Raptor History Lesson
The Tampa season holds a critical lesson for today's Raptors team construction!
The Playoffs! Every fan’s reward for a season of supporting and cheering their team on! It’s the best of times…it’s the worst of times…as Charles Dickens might have said if he was a Raptors fan.
However in Toronto fan expectations have been a tad bit higher than in most other cities. After winning the NBA Championship in 2019 Raptor fans immediately set their sights much, much higher than simply making the playoffs. The Raptors followed that championship year up with an even better regular season but failed in the playoffs to make much noise. It was confirmation that this organization was doing the right things and building a perennial winner. Or was it? Let’s dig in a bit…
That 2020 season was cut short in March due to the virus that shall not be named. It resumed in August inside the ‘bubble’ in Florida. While Jimmy Butler had lots of fun in the bubble apparently most players didn’t. The Raptors went 7 and 1 to wrap up a shortened season and go into the bubble playoffs riding about as high as possible. The team was focused and ready. They destroyed the Nets 4 straight and when I say destroyed I mean destroyed. In the game 4 do-or-die the Raptors put up 150 points. The series stats show an interesting thing for those students of the game.
Freddy shot a super human .559 from 3 pt land on about 8.5 attempts per game. Serge shot an even better .571 from 3 on only 3.5 attempts per game...the clear starter at center now as Marc had slowed considerably. While Pascal, O.G. and Marc shot a terrible percentage on their 3’s they still shot them.
Then the Boston Celtics hit them in the next round. 2020 Raptors - Celtics Playoffs
The series went the full 7 games in the bubble and the 3 point shooting showed why it even went that long. The 3 big ‘gunners’ for the Raptors shot absolutely terribly from 3. Kyle shot .306 from 3. Freddy shot .316. Pascal shot .125 (yes, he did). Serge shot a great .484 from 3 and O.G. shot a great .464. Needless to say the Raptors simply couldn’t overcome their terrible 3 point shooting and the Celtics ‘stole’ that series. Don’t get me wrong, their young studs played great but the Raptors should have won it.
Then Tampa happened. Most gloss over that season as a one off, not playing at home, season. I don’t. I see it as a huge step down from great heights for this organization. That summer the Raptors changed their team dramatically. Serge was gone. Marc was gone. 6’10” Aron Baynes was actually brought in as the ‘starting center’ in what aged nicely into the ‘Tank Commander’ meme. He didn’t shoot 3’s and he didn’t do all that much else either. Alex Len…well…not let’s go too deeply into it. I still want whoever thought bringing those 2 guys in at center was a good move fired. To add insult to injury Raptors ‘Brain Trust’ brought in Khem Birch off the waiver wire late in the year to try and save a bottom feeding team. Masai then locked him up to a 6 mil per year for 3 years deal because he’s a ‘good guy’. The team went 27-45 but besides the changes at center were mostly intact from the year before. The Khem contract and play would go on to hurt the team later.
Don’t buy the Raptors PR spin that it was ‘playing in Tampa’ that caused that disaster. Any other NBA team that won at a .736 rate one year and fell to a .375 winning rate the following year would have seen a dozen dead executive bodies lying outside their head office with their heads cut off. Ok that’s a bit dramatic and nobody wants people killed for poor performance but I’m a writer so I’m allowed to dramatize stories a bit. Don’t cancel me. However Raptors PR deserves a Hero’s medal for saving a lot of people their jobs that year.
I write about this because it’s VERY recent history for this team and it’s something most fans will remember in vivid detail. AND I see this Raptors Brain Trust flirting with the EXACT same path right now…going into this summer. While Jak is clearly much, much better than Aron Baynes the fundamental issues he brings to the team are similar. The Raptors, favored to beat Boston in 2020, got bounced because they couldn’t shoot a 3 ball to save their lives. One of the only guys that could in that series, Serge, has been replaced by a non-shooting Jak. The very reason Serge was shooting so hot from 3 in both series in the 2020 playoffs was because his Big cover wouldn’t come out to guard him close enough at the 3 point line. He wouldn’t do that because huge Raptor wings like Pascal and O.G. would feast inside if he did. The following year the center position had no deep shooting with Aron and the team nose dived in historic fashion. Even the year after that with Khem the team struggled, not defensively thou, but offensively as Khem couldn’t help much.
It’s clearly an extremely dangerous way to build a team…with a center that can’t shoot the 3. I’ve pointed out the Franchise killing trade the T-Wolves made for Rudy Gobert. That dude is seriously one of the best NBA centers on the planet…at defense. Better than 2 Jak’s. He was available to Minnesota because in the playoffs he couldn’t be played near the end of games because he got hunted defensively for 3 balls over his head and hacked offensively with a poor free throw shooting percentage. He was shooting .690 that year by the way…Jak shoots free throws UNDER .600!
Look. The Raptors are 12-8 since Jak arrived. I get that. He’s played good to great most games. He’s a good player in his prime right now. However the NBA is filled with head coaching brains that have run off the floor in the playoffs a multiyear DPOY guy in Gobert. NBA coaches have forgotten more than I’ll ever know…and I know they can run Jak off the floor late in games in the playoffs. Jokic hacked Jak on purpose late in a game in Denver just less than a month ago to put him on the line and get the turnover simply because it was the mathematically smart play against a guy shooting sub .600 and likely much, much worse in late-game pressure situations. Ben Simmons can’t play late in any game because he can’t shoot free throws and it’s been exposed publically. Jak has been playing for the Spurs, a team that doesn’t see playoff action lately. This is the only reason Jak hasn’t been exposed in the playoffs…because he hasn’t played in them recently.
I like Jak but the Truth is the Truth and it doesn’t care how nice Jak is or how good he plays defense…or if you believe me or not. He’s shooting hundreds of free throws after every Raptor practice because Nick Nurse and the Raptors Brain trust know what I’m warning fans of here is absolutely true. I see Raptors paid media pumping out ‘look at Koloko shooting 3’s’ stories now. I can see the direction management is preparing to spin fans and how Koloko will bring a stretch big off the bench when needed. He wasn’t NBA ready this year and he won’t be a contender team back up center next year. Remember our high expectations? A second year second round draft pick can’t carry back up center duties on a championship level team. Let’s be real. Raptors PR is going to sell that vision to you this summer however. They are already getting the messaging out to lay the ground work. Hopeful Raptor fans will buy it as well.
Masai and Bobby aren’t stupid thou. They know Jak not shooting 3’s is a problem. A serious problem. They just don’t want to tell you about it. Why? Because they can’t afford a modern day shooting center. They are in Cap Hell already this summer and if Pascal gets All NBA and his Supermax extension this team gets ripped apart 2 months from today. Masai’s hoping to convince Pascal to wait a year and base his Supermax on a higher Team Salary Cap. The following Summer they have to give Scottie the massive rookie extension he’s earned so the team absolutely gets dismantled the following Summer.
I’m Sorry. I know this isn’t what Raptor fans want to hear. I could write a fluff piece about the powerful Raptors inside game that defeated Miami’s zone. It would be false because Miami’s D hasn’t been great lately and no contender team in the playoffs will let their opponents feast in the paint for 7 games. It’s basketball coaching 101. History shows us the last time the Raptors were very successful they had a great modern stretch big. It was fundamental basketball and it works. His name is Serge Ibaka. Masai lowballed him in negotiations and his team tanked without Serge the next year. Masai escaped public criticism then. Masai is cheaping out yet again at center with a flawed yet defensively gifted Jakob Poeltl. I won’t let Raptors PR get him off the hook again.
Often in life you get what you pay for.