Grading the Toronto Raptors so far…

Grading the Toronto Raptors so far…

Hey everyone, welcome to another one of my solo Saturday episodes. This one where I grade all the players and kind of I guess try to recap the first quarter of the season. I’m going to highlight some of the trends that have happened with the Raptors over the course of that. The Dr. Jackekal and Mr. hide aspect of, you know, winning nine straight, winning four straight, losing four or five just recently, starting one and four, kind of talking about what’s been happening there, and giving grades to all the players. I’m going to try and summarize quickly, but also know, hey, if you don’t like what I’m saying about one guy or you want to know what I think about another, I do time stamp these episodes. And I sincerely hope you use those timestamps to peruse at your will. And if you stay for the whole thing, all the better. The watch time is important on YouTube. Uh, so is liking, commenting, subscribing, all that good stuff. Uh, thanks for tuning in. Let’s get into it. So, the Raptors are currently the third seed in the Eastern Conference at 15 and N. They are still a top 10 defense. They’ve just because of this Hornets game fallen out of the top 10 offense and on the whole I think that they’ve been a team that has overachieved what consensus thought that they would be. Now, consensus was that this was a back end of the plan team. Even some people thought, you know, a handful of people thought they might be out of the plan. They’re currently in a very strong position. Now, the rest of the pack is catching up to them. Like, you know, Miami, Boston, Orlando, they’re starting to catch up. They’re making some ground on the Raptors. It means this this upcoming Celtics game is a huge one. The matinea on Sunday. I’m looking forward to being there if the Raptors win. That’s a big one. And of course, they have won their NBA Cup group and they are set to face the Knicks on December 9th. It’s a cup game, the quarterfinal to see if they go to Vegas. Now, what are the standout features of this Raptors team that is third in their respective conference? Well, they are the number one team in the NBA as far as getting out and running. Their transition frequency is the highest. They have a lot of warts as how they finish transition possessions, but seeing as transition possessions, even the bad ones, typically have a higher points per possession than half court possessions, well, hey, they’re not doing so bad there. They have just fallen out, I believe, of the top 10 in half court scoring. That is still technically a pretty strong strength of theirs this year. And defensively, they’ve been able to force a lot of misses. They’ve been able to force a lot of turnovers. And everything that I just said is going to lead to being a good team. Yes, it’s true that they don’t shoot the three balls super well and they don’t shoot a lot of them, but they’ve been able to find different ways to get to different spots on the four and still keep the offense chugging along. For the first, I don’t know, 17, 18 games of the season, a lot of that was put on the shoulders of Mr. Brandon Ingram. It has been a bit of a shocking, and we’ll get to Brandon’s portion later. It’s been a bit of a shocking uh stretch of games for Brandon. He’s had a really tough time. More on him later. Uh Scotty, I think, has been a defining player. And R.J.’s injury means a lot. Lewis and I on the latest episode of Bald Lie kind of addressed why the Raptors offense is such a fragile ecosystem. and why they need input from every single guy. And when you take out one Jenga block, it’s it’s fragile, man. It might it might come down. And the Raptors, they were one of the five best offenses in the NBA and then R.J. goes down and they’ve been the worst offense in the NBA since then. Now R.J. isn’t that great a player that he has like worst to one of the best. It also coincides with, you know, some some shooting slumps from the rest of the team. It just goes to show that this Raptors team is a team. They achieve as a team. They play as a team. And there are no empty calories here. The Raptors need wherever they can get offensive punch, they try and get it. And defensively, just to make this very clear, the things they talked about being a huge part of their defensive identity, the high pickup points, the backcourt press and all that kind of stuff, they opened in a fivegame stretch at 1 and4. Their defense was 30th or 29th in the NBA. What they’ve done since then is immediately become like a middle of the pack pressure team. And I think that’s a correct identification that was made by the coaching staff. They press twice or they press half as often. Their pressure is half as often. They’re in the back court pressuring half as often and their shell has become more conservative. That benefits a lot of the players on the team and it keeps them out of rotation, especially up the floor. That’s also coincided with having Yaka Purle cover less ground. It’s coincided with the Raptors getting better at rebounding, you know, the other team’s misses because they have more guys back and they’ve still been able to get out in transition. It’s helped keep them in a better spot defensively. I have a big piece coming on this. I have a lot of quotes from coaches around the league. Uh stay tuned for that on Raptor.com. Anyway, the Raptors, they’ve made defensive adjustments which have really worked. They have, as an offense, I think to sum it up, they really rely on ball movement. They really, really rely on spacing from their known shooters. And they rely on the fact that in their starting lineup and in transitional lineups when things were going good, they had two, sometimes three guys on the floor at all times that could drive a closeout and do something with it. And this meant that teams were having a tough time cheating off of their guys. Teams were having a tough time loading up against any one player. And also probably a bit of hot shooting as well, especially Brandon Ingram from the mid-range. He’s started out shooting like 58 59% on those mid-range pulls. Then we’re looking at he’s been shooting man probably like around 30% for a six or seven game stretch. Tough. Anyway, let’s start giving out grades because that’s what this is for. This is all cannon fodder to get a grade. This is why Raptors Republic, the quick reaction is so popular. If you can sum a guy up with a grade, you do so because that’s great for people to chew on and then people can be like, “No, I wouldn’t give that grade.” And in which case, hell yeah. Let me know what grade you would give. I want to start with Scotty Barnes. I would be tempted to give an A+ if I wasn’t a Scotty optimist. as a Scotty optimist prior to this season. Um when during that during that preseason stretch, I was getting my head kicked in, man. Um because people were like, “You think this guy’s going to be an all-star?” I was like, “Yeah, just give it a second.” Uh Scotty’s very much on the road to all-star right now. Um and other accolades as well. I’ll give him an A. I wouldn’t go all the way A+ because there are still some finer things as a driver, which is coming along. There’s still some finer things as a score which are coming along that would truly make me feel like this is A+ so far, but an A, I think you guys might recognize that my grading is not super friendly over the course of this video. An A is a very strong grade. Like very, very strong. And I’m grading on a curve, by the way. Like Jameson Battle, he doesn’t play that much, but he’s been good. So, we know what that’ll look like. Scotty Barnes is giving I think his very strong efficiency offensively. His catch and shoot mid-range to beat zone to beat sunken defenses has been really strong. His catch and shoot three-point has been very strong. His pull-up three-point even to punish defenses has been strong. So, while yes, teams still cheat off of Scotty and that affects the defense and the offense overall to some degree, he is the points per possession, the efficiency he’s been able to provide on those jumpers has made that trade-off actually friendly for the Raptors. Now, there’s some stylistic stuff that goes into that of course, but on the whole, they’re winning that trade-off of teams laying off of him. And credit to Scotty, who, you know, when I looked at his touch on the inside of the arc, I was like, listen, man, the jumper has to come around. His touch is really strong. It has to manifest somehow. And it has been. His shooting has been really strong. He’s been north of 40% from three. He’s north of 60%. Maybe he’s up to like 61% true shooting. His passing, it’s not as voluminous as other seasons because he’s not getting as much of the ball. But I think that’s the beauty of it is that Scotty has had really strong games lately. I mean, he’s been brilliant lately outside of the Hornets game. Not not the best game for anybody. But Scotty on the whole has, I think, been quite resilient offensively in looking for shots in a bunch of different places on the court. He’s really rounding out his offensive game without sacrificing efficiency. Last year, Scotty was trying to round out his game and the efficiency was tanked, man. It was truly he had a really, really bad season scoring the ball and not as good a season playmaking as you would hope. this season. I think with other players stepping into larger offensive roles, Scotty gets to operate as a 1B/2 and if he develops into a 1A, which is tough to do in the NBA, but if you do, then hell yeah, we’ll see where that takes us. but he gets to kind of like flow in and out of games, benefit as a screener, as a connective passer, as an offensive rebounder, as a cutter. All these things that really allow him to tap into how he reads the floor and just how physically gifted he is. And then you’re looking at a guy who’s with, yes, smaller driving numbers than in years past, but strong driving numbers. a guy who’s been scoring a bunch in transition, has been one of the better players in transition in the NBA, and a guy who has hit shots over the top of teams in a shell. I mean, he’s been he’s been very strong offensively. Defensively, he’s probably a top five or six candidate for defensive player of the year. If you’re looking now, if you’re trying to think like, okay, how do we calculate this? Do we look at stocks? Do we look at the analytics? Do we look at reputation in the tape? He kind of meets every requirement that you need there. We’ve talked a lot about this on the podcast, but I mean, hell yeah, it does. He’s having the best defensive season, probably as good or better than what we’ve seen from Ojan and Obi, which means that this will be in the running if he keeps us up for the best defensive season ever by a Raptor. We talked about all the good things that are having happen happening offensively. Scotty’s doing this defensively. Um he’s been he’s been so good. A the scoring and playmaking overall if those things the creation went up just like a little bit an A+ would be there but it’s just not there yet. Maybe by the end of the season we’re looking at A+. If he won DPOI or something I mean come on get out of town. Brandon Ingram this is a tougher grade. It would have been very easy grade like six or seven games ago, but Brandon is mired in a slump and quite a nasty one and not one that I feel like I feel bad critiquing him in some sense because the Raptors just heaped this on him because without R.J. suddenly they thought, oh, you know, maybe we don’t have as much depth in shotmaking as we thought we did. Maybe, you know, you can get 17 points from Jacobe Walter. you can get like 10 from Jameson Battle and you can still be looking around like did we get enough because RJ just filling in without like with his 20 points on efficient shooting is not there and the way he affects the defense isn’t there. So they just say Brandon can you shoot 25 times a game and then they start to dial that back once he looks a little bit more fatigued and then we’re looking at he’s well under like league average efficiency right now. He is his assist to turnover rate is almost one to one which is it’s abysmal in the NBA. It if you’re a strong playmaker it has to be 2 to one or close at the very least. Some of the best guys can go north of that by some measure. And Brandon defensively he’s been doing more defensive playmaking. His steal and block percentages are about as high as they’ve ever been in a simult at the same time. And the Raptors have done a really good job when we talked earlier about how they changed the defensive scheme. It benefited Ingram greatly. He has to cover less ground. You can keep his length near the basket for defensive rebounding. He kind of gets to be in passing lanes a little bit more often. And he also can get more blocks here and there. That kind of stuff is good, but his core coverage is still not great. His ability to execute scheme and willingness sometimes it it waines and waxes. I heard somebody pronounce it as Wans and it really made me think like is it Juan versus Wayne? Anyway, nobody cares about this. I You have to dock Brandon for the his turnovers have been a problem. You have to dock him for that. You have to dock him for uh the efficiency sliding. But I will give some thought here that Brandon is still shooting at the rim a little bit more than last season. He’s still shooting 70% at the rim. He’s shot really well in the mid-range. And this stretch where he’s been really poor, the Raptors still keep throwing him the ball. And I really against the Hornets, I hated the playmaking decisions. But on the whole, I don’t think it’s been that bad. And a lot of these concerns about efficiency would just completely go away probably if he wasn’t shooting like 28 29% from three. He’s currently sustaining a really bad three-point slump. His process, I don’t think, is as bad on the whole of this season as the numbers, if you look at him right now, might say. I think I’m going to give Brandon, and this might come across pretty harsh because he came out pretty strong. I’ll give Brandon a C. A C. If that seems harsh, I’ll just frame it this way. He does get paid the big bucks. He has a really tough job on these Raptors, but it’s a job he signed up for. And even Brandon Ingram fans who probably would be angry at this, you know, he can play better than this. And I know you’re a fan of his and you might think like, well, the Raptors aren’t doing X or Y for him. I get it. But, you know, he can play better than this. And if you’re thinking about like, well, look at all the attention he gets. You know, he can play make better against this attention as well. Brandon, a C. And as far as the fatigue, listen, we just talked to Darko and when we asked about fatigue, he said, “There’s no fatigue in this league. We go again. We play these games.” And Brandon, quite frankly, I know he was dealing with the ankle injury, but just however many games ago, he’s talking about like now he’s getting into the swing of things. He can feel his explosivity coming back. Brandon’s like the fatigue of like cardiovascular stuff. It probably shouldn’t be in question now. And Brandon agrees with that. They bringing up the idea of him getting extra rest. He had a quote where he was like, “No, if I’m healthy, I’m playing. I respect that and he can play better, but I’m glad he’s playing all the games. He shouldn’t be like DOA like completely tanked for fatigue stuff by this point of the season.” That that would be kind of like damn. What I think is happening is that the Raptors just played what, five games in seven nights. He is fatigued, yes, but not so much more than other guys on the team who are probably tired, too. And not to the point where he would say like, “Take me out. I need to sit.” This guy loves basketball. He can play better. He will. He’s not going to sit or rest. Emanuel Quickley. Emanuel Quickley. This is a guy, I mean, he just had a big scoring game against Hornets. His numbers on the season are not flashy. They’re not super incredible. They are competent and competent numbers given how he started the season is very very comfortable for quickly. He has been better defensively. He’s putting in his best turn as a defender since coming to the Raptors. Uh he also is a guy who benefited greatly from the Raptors not asking for as much press defense. Uh the Raptors have left that to a select few players and even though Quickley does do it on occasion, it’s not nearly as much as it once was. His three-point shooting has really come around and you can see that his trigger is quicker than it used to be because the Raptors obviously have been telling him for years like, “Please shoot more of those.” And the driving game still does not impress me, but the photos have started going down. And while I will always have these reservations about the Raptors assist numbers for their guards and centers just because of how they run the offense, like I’ve said before, Brandon Ingram like just as of three games ago was one of the highest volume offscreen scorers in the NBA. What does that mean? It means a guard is just making a chest pass and Brandon Ingram is doing all the work or the screener is getting him loose or all that kind of stuff, right? It is not it does not sum up playmaking talent in the slightest, man. It does not reflect anything like that. The Raptors used to do this with Patrick Macau. They would just have him pass off the top. Pin downs, Iverson’s, uh, staggers, whatever. And the Raptors do that with Jamal Shed and Emanuel Quickley. Emanuel Quickley, six assists, it’s Listen, it’s fine. I but the shotmaking is where he’s doing well and the defense is where he’s been better and he’s been a competent guard. He’s not he’s not close to like an all-star guard in the East right now, but he’s very important to these Raptors. And while some of the creativity off the bounce and the like slick decision-m that I everyone loves to see in guards, is that present in Quickley’s game? No, not a whole bunch. I tell you what though, he’s been competent. and even competent. I’m like under he’s been really good for a stretch. Um not all in one stretch, but he’s had pockets of this season where he’s been like really really good where you can see he’s clearly the second best player on the floor for the Raptors for stretches. And those stretches are great. It really helps ease things up on the rest of the team. And his volume from three is so important. I’m going to give Quickley a B minus. B minus. That’s how I feel about Emanuel Quickley. It’s he deserves a lot of credit for how he turned around and shot the ball because he was it was so bad to start the season and it came right back around. He plays like this the rest of the year. The Raptors, they’ll be very happy with how that season went because he’s just had a tough go since becoming a Raptor, especially last season. This type of dependability, it would it would mean a lot to his game, I think. Uh, so Scotty, Brandon, Emanuel, RJ Barrett, I mean, RJ Barrett, I give those numbers about how the Raptors offense tanked without him. Their defense did get better, but not it’s not the same degree. It’s not remotely the same degree. The Raptors still managed to defend pretty well with Brennan, with RJ Barrett in the lineup. Now, is he the biggest motivator of that defense? I don’t think so. But as has been the case with the Knicks and with the Raptors for stretches, he can exist in good defenses. He doesn’t tank defense. Is he motivating it? I don’t think so. But he certainly certainly doesn’t tank it. He, in my opinion, is not shooting as well as he can from three. It’s like 36% 35%. And his rim finishing has been the biggest story. and his willingness to shoot, the lack of hesitation and his playmaking. I mean, when you look at like 3.8 assists to 1.5 turnovers, considering that they don’t run a lot of actions for him, and the fact that when they do run actions for him, it’s like, we really need a bucket. We really need you to curl and find something. He’s been very dependable doing so. He has been Johnny on the spot and his motion, his driving, the unseen aspects of his game have or not unseen, the aspects of his game that a lot of people take for granted. I think that you see they have a cascading effect on the Raptors offense and on the team at large. They miss him quite a bit. Is that an indictment of the team? For some people, yes. For me, no. RJ Barrett was playing good basketball. Perfect basketball. No. Does he get into the A? I don’t think so. For me, I think RJ Barrett played B+ basketball. Now, of course, he’s very important to the Raptors. You can see that, but his importance is not his performance. Not necessarily. You know what I mean? like Brandon Ingram when even when he shoots three of 13, he’s very important to the team. But you just say like that’s a bad performance, you’re still really important. It’s become clear that R.J. is very important to the Raptors. But I tell you this much, man. Uh his performance, it doesn’t get into a territory for me, but I’ve liked it. Defense, there’s room to improve. Three-point shot can come around. I’ve really liked a lot of the driving decisions. I’ve liked a lot of the playmaking decisions and I’ve liked the dependability and he’s always ready. Always ready. His cutting is so important to this team. His curls, his drives, so important to this team. And his willingness to just take the shot so important to this team. He gets this offense going vertical when they get stuck in these horizontal pass up top, dribble up top stuff. He turns it downhill and he changes the geometry of the defense. B+ for RJ Barrett. Yakob Purle, he’s a tough one because again, this is like an importance versus performance thing. YaKob, there’s been some games where he just looks so good. Like he looks like a top 10 center and some games he looks like a bottom five starting center in the NBA. But he’s dealing with this back thing, right? is a very tough thing. The back. Um I’m 30. I don’t have back problems. I hope I never do, but I’ve had so many people come out of the woodworks talking about their back saying like, “Oh, this is bad news, man.” And YaKob, he’s been fighting it. He doesn’t play back. He doesn’t, ironically, he doesn’t play backtobacks. He has missed a couple games at the front end. He hasn’t been as efficient lately. But I tell you this much, having him really shores up the defensive glass. Having him really gives the Raptors a release valve in the middle of the floor that they just don’t have on offense. You could see it in the Lakers game when Sandro was the starting well actually you can see it any game that Sandro starts where Sandro isn’t like the unique um stretch big who can drive coming off the bench as a change of pace but where his he has to make things happen as a starting big. You can see the limitations on the inside. They are for the world to bear, but he’s on a minimum contract. Let’s not like listen, Sandro’s been great. We’ll talk about him, but just to make the point that Yakob is a wizard on the inside in a lot of ways. He makes uh pick and roll role man actions far more valuable than they deserve to be. His his footwork is impeccable. His timing and pacing to match it with the handler is so strong. He provides assists and points to the Raptors in a way that just nobody else on the roster can. Not close, not remotely. And uh defensively I he’s he was really overextended when the Raptors were playing more aggressive. When they brought things back to being more conservative, it helped him out a lot. And honestly, the Raptors look their best when Yakob is playing. And that’s no surprise. I’m hoping by that that by the end of the year CMBB can emerge more that they have like these and Sandro can keep being a really strong change of pace that the Raptors have like lineups they feel really comfortable with. Um especially in maybe like the front end of clutch time, I don’t know. Or the back end. We’ll see. But Yakob I think has been YaKob I probably would give a a B. I’d give YaKob a B. And keep in mind, guy, these these are relative grades, but I give Yakob a B. It was it’s similar to Emanuel in that the start to the season for him was just like, whoa. Except Emanuel just was sustaining this horrible streak of shooting and YaKob clearly just didn’t look like himself physically. And that shows up. I’ll go B minus for Yakob. Bminus for Yakob. All right, who are we talking about next? Who is the sixman of this team? Sandro. Sandro is the sixman of this team. We’ll go there. Sandro for me gets an A. Actually, he’s on a minimum contract, man. I’ll give Sandro an A+. If you came into this season and I told you like, yeah, Sandro is going to win a ton of minutes. He’s going to be averaging like 10 and four, 10 and five with two assists, by the way. Uh, and he’s going to be shooting like near what? He’s he’s north he’s north of 50% from the field. He’s almost 40% from three. You know, the the free throw shooting has been good. And defensively, he’s hung in. Now, you can see when the Raptors are in a tough spot, Sandro is not going to save anything, but he’s hanging in. They get to play their defense with him. And they’ve just won a bunch of minutes. Sandro, I think, has been an A+. His driving game has really shown up. The three-point has not been exactly as hot, but he’s shooting like 38 39%. It probably his shooting if it’s north of 33 34, it’s good enough for what the Raptors need. He clearly has a reputation. Teams close out on him and he’s a quick trigger and he shoots above the break all the time. So that that three-point percentage is a little bit more valuable. I just Sandro, he’s been really strong, man. And he’s not so good that you start to think like, oh, what does what does Yakob look like, but he’s been so good that you wonder like, how the hell are the Raptors going to pay this guy? The answer are probably not going to be able to. He deserves a lot of flowers. Sandro, he’s been really, really strong. He’s looked gas lately, too. Five games, seven nights. Listen, man. It’s It’s tough deal, but Sandro, he’s the first A+. And that doesn’t mean he’s been better than Scotty, but relative to expectation. I mean, this guy makes the minimum contract. He, the Raptors just signed him like, “Okay, you’ll help in the front court, and he’s been massive in the front court.” Jamal Shed, another guy who if you look at the with R.J. after R.J. splits, you’re like, man, alive. What am I looking at here? Because we did this and Jamal deserves so much credit for the type of basketball he aspires to play. Because, as I’ve mentioned before on the podcast, when he’s initiating possessions, it’s gone very poorly. If he initiates a pick and roll, the Raptors score very poorly out of it. If he’s initiating a lot of actions, the Raptors just can’t go to him to like initiate offense and do that kind of stuff to threaten as a scorer. And so that makes it really tough as a point guard. But what he did do, especially when the Raptors were healthy, was he fit in as the fifth man and he would drive closeouts. He would be a very inventive passer driving closeouts. He was near the top of the league in rim assists per 100. That means he’s putting layups in guys hands. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s hitting the paint, but he’s putting down a dribble or two, seeing the defense move and making great reads. Like he’s done that and he’s has that’s clearly his number one capability is to beat his man what with an advantage, get downhill, survey, and make a great read. That’s clearly a very high level skill of his at the NBA level. What hasn’t held was that toward three-point shooting, I think he’s probably down below 33%. If he’s definitely below 34, I think his field goal percentage is incredibly low. His true shooting percentage is incredibly low. When the Raptors lost some of their offensive punch with RJ and the lineups shifted so that they needed more creation from Shed, basically the front fell off. Uh he wasn’t able to threaten as a score. It evaporated a lot of his plus plus playmaking stuff and he got to spend less time off ball which meant that the most valuable aspect of his playmaking was sapped away from him. And so he’s been really negatively affected by the changing of the hierarchy with RJ out and it showed some warts of his game, but he has put on display I think offensively a really fun and unique skill set. How, you know, teams they’re not responding to the same way. I’m interested to see how it looks when R.J. comes back, but Shed definitely deserves credit for that. It looks a little bit different. Yes. when he’s not able to like dump off to a cutter after putting one dribble down 19 feet away from the rim. It looks a little bit different when he’s not shooting 45% from three and just banging them all the time. But offensively, he’s put stuff on tape that I that deserves a bunch of credit. Defensively, uh the ball pressure stuff I don’t think is he’s not super strong at it. I know this is not consensus. I know people think the ball pressure stuff is his greatest uh the greatest part of his defense. I don’t agree at all. The greatest part of Jamal’s defense is hunting passes and that is probably an overrated aspect of defense, but Jamal’s been really good at it. Uh he’s drawn quite a few offensive fouls and I think most importantly he’s earned Darko’s trust to be in very important to be playing in very important minutes to get assignments. Even if he struggles with them, he’s out there. Darko sees the practices. Darko sees these guys way more than us, way more than me. I watch every game, you know, twice. I’m trying to see everything I can see. I pay really close attention. I’m constantly watching film. It will never be close to what Darko sees and thinks about. And he keeps putting his trust in Jamal. And it’s because Jamal helps with ball handling. It’s because Jamal can take assignments. And it’s because Jamal is part of creating more turnovers defensively, which makes them avoid half court offense. They can run out, all that kind of stuff. And Jamal helps with pace. I’m going to give and it’s he’s probably like a 51% true shooting. and I don’t love his defense. I’m going to give C++ or B minus to Jamal Shed. C plus. That’s going to come off harsh to some people, but my apologies. The assists don’t move me all the way. Not all the way. I don’t look at like the the raw assist totals for guards on this team and and think like, “Oh my god, this incredible playmaking.” Um Jamal though, like the playmaking is good. B minus. B minus. He’s a second round pick. Don’t be so harsh. B minus. Jamal shed. The shooting’s in a very rough place right now, but I think it it’ll come around. B minus. Sure. Ah. All right. Grady. Oh, it’s like a D. It’s like a D for Grady. And as someone who I mean, I was expecting Grady to have a strong year. There’s a few things that make If you’re a scorer, yes, he has a multiaceted game. Yes. Although there’s a bit of theory to that rather than and like potential to that rather than like the actuality of what he’s putting, especially on tape. So far, I don’t think he’s come across as very confident this year. He’s not shooting the ball well. Yes, he’s finishing the ball well, but that’s supplemented hugely by transition. And I’m glad he’s making layups in transition, but it’s not the same as the half court. The half court has been better, but it’s also been a lot of wide open looks coming off of set actions. There’s not anything that I can say about Grady’s offensive game that’s making me say like, “Yep, that’s good.” other than the spacing he provides because he moves a lot and he still has uh a reputation or a perception of him that he’s a knockdown shooter. He’s not been a knockdown shooter. He’s in he’s in a terrible slump. One of the worst the second worst of his NBA career, the longest, I believe. And at some point, the shots have to go in. They just haven’t gone in. And he has all the time in the world to turn this around. Of course, Gray doesn’t care what I think, but he he has all the time in the world to turn this grade around throughout the rest of the season, and he’s going to keep getting played, but offensively, nothing has come the way that you would want it to. And especially when we think about the start to last season and how resilient he was, how he was consistently like a terror out of closeouts. He shot really well on spot-ups. I mean, whether it’s driving the driving them or shooting over the top of them, it just hasn’t been present in his game. And his shot diet has been much easier this year. I’m If he he had a shot tough shot diet again, I would be more inclined to give that like 31 30% three-point shooting a bit of a pass. And as a big Grady guy, uh, if he just doesn’t shoot the ball, it’s tough. Defensively, he’s he’s made a he’s taken a step. Like, there’s a reason. I don’t know. Like, he’s the number one plus minus guy on the team right now. He hasn’t tanked the Raptors, but plus minus isn’t everything, man. On-offs aren’t everything. You have to be a bigger piece of what the positive stuff happening on the floor is, and he’s just been he’s just not been a big enough piece. Um, it’s been disappointing. Defensively, he’s figured a couple things out. Um the the Raptors, they’ve been, I guess, uh kind of inventive in how they want to use him to slide off ball, live dribble switching, that kind of stuff. And it’s it’s new age basketball. I mean, I’ve been talking to all the coaches about it. I’ve been talking about this kind of stuff for years with the cutting edge analysts like Caitlin Cooper and Evan Gberto and, you know, people like that. And but despite winning minutes and the fact that Grady his skill set, you can start to imagine the theory of it like why it’s why it’s so important and why it matters. And if something pops then it looks like this. Yeah. But it’s not popped. So like he hasn’t tanked the Raptors and kudos to him for not tanking the Raptors. But I tell you what, D Jacobe Walter though, who is also a limited player, you can see the warts of his offensive game so clearly, the stuff off the bounce. You can see that, you know, teams, they don’t really respect his shot. They don’t pay a bunch of attention to him, so teams help off. I get it. But he’s been really strong defensively and he’s hit his threes and he has a he’s a pretty good corner crasher when it comes to offensive rebounding. Jacobe to me, he’s another guy in the A category. That’s he’s been strong. Now, does that mean he’s like suddenly a different level of prospect? No. He’s doing the stuff that he is archetypally supposed to do. And the Raptors are like, “Hey, we need you to do this. This is this is what you’re good at. This is what we need from you.” He’s hit threes. He’s crashed the offensive glass. And he’s been one of the best defenders on the team on a top 10 defensive team. He’s been one of the best defenders. He is like the sole good ball pressure defender. Jamal gamles so much. Jamal loses the threat a lot. Jamal makes up for it elsewhere. Yeah. But like Jacobe is the stickiest defender on the team and he doesn’t have the same playmaking potential as like Scotty. But Jacobe has been good doubling. Jacobe has been super strong on on ball defense. Jacobe has hit threes. I mean, come on, man. The rim finishing has been aborant. Whatever. You hit threes and you guard your ass off. Jacobe Walter has been an A. And this is like how he’s played so far. Such a strong bedrock to work from. He’s a young player, too. He’s a young sophomore. He’s He’s playing defensively. He plays beyond his years. Offensively, he looks like a young guy. Guess what? You play this well defensively, you hit threes, open ones, guess what? You get to work on your game forever. Teams will always be willing to put you on a team and be like, “Okay, let’s work on how you attack close outs. Let’s work on the the finishing, all that kind of stuff. Let’s work on some of these reads.” Which his reads, the playmaking stuff after he puts the ball down has not been that bad. He’s just limited as a scorer. And then even some games is like if the floor is open, the reads are wide open for him to make plays and and hit shots. And it’s been an A. Jacobe has been he deserves a lot of love. Colin Murray Boils also so if I had told you that Colin Murray Boils was going to shoot what like 47% 46% from downtown. What would you have told me? And this is also why I and also since everyone was giving me you know gruff about it. He and Jonathan Mobile are not very similar are they? No they are not. These guys are not very similar players. CMBB he it looks like the speed of the game he’s catching up to it right now and I his finishing like the last what four games so he’s five of six five of seven five of seven what was he tonight he was really low volume this past game he was three of four his efficiency has been through the roof and it’s because of his general I reading of the game. He’s strong on the role uh as far as his ability to read it. He’s not a huge player, so he’s not a dominant role man, but I think that stuff can come around. His touch at the rim has been strong. He’s been dunking in the half court. He blew the one, and you can see his size sometimes affects him at the rim. But I I would B+ and this is because, you know, I he was one of my favorite players in the draft. I had really high expectations for him, but he’s been strong. Uh defensively, he’s had a really tough whistle. It’ll he’s definitely going to get a better whistle as he ages. That aggression that he has, the handsy handsy stuff that he plays with, um it’s going to reflect more kindly upon him over time. uh because he’s not going to get as many like tickytac fouls, he’ll get more respect. Um he’s chesting up. He’s staying in front of a lot of guys. He’s battling. I mean, the match up against Mitchell Robinson was so impressive. I thought he was so good against Mitchell Robinson who is the human bulldozer. That guy moves six players at a time. And CNB hung in with him. He got low. He won the, you know, the center of gravity battle and he just plugged away. and he’s hit threes. Teams play off of them. This, we knew this was going to happen. It’s his job to hit open threes and he has. It’s his job to try and carve out space as a screener in handoffs so that players get to operate in two-on- ones when bigs don’t come up because that’s that’s like what Demon Sabonis does. Is CMB a highle screener? No. He’s about an average screener right now. It needs work. He’s just done a lot of stuff for the Raptors. B+. He’s been very efficient defensively. He’s not been as impactful as I’d hoped, but I think that’s going to come around. And the efficiency, it’s obviously going to dip. And I’m waiting for him to get a little bit more adventurous as a driver because he’s been very very uh like hesitant to do so. But this Raptors team does not have super strong spacing for their bigs to drive. See Scotty Barnes deal with it all the time. You have to be pretty crafty with a lot of counters to try and do it. And CNB obviously isn’t that confident in it yet. He deserves a lot of credit though. B+ been pretty happy with it. Who else are we talking about? Ochai. I feel bad for Ochai. He’s shooting 5% from three. 5%. Defense. I came into this and you know, if you’re new to the channel this year, I’ve never rated Ochai’s defense that highly. I thought he was more of an average defender who got tough matchups uh on a limited Raptors team than I thought he was like a good defender who was being sicked on other players. Uh the defense has been fine this year, but he hasn’t hit any shots. He cuts well, but he’s not been dangerous as a cutter. He’s not been able to finish any possessions as a shooter. Like 5%, man. That’s that is tough. Uh his form looks a little wonky right now, too. Uh it’s tough. He’s averaging 0.1 makes per game on 1.2 shots. Ah man, I like I almost want to give an incomplete instead of an F. Choose whichever one you want. It’s just not been and like Ochai, this is his year to get paid. Jacobe has been a much better defender than him. Jacob’s been a much better shooter than him. There’s not much reason to put Ochai in a game right now. Jacobe would have to go on a similar streak of shooting. And even then, you could argue that like the upside of Jacobe, I don’t know. Oochi, if it comes back around, he can definitely play in a competitive rotation. It’s just not there right now. Uh, unfortunately, good guy. Jameson Battle, A+, man. A+. Uh, he doesn’t get as much run, which I don’t agree with. I ju I don’t agree with. The Raptors built the roster in such a way that they’re very they’re very dependent on uh certain parts of the roster so they don’t get to look as much at Jameson. And then also like Jacobe stepped up and Jacobe definitely deserves minutes. He didn’t play good against but he definitely does. He’s played great. Uh Grady has not. You can make the case a lot of nights, why play Grady instead of Jameson if you wanted to. And uh obviously for Grady, it’s that he’s he’s younger and there’s potential stuff here and that’s that’s part of the game. Coaches have to consider this, front officers have to consider this. It’s part of the game and they still believe obviously in in some of Grady’s latent abilities that they’re trying to see it. And unfortunately Grady’s in a hell of a slump right now. He doesn’t look comfortable shooting the ball. Uh, you can see it even in warm-ups. He just doesn’t look comfortable. Think he might be in his head a little bit. You can see the Anyway, this is about Jameson. Jameson’s been great. Uh, he’s in my mind an average defender. He’s not You’re not losing anything there. Now, I remember uh Lee’s in the comment section was challenging me to do like a a Jameson uh defense breakdown to prove that he wasn’t a good defender. He thought that average was uh damning him with faint praise. And you know, I while I don’t think so on the whole, Jameson probably I would say better than average so far this year. Although I’m I’m kind of baking in past stuff to this, but I’ll I’ll probably give like he’s been it’s been pretty strong defensive showings. He’s got good feet. I mention this when I talk about him all the time, but he’s got great feet. And I mean just great cutter, a heady decision maker, hits a million% of his threes. A+ should be playing more. If the Raptors want to get serious, like really serious, and they decide that this year they’re they’re going for it in some capacity, Jameson could be like the seventh man on this team, I think. Um, it just depends about how much you value development. And considering this Raptors roster doesn’t have that much high-end potential, you should be valuing development. Um, that’s that’s where I’m at. But I understand Jameson A+. Chucky, obviously he’s played five minutes, incomplete, but hell yeah with the 905. Um, listen to the running back podcast and just stay tuned with all the guys who are covering the 905. Like there’s so many guys at Raptor Republic who who go down there and provide incredible coverage. Uh, just coverage you’re not getting anywhere else. Also, S uh does too. He he does like 905 stuff. Um, yeah, Jonathan Mo incomplete. Just it’s hard to even give it anything. Garrett Temple incomplete. Great Congo line leader. But that’s the grades, man. That’s I hope a decent summation of what’s happened with this team and how I’m looking at these guys. Uh m maybe the grades aren’t high enough. Maybe they’re not low enough. I think most people would think maybe they’re not high enough, but yeah, 15 to9 third in the Eastern Conference. You would probably expect a few higher grades, but honestly, there’s not that many guys who are below average and there’s a bunch of guys who are around average and then there’s like just three guys who are above average or like in that A range. And it’s all relative. You know, the whole point of this this Raptors season was that they just stacked more stronger players on the team and were like, “Okay, we’re definitely going to be better.” And if you told me I’d be doing my grades for the quarter season or we’re coming up on a third of the season. If you told me that the Raptors would be what the the third seed 15- n like not even when they were one and four, but before the season I felt great, man. Hell yeah. I’m I’m glad to be covering the team that’s doing this. Been a shaky stretch lately, losing four out of five. I’m gonna believe that’s going to get a little bit better. I’m excited to cover the cup game. I hope the Raptors bring the ruckus. I hope RJ’s healthy soon. I hope Yakob is back is better and he can play in backtoback soon. And I hope the bench depth uh guys like Grady, guys like Jamal, uh I hope they because they need to hit shots, man. I just hope to see more of it. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. I’m Samson Folk. Make sure to like, comment, subscribe, all that good stuff. Uh, hype helps out the channel, helps out the videos, all that good stuff. Thanks for tuning in with me. That’s the quarter of the season check-in. Is it quarter third? Feels wrong. I don’t know. I’ve been talking to myself for a while now. This like 50 minutes of talking to myself. Regardless, thanks for tuning in everybody. Uh, yeah. Let me know your grades in the comments. I’d be very interested to see the disparity between myself and the the listener base or viewer base. All right, everybody. Thanks for tuning in whe they got into this in the morning or at night. Have a blessed day and goodbye.

Samson Folk details the Raptors season up until this point.

0:00 – The Raptors rankings and style of play

6:34 – Scottie Barnes

11:10 – Brandon Ingram

16:07 – Immanuel Quickley

19:20 – RJ Barrett

22:21 – Jakob Poeltl

25:20 – Mamu

27:30 – Jamal Shead

32:28 – Gradey Dick

36:01 – Ja’Kobe Walter

38:23 – Collin Murray-Boyles

41:35 – Ochai Agbaji

43:05 – Jamison Battle

45:39 – Hepburn/Mogbo/Temple

46:15 – Final thoughts

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