because of that he needs to play PF in order for the Raptors to compete. The two biggest problems with this argument is that there is no guarantee that he will be better at PF and that, even with a guy like Marc Gasol (who won't be available in 2012, unless the entire season is scrapped), the team won't be a contender.

Valanciunas' future is at center. I haven't seen or read anything that says otherwise. So why not play him there instead of playing him temporarily at one position, then moving him to another. And then what do you do with the free agent center you signed? It just seems to me you're trying to create a problem where none really exists.

[Soft Euro]

Tim, first of all, you have good points, and I agree with a lot of what you are saying. You are right that a central point to my 'ideas' is that I'm doubting that Valanciunas will be able to play at the center position right away. Around the draft there were reports about him being more of a PF than a center in the nba (would have to google hard to find those as I don't know where I read those). It's also something I tend to agree with (not going to hide behind unnamed resources). That's something we'll have to see.

In my opinion there is a big difference between valuing the importance of size and saying a scoring point guard is necessary. Scoring can come from any position, undersized bigs will be hard to compensate; e.g. while some people are high on Dejuan Blair, I would never ever want him as our starting power forward because his lack of size can and will be exploited harshly in a playoff series. Btw I have reservations about undersized players at about every position as those players need to be real good to overcome size.

With e.g. Gasol the change would not stop; he does not make us a contender, but we'd add more pieces. A main point of mine was also that by signing a free agent center this would open up possibilities to trade for another high pick. But of course, as you said, we can also sign someone at another position of need. It's just that our bigs need more time and I think that bigs need more time to develop. If that's true, changing the position of the young talent to one of the smaller players would not alter the talent level but speed up the teamdevelopment.

But to prevent us from going on with this discussion forever ... I'm also pretty much ok with going forward with what we got.

One more thing not about this discussion. You said that no other big point guard has won after Magic, but didn't Ron Harper play pointguard on some of Phil Jackson's championship teams? He was pretty big for a pointguard.

[Tim W.]

Tim, first of all, you have good points, and I agree with a lot of what you are saying. You are right that a central point to my 'ideas' is that I'm doubting that Valanciunas will be able to play at the center position right away. Around the draft there were reports about him being more of a PF than a center in the nba (would have to google hard to find those as I don't know where I read those). It's also something I tend to agree with (not going to hide behind unnamed resources). That's something we'll have to see.

In my opinion there is a big difference between valuing the importance of size and saying a scoring point guard is necessary. Scoring can come from any position, undersized bigs will be hard to compensate; e.g. while some people are high on Dejuan Blair, I would never ever want him as our starting power forward because his lack of size can and will be exploited harshly in a playoff series. Btw I have reservations about undersized players at about every position as those players need to be real good to overcome size.

With e.g. Gasol the change would not stop; he does not make us a contender, but we'd add more pieces. A main point of mine was also that by signing a free agent center this would open up possibilities to trade for another high pick. But of course, as you said, we can also sign someone at another position of need. It's just that our bigs need more time and I think that bigs need more time to develop. If that's true, changing the position of the young talent to one of the smaller players would not alter the talent level but speed up the teamdevelopment.

But to prevent us from going on with this discussion forever ... I'm also pretty much ok with going forward with what we got.

One more thing not about this discussion. You said that no other big point guard has won after Magic, but didn't Ron Harper play pointguard on some of Phil Jackson's championship teams? He was pretty big for a pointguard.

The question is whether a frontline of Valanciunas, Davis and Amir is at all undersized. I don't see how it is, so if something isn't broken, why try and fix it?

I recall reading possibly one thing about Valanciunas being able to play PF, but I certainly wouldn't say there were reports of him being more of a PF. Ever.

And yes, adding Gasol would be adding a piece, but so would adding a player at one of the positions of need. And it wouldn't cause any logjam issues, either. Right now, the Raptors seem pretty set for the future at the SG, PF and C positions, so why go out and get another C? It just doesn't make much sense, to me.

As for Harper, yes, I forgot about him. Although I wouldn't really call him a PG. Pippen was the guy who ran the Chicago offense. Of course he's not exactly small, either. My point, however, is still valid.

[Tim W.]

Let me just add how nice it is to have discussions, now. 6 months ago, a discussion like this probably would have ended up in insults.