Transcription
Hello and welcome. I'm your host William Louu. I'm joined today by Kika Ua Kumar, uh, NBA statistician extraordinaire, uh, obviously by everyone who knows her. What's going on, Kee? How you doing?
Good. How are you all?
I, I'm good. I'm good. Um, you are going to be, actually, can I say how many teams you're working for?
Is that, is that like under wraps or?
It's not under wraps. Just, uh,
Okay. So,
can I say 10% of the NBA is supplied by, by yours truly?
Uh, technically there's two teams and then a national client. So,
Okay. So, potentially more than 10%.
Potentially more than.
Yeah.
It's so many teams. Oh my god.
Yeah, you, you've, it's only preseason and yet you've already become really busy. Uh, but of course, we know where your heart lies. We know, we know, we know it's with the Raptors and that's where obviously we see most of your work. Obviously, people know you for your quote unquote fun stats that happen online. Fun facts. Uh, we had, um, you had a really fun fact yesterday about the Jays making the, completing the comeback.
Yeah, I mean, I was watching. I, I am a bandwagoner. I'm going to preface. I was so, I watched probably like all 162 games when they were good back in 2016.
Okay.
And then I, it's been like less and less ever since.
Yeah. Which means sometimes I'm sitting there, I'm like, I have all these fun Jay's fun facts, but I just want to be a fan.
You don't have to share them.
Just want to be a fan. So I don't share them. Except this one was really cool.
This one was really cool. Yeah.
Both teams adjust these.
What was the, what was the fun fact again? It was like, there's only, I think, well, you, you share it.
Yeah. Go.
In, in each league. So, in both the MLB and the NBA, there are six teams in each league that have come back from down 2-0 in a like a conference finals round.
Uhhuh.
And of course, the Toronto teams are one of six in each league.
That's pretty.
No one's actually done it in the conference finals since the Raptors did in 2019.
That's also pretty incredible. I mean, this is.
Yeah. No.
Sorry. Teams have come back from down 2-0 in the NBA, but not in a conference finals since the Raptors.
Yeah, this is pretty incredible. I think, I mean, with everyone's been talking about the Jays actually. Uh, a fun fact about the Jays, uh, being in the World Series, it, it meant that like nobody's covering the Raptors anymore. It's been, it's been a little bit sad going to practice the last two days. Uh, luckily I've had Jerome today and Alex with me yesterday, but, um, like today, there were like four total media members at Raptor practice. Like nobody had cameras there.
Uh, other things, other things going on.
I, I think there's other things going on. In fact, one of the reporters that came.
Was filming scrum and one was Will's and one was mine.
Yeah, there you go. That's why we've been posting.
Why there's no video from today's practice online.
No, that's why you got to go to the, the hello and welcome channel because legit, like you're right.
We, we had, we, we've had nobody actually tapping into the Raptors unfortunately. Actually, one of the four reporters that came through was there actually on behalf of the Blue Jays to ask questions, uh, about the run, which, I mean, hey, listen, that's that's that's the most topical thing. Not necessarily.
Uh, Raptors playing the Atlanta Hawks to open the season tomorrow, but, um, to begin this, I actually wanted to preview a bit of the season by going through 10 fun facts, stats that will define the Raptors season. Um, I have five. You were supposed to have five, but turns out you have seven. So, 5 plus 7.
There's some bonus in there. You know.
It's not 10. Yeah. But, but let, let's hear, let's hear the first one. What's the first stat that you have that will define the Raptor season?
Well, it's going to carry on from last year where I'm not, if you remember this time last year, I guess it was when I came on the pod to do something similar.
We were talking about how bad the Raptors defense was the year before and that where they end up that year, I guess last season would depend on their defense. Didn't start off very well. There's a lot of like strength of schedule noise in there, too. But from the last, like the last 43 games of the season, so pretty much the last half of the season, they were third in defensive, in defensive rating.
Okay.
And to, if you're going to use that to preview, do I think they're going to be top 10 in defense this year? Maybe like 10 or 11, not top five. But that's going to define, I think, everything they do on offense as well.
Yeah, absolutely. I think, um, actually this relates to one of the, the stats that I had, um, kind of also about defense, but I think in particular about the Raptors being able to force turnovers, uh, from their opponent because if you've watched any of the Raptors in preseason, if you watch the Raptors in summer league, this is a team that's just like going after guys. Um, you know, I actually think weirdly enough, the second unit and even the third unit did most of the turnover forcing. They did. Obviously, summer league was only, you know, bench guys and, uh, preseason, you see a lot of end of bench guys, but.
Yeah.
I mean, nevertheless, I think the Raptors overall across the board really want to force turnovers. And, um, yeah, like last year the Raptors were second in forcing opponents into turnovers in the last 41 games that the Raptors played.
15.9 per game, uh, was only second behind the Golden State Warriors at 16.4. And if the Raptors can maintain that level of, um, desperation, that level of aggression, that level of energy, um, you know, I think if the starters in particular can play, uh, kind of all out, the bench does, then yeah, I, I actually do think that the top 10 defensive, you know, um, I guess spot is possible. They weren't that far off from it last year.
No, they, I think they finished 15th, which again, like they were 26th the year before in Darko's first year. Uh, 15th last year, 10, 9, 10, 11 is 100% something they can do. To be honest, this is my second stat, which is offense to defense relating to their turnovers.
So the fun fact here, 24.9% of their points in preseason came off turnovers.
So,
Okay.
A quarter of their points, of their scoring came from turnovers, getting in transition, uh, stripping guys clean, and then just like the look ahead pass down, down court. A lot of their scoring is going to come from their defense this year, I think.
Yeah. Is this, um, I, I guess to, to give context, like what, what would be like a close to like a league average in terms of just like how many points do people generally score, um, in terms of percentage of their points off of turnovers?
Uh, percentage of points, I don't have that number right now, but typically, like teams score between like 10 and 11 points off turnovers.
As league average.
Okay. So that's like close to like 10%. Yeah. This is, this is a definite.
This is a whole different, obviously it depends on how many points they are scoring in general. Like if the Raptors are only scoring.
100 points and 25 of those points are coming off of turnovers and that's a little bit.
That's pretty bad.
A little bit, a little bit bad, not, not a good look. Uh, even in preseason this year, so they force opponents into 23.7 turnovers per game. Preseason numbers are obviously noise.
23.7 is a little outrageous. Especially considering they forced 15.9, like you said, and they were second over the last half of the season. So, 24 turnovers a game is insane and they scored 28 and a half points off those turnovers.
Preseason.
Yeah. I, I mean, I, I think this, this kind of dangles into like sometimes, you know, I felt with, um, especially some of the later Nick Nurse teams, I'm like, Raptors have to force turnovers because their half court offense is so bad. But then I was also like, so sometimes it felt like it was a good thing that the Raptors were like amongst the top in like transition points, which is usually a good barometer for like how many turnovers you force.
But at the same time, I'm like, they also need to do this because they know they're desperate. They can't score in the half court. And I'm hoping that this year it's a little bit more balanced where they're able to combine both their like aggression on defense to translate into the scoring while also just genuinely being like a decent half court offense. The Raptors have not been at like a, I feel like they haven't been above average at half court offense since like maybe 2019, 2020. Like.
Since. Yeah, I agree. Uh, I, it's so funny to me because so many of the things the Raptors are doing this year, they did under Nick Nurse and back then it was like they had to play the possession game because.
Yeah.
Nobody could score. Zero shooters. Like Raptors have been bottom three in three-point shooting. I'm going to say steal a bit from a later fun fact, but they've been bottom three in three-point shooting for at least three seasons now. Like three consecutive seasons. Like you can't.
Yeah, it feels like that. Yeah.
There was even a season, I think Knicks last year where they were bottom five in three-point shooting and in free throw shooting.
Percentages, which is like.
They had to play the possession game. They had to cross the glass. They had to like score off scoring, scoring in transition was pretty much the only way they could, right?
Mhm.
And now it's funny because we're full circle kind of right back where we left off.
I mean, if you, if it was just strictly up to like X's and O's, Nick is a fantastic coach. The thing is, if you get Nick's X's and O's with Darko's management, you get, you get a pretty ideal situation. So, no, I, I do think some of that actually is a reflection of, um, the philosophy of the front office.
Yeah.
Um, in the sense of like.
Yeah. Like clearly, um, you know, I was doing this like Reddit AMA thing over at Toronto Raptors. Um, and one of the people asked about like, you know, why do the Raptors always not have centers? And I'm like, you know, this is like obviously the first summer where it was like Bobby's turn to like just run the team by himself without Messiah. And maybe in the past people thought like, okay, Vision 69 was like a Messiah thing. I mean, I suspect it's a Bobby thing as well. Um, and I think that obviously Bobby definitely wants all the guys to be able to shoot and just sort of be able to sort of like, um, you know, play five out. Um, and and I think that makes it especially difficult for the bigs. Having said that though, playing five out really works when you have great shooting and the Raptors obviously have really struggled in that department. So, that's why it's like really hopeful to get Brandon in. The Raptors have tried to address this in the draft too. It's not like they're not trying to rectify it. They did take Grady and Jacobe in back-to-back drafts.
So, they're clearly changing and modifying to the way they want to play, but yeah, fundamentally the results have not yet caught up to, um, the efforts and, and I think this year might be the first time in a while where the Raptors actually have like closer to league average shooting.
League average is a win because so going to this is my fourth one, Jerome, I'm so sorry. They're so they've been bottom 10 in three-point shooting, three-point percentage, and in like usage overall. Also, they're like the amount of free throws they take, the percent of their, uh, of threes that are, I'm sorry, of of their field goal attempts are free of three-pointers.
Bottom three in three, three consecutive consecutive seasons. Jesus, I can't talk right now. So, last year 28th, 34 threes a game they took. This season in preseason. Preseason, lots of noise. They played the Nets.
There's, there's some, lots of grains of salt. They took almost 43 threes a game.
Okay.
Does that compare to like the Celtics that take 50 plus a game? No. But.
40 would be league average.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And if they can't convert.
Yeah.
The, the attempts, then.
Would you.
It all kind of clicks together.
Would you say it's more of a concern that they don't shoot that many or that they shoot so poorly on the ones they shoot?
Uh, concern that they don't shoot that many.
Okay. Even like IQ all season has been saying like, I want to take 10 threes a game.
Like pull up catch and shoot threes. He's the idea is that there is going to be more like catch and shoot three opportunities with the way the, the Raptors are hoping to run their offense, but they still got to take them. Like BI, I think took five threes a game in preseason. His career high in that like 18 game season that he played last year was like six and 6.8 threes. He did not want to take them the year before. If you don't have enough personnel taking the threes, like it, it's going to be a little bit of an issue for sure. The shooting, like there's like some variance there, right? Depending on who's available.
There, there could be some variance. I, I think, um, one thing I, I agree with you in terms of just like them not taking as many threes is a bit of concern. Um, you know, one trend that is sort of notable is just like you look at Brandon, you look at Scotty, both of those guys love working in the mid-range. I think Scotty really took leaps last year improving the mid-range. He's got his touch. He has really gotten not just the touch, but he kind of really has understood like how to get to his shot. Like when he takes a turnaround jumper, even though obviously it's not a low percentage shot, but he understands how to get to it. He's like more on balance on the ones that he shoots, which obviously improves his conversion rate on those as well. So, I think even though maybe the overall percentages aren't that particularly great, like there's like a skill improvement in there, that doesn't necessarily translate in the numbers. And then Brandon's just been a guy who operates in the mid-range all the time. The thing is for me, it's just like between that and also obviously you have a completely non-shooting center in Yakob. Although Yakob did shoot that one corner three in Portland, which was fun, but like realistically this man's not going to be shooting threes.
No. So, if you combine those three as your starters, that it really does force like the bulk of the three-point volume to come from everyone else. And that's where for me, like one of the, one of the things I had was just in terms of offensive, um, efficiency. The number I actually had for you was just one, which is the Raptors only had one player last season that shot above 60% true shooting. You are very familiar with stats. Uh, do you know which player this was?
It's, it's got to be Yak. No.
It's actually. You know what? I should have looked up Yak. Wow. Hold on. This is, I might have to like amend this to two. Wait, hold on. Yakob shot 60%. Oh my goodness.
Was it Yak?
Yakob. Okay. It is Yak. Okay. Maybe two then. I'm changing it to two on the fly. Two players shot above 60% just shooting. God damn it. You're too good at the stat. I can't believe it. You instantly broke my stat. Okay, two. We're changing it to.
According to basketball reference, Yak has the highest or is top three in true shooting percentage all time in Raptors franchise history. So.
That's fair. Yak is an exceptional finisher. Salute to Yako, man.
Yes, I agree.
Uh, Yak.
Oh, I, I should say that this player is still on the team. Um, also shots over over 60, but I mean, he's no longer on the team, so it's not relevant to this season.
Uh, RJ's efficiency went down last year. Grady, I don't even talk about it.
Yep.
Uh, Ochi.
It's Ochi. Ochai squeezes over 60 at 60.1. Ochai came actually decently. I mean, Ochai shot decently across the board. Like there's like there was genuine improvements for Ochai. Ochai went, uh, percentage-wise. Oi was.
49.8% from the field, 39.9% from three. Um, which is, which would have been incredible. He honestly is only a couple major threes away from just a 50/40 season in general.
That you just did not have.
Yeah, you just didn't have like a lot of like efficient.
Like players on the team overall. U, I think the main players on the team in terms of obviously Scotty had a really tough time as that primary guy was at 52% true shooting, which is quite low actually, very, very low for for primary players. RJ.
27% from three. That's kind of how it goes.
Yeah, it was a tough one. 27% for three on like decent volume too. But, um, RJ was at 54.7, which is just slightly under league average. IQ at 57 is slightly over league average, but again, IQ didn't play a lot of the season. Um, my question to you is like, do you think we'll get any like of our primary players? Oi, it's nice that he got to 60 as a role player. It's great to be efficient, but outside of Yakob, do you think any of our main players will get close to that 60 mark? Cuz I think that's where if you're above 60 and you're a high volume usage player, that's when you're like truly treated as like your, um, like a good number one option. Let's say.
Honestly, I wish I could say anybody else. Like Scotty, there is a possibility Scotty could get close, like 58, 59.
Okay.
Depending on his shot profile.
Okay.
If he plays like he played against the Nets in preseason. Again, preseason Nets.
Mhm. This is your, your, uh, warning. Take it for what you will, but if he plays like that, if he takes the shots he did against the Nets compared to the rest of his preseason.
He has a chance. Like one of the stats I was looking at was so funny and kind of sad, but he took, he made more shots in the paint in that one game against the Nets than he did in the rest of his preseason.
Yeah. You gave me the stat I think when we were, um, at two games before that. You were like, Scotty was three of 10 in.
In the paint or restricted area and I was like, that's.
Three for 17 within, uh.
15 feet, I think it was.
Okay.
Gave to Jack too. It was kind of crazy, but.
Right, right.
Sorry. No, no, no. Sorry. Three for 17 outside 15 feet. But he was, he only took three shots in the paint. That's what it was.
Oh, okay. I see. Okay. Well, yeah. There you go. I mean.
The point stands. Yeah. I, I mean, for Scotty, if, if Scotty ended the season anywhere close to 60% true shooting, he, I mean, on like respectable volume where it's like.
17, 18 points per game on like, I think that would actually fundamentally change.
Just his perception of what it is offensively, right? Because that would actually be kind of an incredible jump. Um, I mean, one of the points I had actually was just like on Scotty's like usage around the paint. We maybe we'll get to that conversation. For me, I was thinking about like, uh, could you get Brandon or, uh, IQ or even maybe RJ close to the 60% true shooting level? R.J., weirdly enough, he actually did have post a 61.5 true shooting percentage after joining the Raptors.
Yeah. In the first season he was traded from New York. Obviously, that season was, uh, cut short by a variety of reasons, largely because the Raptors were tanking. But R.J. did actually have a 61.5% true shooting as a Raptor in his first season with Toronto. That unfortunately dropped to 54.7 last year because if you remember when Scotty was out, when IQ was out, yeah, uh, he carried the R.J. became like the primary guy. He just doesn't have the skill set, um, to be a primary guy and also to be efficient. That was one of the big issues with him and you saw his deficiency tank. Um, he also personally talked about how sort of drained and exhausted he was towards the end of the season and he really needed offseason to recharge. Anything we've seen from RJ so far is just he looks really recharged behind the scenes. He's like really, really energized. So, I'm hoping that all that carries over. So, there's maybe a chance, especially if he hits free throws again, that he gets close to that 60% because his three-point shot has been solid. He gets the rim a lot. That's kind of the efficiency way to get there. And I think the other hack for IQ and BI is just they need to shoot more threes like you mentioned, like.
Shoot more.
If shoot more and obviously convert more, but we know those two are like the two best shooters in the starting lineup. Mhm.
If those, if IQ can be a guy who shoots even like, let's say 60% of his shot attempts, like six in every 10 shots are from three and he converts them at a 40% rate, you're like most of the way there to a 60% true shooting, especially cuz he's a good foul shooter as well. And the other shots he is taking is mostly at the rim with the layups or runners. And then Brandon, I mean, Brandon's a 10-year vet, so he hasn't actually got to the 60, but he's getting close. He's like Florida with like 58, you know what I mean? So, it's, it's, it's possible, you know? I think it depends on, we'll say some of it also depends on the kind of rotation Darko runs to start as well.
Okay.
And how much he like uses his starters.
Mhm.
Obviously, like we've all been talking about the starting lineup and, and the fit of of how all those five guys will play together. And to me, most of that's going to like depend on like how Darko like staggers his lineups.
M. If you're playing, if you're like Tibs is an extreme, but if you're like Tibs and you're playing your starting lineup for majority of the game.
Yeah.
This wouldn't work, right? These guys would aren't going to work together.
They take up too much of the same space.
A lot of them like the same shots, kind of like also depending on how many threes BI takes. You have RJ, Scotty, Yak. RJ and be sorry, Scotty and I want to live in the mid-range, kind of.
Basically, there's too much going on. If Darko staggers and goes, uh, like a two starter and bench lineup for majority of the remainder of the game, I think he even ran a bunch of like BI and bench fully.
Okay. Bench needs a shot creator for sure.
Basically like.
Those guys, they're they're dogs on defense, but you know, they're they're also be dogs on offense, too, unfortunately.
Yeah. Yeah. I, it's going to depend on the spacing. There you go. That's the word I was looking for.
Yeah. I, I, I definitely want to get the starting lineup like time to try it out. I think there's certain ways that they can balance it. A lot of it really depends, like anything on offense, like the timing, um, how well you're connecting on screens, if everyone's cutting on the same page. You know, I think the first game they played together as a group, it was really sloppy. Like, um, when they played the Celtics, Celtics also like were very smart. They like cramped the paint the entire time. Played two bigs with Buché and Kea and, and like they just like sat back on everything. Um, which is probably a strategy a lot of teams will do against the Raptors this year. I wouldn't be surprised if teams, uh, zoned against the Raptors, uh, this season as well. Although I got to say, Darko has definitely done a, like, he's, he's definitely one of those guys where his scheme is flexible enough where if guys sewn against him, it kind of invites him to like get more creative and get open shots for his guys.
No guarantees that those guys make the open shots, but as a coach, all you can do is get them open shots.
Um, for me, it was just like, I, I do want to give that starting lineup a little bit more time to see because like, yes, I agree with you, like a lot of guys are trying to operate in the same space, but I also think some of that can be like schemed away. Like one thing I, I think you know this, like kind of nerdy, but I, I do think that like, okay, the Raptors run a lot of their offense through the high post. They get the ball at the elbows to Jakob. Sometimes they give it to Scotty and then it's like some dribble handouts from there. And I'm just like.
That feels like it's like are almost inviting teams to just like, okay, we'll just sit back in the paint because Yakob, when he has the ball at the elbow, is not a threat to score. Um, Scotty, when he has the ball on the elbow, kind of puts him in a position to score, but realistically, I'd rather give him the ball on the block. Um, you know, and it, it kind of just kind of it creates even more congestion in that same area. It's like it's like I wouldn't really.
Um, it's like funneling all the traffic in Toronto on the 401. Like it's, it's, it's actually exactly like that. So I'd rather them like detour and like play even like if you're going to play five out, ideally you're not playing from the elbow. And the thing is, you can't really do that with Jaob because obviously he's not shooting from the three, but if you could have like even if you put Sandro in place of YaKob, and again, this, this goes to your point about personnel, but all of a sudden you can truly play five out with or at least four out, one in with Scotty and, and at that point you, you start to look more closer to like a, a general offense.
Yeah.
The average.
Or.
Yeah. Or this, this is a good point from the chat. So with Scotty, you can run those actions above the three. Like I don't even mind if you put him in that space instead of Yakob.
Instead of Yak.
Yeah.
Well, they, you have so many different guys that can playmake on this team. Obviously, you don't have a, a true point guard sort of player. IQ is not, is not that unfortunately.
But you do have so many different guys that can initiate offense.
Yeah. Yeah. And I honestly think like if Scotty puts his mind to it and just tries to set up everybody, he can do that as well. It's only the, the thing that's difficult is it's harder for him to do that with a live dribble at the top of the floor because he's not like a threat to shoot as much from out there and even if he does get downhill, you know what I mean? Like I think that, uh, the spacing might be a little cramped versus I think, you know, if you get Scotty as like a post-up hub in certain ways, whether even if it's a triple handoff hub at the top of the floor, there's other ways to sort of leverage what he can do because if you put Scotty in a bit of movement and make him think on the move and pass, he's actually genuinely really great at those things.
Yes. Yeah.
And really efficient when he, like, when he shoots from there, too.
Okay.
Okay. Hit me with another one.
I have to go back because I went out of order. I'm so sorry, Jerome. Uh, okay. Health obviously, but this is leaning more towards the role of Yaka Purle.
Uh, last year they were 9 and 16 without Yak. Obviously, they were 30 and 52 overall. It's doesn't mean too much. However, the offense cratered when Yak wasn't on the floor or if he wasn't available altogether. They weren't a great offensive team to begin with. So, but the, I guess the stat here is, uh, overall on the season, they were 6.4 points per 100 possessions better with Yak on court on offense than they were without him.
Okay. This is.
Yeah, this is actually one of the main concerns I have even going into the first week of the season as we start to like actually live and breathe the regular season is just like.
If Yak's got a bad back and, and Yak's going to play, right? The, the health report came out. Jacobe apparently is ill and CNB still dealing with the form issue. So, those two aren't available for Atlanta, but Jakob is going to be available in Atlanta.
Um, he's just going to have tough matchups night after night.
Yeah. And especially at the start of the season when it's like they got to play against Giannis, they got to play against Shenun, they got to play against, uh, who else they got recently?
WBY.
Yeah, they got Mobly and Allen.
Porzingis. I mean, Porzingis.
Moving him around, like, you know what I mean? Like it, it's just not ideal for a guy on a bad back, um, to, to sort of play this murderous row and also constantly be on the road. But at the same time, like I, I think Yakoba.
I mean, he, he helps out of all the guys, I think he helps IQ the most. Sometimes it feels like IQ really struggles to get his own offense or create any reliable offense without a big screen.
And just based on the way the Raptors are built, um, he just doesn't have a lot of big screeners. I think like if you look at Yak, one of the things with IQ in New York was he got to play with like Mitchell Robinson, who's like a huge threat for the lob. Um, he got to play with even Julius Randall. Um, I don't know if him and Hartenstein over overlapped. I don't think so. But in any case, like I, I just think there were like maybe bigger screens, um, and definitely more of a focus to play traditional pick and roll under Tibs as compared to like under Darko.
And yeah, I mean, I think that like the quick that you see when Yak's available is a very different quickly and almost has the biggest, um, sizable difference in how they perform when when Yak's not there as compared to anyone else.
It's, uh, it's so interesting because Oh, sorry. I'm going to get this stat real quick. But IQ, even when, uh, sorry, to close last season, they were all kind of hurt, unavailable on and off, aka tanking. But Darko was super intentional about his rotations to close the year where if Yak was playing or if Scotty, IQ, and Yak were playing, they all played together the entire game.
M. Like all their minutes came together.
Just to kind of get those reps.
Right?
Even this is a secondary point to the health thing, but.
The four, like our four BBQ, Purle, BBQ, Yak, whatever we're calling it now, 140 minutes together last year total across nine games.
Yeah. Unbelievable. Actually.
Nine games they played together.
Yeah. Yeah.
It'll all depend. Okay.
Uh, sorry, sorry. Here's the. So.
Okay. Last year, Yak and IQ played 433 minutes together. They had a 1.39 net rating.
IQ without Yak, minus 4 net rating.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think absolutely. I think like it's, it's synergistic, right? I think like, um, for Yak, for Yakob, like ideally he's rolling into space. I mean, the, the nice thing with Yakob is he doesn't have to roll to the basket. He can just roll, like pull up short of the basket, like five feet and in. He's like so money with like the touch, the jump hooks, the bankers. Like he's for a guy who doesn't dunk the ball very much at all. He's actually an incredible finisher.
Yes.
Um, which is like one of the most understated things about him, but at the same time, no matter what, it's still nice when you can have that sort of like pull-up shooting threat like an IQ, um, who can also get into good positions where he can collapse the paint and then dump off. And I just think that like those two guys play really well off to each other. And I agree with you, like not having a backup for Yak, um, as a, in terms of another seven footer. I think that's.
Backup. Yeah.
That's, that's where it does hurt the team and especially players who really, really rely on him. But I don't know. I guess the hope is that like CNB, I mean, from the small bits that we've seen from CNB, he seems to be a really wide body. He can really screen. So maybe he can create the same gap. The thing is, I just doubt he has the same gravity to roll.
Especially on the offensive end. But, you know, again, we'll see. It'll, again, I'll go back to, I think Darko's rotations.
Sure.
To see how he utilizes them too.
Yeah. Okay. Um, I'm going to toss another one at you. This the number is 29th and that would be the Raptors, uh, rating in terms of net rating for crunch time last season.
Yeah. Uh, if you break down net rating, which is, uh, your, I guess offensive rating minus your defensive rating.
Defensive rating. Yep.
Uh, the offensive rating for the Raptors, they were the second worst team in crunch time by, uh, offensive rating and they were the fifth worst team on defense, uh, by defensive rating. They went 10 and 22 in crunch time. I have a, I have a, I have a little quiz for you actually. Can you tell me who was the only team worse than the Toronto Raptors in, uh, crunch time offensive rating last season?
Uh, only team worse than the Toronto Raptor. They were 29th. It's got to be one of the.
I don't think it was the Hornets.
Is a good guess.
Wizards or the Jazz?
Wizards and Jazz are great guesses, but it's, it's a team that you actually follow quite closely.
It's Miami. Miami was generationally bad on offense last year in crunch time. They, they were very good in like competitive through 40 minutes and then the last five minutes they were just like.
They tied an NBA record for most blown double digit leads in a season.
There you go. There you go.
Which.
Yeah, their their offensive rating I think was like in the 90s, which is, uh, kind of rare these days. Yeah. Uh, well, with the whole Jimmy Butler stuff last year and then Spo had an off year. I'm gonna just call it an off year.
Okay.
Overall, he had an off year. There was a couple early on in the season, there was a couple instances where he blew the game. One time he called a timeout when he didn't have one.
Got called for attack.
Yeah.
They played the most overtime games as well in the NBA. It's just, it wasn't, it wasn't pretty.
Yeah.
It wasn't pretty.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh,
it's going to be worse this year, I think, without without Hero.
So, wish me luck, guys. Wish me luck.
Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, you, you've had a, you've had a tough go. I mean, but to, on the flip side, nobody knows Da'Von Mitchell better than you now. So.
It's true. And Norm Powell.
And Norm Powell. There you go.
I got lots of Norm Powell fun facts.
Yeah, that's great. Maybe he can't be their crunch time scorer, though. I mean, that's, that's going to be tough, man.
Norm's like a great like 40 minutes, like he'll get you 20 points and then you need to go somewhere else for the for the final basket. You just have to.
It's unfortunate. It's, it's probably going to have to be banned for them this year, but it, it all depends on how he looks on offense. He didn't look good in preseason.
Yeah. But anyway, I guess the reason I bring up this point was just like, I do think the Raptors, um, in terms of like, what's the easiest way for the Raptors to go from like a 30-win team to like a 40-win team? That's like the hope that everyone has this year. I think a lot of it does come down to like nailing the small details in crunch time. Like I don't think there's like one standout thing. It's like it's not like they were like only playing isolation basketball and like it's not like the, the Tampa year when they were like, "Okay, it's crunch time. It's Fred getting a pick and roll for to pull up a three or it's Pascal spin moving into traffic." Like, you know, like that was like relatively easy to diagnose versus like this one is like.
You know, I, I think there's a lot of problems. I think defensively the way the Raptors want to play, pressuring the ball, all that kind of stuff, it's a lot harder to do in crunch time because it's the end of the game. You're more tired. You're most likely in foul trouble, so you don't want to gamble as much. Um, and so like teams naturally go more conservative towards the end of games. That's why you see a lot of isolations because, uh, turnovers become way more costly as compared to the start of the game. And so I think the defensive style kind of needs to be more solid rather than sort of gamble, um, at the end of games, which I think can be improved and, and especially for the starters. I think that, you know, especially their veterans and stuff, they should be better at that. And I think offensively, like not to say Brandon is a catch-all and improvement, but I do think that like what I like seeing from the Brooklyn Nets game was when you saw the game was tied, they were like, "Okay, we know they knew instinctively where to get the ball."
Yeah. Absolutely.
Right? They, they were like, "Let's get Brandon on the ball. Let's maybe get him a mismatch, but even if he doesn't get a mismatch, he could probably still go to work." And I think that like I like what Darko said about it too because I asked him about it at practice and he was like, he's not just a great scorer, but he's a great playmaker and you can trust him to not force up the last shot every single time and also make the right plays. And I think that, yeah, I mean, if the Raptors, like no matter what, like the, there's like the, the I guess the mid-game, which is like the bulk of the, the possessions. Um, but it really does come down obviously so much to like crunch time and if the Raptors can number one, just be solid defensively and then number two, like find a good way to play offense around what Brandon does, which is a pretty much a walking mismatch. Um, leverage that with Scotty, who has been a pretty good crunch time player in the past. I think that like this is where the Raptors make their hay in terms of like not just being one of the worst teams on net rating. Even they get to 500 in net rating, I think that's going to translate to like a five or six win jump.
Oh, and last year, I guess in preseason, we'll start with the preseason. So, five of their six, for some reason, six games, they played six games. Six pre, five of their six preseason games ended in clutch scenarios, were clutch games.
Record doesn't mean anything, but the fact that they played like that many of those games went to that kind of scenario is going to say a lot, I think, for this season. Even last year I had a stat about not, don't remember the full number, but I think like 47 of their games they led in the fourth quarter.
They obviously did not win 47 games, so.
Yeah. No, but I, I'm content with just winning half of those games.
Winning half of those games is.
Yeah.
Yeah. No, I mean, that's, that's huge. And I think that like those small details are, are genuinely like what makes a difference in the regular season because like veteran teams, especially guys who are experienced, guys who have played together a lot. Um, they, they just generally have an idea. They're not like, you know, making their own mistakes or shooting themselves in the foot. And I just feel like the last two years the Raptors have been shooting themselves in the foot.
And hopefully this season that won't be the case. So that actually is a bit of a fun fact, by the way. Um, I've also enjoyed Darko drawing up two game-winning plays, too, man. Shouts to D.
Oh, I was going to say Darko's like, he has now two seasons of reps being in those scenarios and unfortunately losing most of them. Some of it is personnel related, but there's like the, he's a rookie head coach, right? His first year. And in second year, you're in an impossible situation where you're like, you're pretty much tanking. You're either not healthy at all or you're tanking.
He's probably. I, I feel like he's learned a lot.
I, I do, I feel like I've given Darko a hard time sometimes. Um, but ultimately, I have to acknowledge that, uh, he has had two seasons where he's been asked to lose and this is the first season he's allowed to win. So let's see if he can win. You know what I mean?
And it's, I'm relieved for him too. You know what I mean?
Nobody should have to tank for more than two years. It's, it's not fair.
Nobody should have to watch a tank for more than two years either.
You can tell the media is all desperate, man. We're, we're, I'm like, give me 40 wins or give me death. Just want some good basketball, guys. That's all I want.
Yeah, just competent basketball, please. Um, okay. Hit me with another fun fact.
We are going with the bench mob.
Okay.
So we talked about a little earlier too, about there isn't really someone that can create their own shot on that bench.
They are going to have to be staggered. But last year, partially related to tanking, the Raptors were second in the NBA in points by rookies and sophomores.
Okay.
12th in bench scoring. And I, I guess this is not a stat, but a prediction, but I'm, I'm going to say that they need to be top 10, top eight to kind of get to the play-in, six, six in the NBA. So, six in the East.
Okay. If I had to, if you had to guess right now, who do you think will be the leading scorer off the bench? Would you take Grady Dick or would you take the field?
Oh, Grady looked good in preseason, except out of his, after his first game, he looked really good. He looked more sure of himself.
Yeah.
Okay. I'm going to go and I'm picking Grady Dick over the field.
Yeah, I think I will take Radio Dick, too, which I mean, it's really cool to see, um, how assertive he is because it reminded me so much of the start of last season. And again, like no one wants to recreate those circumstances of like Scotty being hurt and IQ being hurt, um, and the Raptors playing struggle ball, but like, it was the only good thing from the first month of last season was wow, look at Grady, like.
Yeah.
Breaking his career high like six, seven times and you know, consistently like just being a flamethrower and being aggressive and hunting shots all over. Like.
Um, if there's anything for me, it's just like a lot of the bench guys aren't aggressive enough.
offensively. And Grady comes in the game, and he's just like, "I'm going to bomb. I'm going to keep trying to go for offense."
Um, I mean, him, Sandro, those are genuinely improvements for the second unit. CMBB, um, depending on how he operates as a rookie, I think he can be he can be a positive, uh, offensively. I've already said that, like I've been I've been watching his warm-ups and his shooting has been impressive. I'm not going to lie. Like, I know they're stand-still shooting drills, but, you know, it's it's it's been better than expected. So, you know, if if he does shoot well, uh, let him know that I broke that news first. U if he doesn't, I'll just say it was practice.
I do see a world where CNB is first off the bench though. Uh, probably not right away, but a couple months in where he's first off the bench subbing in for Scotty or or RJ, to be honest. Again, like if he subs in for RJ and Scotty, I think he would really well. I mean, he'd be coming in as a wing for the most part. And I think for him, the quicker he gets that that three-point shot down, um, the easier it is for him to play. We've already seen him be able to attack closeouts. We've already seen him, um, being in the play in that dribble handoff position. Even like playmaking out of that. One of the my favorite passes of the preseason was, he got it on the block and like he, no, he he drove hard on the baseline, drew two, and like like whipped it into the corner to Brandon for an open catch-and-shoot three. There's there's a lot that he can do. And even if you trust the the little like height and weight measurements that came out, like he's also one of the heaviest players on the team. I don't particularly trust that. I mean, I literally interviewed Jacobe. Yeah. I interviewed Jacobe and he's like, "Yeah, that that's." I was like, "Did you gain 20 pounds?" And he's like, "No."
I don't any of them. Yeah. But I mean, even if you see him, like he's he's like pretty big. He's like really solidly built. Yeah. Um, so hopefully he can sort of improve on that end. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. Oh, I guess yeah, second unit, second units. I I think for me, like I I need a lot of them to pressure the ball and just force turnovers cuz similar to the last bench mob, they're going to have to get it on their hustle on offense.
Yeah, exactly. Their hustle is is what's going to keep them, I guess, top 10 in the league in like minutes, even in usage. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I like that one. I like that. We're getting more positive. This is why we have three exclamation marks on this one. I feel like we traumatized people with the first five we throw out there. They're like, "They're bad at this, this, and this."
Well, they they were bad at those things, you know? We all just get what's going on. Emergency alert. Getting an emergency alert on our phones. Yeah. Um, um, anyway, yeah, I just want to interject here because this is a really great moment of positivity. Uh, if we continue on this trend, we might not have to rename these from fun stats next year when we do this, cuz it has not been fun for the first 42 minutes.
Hey, it's it's about to get better, baby. It's about to get better cuz I know people were asking about this one. And, uh, where was it in the chat from Caleb? Someone said, "Do we have a stat on Darko's challenges?" One of the things I'm looking for the most improvement on. I actually do. The stat is 51%. The Raptors won 51% of their challenges last season. Well, you might think that's not bad. It's 50/50. It is bad because you're getting a chance to look at the video and then choose the challenge. So, you should, uh, be good at it. Actually, at 51%, that's that's 28th in the NBA. Uh, they were 24 and 23 on their challenges. Um, to for comparison, the best rate in the NBA was 78% win rate, which I believe was, uh, might have been Minnesota if I want to say off the top of my head. Was the top one? Knicks. The Knicks. Nick, the Knicks were at 78.2 and then tips got fired.
Um, yeah, there's not a strong correlation in terms of just like how good you are in challenges and how much you win games cuz the Pelicans were second at 32 and 11 for 74% and then the Bulls at 26 and 10. Um, you know, but like regardless, um, I I think this is a clear area where the the Raptors can just improve in terms of how they use challenges. I think that like the challenge, especially for a competitive team, can be a very, very useful tool. It's great motivationally because you're able to sort of back up a player and show trust, but at the same time, it's also great for the team overall because you're able to keep a player out of foul trouble. You're able to swing a big play in in crunch time, give your team a confidence boost. And I I think for me, it's just like, um, that first challenge has has to be right. I think that's the first thing because obviously you lose the challenge, you lose the ch you lose the challenge versus you win the first challenge, you have a chance to challenge a second time and at least go 500 on the on the game. I saw way too many games at the start of last season when the Raptors just wasted their challenge early in the game for kind of no, um, reason would wag their finger and all of a sudden you're, um, using a challenge for no reason in like in the first or second quarter of games.
Yeah. And and to my knowledge, I don't think the I think the video process for the Raptors, they they have one of the assistant coaches, Eric Curry, who used to be the Raptors 905 head coach. Um, and he's been a longtime Raptor head assistant coach. Um, I believe he's the guy in charge of the video, and so he's on the bench like every other video guy with an iPad like tapping like rewind 10 seconds. Um, trying to see if the call gets right or not. I think sometimes though, they're like it it's hard cuz it's a heat of the moment. Darko's obviously like trying to back up his players. The ones I don't like is when Darko just like backs up the player immediately rather than looking back at the video guy cuz it kind of invalidates the the role of the video guy. Like even though the player is a huge authority because they were directly involved in the play, they're also sometimes can be a bit of an unreliable narrator versus the video just is kind of cold hard evidence. If the video guy says yes, let's run with it. If the video guy says no, the player says yes, then Darko can sort of choose which one to go with. But I feel like it should be pretty rare where the player says challenge, video guy says no, and or I guess if the player says challenge and they don't even look at the video guy, that I don't like. I I think you should value some of these things especially because you need these small margins to to be an effective team, especially with how again going back to the clutch clutch record, especially how like their games are so like tightly decided, closely decided, you need the challenges.
I will say I think at least positive, let's use this as a as a fun fact time. It could also just be like, you know, you're in two seasons of losing where you are not trying to win. This is your opportunity to show the guys that you have their back. And then it could be it could be a motivational tool. I often I often thought about it to be honest. You know what I mean? Honestly, coaches take very different approaches. Like I'm looking at this. I'm looking at this. By the way, the Miami Heat by far were the team that used challenges the least.
I think the one that you're looking at might be including preseason though. But yes, they never used a challenge. It It says here last year they were 10 and eight on challenges, which means they only challenged 18 times. That's unbelievable. Um, versus like there's certain teams like the Thunder challenged, uh, 72 times last season. Um, yeah, there's like certain teams that challenge basically every game, which I mean, again, why would you not? Um, the Nets challenge. Oh, the Jazz challenge. Wow, the Jazz were 50 and 25 on challenges. Yeah, they use a lot of challenges. That's what are they even challenging, man? Aren't they tanking? Why were they challenging these?
Remember last year was year some whatever of their tear down. Their rebuild hasn't even started yet. That that that is that's unfortunate, man. Depressing. Yeah. Well, um, yeah, that's that's maybe these are maybe we just got to redefine this. It's like 10 stats of the Raptors need to improve this season. Boom. Then we change expectations.
Let me see if I have any cool fun facts. Uh, Grady shot 38% from three in preseason. Which is that what he's supposed to do? Yes, that means he's doing what he's supposed to do. Oh, okay. Good. Sorry. Sorry. The Asian parent. I'm sorry. Congratulations, son, on your A minus in math. Well done. Meeting expectations. This is good. Uh, okay. I like that. Okay. Do I have any other cool fun facts? I don't. No, that's all. Wow. Unbelievable kicks. I'm so sorry. Do you have Trying to find positive things, but it's kind of hard to. Oh, is that also an emergency alert? Yes. Yeah. I I hope I hope this person's okay. I definitely respect the Amber Alerts. Goodness. There's so many. Um, yeah, I don't have. Do you have a Blue Jays fun fact? I thought you had a bonus. The bonus was you use it as a top. So, there you go. The one of six teams. God damn it. One of these years we're going to we're going to preview the season. One of these years we're going to have a preview of the season when we hit the word fun. Like the the definition of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like fun. Not like like deeply depressing stats to define.
I have I have one fun that could be fun. Okay, please. This is your last shot. Go ahead. My could be fun. Again, in a world where they're trying to generate as many like as much many catch and shoot threes as they can. Yeah. BI shot 40 40.8% on catch and shoot threes last season. Yes. Which will convert. That's I That's I feel pretty confident in that. Yeah. Yeah. Like 62% of his threes were from the on on the captain shoot. Okay. Well, there you go. That's something.
I mean, I I again, like going I think there's a chance if you Well, we're all, you know, let's be real. How many stats can you mind out of a 30-win season that are like tremendous? Um, but like I I do think there is a if you're gonna try to get BI to that point where he's close to 60% true shooting, which again, he hasn't hit in his career, but you know, there's obviously room to improve for everybody and he's not like washed or anything. He's like 28, you know what I mean? Like there's he's like right in the middle of his prime coming to a new team as well. Um, yeah, like I there's one of the things I had in here was like Brandon has never shot more than four catch and shoot threes per game. Last season was at 3.9. Before that, most seasons were actually in the two 2.5 range, which I think is just like absurdly low for his his usage. I think that like you put him in a system where guys can get him shots and he can sort of be a little bit easier of a finisher. Clearly, he's a very good shooter. Clearly, he's a very efficient like finisher. Um, but obviously with anybody, if you're going to ask them to generate it for themselves, they're going to have a harder time with it. So, um, yeah. I mean, here's hoping. I mean, honestly, I I think despite saying all this, I think a lot of these things are just like rectifiable from year over year, you know, and that's where the optimism comes from cuz it to me, I'm just like this is this is like these are like easy ways for the Raptors to improve so that they change their win total. Like a lot of this is very doable. You know, these are all things, especially since we like the 10 things, 10, 11 things that we picked are all things that we think they'll be better at this year or we hope they'll be better at.
There you go. We're changing the title after this. 10 stats that we think the Raptors will be better at at the end of this season. Yeah. Um, just, uh, on that same note, everyone, uh, I did go and just grab some stuff myself to share here just based on everything I've listened to. Uh, here from Mariam Webster's dictionary is a definition of fun. Fun means providing entertainment, amusement or enjoyment. Full of fun. Pleasant, have a fun time. And in case there's any, uh, confusion here, pleasant here means having qualities that tend to give pleasure, can be agreeable. Having or characterized by pleasing manners, behavior, appearance. Um, I just wanted to like kind of bring those forward in terms of like the notion of 10 fun stats and for now, at this count of 51 minutes and 30 seconds. Um, what felt fun about this experience and listening through, uh, because, you know, to pull back some like previous stats, I don't know that it's fun to say that someone is bottom 10 in three-point shooting, three-point percentage, and three-point usage in three consecutive seasons. It's, uh, it's fun, I guess, in a way of like that it's like 3, 3, 3, but again, referring back. It's fun as in they could be averted this year. See what?
So it feels like we're getting lectured by God right now. You're not even here physically here. I'm hearing you from beyond being like, you're right there. Why are you in the dark? Yeah. Uh, yeah. Are the three of us in the same city? Kik looks like she's in Miami. I look like I'm dressed for like the winter and Jerome's just in the dark of like the Arctic or something. Yeah, the manual, uh, adjustment of my, uh, exposure. But yeah, no, what about being bottom 10 is entertaining, amusing, or enjoyable? You know, it's it's a question that I think is a fair question to ask.
Let me see if fun can also be described as interesting. That's what I'm going to call it. Okay. The the fun, the fun is the friends we made along the way and the loss. Yeah, that the friends that collectively are bottom 10 in three-point shooting. No. Um, yeah. Okay. They're going to be they're going to be 15th this year, guys. That's what we're going with. That's the fun part. That seems pretty fun. Listen, if the Raptors can improve all these stats to average, the Raptors will actually be an above-average team. 100%. Which sounds very doable. You know, I, you know, I would not make a good coach because this will be a horrible, like pre-game speech. You know what I mean? Like, get out there and be average and they're like, like I can't. I'm sorry. It's not in me right now.
What stats kicks could you pull to like give media any hope of in in a game against, uh, Raptors coaches like performing? I won't say a win. So this was more than four points. Yeah. You got to watch us last year. I did. Yeah. It might not be fun. That's what I did, by the way. That that would be kind of fun. Yeah. Well, I think the other team, the Celtics game, they kept stats, which is very cool. This This is probably more fun for me as a spectator than it was for you guys. Was it hard to keep track for the four points? I don't know. We need like pulling stats at some point. Like you wanted to do live tweeting and stats, but then you ended up, uh, filming, um, all of our plays throughout the day. Yeah, that's it. Uh, when I was keeping track to start the games, I I think I stopped keeping track after this one, to be honest, where there were more turnovers and made field goals in the media versus media game. There were damn it. Turnover to makes ratio is nasty. Turnovers to I've heard of assist to turnover ratio, not field goals to turnover ratio, man. How bad are we, man? Damn. It means if you guys go against coaches, uh, I don't know how well that go that would go to say.
Uh, do do you think based on your, I obviously you did not collect the data, but you did get to watch all of it. Do you think we could score more than four points? Uh, you know what? I'll give you guys like six, eight points. Eight points. Eight. We're going to go eight. That's pretty. I'll take eight. Depending on who with eight. You need back-to-back MVP Gavin Barry available. Absolutely. Yeah. Gavin has to be a part of four of those eight points. So, yeah. We only given Gavin four. Damn. I wanted to be nice to you guys. I'm so sorry. That's okay. Let me see if I can pull this out. We We need We We need We need We need some positivity. 10 sobering stats to define the Raptors media. Okay, that's what we're going to call it. 10 Sobering Stats from now on. It's not a good headline. We're going to go with 10 to improve. Sobering stats is really great. I actually do like the idea. Yeah, because, um, here, let me pull this here because, uh, Will did share with us that appar like Will and Alex have been doing a Raptor Raptor Reddit AMA and I believe Raptors Reddit did come up with lineups for this, uh, hypothetical media team. Will did get to answer a question. He did put together his starting five. Yeah. Um, which we'll share with you based on this. So we have at point guard, Sanson Folk of Raptors Republic, at shooting guard, Akquil Austinine Raptors Host, uh, at Small Forward, Randy Urban. He was previously hosted Raptors Tonight and was produc, Savannah Hamilton. Savannah is like one of, Savvatica hoop. We'll give you Savannah. Come on now. Savannah's got to get a bucket. Savannah like definitely can like at least draw some fouls. Yeah. Also got fouls in the game too. Yeah. I got a sick drop, man. Absolutely. And then at center, we do have Gavin Barry, back-to-back MVP. Uh, very kindly, Will added me in as a sixth man off the bench. And then he threw himself all the way down to the 11th man. 11th man. It is Will in the Tyler Hensbro. Um, can this team pull off eight points? I mean, just looking at it, no. No, I don't think so either.
Okay. A couple of things. Okay, cool. If you're playing with full court and it's a 24-second shot clock and it's also you got to get it past half at 8 seconds, and considering the fitness level of the media and the fitness level of the coaches, our starting five fitness level is good. No, if they truly wanted the full-court press, I don't think we will be doing well in the, uh, field goals to turnover ratio that that that KES just invented. Also, KES. We keep in mind I did change my asthma medication. So this is a whole different year for me. That's right. Yeah, we're talking. It's like Barry Bonds on the on the knees now. So yeah, I'll have to get drug tested at the end of the game. I am on literal asthma steroids. Looking at how the Raptors like to play defense. If the coaches decide to play even at like 50% of that effort, I'm reducing my eight points to like two made free throws. Okay. Okay. Uh, we we would need some we would need some tactical fouls, I think. Yeah. Like you have to like try some real like messed up because it would just be a thing of I. So last, um, episode, maybe it was our Blue Jays react, but Will and Alex were talking about having to actually train as media if this was actually happening. Just for the record, none of this is going to happen. Oh yeah. We would have practice. Yeah, again, I've shared this story, but last year, um, one of the assistant coaches who was coaching us saw us warming up. He's like, "Okay, guys, let's get into immediate. Let's get him into like a layup line." And then people were like, "What is a layup line and how do I do it?" And I was like, "Yo, we're done, man. We're done." Like, we're done. Yeah, no, absolutely. We're done. Like, Lindsay, get out of here. Yeah. I also do like, uh, that accidentally, uh, we had the wrong coach get a thing, uh, get a note on me that I apparently can shoot, and so, but it was the opposing coach. So all he did was get everyone to hound me nonstop throughout the game. The assistant coaches were so fun. Yeah. Yeah. They were great tech, you know. Hopefully he does it again. That's enough. Uh, they did enough scouting on you guys in that game just being their coaches that it might be less than. It's a tough one. Four points. It is a tough one. I I do suggest that instead of actually training at basketball, we should just gather as a team and train in different ways of flopping. Okay. And just and just win the eight points at the line. Like just flopping and free throws. Goodness, man. Just a team full of Jimmy Butlers. I can't believe it. Yeah. James, you know. Uh, if we had the same referees from the media game, those referees were very, very generous. They did not want anyone to get hurt. Ious had at least six free throws off of zero contact. Y um, yeah, one of the reps when they were leaving said to me specifically, "Please don't post any of this. I'm supposed to be at work today." And I'm like, "Oh, okay." That's great. That's great. Anyway, cool, cool, cool. Um, but yeah, I mean, thank you for all these, uh, fun stats. We're gonna work on we're gonna work on fun. You know, they'll be more fun during the season. Yeah.
Well, and I also want to be clear, uh, for as like unfun as her stats, she is genuinely one of the most fun people. Oh, thank you. In the A great hang. Yeah, a super great hang. Thank you. Thank you. Who will convince everyone that it's still summer in the middle of October? It is. You're going to take these like filtered photos of Lake Ontario. It's going to look really nice and inviting. They're film Sims. They're not filters, you know. Shout out GR. You know, straight out of camera JPEGs. I get it. Exactly. No Instagram filters on those. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, you know, you know, the the lakes looks nice and then you get out there and it's like 10 degrees and you're like, I can't stand here in 10 minutes. Like getting wind chill. It's a quick walk. You're supposed to like go on a little photo walk, you know? That's what it is. Risk. Honestly, they're they're a lot more scenic than taking photos of Alex eating too many tacos in Las Vegas. Got some of those, too. We got some of those, too. Yeah. Um, should we promote our, uh, watch party one more time as we get to get into you guys are doing that tomorrow? Yeah. Yeah. Will let us know what's going on. All right. We'll be at the Pint Public House at 277 Front Street West. Uh, basically where, uh, the Sky Dome is. And yeah, man. It's a free event. Come through. Come watch the game with us. Raptors will be taking on the Atlanta Hawks Kaka on the road. Um, game starts at 7:30. Our live event starts at 7. Um, just come through. Just hang out. You know, have a have a couple drinks, have some food. It's a good time. Uh, we'll be there. Me, Alex, and Drum, and of course, the fine folks from RR, Samson, uh, Trey, who I actually, you know, I feel like I might have snubbed Trey on the Hooper. Trey Hoop. Yeah, he told me Trey Hoop. Trey is the hooper. Trey did get injured. I wonder if he can play, but yes. Yeah, Trey. Yeah, if he gets in the media game, he might get in the starting five. So, I think that that might be good incentive. Uh, and then S, of course, will be there as well. Um, and then yeah, afterwards, we will have a live react pod from the game, uh, from from the watch party. We'll we'll bring on some of the people who are in attendance maybe to ask questions. Sure. Uh, and just generally, it'll be fun. And yes, uh, good, uh, the Blue Jays will not be playing tomorrow, which is, uh, does mean we have a free night. So, you know, Jays don't you don't have to stress about the Jays until Friday at least. So, we'll be all good. Well, we're watching the Bucks and the Raptors, guys. That's what we're going to be watching. It's, uh, Yeah, first come first serve on the day. Here's a fun fact. Um, I mean, I'll be Raptors last year 2 and 0 against the Hawks on the road. So, last season. So, yeah, it came in the same weekend when Jaylen Johnson got injured. We we Yeah, that was when JJ got hurt. Yeah. Keys, what's up? That was fun. That was, uh, I'm gonna have to put the definition up again. Fun, providing the music or enjoyment. I think I don't remember the exact number, but Trey had a historic. I think it was like 11 turnovers, right? But he had a historic streak of like five assists, five assist games, right? And the Raptors defense ended that. He also had a lot of turnovers, so that's fun, too. That's See, that's fun. That was fun. That's That's fun. That was actually good. You know, I was trying to discredit that, but I think you hit it. So, hilariously, it wasn't fun like in Atlanta because we're like, aren't we supposed to tank? But that was a fun stretch. That was like the middle of that 10-game stretch where they were like eight. We were We were there in person in Atlanta cuz we were visiting our friends at No Dunks and we like attended the games. The only caught in a swag serve. The only thing that was truly fun about that, uh, Raptors Hawks last year was the Raptors beat the Hawks to Brandon Ingram because the Hawks would actually be quite good with BI in that mix. And the Raptors, we will be talking about these exact fun stats in the opposite way, uh, of this season without him. So, um, that's it. We're looking forward to the home opener or the season opener tomorrow here post-game. Appreciate KES for coming on. Uh, thank you, Jerome. And, um, yeah, we we'll see you guys all tomorrow. I promise you'll look back at these stats and they'll be fun halfway through the season because it'll be different. There you go. That's the fun part. Famous last words.