Speaker 1: What is up, Fellasikos? I am Dan Valley coming at
you with our final twenty twenty five twenty twenty six
NBA season look ahead. We're up to the Toronto Raptors,
which means I have the distinct pleasure of being joined
by the one, the only Samson Folk of Raptors Republic
and also basketball. She wrote, follow him on the social
machines at sam Folk. That's at sam fo kk Samson
year three. Thank you so much for coming back a
third time. How the heck are you doing? Man?
Speaker 2: Doing good social machines is a pretty good shorthand for
like the the conglomerate of things you have to plug,
you just say the social machines is That's a nice
little way to do it.
Speaker 1: I also don't know, but this kind of undermines what
I was just doing. I don't know who I anger
by calling it Twitter or X, and I don't know
what to call the things anymore. So I figure like
just looping in under the umbrella. Everyone knows like whatever
social media thing they're on, they will be able to
find Samson Folk most likely at that handle.
Speaker 2: So I'll take the I saw a tweet the other
day that said there's a certain percentage of the population
that calls it Twitter instead of X. And then somebody
quote tweeted and said it's because we're the indigenous population,
and I thought that was so funny, man, I thought
that was such a funny way to do it. I
call it Twitter. The people who call it X, it
seems like it's mostly like front facing news people who
obviously have some sort of thing where they have to
call it X. And then I think people who just
I don't know why you'd call it X. It's it's Twitter, man,
It's definitely Twitter.
Speaker 1: It's I came up when it was Twitter, and it's
not really I guess X would be like you could
shorthand it. But even when you see it written in things,
it's like on X and in parentheticals formally Twitter, and
so it becomes like this longer thing. So go follow
Samson everywhere. How about that basketball? She wrote, Raptors Republic, Twitter, X,
the whole nine. I'm excited to talk to you about
this team. I'm notoriously high on the Toronto Raptors relative
to consensus. Almost each and every year, after listening to
a bunch of things like national stuff, I don't think
that that's gonna change this year. I recognize all the concerns,
but we were doing our over runners before and I
was like, I think seven wins higher than my co
host or something like that.
Speaker 2: So what did you come in at?
Speaker 1: I think I was at forty two. I could double
check I had them above five hundred.
Speaker 2: Forty two is that's probably roughly where I am too.
It won't surprise me if it went higher, but we'll
get into it. Preseason didn't dispel the worst of my worries,
I'll say so.
Speaker 1: The first question I wanted to ask you, though, has
to deal with how the offseason kind of started with
the departure of Massiu JII. I think the timing was
kind of hysterical just right after the draft to do it,
even if it was overstated, but what type of We
have enough evidence now that it feels like it was
mostly financially driven because you get rid of him and
then change nothing about like his vision. So what is
just your read on that entire situation and how it
played out?
Speaker 2: So basically, when you get rid of MASSI, not only
do you lighten the pocketbook because he was making a
lot of money, and you know what, deservedly so, especially
for his the scope of who he is in Toronto.
He brought them their first championship, he built the team,
but maybe his value as a president was not at
that level anymore. Maybe they felt that it wasn't quite there.
I don't know. And then also you get to create
more like corporate overreach on how the Raptors do things
by removing a president. Bobby Webster is the head of
basketball operations, but he is not the president, so there
is less oversight he has and less total power. So
with the new emerging money that's invested in the Raptors,
I think there's going to be a little bit more
corporate control. And they save money on MASSI and they
get more corporate control, and that's probably exactly how they
wanted it. And Bobby, I mean, if you liked the
direction of the team, he's part and parcel of what
the Raptors were doing. He's a huge part of how
everything was built. So that's kind of where we're at.
I think.
Speaker 1: When you move from that and then look at this roster.
Having listened to a bunch of your podcasts and some
other Raptors stuff and then some of the national stuff
on the Raptors. It does seem like fans of the
Raptors and people cover the Raptors have higher expectations or
recognize that this team is under more pressure than I
think a lot of other people do, where they're just
penciling them in as shure, oh, this is going to
be a disaster. Look at the ill fitting talent. Where
do you land on that? And ultimately how much pressure
is this team under to do something? And what is
a successful season? What does that look like?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It when this offseason first started and I saw
like over unders were like thirty two and a half,
that was the I was just like, there's no way, man,
it's this team. There's no way they're losing less than
or winning less than thirty two games.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It was very easy and to the point of like,
this team has to win if people don't know the Raptors.
They have an extremely expensive starting five, They have guys
who are going to be coming up for extensions. They
have paid everybody. Gaca Purtle is paid and I know
Quickly is paid, Brandan Ingram is paid, Scottie Barnes is paid.
This team is completely entrenched in itself and the only
way for them to carve a path forward for themselves
as a unit is to justify the money that's been spent.
There is no more wiggle room for oh, well, you know,
we're rebuilding. The expectations might not be that big outside
of market because why would you care about the Raptors
or pay attention to them the past few years? Like
not even really just as a team, who oh who
can we nab from them during the trade deadline? Maybe
and then have great success on elsewhere. But this team
has to win to justify itself. If they don't win,
it'll be torn to shreds and starting a new probably
still with Scotti Barnes in the folds. But it's they
have to win. They've spent for it, and they the
back end is young, but god, they've paid and so
you better win some games. Man.
Speaker 1: What happens? This is like I'm asking you to, I guess,
envision what failure would look like. But if you're going,
if you're resigned to keeping Scottie Barnes, then it's how
do you do out the blame for an unsuccessful seat?
Like if a Raptor season goes wrong, do you like,
what do you look at as the development that may
be undermined at all.
Speaker 2: So I think there'd be maybe three or four main
things right. One would be brandon Ingram's health, which has
always been and you don't blame guys for health, you
simply just chalk it up as like, damn, that sucks.
It would be a huge, damn that sucks thing if
brandon Ingram couldn't give you like at least fifty five
sixty games this year, hopefully more. Number two is they
paid a manual quickly, a lot of money, and while
it's a flat contract, so it doesn't ascend and it
gets a smaller and small portion of the cap every year.
He's really not a lead guard. I did not think
it when the trade happened. I'm not convinced of it.
He can be a good guard, but spending on him
as the lead guard of the team I thought was like,
I'm not sure r. J. Barrett is less. It doesn't
matter as much because his contract comes off the books.
There's a decision there. But he's not even expected to
carry anything or do anything. He's not prioritized by the
team and hasn't been the whole time he's been here.
But all that stuff, Scottie Barnes has not delivered on
the offensive promise that he flashed for a moment in
time at the start of year three. And if he
is a guy who is not able to curb the
warts of his offensive process and fit in a little
bit more and kind of adapt to being, of course
a forward who can run these big, small pick and rolls,
and a guy who is a tremendous passer but kind
of gears his game a little bit more towards screening,
catching on the move, finishing, and garbage manning to really
utilize what he is. If none of the if all
those things happen, all these wards show up, it could
be like a thirty three or thirty four win season.
And it could and it would be nasty business over here.
I'm telling you, Dan, it'd be crazy over here.
Speaker 1: So I'll say Scottie Barnes for later. But since he
kind of is the fulcrum of that, what is So
you kind of laid it out and you were doing
a podcast I think it was camera which podcast you
were doing, but we were talking about the need to
get him in more of a this isn't what you
called it, but like a play finisher role rather than
necessarily a play starter role. Is that a tough sell
to someone like him? Or just having brandon Ingram on
the roster now in addition to okay, if Quickly's healthy,
if RJ. Barrett's there, does it make it a little easier.
Speaker 2: I think brandon Ingram is one of the most respected
players in the league who isn't like a perennial All Star.
He is beloved. Guys will love his skill out and
his presence. Definitely, there was going to be anybody who
kind of makes Scotty think like, Okay, I'm not number
one on the totem pole. Brandon Ingram helps a lot,
but there has been this weird undercurrent with Scotty where
you know, it's it's important for him to be listed
as a point guard. It's important for the team, even
in the media stuff they put out to list him
as one. There's all he's very clearly leaned into, like
this Paul George aspect of his game that his skill
set is not yet ready for. He was one of
the highest volume non paint shooters or like non paint
two point shooters in the NBA last year. Is because
he fell in love with a jumper, really fell in
love with it. It's it has to come from the organization
at some point, the coaching staff to kind of say like,
we need you to adapt a little bit more, I think,
And it's not his fault, man. Every player is allowed
to envision themselves as the exact star they dreamed to be.
And Scottie Barnes has had a year and a half
two years of a lot of possessions trying to be
like a full on initiation wing who kills it offensively,
and the return has been not ghastly, but it's been bad.
He has not shot the ball well, he does not
create a lot of rotations in the defense, and while
he is a tremendous playmaker and a very strong player,
he's not been able to play to his strengths. The
hope here is that he returns to a lot of
them this year. My fingers are crossed like with oooh,
there's tension, I'm pulling hard.
Speaker 1: What have you made of? I guess the read on
him taking so many pull ups last year, I think
the highest you meant, the highest share in his career,
like those out of the paint twos. Those pull ups
came last year, but the efficiency was just sort of
whatever people have viewed it as well, like, look, he's
getting to his spots and he's getting those shots off.
And I do remember I think I was talking to
you about this last year going into like this past season.
Look at the splitz he hat on, like the pull
up jumpers, Like at this point through the portion of
this season, where are you just sort of on that.
Is that a tool that should just be like extricated
entirely from his belt or is there something there?
Speaker 2: There's something there. He's a guy who he does not
have manipulative handle, He doesn't have a quick first step.
How will he end? But he is talented enough to
justify getting possessions and he can't just be a guy
who operates as a screener and a finisher. There's going
to be some stuff on ball. How does he beat
a flat defense sometimes? How does he catch middle or
at the elbow and reverse pivot and make something happen?
How do you exhibit control in the middle of the
floor so that your playmakings can spray to all areas
if you get doubled or whatever, you need to threaten
with something. And while he doesn't have the pull up
three or even the catch and shoot three to create
this like Anthony Edwards analysis where you say, well, the
middle just has to come or the floater plus lob
just has to come. He's building out his offense to
try and have counters. And my hope is that he's
built a counter here and put it at the forefront
last season and that it'll be more of a counter
this season. But it's real. He's good enough at it
that it's a real part of his game that teams
will respond to it. But it was just entirely too
large a piece of his game. But his limitations as
an athlete and as a ball hendler dictate that he's
going to end up in that spot more often as
a driver and so being a shot maker from there
instead of a guy who has to get all the
way to the paint or just moves the ball on.
It's a decent development for him, it just occupies so
much of his shot chart right now.
Speaker 1: When you look at the landscape of their offense with
Brandon Ingram, then I do feel as if people have
decided RJ. Barrett is the one that will need to
adjust the most or the ill fitting piece. Is there
an argument to me that Scotty Barnes not ill fitting,
but needs to make the most adjustment amount of adjustments
to his game to make this all work.
Speaker 2: I think that's accurate, not because Scotty is like the
least talented or something like that, but because Scotty is
the one who can, you know, assume a different role
and elevate everybody. You know, it's not like r J. Barrett.
If you make him this super high volume pick and
role player, it doesn't necessarily elevate everybody else. Scotty if
he starts being a guy who runs out of delay action,
who sets a lot of screens and like pushes and
prods teams and creates seals, and is a guy who
like gets a seal from setting a screen twenty two
feet from the basket, catches on the move and makes
these short roll passes or something like that, that's going
to benefit everybody. And RJ. Barrett can't do that. Brandon
Ingram can't do that, and I who quickly can't do that.
And Scotty is he's more talented than a lot of
the names there, but he's also the only one who
can kind of do this facsimile of power forward stuff
that the team desperately needs and Rjie Barrett. If he's
you're going to make the reference to him. All he's
done since he's joined the Raptors team is just like
adapt to whatever they want him to be. In preseason,
he shot a lot of threes. He shot fifty percent
from downtown, a lot of them above the break. The
team wasn't getting enough paint touches. He would start taking
second side actions and get paint touches. He just he
doesn't need you to call plays for him. He's just
out there playing basketball. And he had a much easier
time adapting to the new style than Scotty did. But
it becomes very hand and glove if Scotty becomes not
a big time initiator but a guy who's greasing wheels,
which maybe he doesn't want, which is the tough thing.
Speaker 1: You know, you've also been a big proponent of Scotty
Marns's defense. What do you think we're four years into
his career that people miss the most about his impact?
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I think his defense is rated well,
what do you sit on his defense? Just quickly?
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could see him being an
all defense guy. Like if I look back in a
season and say, oh, that was one of the top
ten defenders in the league. But I think when I
look at the stuff that he is able to do
away from the ball, and as like some of the
like the rotations that he's able to make, and it
just feels like you could watch a possession and he'll
blow it up, like from a bunch of different points,
I think like he could be fringe on that. I
don't know how to put a word to it, but
I would call him right now to me a decidedly
above average defender. I just don't know if I can
go into elite territory.
Speaker 2: Sure, that's that's fine. I think if you're saying maybe,
maybe I would push back and go like, definitely stronger
than above average. But as far as if you're saying fringe,
I mean, there's what like twenty twenty five guys who
should be in contention for like spots seven, eight, nine,
ten on an all they should have three All defensive
We need.
Speaker 1: A third All defense team. I think, I know what
can we do a way I don't I only need
one all rookie team. If I'm being honest, If it's
a matter of count like, let's just do first team
All rookie and give me a third team All defense.
Speaker 2: That's I'd love that trade. But to your point, it's
a scott You can have a great defensive season to
not be all defense. I mean, we've seen that happen
to many different players. Scotty might not be all defense
ever in his career. I think he will personally and
largely because, as you said, the ability to blow up
plays away from the ball as a weak side rim protector,
he's very strong. He actually improved a bunch last year
at the on ball stuff. He was better at not
engaging live ball handlers up at their hip and getting
blown by. He was letting his length do more of
the work. His denied defense was really really impactful against
other initiation wings, and it gave him this multi purpose
aspect of his defense that just it improved the Raptors immeasurably.
They for the second year in a row, I think,
or at least last year, they teams shot worse with
him on the floor. They took worse shots with him
on the floor, They turned the ball over more, they
got less offensive rebounds, and they got to the line
less Like Scotty had across the board when he steps
on the floor. The Raptors are better at everything. And
I'm a film guy. I love doing film. But if
you go to the analytics, he's also very well liked
by all the stuff because he's a defensive playmaker. So
I'll probably by the end of the year be trying
to make the case that he should be on an
all defense team. I'd be happy to be doing that.
But if he doesn't make one, I mean, boo, there's
only ten guys. There's like four day leade defenders. Yeah, yeah,
there you.
Speaker 1: Go, brandon Ingram We've red. Weent seventeen minutes without me
asking you specifically about that is terrible podcasting. Got my part. Yes,
here's the thing. I think people recognize that what the
value he brings in a half court, just as ability
to get to a spotch to make tough shots is
actually important for the Raptors. They look at all the
other stuff and his fit there. What do you think
has been the biggest misconception about his potential fit on
this team?
Speaker 2: Just that the Raptors aren't building a contender right now.
They're building a team that wins some games during the
regular season and they'll see what happens if they reach
the playoffs, and brandon Ingram is very essential to that.
I think a lot of times when we view a
trade for a star or something of that sort, a
lot of times we view it from like the ultimate outcome,
And I agree it's tough. Like you look at this
Raptors team and say, how do they build this into contender?
That's really hard, man. I don't see it personally, but
I didn't see it when it was Kyle Auer and
Demarta Ro's and then it was lateral move Tarreence Ross
becomes Sir Jebaka, Jonas Valentunis becomes Marcasol. There's a Kawhi
Leonard trade in there somewhere that matters a lot. But
the Raptors are trying to put themselves in a stronger
position to pivot, and they want to do it while
winning basketball games, and brandon Ingram is definitely going to
help with that. I think the initial reaction to the
trade was that, well, how does this make them a contender?
How does this you know, how do you build a
contender with Brandon Ingram? And they're just not trying for that.
They want to win more games, and Brandon Ingram is
going to with his very strong half court offense. The
Raptors were thirtieth, that's right, dead last in the NBA
last year in points per possession in on ball creation.
That means if a guy had to dribble and create
his own look, guess what they're the worst at it.
They were terrible as pull up jump shooters. They were
terrible at anything that required a dynamic, live ball guy.
And Brandon Ingram just is flex tape on the water
or I saw this boat in half. He helps that,
And not to the point that the Raptors are world beaters,
but to the point that they're shoring up these huge
weaknesses into maybe marginal weaknesses, and then you probably have
an okay team there.
Speaker 1: I think, has there been anything through the huge preseason
sample size, has there been anything about him, how he's
being used as fit, what he's done that stood like
surprised you.
Speaker 2: Honestly a little unimaginative from the Raptors. I don't know
if they're keeping things tuck the way. I didn't find
the way they were placing guys while Brandon is running
pick and roll, for example, I did not find very inspiring.
I thought it was very like ho hum. The best
looks that he was getting were out of catching the
ball on the move and being used as a guy
kind of running through screens, surveying while on the move,
catching and attacking a point that he thinks he can
get to. And Yakaperle not being healthy for a lot
of the preseason affects the screencraft stuff a bunch. But
I thought that was like, damn, they're probably not using
him as well. But again it's preseason. You never know.
The Raptors run a lot of plays that I like.
But that was the big thing, probably that I wasn't
super inspired by how the team looked when he was
on ball. And of course he's great at creating something
out of nothing, it's perhaps his greatest skill relative to
the NBA. But they didn't get him a lot of
easy looks, and they certainly didn't get a lot of
low offense out of brandon Ingram at the point of attack.
I didn't think it was his fault. I thought it
was that the the spacing of the team looked truncated.
Speaker 1: Is that a problem? Though? That they could run with
Yako perto playing more, you'll get better screen connection. But
is that a problem they could be battling all season
when you look at the makeup of the roster.
Speaker 2: I think, especially since Brandon shot over fifty percent from three,
RJ shot over fifty percent from three, I think quickly
did Grady was at thirty nine percent. They shot the
three ball decent, and they still had the twenty seventh
ranked half court offense in preseason and they had they
had the uh this they played six preseason games too, right,
so they a little bit big. It's way dude, Oh
you're preaching the choir man, it's way too many. But
I think it's something they'll be fighting all season. And
you know, I did this video where I talked about
the plays that the Raptors were running, and a lot
of times what they're trying to figure out is how
to use Scottie Barnes who's being guarded by a big
and all of their sets revolve around switching a big
onto quickly or RJ and working from there because they're
not really sure how to navigate stuff at the point
of attack, and that's where Brandon Ingram exists. So I
think they will fight it for a while, but by
December I would expect them to have it sorted at
least like seventy five eighty percent. That's my expectation. But
if I'm wrong, it might not be that fun to
watch him play this year.
Speaker 1: When I was considering the way that RJ. Barrett's game
had changed when he came over from New York, I
had wondered if Ingram going to Toronto would get him
like all the way to the basket more and his
rim pressure relative to what he did in New Orleans
A lot of the time was up during preseason, but
given the way that they were using him, as you
just said, I probably would have hoped that it would
have been a little bit higher than that. Is that
just not I know, his first couple of years in
the league, it was fairly high for someone his position.
Is that just not something he's able to do, or
is it something we should be kind of tracking leading
into the regular season.
Speaker 2: It should be higher, especially since the Raptors are a
team that they run a lot of off ball actions,
and a lot of off ball actions actually were able
to get Brandon downhill and putting him in motion as
long as he dedicates to it, like running off an
iverson cut. If you are a good shooter, and you
have a guy like Keegan Murray in trail position or
Jalen Brown, it's like, yeah, turn it downhill, attack with
the guy behind you, and see if you can get
all the way to the rim. He was able to
do that attacking Like the Raptors. What they were doing
a lot of times was preoccupying the strong side with
a decoy action and then running Ingram off of Ammu
or Yakab pinned down and letting him work from there,
curl and get into space. He loves the mid range jumpers,
so a lot of times he's gonna stop short and
take that, which isn't all the way bad. But I
would think that the rim pressure should be higher this
year than we've seen in quite a few years, and
we might see a smaller percentage of it relative to
other years in New Orleans coming off his own dribble,
more catching GHO stuff. He also cut not that bad
in preseason. He missed some of their scripted cuts. They
do some of the same wheel action as Cleveland did
last year, you know, moving into circular emotion around the
pick and roll. He didn't quite pick it up immediately,
but there were some interpretive stuff he did that was
really good, like I Cory cut, the mcghetti cut, that
he was famous for lots of great stuff.
Speaker 1: You mentioned before that you think R. J. Barrett was
having an easier time adapting, at least early on than
Scottie Barnes. You've been pretty high on just what I
mentioned before. People think that he's the one who's out
of place. You've been pretty high on. No, he can
make this work. You'll be able to elaborate on that
stance and also how much of it comes back to
I don't know that I would call him a caps
lock shooter, but he is shooting thirty seven point three
percent on spot up three since coming over like from
like over the past season and move in Toronto.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the he is a guy who the reason why
his shooting numbers go down is because he took a
lot of pull ups last year and his mechanics are
terrible for pull ups. His top half and his bottom
half are completely disconnected. The elbow tuck and everything gets
way out of sort. So as soon as you incorporate that,
his shooting numbers are going to tank like crazy. But
as a catch and shoe guy, he's perfectly fine and
he's willing to take them, and so I think he'll
be fine, and he's going to get open shots too,
because he doesn't get respected as a shooter much. Brandon
Ingram said that he thought that RJ was just a
gunner until he arrived in Toronto, and RJ actually he's
a pretty decent passer. The best outcome of an RJ.
Barrett drive is if he makes the spray pass that
he's gotten quite good at with the right hand or
the left hand. And he's a guy who's going to
hit an okay amount of catch and shoe threes. He's
a guy who's going to touch the paint as a
driver on second side actions or attacking closeouts. And Brandon
said that he attracts the ball. Darko has said for
a couple of years now that RJ. Barrett is one
of the great players in the league who you never
have to call play for and the ball still finds him.
He cuts, he attacks, he shoots the ball. I never
worry about RJ. Offensively. He's pretty intuitive there. It's why
he's also good in FIBA basketball. It's the defense, of course,
and particularly the way the Raptors want to play defense
that makes it tough, and Bob's your uncle, Becky's your aunt.
When it comes to the defense, it doesn't look that
good to me.
Speaker 1: What is it that he's struggling the most with?
Speaker 2: To you?
Speaker 1: He really had and like in New York he had
one I think stand out defensive season. I can't remember
that was year two or year three, and it felt like, oh,
like this might be something here, and then it just
since then it feels like it's trailball.
Speaker 2: Well, year two was good defense and shot what thirty
nine percent from three talk about yeah, and then everybody
was like, oh, we might have something here. So RJ
has really slow feet, really slow and when you have
slow feet, basically what you have to be able to
do is meet players higher and make sure that they
can't flip your hips so you don't open the gate
with your slow feet. RJ is not typically doing a
great job of dictating where guys go so that he
can slide with him. He gets his hips flipped, he
gets stuck, and he gets behind the ball a lot
when he's guarding it. His attention to detail and effort
has been better off ball, but the limitations of his
feet and his coordination, his quickness really sticking with guys,
especially at his position. He's playing the two this year.
You know that means you're guarding ones, twos and threes.
These guys are pretty quick in the NBA. He's probably
in trouble a little bit and he can't He's not
been able to get away from it. Really, it's it
shows up. And he's a little bit toothless off ball
sometimes like they're him with a dig. There's not a
lot of he doesn't shake the ball loose very often.
He doesn't make a guy stop but drive very often.
Him jumping a passing lane okay sometimes, but a lot
of times he's missing there. This stuff could get good.
I mean, guy's turn it around mid career all the
time with this kind of stuff. But the on ball stuff,
I don't have big hopes for it.
Speaker 1: It does seem based on what I saw in preseason
that he's going to be him and Scotty Barnes when
they do their staggering patterns will play together. What do
you like or think about that pairing? And I know
last year I was looking at the number like RJ
was super efficient during a lot of his Scotty Barns minutes.
Speaker 2: Last season Yeah, the big thing is that Scotty helps
connect to both sides of the floor when another guy
is leading the offense, if he kind of adapts to that.
And RJ is a guy who is really strong running
second side pick and rolls. He's a guy who's really
strong attacking off of players who have gravity. And Scotty
has gravity. It's not the typical initiation wing type gravity
we see, but Scotty has great vision. He's a very
strong passer. And so RJ a guy who struggles most
when he has to finish over a rim protector who
gets to rotate and meet him at the rim. When
he gets to work off of players who have gravity
and he gets to just beat his man to the rim,
he's actually very strong. He's so good at finishing on
that last step, just not when there's a rim defender there,
so when he's able to work off of other guys.
Last year, the best player obviously was Scotty. This year,
I think his pairing with Brandon has been pretty strong
so far. He's a very intuitive offensive player. He'll benefit
playing off of those guys.
Speaker 1: Certainly, you mentioned Emmanuel quickly before and how he's not
a league guard. It does still feel like he carries
an outsized importance for this team relative to how many
minutes he hasn't played for them. What is it? I
like the shooting stuff that he brings on the ball,
off the ball, from beyond the that feels like kind
of a given. But what else are you really looking at?
What does he need to do for this team to
be worth his contract worth? Just the amount of feels
like court equity they have invested in him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they use him as a screener a lot because,
like well, as you said, the shooting, so we can
skip over that shooting is really important in the NBA,
and a manual quickly is a great shooter. He needs
to be a little bit more active as a guy,
forming up off ball and leveraging his catch and shoot stuff.
He does have a pretty slow and low release, so
his volume naturally will never be as high as some
of these other guys. He doesn't get as many open
threes because he's a great shooter, so people care and
they run him off the line and he doesn't finish
that well at the rim. There's tough things there. But
the Raptors want to play with pace like a lot.
They want to play with pace. They have a great
rolling big in Yaka Perle, and they like guards move
the ball of court way quicker than forwards. Caitlyn and
I just talked about this in the podcast Steps, so
we did where we were talking about Geris Walker's initiation.
When you have a forward bringing the ball up the floor,
plays go slower. I don't know why forwards are just
they don't care about injecting pace into the offense as much.
It is what is. The Raptors coach Starko loves point guards,
loves starting possessions there, wants to move up the floor
work through a couple actions. A man who quickly is
incontrovertibly tied to everything the Raptors want to do, even
if he isn't viewed as like a top definitely not
top two, but a top three talented player offensively on
the team. And Davion Mitchell and Yaka Pearl when Davian
was on the team, we're one of the ten best
pick and roll partnerships in the NBA because Davion Mitchell
had no ego and was like, I will make the
pocket pass to you, brother. You need somebody to handle
the ball with Yaka Pearl a yaka Pearl Scottie Barnes.
Pick and roll is disastrous because it's just a switch
or a push switch and it goes nowhere. This is
we have years of data on this. Brandon will see
but quickly, you know, he shot over eleven out of
the pick and roll in the preseason, which wasn't great,
but on his passes out of them, the team shot
seven to twelve. So as far as just facilitating normal offense,
because he's like the only guard who can do it,
he's a big deal.
Speaker 1: If he can't, how much of impact does that end
up having on this team entire interjectory?
Speaker 2: Oh man, if he can't. Given how good Yakub Pertle
is as a roller, If Emmanuel quickly isn't able to
run like above average at least pick and roll offense,
the Raptors are missing out on a lot. They'd be
missing out on a lot and they would be just
there would just be a portion of points per game
that they'd be like, how do we craft this? How
do we achieve this elsewhere? If we're not getting it
here and I know not every like coaching staffs actually
think about that. They're like, no, we typically get like
twenty two points per game out of this if we're
getting you know, eighteen because of efficiency or because people
are able to knowify it, like we have to get
four somewhere else. Like that's a real thing coaches talk about.
And if the Raptors can't expect above average pick and
role play, especially with Yaco Purtle as a screening partner,
especially with Emmanual Quickly as a second screener in like
you know, these staggered actions to help move offense out
of the nail or defenders out of the nail area,
they're in huge trouble. He more than anybody else, you know,
Scottie Ingram RJ. There's an aspect of what they're doing
where it's like offensive churn, just create and get us
some numbers. Quickly is one of the guys who they're like,
we need efficiency from you because you have an easier job,
you're going to be facilitated. We actually need you to
be efficient. This is where we're looking to gain back
some of that efficiency that we lose through some of
this forward initiation. I think how.
Speaker 1: Much of yakub Perl's utility is tied to the pick
and roll chemistry with Emmanuel quickly and or brandon ingram
working at this point, since we haven't seen too much
of the latter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot. They of course are going to be
a team who enters the ball at the elbow. Yakub's
going to get a lot of those touches. I expect them.
I just did it in my breakdown of the Raptors plays.
But I expect a lot of pinch post actions where
for listeners of pinch post is where basically whoever a
big o wing a guard even catches on the block
and the four other guys shift to the other side
of the court, basically trying to create an empty side
post up. And what teams will do is they'll space
out above the break on those with shooters, and they'll
try and create like these rub screen actions. The Raptors
in particular would do it with Pascal and Scotti to
create these seals for post entries from Yakub to them.
They're going to use his playmaking and passing a lot.
They're gonna use his handoffs a lot. With guys like
Grady rj any number of players. He is so utterly
essential to facilitate and grease the wheels of what they
do offensively. Defensively, he obviously matters, but I don't think
it's nearly as much as his offensive utility, which kind
of connects everything. And I'm very excited for how CMB
is able to be affect similar of that. But Yakub
matters a lot, and if he doesn't matter that much
this season, it means that they've figured something else out,
which I'd be very excited about. But he matters a lot.
Speaker 1: How does he matter to their defense or what has
been like what has been his biggest defensive impact ever
since he's come back to Thrownox. I think some of
the rim protection numbers have slipped, and I've wondered when
I've watched sometimes if the way that they can play
aggressively almost does him a disservice at points, because it
feels like things, if things go wrong, they kind of
implode on a dime. And I don't know if he's
like the big that you want there to cover that up.
But I don't have a great feel for what yah
Pertl is defensively these days.
Speaker 2: It's a great question and one I've been harping on
when he was like twenty six on the Spurs. He's
incredibly fast feet, like a really strong mover out you know,
above the break. I thought he but he's slower now
it's not his fault. I mean he's older. In the NBA,
he's a big man. I think oftentimes the Raptors, just
as a team, are asking a few guys to step
a little bit too high on the floor, and I
think Yakub fits into that. But the thing too is like,
even though Jamal shed is like very rabbit, at the
point of attack, he gets beat a lot, and especially
if you ask him to pressure like eighty four feet up.
If he gets beat, guess what, there's like a walkway,
and so what do you do? You send the bigs
up to help support this kind of stuff. Yakub is
not that strong at that, and like God forbid, that's tough, man.
It's a really tough job. The biggest thing he provides
defensively is stability in the half court, just that he
is a consummate pro defensively, he has a lot of
functional size and while he's not everything he used to
be is in terms of rotating to the rim or
being able to step out and kind of gum things
up with a really strong hedge and length. He does
a really great job of helping to locate box out
close defensive possessions. Even though his rim defense is not
as good as it once was, it's still there. And
the Raptors struggled without his stability. And part of that
is like, hey, it's Colin Castleton, It's you know, there's
a lot of guys running through that spot. But the
stability of a center is a huge thing in the NBA.
Is even even if you're playing kind of like a
new wave form of basketball, all of these players grow
up playing with traditional centers, and so there's a familiarity there,
and you know, players it deepened the recesses of their mind.
They like having a Yaka Purtle or effects of him
somewhere on the court.
Speaker 1: I actually, I've been thinking more about this, and we're
recording this as the NBA's extension deadline is coming in
and when you look at most of the bigs that
aren't going to get extensions in a Walker Kessler or
a Jalen Duran, and how some of the contract situations
have played out, even with some of the veterans, I'm
starting I know, Yaka Purl is just going to get
extended until the end of time in Toronto. But it
feels like the league might be struggling to wrap their
head around the value of certain types of traditional bigs
to where if you're not in the the Jared even
Jared Allen, like before he signed his extension latest extension,
people were confused by, but it feels like he's sort
of the billboard for oh, we understand, like this is
the traditional big man that we know how to pay,
and then everybody else that falls like below that line
or above that line, nobody has any idea how to value.
Speaker 2: A lot of okay, teams will have centers paid in
the in between the aka Purl, the Miles Turner, the
Jared Allen range. A lot of the best teams will
have really paid a big who they're like, oh yeah,
big time Max, or they will have really yeah Chrismuschet,
or they will have really not paid a big the
it's just you look at even like drafting bigs, basically
it's one of two things. It's like you bet the
farm you found the guy, or take a flyer later
on the middle ground bigs is like it's very hard
for team building, which creates obviously this idea of like, well,
how do we spend? How do and does middle ground
ever become top tier? Does you know middle ground ever
become bottom tier? It's scary hours and there's a dependability there,
but bigs can be very boom or bust. And it
also depends on if you have a point guard who
can make water into wine or something there. But it's
a very tough position to you analyze because a lot
of what you're analyzing with a big is like what
they do at the level, and so much of that
is informed by how good you think his partner in
defense is doing at the level too, because like bigs,
they get hung out to dry all the time. Yeah,
and even if you're a pro scout, like let's say
you're a pro scout for the Memphis Grizzlies, you're watching
Voots or whoever and wondering if he can survive, Like
you have to know what Scottie Pippens Jr. Is supposed
to do every time to know if like or sorry
on the Grizzlies. So you have to know what Kobe
White is trying to do every single time. You have
to know what Josh Gitty is trying to do every time,
and only then if you know everything and know everyone's schemes,
you're like, Okay, this big is right. They're doing the
right thing this percentage of time. Now are they good
at it? Like bigs are just so reactive in some sense,
they're so reliant on everything else happening there touches, they're
reliant on where they're placed. They're relying on. Bigs never
get to dictate anything, which means that which means that
they're very reliant on scheme and structure and how they're prioritized,
which means you can have a guy like I was
doing a podcast. Blake literally just texted me I was
doing a podcast with him in like twenty twenty where
we Hartenstein went to the Nuggets were like, wow, I
would have liked to see Hartenstein on the Raptors. And
then every time Hartenstein was available, I said, this guy's
really great. The Raptors should get him. And he just
kept getting paid a little bit, a little bit, a
little bit, four years of being really strong, and then
the thunder like, this guy's a thirty million dollar player,
bring him here. We have the money to spend. Look,
championship time. It's just bigs are tough man it's a
great like you're right on the money wondering about this.
Speaker 1: It's it's tough your point to about how they get
hung out to dry because Alpern Shanghun would be a
perfect example. You put like a more consistent rotation of
players that can contain the ball or defend on the
perimeter in front of them his job. So we got
a lot better defensively, even jayeen duranlast year for points.
I know he was inconsistent, but a lot of his
problems are kind of rooted in space. It's when he's
in the lineups. Kay gets better defensively. Osar Thompson's available,
oh Jelenger and got better defensively. So I'm guilty of
it too, is that we don't provide the context of
just like, well, who is in front of these guys,
mamish Kavili or Sandrew mamish Kelavilli.
Speaker 2: It can't pronounce the name, Mamu Kelishvili.
Speaker 1: It's it's a lot kaylish Viely, it's a lot more.
Jensen will kill me. He's on the podcast a lot
less to say say that name. Is there a chance
if the Raptors are intent on playing RJ Ingram and
Scottie Barnes a lot together, the shooting and driving at least,
you know, I know he's four to seventeen from deep
in the preseason. Does that become sneaky important to this
team on the offensive end if they want to play
those three together.
Speaker 2: He looks way more important than a minimum contract big
should be. Or maybe he got a bit of them
for the minimum. I can't remember. I think maybe the minimum.
He looks really important to the Raptors. And when I
went and looked at his film right after they signed him,
not having seen that much, of course, and of trying
not to look at the thirty four point game that
everyone was citing, I saw a guy who was I
thought better than a minimum big, And I wondered how
the defense might work, and I wondered if the Raptors,
with more length on the floor, might be able to
protect him and keep him in stronger positions. Kind of
exactly what we were talking about with big men. His
ability to drive the ball. He's probably one of the
better front court drivers in the NBA. He's very composed,
he's very coordinated, he has soft touch on finishes, and
he's also not a star, so he doesn't see a
lot of rotation, which means that he gets to be
very linear in his decision making. He's been very impressive
driving the ball. He plays through delay action, he helps facilitate
space for everybody. He makes quick decisions Defensively, he wasn't horrible.
I think he's going to factor majorly into a great
many of the Raptors' lineups. And it's like Darko clearly
loves his game. The Raptors won the minutes with Mamu
by some measure in preseason, and he's a great measure
of like play style and skill set are very important
and you need like sometimes bigs who do what he
does can really just facilitate lots of different lineups because
sometimes it's really hard to think about how you're gonna
space Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett when Yakaperto is out there,
But then you just don't care about it, and the
ball just kind of moves easier and there's more space
on the floor if moms out there instead bringing a
guy up and he looks good, he matters for this
season big time.
Speaker 1: How much value do you assign to over the basically
half of last year their second in points loud per
possession on the defensive end versus well, look who did
did or didn't play during that time and I think
they ended up playing eight or nine top ten offenses
during that stretch off. How much do you take away
from just that pocket of time where they were league
second best defense?
Speaker 2: Not a lot, not a lot. And you know, you
listen to the podcast Caitlin and I did on the Raptor,
she had that stat where when Scotty was healthy, they
were still ranked twentieth against the best defenses in the league, Right,
and like that matters, that's important. And on top of that,
I mean the end of the season, like or just
that second ranking. I don't think that's an accurate reflection
of their momentum. They finished fourteenth last year per cleaning
the Glass. I don't know what NBA would have them at,
but per cleaning the Glass, they were fourteenth in defensive rating.
I would expect them to be around at this season,
but the top ten stuff. When I look at this team,
I'm not so certain I see that there.
Speaker 1: Do you expect to see their defense of approach evolve
at all this year, especially with the integration of Brandon Ingram,
do they have the personnel to play ultra aggressively to
pick up full court. We're you sort of add on
all that.
Speaker 2: I expected to see it evolve a little bit. The press,
Like there's a difference. There's press and there's press zince
and you know when you bring guys up the flour
or when you go meet the ball. The Raptors were
pretty good defensively when they go meet the ball and
then back up with it to inform pace instead of
trying to create these you know, defensive playmaking opportunities in
the backcourt. Maybe they'll be able to ratchet that up
when they have guys like Colin Murray, Boyles, Jacoby Walter
and Jamal Shit out there, you know what I mean.
But there are a lot of possessions where you see,
like maybe Mom moves out there, and Grady Dick is
out there, and Darko's like, yeah, go tack the ball, fellas,
and you're just like, oh my days. It just doesn't
go very well for them, and it's a huge it's
just trouble. It's tough for them to navigate. So I
expect them to have more of a less of an
all out approach in terms of their defense and try
and modern rate it to some degree.
Speaker 1: Knowing everything about their approach, whether ups on defense or
what they're trying to do on offenses, their weakness and strength.
Who is the most important reserve on this team?
Speaker 2: I think pro there's two really fun answers. There's one
boring answer. Actually there's two really fun answers. There's two
very boring answers in actuality, like if this season isn't
as exciting, it's probably either Mamu Kelishpheeli Mamu or Ochaibaji.
Both those guys they step in and they kind of
simplify a lot of stuff that they're averagely doing. But
then also there's like an upside answer. And the upside
answer is Colin Murray Boyles, who looks about as NBA
ready as a lot of players I've seen. Defensively, he
is a jugger, not dude. He is incredible. His physicality
has been more than enough for about ninety eight percent
of the players I've seen him play. And the two
guys who it was not able to, you know, Fester
and bug as much was Demonsta, Bonis and Jokich, who
are obviously very comfortable with physicality and then also Grady Dick.
Grady Dick is so fun on offense. If the shot
making ever catches up to the motion, his utility is
just like incredibly high in making something out of nothing.
He makes the defensive line step up so much higher.
He he allows so much more room within the confines
of the paint to you know, rub screen and seal
and just create and carve out room for guys who
need to get the ball down lower. And uh, I
gotta settle on one guy. Probably, I would think, Mamu,
he's been really important so far. Yep.
Speaker 1: What is the path or the context of cmb's role
or like path to actual plan, Like what do the
lineups have to look like? Where is he best suited
to be deployed?
Speaker 2: I think, honestly my early returns and I loved him
as a prospect. I thought he was a top five
player in the draft.
Speaker 1: There's a video him. I didn't love him on the raptors.
Speaker 2: I also was like, the fit isn't as easy here
as maybe some other places. I was surprised they took him.
I was very happy they took him, because fit is
one thing, but also like if you're good enough, like
if you're good enough to warrant the top ten pick,
you got to be able to find it anywhere, man.
And if you can't find anywhere, like maybe you have
that second act of your career where you find your footing,
but you probably didn't justify that pick, then it's rare.
Good players they find their way. And my hope, at
least in my analysis, that CMB is good enough. And
it looked very easy in preseason. I mean defensively, he
fits everything they want to do. He is a wrecking call.
He is an absolute terror. Not only was he like
sticky and guarding and turning Demarto rosen over in isolation.
Not only was he up pick and rolls as the
guy stepping out. Not only was he wrestling somewhat successfully
with Sabonis and Jokic, but his ball pressure in the
back court is Guys are like, what the hell? Why
is this huge man stepping with me? And perhaps even
quicker and his hands these big hooks of disruption. But offensively,
he was excellent driving the ball. He's not afraid to
take the three point shot. I actually think it'll come around,
not as like a big thing, but it'll come around.
And he offensive rebounds, He screams like the Dickens, and
he moves the ball on He plays really well out
of delay action. They were playing five out with him
out there and it looked good and it worked well.
He just wants to He's a ballplayer, man. He's just
going out there and doing stuff and that's why he
fits despite his limitations. He does a really good job
of reminding you of his strengths and that's what this
league is built on.
Speaker 1: So is there a chance we see maybe a Scottie
barn CMB from CORP will come at least a semi
staple this year.
Speaker 2: There's potential for it, but I think Darko probably will
because they want to win games this year. Probably a
higher percentage that those guys are with MAMU just for simplicity,
because as much as the defense, Scotty and CMB can
definitely make ORG defensively, the other side of the court
is where you wonder about how things fit, so there's
always that two sided consideration. So I think it'll be
more likely that they'll stick with MAMU with either one
of those guys, But I mean, I would love to
see Scotty and CMB play a heap of minutes together.
Speaker 1: We had done a video on this podcast last year.
It was like fifteen or seventeen games of the season
about Grady Dick and just all he was doing and
the pressure he was putting on defense. Is his role
was pretty complex and he was just killing it. Peters
out by the end of the year. How much easier
you had mentioned him before, But like how much is
it being undersold? Like how big it is that he
has so many people in front of him in the
packing order now relative to like his best stretches last
year to where it was, Oh, did he gas himself
out during that first quarter of the season.
Speaker 2: He definitely gassed himself out. The metrics that measure like
he was one of the top ten players in the
NBA when it comes to how fast he was moving
on average, he was towards the top of the league
in miles traveled during that portion as well. And something
that none of the tracking data measures is that he
is in you know, a jiu jitsu match, trying to
get over every single screen. And also the raptors are
asking him to be a ball pressure guard on the
other side, Like the requirement of being Grady Dick is insane.
They ask him. They ask him to do a lot
of stuff. He was number one in off ball screens
used in the NBA during that stretch too, because they
were just like, well, we need him to use a
screen so we can drag a player and a half
to this side of the floor. Maybe he touches it,
maybe he doesn't, but we need him sprinting. Him not
being like the Moon and the Stars, I think is
going to benefit a lot, and they're are still all
the upside of his offensive stuff is there where he
can playmake out of close out situations. He attacks fearlessly
to try and get to the rim. He can make
the pull up MIDI, he can take it all those
to rim. He shot ten to twelve at the rim
and preseason, nice little sign four or five and a
half court. I liked it. When I sat down with
him for our one on one, we talked a little
bit about getting jacked and how hard it is to
eat enough to get jacked when you already are such
a huge man. And it's him not being a guy
who has to go out there for like twenty seven
percent usage is pretty big deal. I think because they
ran him, he must have lost fourteen pounds to open
the season. Man, they ran him ragged. He was who's
at Kipchoge, like the best marathon runner in the world,
the guy who owns all the records. They're just setting
him out there, man, They're just like, go sprint for
an hour.
Speaker 1: Last year we had talked about because I'd seen my
notes when I was putting together the outline for this,
I asked you whether you thought Jacoby Walter had the
ability to scale down based off Toronto's personnel. I came
away last season from his rookie you're feeling a little
bit better about him being able to do that, and
then kind of being blown away by, Oh, this is
someone who holds up better defensively than I was ever
kind of anticipating where are you at with Jacoby Walter?
His role in this team is future that that whole
thing would do?
Speaker 2: You remember what my answer was to the scale down thing.
Speaker 1: Didn't we both I think we both talked about or
I had mentioned Karros Lavert or something and you had
said that that was like sort of what you envisioned
for him too, and.
Speaker 2: We were both wrong then for sure. Uh, Yeah, Karris Lavert,
you look in the body and it makes sense, and
you look at the Baylor stuff and it makes sense,
and then you look at your one and it makes
no sense. He he played so little like how we
did in college with the Raptors. He was basically had
no ability to create anything off the bounce. I think
it took like six weeks into the season for him
to register his first blow by without a closeout or
a screen, Like, he just couldn't. He just couldn't beat guys.
And he, like Grady, obviously struggled a lot at the rim,
but Jacoby was even worse. And Grady is, you know,
a year older, so people, and he had higher usage
so people he was and there was some graphic that
listed him as the worst finisher in the NBA, so
people folks on that. But Jacoby had trouble too. And
also the first like two months of the season he
shot twenty percent on wide open threes, just like weird
stuff going on. And then he had a.
Speaker 1: Lot open threes in the preseason this year though he
shot pretty bad too.
Speaker 2: He has funky mechanics a little bit like I was
thinking about this, that he anchors with the opposite leg,
that a lot of right handed shooters anchor with everyone
anchors with their right leg, you bring it down, you know,
you stack on your left side, the non shooting side.
You get that toe tap or you bring that right
foot in and then you align on the same side.
He's circling up a lot of times. See will stack
on the right side and anchor on the left, which
I think leads to some crossfiring for him. Anyway, this
is audio. Nobody cares. He's got a function a little bit.
He was awesome defensively, his ball pressure is good. He
struggled navigating screens. You know, he had this great answer
when I asked him last year at the end about
navigating screens, and he was like, yeah, it's the play
is called Skips seventy seven. The Pacers run it where
it's basically a double drag screen. But Tyrus Haliburton, since
he's a much better passer than he is dribbler, just
pings the ball to the lower screener and goes and
sprints off of it. And Jacoby Walter the first time
they played, the Pacers kept getting put in that action.
He was like, how the hell do you gut Tyrus Alburton,
This is impossible? And he graded out as an incredible
isolation defender. He graded out as a truly terrible picket
roll defender that complex and also like he played a
lot of minutes with Kelly Olinik. Well, you know, it's
not a bunch of help in the pick and roll.
There's a bunch of stuff happening with Jacoby. Clearly, to
answer the question, he was great at scaling down the
low usage fit him very well. I think this season
is going to be a year four because I haven't
seen any of the Ochai news. I think Ochai is
going to get paid in the summer. I think Grady
Dick is year three. There's a lot of talent there.
He's going to get a lot of minutes. And CMB
was just pick number nine. Mom's going to be very important.
This is not the big year for Jacoby Walter. I
think Jacoby Walter will get a huge opportunity when I
think o Chai Abaji goes somewhere else. Although if Jacoby
Walter beats some guys out, maybe it's Grady, maybe it's Ochai,
maybe it's whoever to get into the rotation. I'd love
to see what that looks like. But I think this
is a smaller year for Jacoby before he adds in
his career, going for.
Speaker 1: My hot take, and it's not more of it's more
of amusing. I'm not confident to predict it. Sure, I
could see him becoming the most important reserve because if
you look at the way the Raptors want to defend,
and let's look at let's look at the starting lineup
for a second. Yeah, who do you You probably don't
even trust Manuel quickly to defend this way, but who
aside from Emmanuel quickly do you trust to defend like
to press or like If Jacoby Walter can do that
and you play him next to Emmanuel quickly, you're a
little smaller, but you're built to be more aggressive. I
don't know now the name there, because you're not pulling
Scotti or Ingram out of that. It's oh okay, let's
we're gonna pluck out R. J. Barrett and Jacoby Walter
is going to be that first sub. I could just
I would want to see it. I'm just not confident
enough to predict it.
Speaker 2: It's your bang on. In my estimation, he is the
best press defender, not just of the reserves on the roster.
He's he's better than Jamal Shed by some measure, I
think he's better than Quickly, He's better than o Chai.
He's he's a damn good breast defender. He's very good
at sticking on guys. The screen now stuff is a
whole other thing. But what you're seeing and the basketball
hypothesis you have going on, it's there. It just depends
how much the Raptors need offensively from their guys. And
then we got to revisit hitting open shots type thing.
But Jacoby, what he does defensively fits perfectly with what
the Raptors want to do. So this is you know,
my co host Trey, we had this. We contrived because
we both really liked Jacoby and Grady, but we contrived
a debate over the two, and basically, the whole pitch
for Jacoby as the better prospect going forward revolves around
the idea that like he's damn good on ball and
what you're seeing, you're correct, Dan, he's good.
Speaker 1: Does he have the ability to be better with the
screen navigation? Then? So I had listened to the podcast
I think you did with Trey where you guys had
noted his on ball defense and all like the bad
screen navigation, But I don't you calling him the best
on ball defender that you think this team has, which
is kind of insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not that you're wrong.
Speaker 1: I just think that that's like incredible praise to keep
upon him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's just because, you know, maybe Scottie
is better lower cmb's a rookie, but I think it's Jacoby.
Does he have the I mean, of course he could
definitely get better at screen navigation. So much of screen navigation,
it really is the guile and the understanding that rookies
barely ever have because you go from college offense, which
is much different to all of a sudden, you know,
you're you want to guard Trey Young and there's a massive,
hulking man who's actually has like seven years of screencraft
at the highest level, and he's going to try and
pin you, you know, thirty nine feet away from the rim,
and you're like, oh, Jesus Christ, how do I navigate this?
It'll come around for him. I think he's strong, He's
very that tenstyle strength. He can get skinny and uh,
he's sticky. So I think it'll come around. I don't
know about this year, but in the future I expect
it too.
Speaker 1: So it's not just he's dying on anybody's screens like
you think. It's more of like attacked thing.
Speaker 2: I think it's attacked thing. And he sometimes he dies,
but you know what, everyone dies.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he's not like dying on a tray young screen
or something along those times.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I don't Yeah, it would it would
be he he had trouble with bigs mostly.
Speaker 1: The final question before we get in the lightning round
I have for you this is I'm looking at the
roster and I feel like they could struggle to field
what would be a two way lineup to where its
Oh this lineup was really good on defense and of offense,
so why not? Okay, One, the question was is that
accurate or am I being an alarmist? And two, what's
the best possible combination you could build that has a
chance of kind of straddling that two way line?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this it's I think it's accurate. Now, of course,
like these things can always be proven wrong, but it's
hard to predict things. And as far as like looking
at the look at all these players on the roster,
it's like, hey, build a two way lineup. That's not
easy here, especially if you're just because of what the listeners,
not everybody listening is like in they're probably learning about
Jacobe Walter's defense right now when you think about this stuff,
A lot of his reputation. How many reps of Brandon Ingram,
you know, getting skinny over screens have I seen not
that many reputations year, that's for sure, exactly not a
lot last year. And you know, he didn't do a
bad job when I did the film breakdown of his
defense in the preseason, but it's just pre season regardless. Uh,
probably I'm thinking the manual quickly. O Chaia Baji, Brandon Ingram,
Scottie Barnes, Sandrew mamukelish FIELI that if Scotti is playing
the five out big position and Sandraw is roaming, attacking, replacing,
and those guys can kind of do they can both
operate as the big with Brandon iq creating in space
and o Chai as the connective piece. I think it
can be passable offensively, and I think defensively having o
Chai there, well, I don't think he's as good defensively
as some people might think. He's above average slightly quickly
has definitely had more effort early on this year's conditioning
has been really great. That means you get effort at
the point of attack from two guys who can switch out.
Scotty helps a bunch, Brandon has size and you can
keep him out of a lot of the actions, and
Sandro has feet, and that's that's gonna be an okay lineup. Defensively,
I think that lineup might have some to it as
a name between one, but I don't know. This is tough.
Like I was talking to Caitlin because Lewis and I
got asked this as a male bait question, which was
like predict the Raptor's best lineup. It sounds like a
simple question, and I talked to this about Kailyn. That's
one of the hardest questions, like in actuality, because that's
the that's the question that coaching stabs get paid million
dollars to find out. It's it's really hard. It's a
really tough question. Unless you're the Nuggets, then you just
say it's like, oh yeah, it's like Jokic and the guys.
That's great.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some teams where it's easy. If we
were to go through and didn't exercise of what do
we think every team's best lineup is going to be
I would imagine the Raptors would be in the top
five of difficulty to figure that out.
Speaker 2: It's not easy with and you'd think, because it just
a lot of teams, you're like, Okay, look at who
gets paid and then, but it didn't always work out
that way. Sometimes there's a key On Ellis in the mix,
you know, right, don't have key on.
Speaker 1: Though, well they might because I'm sure the Kings will
trade him for two seconds. They have no idea what
they're doing. Are you ready to enter the cookie cutter
slash lightning round portion of the pie? Looking at their
roster just on paper, Well, and you've seen preseason obviously,
what do you view as their single biggest need and
biggest strength?
Speaker 2: Their single biggest need is Derek White slash Derek White
impostor that that player. And it's why I believe I
believe it. The reports that came out that they tried
to get them, I believe it. I didn't hear anything personally, Uh,
there's lots of trade stuff that I've heard that turns
out to be true. I didn't hear anything about this
except the reports. I was like Yep, Derek White would
make so much sense on this team, especially when everybody's
already paid and the Celtics are clearly deconstructing to some degree.
That's the biggest need. And what was the what was
the second part? There?
Speaker 1: Biggest strength, the biggest.
Speaker 2: Strength, their biggest strength. Jesus, it's probably a problem that
this isn't inherent to me. Uh, the big their biggest
that's really funny. Their biggest strength offensive rebounding. I expect
to be really strong here.
Speaker 1: That's like, that's the second time we've gotten this answer.
But I asked it about the biggest strength of someone's
front court. It was the Celtics, and Bobby Manning gave
the answer of their biggest weakness is defensive rebounding. Their
biggest strength is offensive rebounding. Offensive rebounding strength is an
overall thing. It's like the good job, good effort of
compliments to throw out there.
Speaker 2: I'd love to be wrong about this, but I'm trying
to think of like what they're good at, and the
defense I'm not sold on as being great, but they
do tag up, so they are going to increase their
offensive rebounding. Presenters, you have yakabat. There you have Scottie.
They Brandon is not so bad. There's potential here.
Speaker 1: Could it be? Could you turn the I'm sure some
people criticize they lack a primary playmaker, but they just
have all these secondary guys, so depth of advantage creation
or something you could spin it into into that.
Speaker 2: This would be true if they weren't thirtieth last year.
So like, while they have they have depth to some degree,
like every like quickly r J. Scotti, all these guys
can do something after the catch. The problem is, and
the problem was last year. It is just that they're
not that inspiring before the catch. And while Brandon is great,
they will have to multiply advantages. They will have to
do that stuff. But I don't expect that to be
their greatest strength. But let's go offensive rebounding. But again,
I think that they're not going to be a team
of great strengths. They're going to be a team of
hopefully not that many weaknesses, because yeah.
Speaker 1: Sticks to landing. Is there something about this team that's
flying under the radar on a national level that you
think warrants more attention?
Speaker 2: No, it's like that might be a boring answer, but
this team has to prove itself. And I thought the
team when everybody's thinking they're gonna win thirty three games
or something, I was like, Okay, well, people just don't
understand this team functionally. But now that everyone is kind
of expecting them to win above forty, I feel like
people generally understand this team.
Speaker 1: They're like, okay, everyone's expecting them to win above forty.
I don't. I think if you polled people, not just
in the market, if you polled, I think ninety percent
of people would pick the Raptors to win fewer than
forty games. Maybe I'm just disconnected from the NBA take
machine at the moment, but what.
Speaker 2: See, I thought that they're over under moved to like
thirty nine or thirty nine point five, So that's like
where the money is. So I'm thinking about like where
the money is.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And as far as I now analysts, a lot of
analysts I've seen who are like and keep in mind,
I pay attention to the avant garde analysts. You know,
I'm not really Steven A.
Speaker 1: Smith, Kendrick Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: I don't think Stephen A. Smith or Kendrick Perkins would
pick this team to win more than four. But yeah,
this is a good question. This to make me investigate
where I get my news from. What did what did
CNN think of the Raptors over?
Speaker 1: Well, it is we've had my coast. I've had this
conversation a bunch is that sometimes you're in when you're
not there getting mad at what analyst X said. You
built your own silo of just this coverage is the type.
It's not just not that you're following raw, raw Raptors coverage,
but you're following maybe more nuanced coverage that are going
at people like yourself, so you're not as connected to
the Sometimes I'll see people are mad about what ESPN
said about this, or Bleacher Report company I work, we're
said about that. I'm like, well, I didn't like see
this take being floaded around out there, So I built
my own silo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely have a silo, and mine is very
small because I actually I don't take in basketball coverage,
like I just don't read it, I don't listen to it.
I my free time is like not basketball at all.
So I know very I know very little. This is
just what I've been picking up from people who like
talk to me, not even in like hearing a podcast,
but just talking to a writer from like Memphis, or
like a scout from like Cleveland or something like that. Right,
So I could be way off, but I think the
Rappers after a preseason are understood to some degree. And
if they're not understood, that's a good thing because it's
up to these guys, who have played so little together
to prove everyone wrong. It's not a bad position to be.
Speaker 1: They got six whole preseason games of partial strength basketball, Samson.
I think we've seen enough time together. We know what
they are. I'm asking you or forcing you to build
a ten man rotation for this team. We know the
five starters who are going to be the five most
used reserves.
Speaker 2: Uh Oshai Baji, Grady, Dick, Colin, Murray Boyles, Mamu, Kelshvieli
and Jamals.
Speaker 1: So who's the one we got because I don't think
I had CMB in mine. No, Jacoby Walter not in there.
That's right. That's where that breaks my heart. I went
from calling it the most important reserve to do can't
get minutes?
Speaker 2: Well, but that but that doesn't matter, right, Like it's
like maybe it's wrong. Oh yeah, like maybe maybe it's wrong,
but also maybe it's right because the the.
Speaker 1: Raptors, right, I would defer to you. I just assumed
I'm thinking in my own brain.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll give you some insight the Raptors when they
started out in training camp. This was my rotation before
training camp. But in training camp, like Jacoby, Walter was
with the third stringers, and the five that actually ended
up being their second string was the five guys I
just named for you now. But Grady and Jacoby played
the same amount of minutes, almost like to the number
in preseason, and Jacoby got a lot of minutes stepping
in with that starting lineup. Grady was asked to carry
lineups a little bit more with his off but uh,
Jacoby could easily get in there. He's a big swing.
He could be big, could be a good year for him.
Speaker 1: Is there a wack of doodle lineup you would like
to see dark ar Rakovich roll out this season?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I would love to see some combination, just for
two minutes one time, Emmanuel Quickly, Grady Dick, Jonathan Mobo,
Colin Murray Boyles, and Scottie Barnes. I'd love for it
to be this freak as lineup.
Speaker 1: I love John, I love like the anarchy of Jonathan Mobo. Yeah,
I would sign up for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's he could be your new bouchet over here
in Toronto.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to see him, shoot
like yeah, no.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, god no, yeah, what.
Speaker 1: Is this weird enough? I want to see Mamu, Scottie Barnes,
Ingram Barrett and Jacoby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I think you will see that. And uh,
because there's gonna be some lineups where they say, you know,
Scotti is the nominal PG and RJ is the Nomogill
nominal whatever two and we're seeing what else we get.
I think I think you'll see that lineup within the
first seven or eight games, if I had to guess so, since.
Speaker 1: That's not a feeling would be weird. Of what if
we pulled r J Barrett and put it put in CMB.
Speaker 2: There, Okay, now it's now. I think it's not as
likely to see it right away, but I love it, dude,
that would be very fun.
Speaker 1: Uh. Is there anything else that you think warrants attention
about this team that we haven't discussed before? I ask
you make a couple of predictions.
Speaker 2: Uh. No, we We're pretty in the weeds here. I
think we've we've well covered most of this stuff around
this team, I think, dope.
Speaker 1: So how many games do you have them winning Samson?
Samson hmmm, let's let's say forty three.
Speaker 2: I'll go one above you.
Speaker 1: No, you didn't. And I looked at the dock when
we were recording. I'm at forty three and thirty nine.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, the today it's where the same guy forty three?
Speaker 1: I think that's and I remember saying that point is like,
it just wouldn't shock me if they were and we did.
When we were doing our awards picks, we did who's
a dark horse that you could come seeing out of nowhere?
Not nowhere, but oh they finished. No one would have
them on their top ten MVP ballot right now, but
you could see them finishing there. I picked Scotty Barnes.
It was like, what the Raptors just won forty eight
games or something. It's probably because Scotty just went absolutely nuclear.
So you heard it here first. If he finishes in
the top ten at MVP, vodick.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, it's uh. If they're a really strong team,
the analytics are probably going to adore Scotty season, They're
probably gonna point towards like this guy is doing a
lot on the floor. Even if he's scoring like nineteen
point three points per game, the catch all stuff will
probably vaunt him as a big time hero for the season.
Speaker 1: Is there a prospective playoff team in the East that
you think if they made it to the postseason and
found themselves in a series against at this moment that
they match up particularly well against, would be a fascinating play.
Speaker 2: For Pistons, just because I know that Caid fans and
Scotti fans argue a lot, and they've been entrenched in battle. Yeah,
oh yeah, they've been entrenched in battle. I mean, Kate
is winning so far. His season last year was incredible.
They've been entrenched in battle for a long time. And
I also would love to see because like I think
Scotty would guard Kate, you know, and because like who else,
like o Chi's gonna guard kid rj oh Jesus Lord,
Like no, probably not Scotty Guard's cade, which creates a
huge ripple effect defensively down the line, And I would
love to see that. And also Detroit, I don't know
if they got like much better, but they're in the
thick of everything, and I don't think they'd be good
enough to just like easily dispel the Raptors. I probably
picked Detroit in that series, but I think it would
be good basketball.
Speaker 1: I would probably laugh at Jylender and not being able
to defend Mamu just because he's had so much against
the force base. So Samson, this was great. Thank you
for me so so much of your time. You're able
just to tell our audience where they could find you
and all the fantastic work that you do.
Speaker 2: Uh just rapt the Republic for all the Raptor stuff,
written work, video work, podcasting work, all that good stuff.
We were one of the most popular in Canada. We're
trying to be the number one and we're competing against
billion dollar telecom companies, so we're making headway. So if
you want to support hell yeah. And then also for
Pacer stuff, it's not as much about me. I work
with the greatest living at like public analyst in Caitlin Cooper,
and that's on basketball. She wrote, that's via patron, that's
my stuff. That's where you can find me.
Speaker 1: Do great work. So does CC and I'll include the
links for everyone wants to find your stuff in the
podcast and YouTube description. Thank you so much, Sampson, and
as you know by now, I'll be pestering you again
down the life. Thanks Dead