Transcription
What is up, fellow sickos? I am Dan Valley, coming at you with our final 2025-2026 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, Folk. That's @samfo_k. Samson, year three. Thank you so much for coming back.
Back a third time. How the heck are you doing, man?
Doing good. "Social machines" is a pretty good shorthand for, like, the conglomerate of things you have to plug. You just say "the social machines," it's a nice little way to do it.
I also don't know, and this kind of undermines what I was just doing, I don't know who I angered by calling it Twitter or X, and I don't know what to call the things anymore. So, I figured, like, just looping it 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.
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. Thought that was such a funny way to do it. I call it Twitter. I, 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.
It's—I came up when it was Twitter, and it's, 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 then in parentheses, "formerly Twitter." So, it just 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. Uh, 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 going to change this year. I recognize all the concerns, but we were doing our over/unders before, and I was like, "I think seven wins higher than my co-host," or something like that. So—
So, what did you come in at?
I think I was at 42. I could double-check. I had them above .500.
42. 42. That's—that's probably roughly where I am, too. It wouldn'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, the first question I wanted to ask you, though, has to deal with how the offseason kind of started with the departure of Masai Ujiri. 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?
So, basically, when you get rid of Masai, 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. Uh, but maybe his value as a, you know, a president was not at that level anymore. Maybe they felt that it wasn't quite there. I don't know. Uh, and then also, you get to create more, like, corporate overreach on how the Raptors do things by removing a president. Uh, 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, uh, they save money on Masai, 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 just—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.
When you move from that and then look at this roster, having listened to a bunch of your podcast 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 who 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, "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?
Yeah, it—when this offseason first started, and I saw, like, over/unders were like 32 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 32 games." It was, it was very easy. And to the point of, like, this team has to win. Uh, 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. Gary Trent Jr. is paid. Immanuel Quickley is paid. Brandon 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, who can we nab from them during the trade deadline, maybe, and then have great success elsewhere? But this team has to win to justify itself. Uh, if they don't win, it will be torn to shreds and starting a new, probably still with Scottie Barnes in the fold, 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.
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 dole out the blame for an unsuccessful? Like, if a Raptor season goes wrong, do you, like, what do you look at as the development that may be undermined at all?
So, I think there would 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 55, 60 games this year, hopefully more. Uh, number two is they paid Immanuel Quickley a lot of money. And while it's a flat contract, so it doesn't ascend and it gets a smaller and smaller portion of the cap every year, he's not—he's really not a lead guard. I did not think that 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." RJ 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—if all those things happen, all these warts show up, it could be like a 33 or 34-win season, and it could—and it would be nasty business over. I'm telling you, Dan, it'd be crazy over here.
So, I'll save Scottie Barnes for later, but since he kind of is the fulcrum of that, what is—you kind of laid it out, and you were doing a podcast, I think it was—can't remember which podcast you were doing—but you were talking about the need to like, 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 does having Brandon Ingram on the roster now, in addition to, okay, if Quickley's healthy, if RJ Barrett's there, does it make it a little easier?
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 love his skill level. And his presence definitely, if there was going to be anybody who kind of makes Scottie 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 Scottie 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, because he fell in love with the jumper. Really fell in love with it. Um, 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 dream 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, uh, 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.
What have you made of, I guess, the read on him taking so many pull-ups last year? 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 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 splits he had on, like, the pull-up jumpers at this point through the, like, portion of the 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?
There's something there. He's a guy who, he does not have, uh, manipulative handle. He doesn't have a quick first step. Uh, how will he—and 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 fourth so that your playmaking 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—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 a, as an athlete and as a ball-handler 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.
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 is the ill-fitting piece. Is there an argument to make that Scottie Barnes, not ill-fitting, but needs to make the most adjustment amount of adjustments to his game to make this all work?
I think that's accurate. Uh, not because Scottie is like the least talented or something like that, but because Scottie is the one who can, you know, assume a different role and elevate everybody. You know, it's not like RJ Barrett, if you make him this super high-volume pick-and-roll player, it doesn't necessarily elevate everybody else. Uh, Scottie, 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 22 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. Immanuel Quickley can't do that. And Scottie 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 RJ Barrett, if 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. Uh, in preseason, he shot a lot of threes. He shot 50% 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 Scottie did. But it becomes very hand-in-glove if Scottie becomes not a big-time initiator, but a guy who's greasing wheels, which maybe he doesn't want, which is the tough thing. You know?
You've also been a big proponent of Scottie Barnes's defense. What do you think, we're four years into his career, that people miss the most about his impact?
That's a good question. I think his defense is rated—well, where do you sit on his defense, just quickly?
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 10 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 from a bunch of different points. Um, I think, like, he could be fringe on that level. I don't know how to put a word to it, but I—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.
Sure. That's—that's fine. I think if—if you're saying maybe, maybe I would, uh, 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 20, 25 guys who should be in contention for, like, spots seven, eight, nine, ten on an All—should have three All-Defensive teams.
We need a third All-Defense team. I think you know what? Can we do away—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 then give me a Third Team All-Defense.
That's—I'd love that trade. Uh, but, but to your point—
It's Scottie. You can have a great defensive season and not be All-Defense. I mean, we've seen it happen to many different players. Uh, Scottie might not be All-Defense ever in his career. I think he will personally, uh, 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 deny 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, uh, got less offensive rebounds. And they got to the line less. Like, Scottie 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, the stuff because he's a defensive playmaker. So, I—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. Uh, but if he doesn't make one, I mean, boohoo. There's only 10 guys. There's like four elite defenders. Yeah.
There you go.
Brandon Ingram. We've—we went 17 minutes without me asking you specifically about Brandon Ingram. That is terrible podcasting on my part. Here's—
Here's the thing. I think people recognize that what the value he brings in the half-court, just his ability to get to his spots, 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?
Just that, uh, 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 Raptor team and say, "How do they build this into a contender?" That's really hard, man. I—I don't see it personally, but I didn't see it when it was Kyle and DeMar DeRozan, and it was lateral moves. Terrence Ross becomes Serge Ibaka. Jonas Valanciunas becomes Marc Gasol. 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 30th. 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—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, I think.
Has there been anything through the, the huge preseason sample size that we have? Has there been anything about him, how he's being used, his fit, what he's done, that stood—like, surprised you?
Uh, honestly, a little unimaginative from the Raptors. I don't know if they're keeping things tucked away. I didn't find the—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, "Hoh." Uh, 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. Uh, and Jakob Pöltl not being healthy for a lot of the preseason affects the screen craft stuff a bunch. But, uh, I thought that was like, "Damn, they're probably not using him as well." But again, it's preseason, you never know. Uh, the Raptors run a lot of plays that I like. Uh, but that was the big thing, probably, that I was—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. Is that a problem though that they could run with Jakob Pöltl 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? I think especially since Brandon shot over 50% from three, RJ shot over 50% from three, I think Quickley, Grady was at 39%. They shot the three-ball decent, and they still had the 27th-ranked half-court offense in preseason. And they had the, uh, this—they played six preseason games, too, right? So, they're a little bit big. It's way, dude. Oh, you're preaching to the choir, man. It's way too many. But I think it's something they'll be fighting all season. And I, you know, I—I did this video where I talked about the plays that the Raptors are 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 a lot of their sets revolve around switching a big onto Quickley 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 75, 80%. That's my expectation. But if I'm wrong, this might not be that fun to watch him play this year.
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 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 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?
It should be higher. Uh, 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—if you are a good shooter and you have a guy like Keegan Murray in trail position or Jaylen 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." Uh, 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 an O.G. Anunoby or Jakob Pöltl pin-down and letting him work from there, curl, and get into space. He loves the mid-range jumper. So, a lot of times he's going to stop short and 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. Uh, and we might see a smaller percentage of it relative to other years in New Orleans as coming off his own dribble. More catch-and-go 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 in a circular motion around the pick-and-roll. Uh, he didn't quite pick it up immediately, but there was some interpretive stuff he did that was really good, like a Corey cut, the Metti cut that he was famous for. Lots of great stuff. 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 when I mentioned before, people think that he's the one who's out of place. You've been pretty high on, you know, he can make this work. You 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 37.3% on spot-up threes since coming over, like, over the past season and a half in Toronto.
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. He—he—his top half and his bottom half are completely disconnected. His, the elbow tuck and everything gets way out of sorts. So, as soon as you incorporate that, his shooting numbers are going to tank like crazy. But, as a catch-and-go 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. Uh, Brandon Ingram said that he thought that R.J. was just a gunner until he arrived in Toronto. And R.J. actually, he's—he's a pretty decent passer. The best outcome of an R.J. 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-shoot 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 years now that R.J. Barrett is one of the great players in the league who you never have to call a play for, and the ball still finds him. He cuts, he attacks, he shoots the ball. I never worry about R.J. 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 Rap—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 defense. It doesn't look that good to me. What is it that he's struggling the most with, to you? He really had, and like in New York, he had one, I think, standout defensive season. I can't remember if 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 trailed off.
Well, year two was good defense, and shot what, 39% from three.
That's the—talking about. Yeah.
And then everybody was like, "Oh, we might have something here." Uh, so R.J. 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. R.J. 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. Uh, his attention to detail and effort has been better off-ball, but the limitations of his, his feet and his coordination, his quickness, really. Uh, 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. Uh, he's probably in trouble a little bit. And, uh, he can't—he's not been able to get away from it, really. It's—it shows up, and, uh, he's a little bit toothless off-ball sometimes, like there 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 a 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, guys turn it around mid-career all the time with this kind of stuff. But the on-ball stuff, uh, I don't have big hopes for it. It does seem based on what I saw in preseason that he's going to be—him and Scottie 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 numbers like R.J. was super efficient during a lot of his Scottie Barnes minutes last season.
Yeah, the, the big thing is that Scottie helps connect to both sides of the floor when another guy is leading the offense. Uh, if he, uh, kind of adapts to that. And R.J. is a guy who is really strong running second-side pick-and-rolls. He's a guy who is really strong attacking off of players who have gravity. And Scottie has gravity. Uh, it's not the typical initiation wing type gravity we see, but Scottie has great vision. He's a very strong passer. And so R.J., a guy who struggles most when he has to finish over a rim protector who gets to rotate and meet him at the rim. Uh, 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 Scottie. This year, I think his—his pairing with Brandon has been pretty strong so far. He's—he's a very intuitive offensive player. He'll—he'll benefit playing off of those guys, certainly. You mentioned Immanuel Quickley before and how he's not a lead 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—I like the shooting stuff that he brings on the ball, off the ball from beyond the arc, 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?
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 Immanuel Quickley 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, 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 Jakob Pöltl, and they like guards moving the ball up court way quicker than forwards. Caitlin and I just talked about this in the podcast episode we did where we were talking about Jarius 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 it is. The Raptors, Coach Darko loves point guards, loves starting possessions there, wants to move up the floor, work through a couple actions. Immanuel Quickley 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 DaVonte' Graham and Jakob Pöltl when DaVonte' was on the team were one of the 10 best pick-and-roll partnerships in the NBA because DaVonte' Graham had no ego and was like, "I will make the pocket pass to you, brother." You need somebody to handle the ball with Jakob Pöltl. A Jakob Pöltl-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, we'll see. But Quickley, you know, he shot 0 for 11 out of the pick-and-roll, uh, in the preseason, which wasn't great. But on his passes out of them, the team shot 7 for 12. So, as far as just facilitating normal offense, because he's like the only guard who can do it, he's—he's a big deal.
If he can't, how much of an impact does that end up having on this team's entire trajectory?
Oh, man. If he can't, given how good Jakob Pöltl is as a roller, if Immanuel Quickley 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 staff actually thinks about that. They're like, "No, we typically get like 22 points per game out of this. If we're getting, you know, 18 because of efficiency or because people are able to nullify 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-roll play, especially with Jakob Pöltl as a screening partner, especially with Immanuel Quickley as a second screener in, like, you know, these staggered actions to help move, uh, 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, R.J., there's an aspect of what they're doing where it's like offensive churn. Just create and get us some numbers. Quickley 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 much of Jakob Pöltl's utility is tied to the pick-and-roll chemistry with Immanuel Quickley and/or Brandon Ingram working at this point, since we haven't seen too much of the latter?
Yeah, a lot. Uh, they, of course, are going to be a team who enters the ball at the elbow. Jakob's going to get a lot of those touches. I expect them—I just did it in my, my breakdown of the Raptors plays, but I expect a lot of pinch post actions where, for listeners, a pinch post is where basically whoever, a big, a wing, a, 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, uh, 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 Scottie to create these seals for post entries from Jakob to them. They're going to use his playmaking and passing a lot. They're going to use his handoffs a lot with guys like Grady, R.J., 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 Christian Koloko is able to be a facsimile of that. But Jakob 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.
How does he matter to their defense, or what has been, like, what has been his biggest defensive impact over, ever since he's come back to Toronto? 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 Jakob Pöltl is defensively these days. That's what I'll say.
It's a great question, and one I've been harping on. Uh, when he was, like, 26 on the Spurs, he has 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—he's older in the NBA. He's a big man. Uh, 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 Jakob fits into that. But the thing, too, is like, even though Dennis Schröder is like very rabid at the point of attack, he gets beat a lot, and especially if you ask him to pressure like 84 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. Jakob is not that strong at that, and like, God forbid, he—it's—that's tough, man. It's a really tough job. Uh, the, 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, uh, 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, uh, the Raptors struggled without his stability. And part of that is like, hey, it's Koloko. 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—is even, even if you're playing kind of like a new wave form of basketball, a lot of these players grow up playing with traditional centers. And so there's a familiarity there. And, you know, players deep in the recesses of their mind, they like having a Jakob Pöltl or a facsimile of him somewhere on the court. I actually—I've been thinking more about this, and we're recording this as the, like, NBA's extension deadline is coming in. And when you look at most of the bigs that aren't going to get extensions, like Walker Kessler or Jalen Duren, and how some of the contract situations have played out, even with some of the veterans, I'm starting—I know Jakob Pöltl is just going to get extended until the end of time in Toronto, apparently. 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 Allen, 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, 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. A lot of okay teams will have centers paid in the, in between the Jakob Pöltl, the Myles 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, Chris Boucher. 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, the middle ground bigs, it's like, it's very hard for team building, which creates obviously this idea of like, "Well, how do we spend? How 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, uh, 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—it's a very tough position to 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. Cuz like, bigs, they get hung out to dry all the time. And even if you're a pro scout, like, let's say you're a pro scout for the Memphis Grizzlies, you're watching Vu or whoever and wondering if he can survive, like, you have to know what Scottie Pippen Jr. is supposed to do every time to know if, like, or sorry, on the Grizzlies, you have to know what Kobe White is trying to do every time. You have to know what Josh Giddey 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. Their touches, they're reliant on where they're placed, they're reliant 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 2020 where we—
Hartinstein went to the Nuggets. We're like, "Wow, I would have liked to see Hartinstein on the Raptors." And then every time Hartstein 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 were like, "This guy's a $30 million player. Bring him here. We have the money to spend. Look, championship time." It's just bigs are tough, man. That's a great like you're right on the money wondering about this. It's it's tough.
Your point too about how they get hung out to dry because Alprin Shenkun 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 him. He got a lot better defensively. Even Jaylen Duran last 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, Kade gets better defensively. Osar Thompson's available. Oh, Jaylen Duran got better defensively. So I'm guilty of it too is we don't provide the context of just like well who is in front of these guys.
Um Mameish Cavilli or Sandrew Mameish Kelli. I can't pronounce the name. Mamu Kellishi. It's it's a lot. Kalesi. It's a lot. Mort Jensen will kill me. He's on the podcast a lot. Loves to say say that name. Is there a chance if the Raptors are intent on playing RJ Ingram and Scotty Barnes a lot together. The shooting and driving at least you know I know he was 417 from deep in the preseason. Does that become sneaky important to to this team on the offensive end if they want to play those three together?
He looks way more important than a minimum contract big should be or maybe he got a bit above him 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 34-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 in stronger positions. Kind of exactly what we were talking about with Bigman, 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's 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 going to space Scotty Barnes and RJ Barrett when Yaka Purle 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 Mamu was out there instead bringing a guy up and he looks good. He he matters for this season big time.
How much value do you assign to over the basically half of last year they're second in points allowed 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 10 offenses during that stretch. So how much do you take away from just that pocket of time where they were the league's second best defense? Not a lot. Not a lot. And you know, you listen to the podcast Caitlyn and I did on the Raptor, she had that stat where when Scotty was healthy, they were still ranked 20th 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 14th last year per cleaning the glass. I don't know what NBA would have them at, but per cleaning the glass, they were 14th in defensive rating. I would expect them to be around that this season, but the top 10 stuff, when I look at this team, I'm not I'm not so certain I see that there. Do you expect to see their defensive 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? like where where are you sort of at on all that?
I expected to see it evolve a little bit. The press like there's a difference. There's press and there's pressing. And you know when you bring guys up the floor 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 back court. Maybe they'll be able to ratchet that up when they have guys like Colin Murray Boils, Jacobe Walter, and Jamal Shed out there. You know what I mean? But there are a lot of possessions where you see like maybe Mamu's out there and Grady Dick is out there and Darko's like, "Yeah, go attack the ball, fellas." And you're just like, "Oh my days, you're 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 moderate it to some degree.
Knowing everything about their approach, whether it's on defense or what they're trying to do on offenses, their weakness and strengths, who is the most important reserve on this team?
I think 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 Kelleri Mamu or Ochai Baji. Both those guys, they step in and they kind of simplify a lot of stuff that the Raptors are doing. But then also there's like an upside answer and the upside answer is Colin Murray Boils who looks about as NBA ready as a lot of players I've seen. Defensively, he is a juggernaut dude. He is incredible. his physicality has been more than enough for about 98% of the players I've seen him play. And the two guys who it was not able to, you know, fester and and bug as much was Deon Sabonis and Joic, who are obviously very comfortable with physicality. And then also Grady Dick. Grady Dick is so fun on offense. his 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 if I got to sit on one guy, probably I would think Mamu. He's been really important so far.
What is the path or the context of CMBB'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?
I think honestly the my early returns and I loved him as a prospect. I thought I thought he was a top five player in the draft. I loved him. I didn't love him on the Raptors. 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 a top 10 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 my hope, at least in my analysis, that CMBB is good enough. And it looked very easy in preseason. I mean, defensively, he fits everything they want to do. He is a wrecking ball. He is he is an absolute terror. He not only was he like sticky and guarding and turning Demard Rosen over in isolation, not only was he blowing 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 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 screens 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 he just wants to He's a ball player, 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.
So is there a chance we see maybe a Scotty Barn CMBB front court become at least a semi-stable this year?
There's 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 CB can definitely make it work defensively, the other side of the courts 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 Bamu with either one of those guys. But, I mean, I would love to see Scotty and CB play a heap of minutes together. We had done a video on this podcast last year. It was like 15 or 17 games of the season about Grady Dick and just all he was doing and the pressure he was putting on defenses. His role was pretty complex and he was just killing it.
Peter's 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 pecking 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? He definitely gassed himself out. The metrics that measure like he was one of the top 10 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 the requirement of being Grady Dick is insane. They ask him they ask him to do a lot of stuff. He he was number one in offball 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 in the stars, I think, is going to benefit a lot. And there still all the upside of his offensive stuff is there where he can playmake out of closeout situations. He attacks fearlessly to try and get to the rim. He can make the pull up midi. He can take it all the way to the rim. He shot 10 to 12 at the rim in preseason. Nice little sign. Four or five in the half court. I liked it.
Uh, 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 27% usage is pretty big deal, I think, because they ran him he must have lost 14 lbs to open the season, man. They ran him ragged. He was he was Kip Choge like the best marathon runner in the world. The guy who owns all the records.
They're just sending him out there, man. They're just like go sprint for an hour.
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 Jacobe Walter had the ability to scale down based off Toronto's personnel. I came away last season from his rookie year 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 Jacobe Walter, his role in this team, his future, that that whole thing?
Do you remember what my answer was to the scale down thing? Didn't we both I think we both talked about or I had mentioned Caris Levert or something and you had said that that was like sort of what you envisioned for him too.
And we were both wrong then for sure.
Uh yeah, Caris Levert, you look at the body and it makes sense and you look at the Baylor stuff and it makes sense and then you look at year one and it makes no sense. He he played so little like how he did in college with the Raptors. He was basically had no ability to create anything off the bench. I think it it took like six weeks into the season for him to register his first blowby 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 Jacobe 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 focused on that. But Jacobe had trouble, too. And also the first like two months of the season, he shot 20% on wide open threes. Just like weird stuff going on. And then he had wide open threes in the preseason. This year, though, he shot pretty bad, too.
He was He has he has funky mechanics a little bit. Like I 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 you get that toe tap or you bring that right foot in and then you align on the same side. You start going up. A lot of times he'll 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 he's got a funky jump shot a little bit.
Um he was awesome defensively. His ball pressure is good. He struggled navigating screens. You know, he had this great answer when I asked him LA last year at the end about navigating screens and he was like, "Yeah, it's the play is called skip 77. and the Pacers run it where it's basically a double drag screen, but Tyrese Hallebertton, 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 Jacobe Walter, the first time they played the Pacers, kept getting put in that action, he was like, "How the hell do you guard Tyresese Hallebertton? This is impossible." And he graded out as an incredible isolation defender. He graded out as a truly terrible pick and roll defender. That complexity and also like he played a lot of minutes with Kelly Olen. Yeah, you know, it's not not a bunch of help in the pick and roll. There's a bunch of stuff happening with Jacobe. 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 year for because I haven't seen any of the OCI news. I think Ochi 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 picked number nine. Mamu is going to be very important. This is not the big year for Jacobe Walter. I think Jacobe Walter will get a huge opportunity when I think Oiabaji goes somewhere else. Although, if Jacobe 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 Jacobe before he adds in his career going forward.
My hot take and it's not more it's more of amusing. So I'm not confident to predict it.
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 Emanuel Quickley to defend this way, but who aside from Emanuel Quickley do you trust to defend like to press or like if Jacobe Walter can do that and you play him next to Emanuel Quickley, 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 Scotty or Ingram out of that. It's oh, okay, let's we're going to pluck out RJ Barrett and Jacobe 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. It's you're bang on. In my estimation, he is the best press defender, not just of of the reserves on the roster.
He's he's better than Jamal Shed by some measure. I think he's better than Quickley.
He's better than Ochai.
I He's He's a damn good press defender. He's very good. He at sticking on guys. The screen nav stuff is a whole other thing. But what you're seeing and the 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 Jacobe, 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 a debate over the two and basically the whole pitch for Jacobe 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 he's good.
Does he have the ability to be better with the screen navigation then I had 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 I don't remember you calling him the best onball ball defender that you think this team has, which is kind of insane.
Yeah. I think it's just cuz, you know, maybe M Scotty is better lower. CMBB is a rookie, but I think it's Jacobe. Does he have the I mean, of course, he can 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 screen craft at the highest level and he's going to try and pin you, you know, 39 ft 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 tensile strength. He can get skinny and he's sticky. So, I think it'll come around. I don't know about this year, but in the future, I expect it to.
So, it's not just he's dying on anybody's screens. Like, you think it's more of like a tacked thing?
I think it's a tacked thing. And he sometimes he dies, but you know what? Everyone dies sometimes out. like he's not like dying on a Trey Young screen or something along those lines.
No, no, no. I Yeah, it would it would be he he had trouble with bigs mostly.
The final question before we get in the lightning round I have for you of 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 it's, oh, this lineup was really good on defense and offense.
So, I know, 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?
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 that, look at all these players on the roster. It's like, okay, build the two-way lineup. That's not easy here. Especially if you're just cuz what this 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 it is reputation. How many reps of Brandon Ingram, you know, getting skinny over screens have I seen? Not that many. There were reputation.
Last 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 preseason regardless. Probably I'm thinking Emanuel Quickley, Oiabaji, Brandon Ingram, Scotty Barnes, Sandrew Mamukesh Villi that if Scotty is playing the five out big position and Sandrew is roaming, attacking, replacing, and those guys can kind of do they can both operate as the big with Brandon IQ creating in face and Ochai as the connective piece. I think it can be passable offensively. And I think defensively having Ochai 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. His 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 going to be an okay lineup defensively. I think that lineup might have some to it as an in between one, but I don't know. This is tough. Like I was talking to Caitlyn cuz Lewis and I got asked this as a mailbag question which was like predict the Raptor's best lineup. It sounds like a simple question and I talked to this about killing. That's one of the hardest questions like in actuality because that's the that's the question that coaching staffs 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 like it's like oh yeah, it's like Jokic and the guys. That's great. You know.
There's some teams where it's easy. If we were to go through and did an 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.
It's not easy with and you'd think cuz just a lot of teams you're like, "Okay, look at who gets paid and then but it don't always work out that way. Sometimes there's a Keon Ellis in the mix, you know.
right?
The Raptors don't have Keon, though.
Uh, well, they might because I'm sure the Kings will trade him for two second round picks by December. They have no idea what they're doing. Are you ready to enter the cookie cutter/lightning round portion of the podcast?
Hell yes. Hell yeah.
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?
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 him, I believe it. I didn't hear anything personally. 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?
Biggest strength of the
Biggest strength. Their biggest strength. Jesus. It's probably a problem that this isn't inherent to me. Their biggest That's really funny. Their biggest strength offensive rebounding I expect to be really strong this year. That's like I 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 up. Their biggest weakness is defensive rebounding. Their biggest strength is offensive rebounding.
Yeah.
Offensive rebounding strength as an overall thing is like the good job, good effort of of compliments to throw out there.
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 is being great, but they do tag up. So, they are going to increase their offensive rebounding percentages. You have Yakob there. You have Scotty. They Brandon is not so bad. There's potential here.
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.
This would be true if they weren't 30th last year. So like while they they have depth to some degree like every like quickly RJ Scotty all these guys can do something after the catch the problem is and the problem was last year 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 strength strengths. They're going to be a team of hopefully not that many weaknesses.
cuz we we I mean yeah
sticks to landing there.
Is there something about this team that's flying under the radar on a national level that you think warrants more attention?
No. Is like that might be a boring answer, but this team has to prove itself. And the the I thought the team when everybody was thinking they were going to win 33 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 40, I feel like people generally understand this team.
They're like, "Okay,
everyone's expecting them to win above 40." I don't I think if you pulled people, not just in the market, if you pulled
I I think 90% of people would pick the Raptors to win fewer than 40 games. Maybe I'm just disconnected from the NBA take machine at the moment. But
what? See, I thought that their overunder moved to like 39 or 39.5. So that's like where the money is. So I'm thinking about like where the money is. And as far as an analysts, a lot of analysts I've seen who are like and keep in mind I pay attention to the avantgard analysts, you know, I'm not really
Stephen A. Smith, Kendrick.
Exactly. I I I don't think Stephen A. Smith or Kendrick Perkins would pick this team to win more than 40. But yeah, this is a good question. This should make me investigate where I get my news from. What did C what did CNN think of the Raptors over?
Well, it is we've had my coast and I have had this conversation a bunch is that sometimes you're in when you're not there getting mad at what analyst X said, you've built your own silo of just this coverage is the type. It's not just not that you're following rah rah 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 you Bleacher Report company I work for said about that. I'm like, well, I didn't like see this take being floated around out there. So, I built my own silo. 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? Um, so I could be way off, but I think the Raptors 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. That's not a It's not a bad position to beat.
They got six whole preseason games of partial strength basketball, Samson, and I think they've seen enough time together. We know what they are.
I'm asking you or forcing you to build a 10-man rotation for this team? We know the five starters. Who are going to be the five most used reserves?
Oshai Baji, Grady Dick, Colin Murray Boils, Mamu Kelli, and Jamal Shed. So, who was the one we built? Because I don't think I had CMBB in mine. Uh, no. Jacobe Walter not in there. That's right. That's where that breaks my heart. I went from calling him the most important reserve to dude can't get minutes.
Well, but that but that doesn't matter, right? Like it's like maybe it's wrong.
Oh, yeah. Like maybe it's wrong, but also maybe it's right cuz the the Raptor
You're probably right. I would defer to you. I just assumed I'm thinking in my own brain.
Well, I'll give you some insight. the Raptors when they started out in training camp. This this was my rotation before training camp, but in training camp like Jacobe 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 Jacobe played the same amount of minutes almost like to the number in preseason and Jacobe got a lot of minutes stepping in with that starting lineup. Grady was asked to carry lineups a little bit more with his offense, but Jacobe could easily get in there. He He's a big swing. He could be big. Could be a good year for him.
Is there a whackadoodle lineup you would like to see Dark Ryakovich roll out this season?
Yeah, I would love to see some combination just for two minutes one time. Emanuel Quickley, Grady Dick, Jonathan Mo, Colin Murray Boils, and Scotty Barnes. I'd love for it to be this freak ass lineup.
I love John. I love like the anarchy of Jonathan Mo. So, I would sign up for that.
Yep. He's He could be your new Bouchet over here in Toronto.
I don't know if I want to see him shoot like Buchet.
Yeah. No, no, no, no. God, no. Yeah.
Would Is this weird enough? I want to see Mamu, Scotty Barnes, Ingram, Barrett, and Jacobe.
Yeah, that's you. I think you will see that and because there's going to be some lineups where they say, you know, Scotty is the nominal PG and RJ is the nominal 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 that's not I had a feeling it wouldn't be weird of what if we pulled RJ Barrett and put it put in CMBB there.
Okay, now it's now I think it's not as likely to see it right away, but I'd love it, dude. That would be very fun.
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?
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. So, how many games do you have them winning Samson?
Let's Let's say 43. I'll go one above you.
No, you didn't. And I looked at the dock when we were recording. I'm at 43 and 39 for them.
Then hey, it's we're the same guy.
43.
I think that's I and I remember saying that 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 10 MVP ballot right now, but you could see them finishing there. I I picked Scotty Barnes. I was like, "What if the Raptors just won 48 games or something?" It's probably cuz Scotty just went absolutely nuclear. So, you heard it here first. If he finishes in the top 10 of MVP voting, hell yeah. It's if they're a really strong team, the analytics are probably going to adore Scotty's season. They're probably going to point towards like, "This guy's doing a lot on the floor." even if he's scoring like 19.3 points per game, the the catchall stuff will probably vaunt him as a a big-time hero for the season. 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 or would be a fascinating play for?
Pistons just because I know that Cade fans and Scotty fans argue a lot and they've been entrenched in battle. Yeah. Oh yeah. They've been entrenched in battle for a long time. And I also would love to see cuz like I think Scotty would guard Cade, you know, and cuz like who else like OCI is going to guard Cade? RJ, oh Jesus Lord. Like no, probably not. Scotty guards Cade, which creates a huge ripple effect defensively down the line. And I 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 pick Detroit in that series, but I think it would be good basketball.
I would probably laugh at Jaylen Dura not being able to defend Mamu just because he's had so much trouble against the floor space in place. So Samson, this was great. Thank you for giving me so so much of your time. Were you able just to tell our audience where they could find you and all the fantastic work that you do?
Uh just Raptor Republic for all the Raptor stuff. Written work, video work, podcasting work, all that good stuff. We we're one of the most popular in Canada. We're trying to be the number one. And we're competing against billiondoll telecom companies. So, we're 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 Caitlyn Cooper. And that's on Basketball She Wrote. That's via Patreon. That's my stuff. That's where you can find me.
You do great work. So does CC. And I'll include the links for everyone who wants to find your stuff in the podcast and YouTube description. Thank you so much, Samson. And as you know by now, I'll be pestering you again down the line.
Thanks, Dan.