[Koreen] On the Raptors front office’s track record since drafting Barnes: They’re probably in the C range as a whole. Obviously, Barnes hitting his 90th-percentile outcome would change that immensely, but the Raptors haven’t been nailing things on the margins as they used to, no doubt about it.
August 14, 2023
[Koreen] On the Raptors front office’s track record since drafting Barnes: They’re probably in the C range as a whole. Obviously, Barnes hitting his 90th-percentile outcome would change that immensely, but the Raptors haven’t been nailing things on the margins as they used to, no doubt about it.
9 comments
Some of the work includes:
>Trading Dragic and a first-round pick for Thaddeus Young and an early second-round pick: D
>Three-year contract for Chris Boucher: C-minus
>Losing VanVleet in free agency, not trading him at deadline: D
Also has this tidbit about the roster:
>Even though logically I understand trades become less likely the deeper we get into the offseason, I still believe the Raptors will start the year with all three of Temple, Young and Porter.
>Whether that means there is a trade or one of the latter two gets waived, I’m not sure. It would just make for a weird roster.
Dragic and first for thad ….
Eric Koreen is probably in the D- range as a writer and journalist
They’ve been mediocre ever since missing out on the slim chance they had of getting Giannis. And doubling down on this core because Masai’s ego won’t allow him to blow it up definitely set this team back.
If Barnes isn’t a guy I’m ready to give them an F.
Pre-championship, I’d say this front office had a track record in the “A” range. I think it’s safe to say that this franchise needs an “A” front office to be able to get back to being a contender.
Back in the “glory days,” the front office made many mistakes (signing Demarre, Sullinger, drafting Bruno etc), but always made enough great moves to outweigh them.
The problem is that the “margins” is where they used to do their best work. If Malachi turned out good, or Terrence Davis panned out here, losing Fred in free agency would have been fairly insignificant. But since they’ve struck out (more or less) on the fringes in the past few seasons, every mistake gets magnified.
My guess is that we’ll really need to see things turn around this year (or possibly next) in order for our front office to have some job safety. Nobody will care that we lost Fred for nothing if we win 50 games this year. But if we win less than 42, it’s going to get ugly. It certainly looks like a 38 win team on paper.
That said, I’ve been wrong before. I’m still hopeful for this front office, and even for a lot of the pieces here. Life gets a lot better as a Raptor fan if we start to see consistent output from Precious and Koloko, if Gradey Dick is good, and if Dennis and McDaniels give us good minutes. There is a recipe for success here, even if the roster isn’t balanced.
That said, I think we need to balance out the roster in order for the rotation players to find conisistency. An underrated element of our most successful teams was in Lowry – he was so good with bench units, and really good at making the pieces fit because he was such a versatile player (could play on and off the ball, can spread the floor, guard up positions). Similar to how Steve Nash made everything fit in Phoenix.
Clearly we don’t have that sort of player. I’d argue that for Pascal or Scottie to turn into a player like that, they’ll really need to improve their shooting. If one of those guys became a 40% three point shooter, they could really help glue some lineups together. I realize that’s probably not realistic. I know Indy would never agree to this, but a trade of Siakam for Halliburton would probably get us back in the 50 win range, just as a way of balancing out the roster.
My longwinded point? This front office needs to get its mojo back, or we need a new front office. I don’t really care about the direction (rebuilding vs competing) because the two best players in the league were drafted outside of the lottery, and so was the only Raptor good enough to lead us to a championship. I think it’s safe to say that a team that drafts, develops, and builds well doesn’t need to tank to win a championship. You need to either be a free agent location (LA, Miami, etc) or have an exceptional front office/organization. We used to have the latter, and we’ll need to regain that one way or another.
Since the title, management should get an F. Obviously winning a title brought them some leniency. Any other Pres/GM would be fired with how the past 3 years have gone.
Toronto sports media in its feelings as usual. I have complete trust in this FO. Yes we need shooting but we have not hit our championship window yet. As long as pascal doesn’t walk I am happy.
Those grades are about accurate; we are only as good as what our record shows. The main issue I have with our FO is if our roster doesn’t pan out the way they envision, then we’ve essentially put ourselves into limbo for the past 3 years when we could’ve been rebuilding all this time.
9 comments
Some of the work includes:
>Trading Dragic and a first-round pick for Thaddeus Young and an early second-round pick: D
>Three-year contract for Chris Boucher: C-minus
>Losing VanVleet in free agency, not trading him at deadline: D
Also has this tidbit about the roster:
>Even though logically I understand trades become less likely the deeper we get into the offseason, I still believe the Raptors will start the year with all three of Temple, Young and Porter.
>Whether that means there is a trade or one of the latter two gets waived, I’m not sure. It would just make for a weird roster.
Dragic and first for thad ….
Eric Koreen is probably in the D- range as a writer and journalist
They’ve been mediocre ever since missing out on the slim chance they had of getting Giannis. And doubling down on this core because Masai’s ego won’t allow him to blow it up definitely set this team back.
If Barnes isn’t a guy I’m ready to give them an F.
Pre-championship, I’d say this front office had a track record in the “A” range. I think it’s safe to say that this franchise needs an “A” front office to be able to get back to being a contender.
Back in the “glory days,” the front office made many mistakes (signing Demarre, Sullinger, drafting Bruno etc), but always made enough great moves to outweigh them.
The problem is that the “margins” is where they used to do their best work. If Malachi turned out good, or Terrence Davis panned out here, losing Fred in free agency would have been fairly insignificant. But since they’ve struck out (more or less) on the fringes in the past few seasons, every mistake gets magnified.
My guess is that we’ll really need to see things turn around this year (or possibly next) in order for our front office to have some job safety. Nobody will care that we lost Fred for nothing if we win 50 games this year. But if we win less than 42, it’s going to get ugly. It certainly looks like a 38 win team on paper.
That said, I’ve been wrong before. I’m still hopeful for this front office, and even for a lot of the pieces here. Life gets a lot better as a Raptor fan if we start to see consistent output from Precious and Koloko, if Gradey Dick is good, and if Dennis and McDaniels give us good minutes. There is a recipe for success here, even if the roster isn’t balanced.
That said, I think we need to balance out the roster in order for the rotation players to find conisistency. An underrated element of our most successful teams was in Lowry – he was so good with bench units, and really good at making the pieces fit because he was such a versatile player (could play on and off the ball, can spread the floor, guard up positions). Similar to how Steve Nash made everything fit in Phoenix.
Clearly we don’t have that sort of player. I’d argue that for Pascal or Scottie to turn into a player like that, they’ll really need to improve their shooting. If one of those guys became a 40% three point shooter, they could really help glue some lineups together. I realize that’s probably not realistic. I know Indy would never agree to this, but a trade of Siakam for Halliburton would probably get us back in the 50 win range, just as a way of balancing out the roster.
My longwinded point? This front office needs to get its mojo back, or we need a new front office. I don’t really care about the direction (rebuilding vs competing) because the two best players in the league were drafted outside of the lottery, and so was the only Raptor good enough to lead us to a championship. I think it’s safe to say that a team that drafts, develops, and builds well doesn’t need to tank to win a championship. You need to either be a free agent location (LA, Miami, etc) or have an exceptional front office/organization. We used to have the latter, and we’ll need to regain that one way or another.
Since the title, management should get an F. Obviously winning a title brought them some leniency. Any other Pres/GM would be fired with how the past 3 years have gone.
Toronto sports media in its feelings as usual. I have complete trust in this FO. Yes we need shooting but we have not hit our championship window yet. As long as pascal doesn’t walk I am happy.
Those grades are about accurate; we are only as good as what our record shows. The main issue I have with our FO is if our roster doesn’t pan out the way they envision, then we’ve essentially put ourselves into limbo for the past 3 years when we could’ve been rebuilding all this time.