lowry may have been looking, but i dont think they were gonna bite on that. at least not without being a part of a sizeable package deal
as a raps fan, im really hyped on the trade. loved DeMar's loyalty and how much he backed the city, but the raptors hit a definite ceiling with that core group, no debating it. even with Lebron out West, Boston and Philly have come up, even Indiana was looking pretty decent and promoting our old assistant coach to head coach wasnt gonna make up the difference. DeMar seems like a work horse so i think he'll flourish under Popovich. Jakob Poeltl was decent, but that and the pick(protected top 20 next year, turns into 2 second round picks the following year if thats not met) were peanuts to give up considering we got to keep the rest of the younger talent(OG, Van Vleet, Delon Wright, Pascal Siakam) and also got Danny Green. I didnt think Toronto would land a top 5 player for at least another 10 years or maybe even ever. we're gonna have ridiculous depth for this one year(at least) and if they can perform up to or above par, even though he seems set on LA (naive optimism alert) i think Masai can sell him on staying in toronto even if its just short term, but ideally he'd bite on that 5 year $190 mil that only the raps can offer. im gonna assume he's pretty unfamiliar with the city and feared the worst when he heard he was coming to canada. hopefully his opinion on the franchise can only go up. i dont know if hes the type to care, but he'll pretty much have a whole country backing him if they do well.
im wondering if they slightly regret firing Dwayne Casey as that just seemed like "we gotta do something" move. the new coach/old assistant coach, Nick Nurse is credited with running a lot of their offence though so we'll see what he can do.
as far as DeMar being done dirty, it seems like it might've been more of a miscommunication than a straight up lie, maybe a bit of a sneaky one, though. im biased towards Masai, but apparently he spoke to Derozan at summer league and gave him some expectations he wanted him to meet during or for the coming season. i guess that implied that he'd be staying in toronto long term, but Ujiri also issued a press release around the same time saying that no raptor was untradeable. i see DeMar's point, but i dont think he's delusional enough to not see why it was a move Ujiri had to make.
I don't wanna get my hopes up too high as we are talking about a toronto sports team and Kawhi can be brittle(supposedly currently healthy, though), but i really didnt think something like this would ever happen to the raptors for some reason.
most people i've spoke to in toronto are surprisingly bugging about the trade. they cant believe we traded our best player for a "rental"(even though DeMar only has a 2 year contract to Kawhi's 1. he'd probably resign, but would you want that?), not realizing how elite of a player Kawhi is. I don't know if it's lack of nba knowledge or if theyre just blinded by their love for Derozan and can't get over how he was "done dirty". The guy's tenure in toronto was pretty great and this way he goes out without any blemishes on it(aside from most of his playoff performances). I really hope torontonians can cut the shit by the time october rolls around because we gotta show him how great the fanbase can be(the stuborness is a double edge sword) and try to woo him the way OKC did Paul George. I think if we can actually contend, the Lebron LA factor could actually work to our advantage. wouldn't it be more appealing to take home the championship as the star instead of (what people will probably see even if it's not entirely true) Lebron's sidekick? I know he was already a finals MVP, but im sure he'd like to show people he can do it again with a new squad especially coming off an injury and without another legendary veteran on the team(had tim duncan in 2014). not to mention it'd be the first time anyone's brought it to Canada. i heard someone else point out that he can now use "The Claw" nickname/image to it's full potential as well.
sorry for the rambling novel.
TLDR; I'm friggin stoked Kawhi Leonard is a Raptor
Topic: NBA Thread (Read 531801 times)