Darko Rajakovic: Collin Murray-Boyles will play at both the 4 and the 5 this season; expected to also play alongside Jakob Poeltl at times.
Man we need a good center.
Oops, all wings
Masai’s Project 6’9 lives on!
If the Warriors flame out by the trade deadline I like Porzingis for y’all
Unless they flame out because Porzingis is totally washed.
As long as he looks somewhat healthy before the playoffs I think teams will be looking to get him. 7 footers who can defend the rim and space the floor might be the most valuable archetype in the league right now.
no chance he’s more washed than Poeltl
Hes not washed.
Hes just never healthy.
The 10ish games he plays, he’s actually solid
This aged poorly lol he’s out indefinitely due to health issues
If Warriors flame it’s likely cause of Porzingis being washed or injured
and Butler, and Draymond, and a shit ass bench
So many fragile vets I think could be sensational ceiling raisers for this team, my heart is set on Holiday or Irving, but Porzingis is a great name
I’d be very reluctant on Kyrie until we see him play this year. He got a bad injury and he’s not getting any younger.
He got a bad injury and he’s not getting any younger.
Sounds like Kawhi yet I bet every Raptors fan is ecstatic about him. Might as well try your luck in Kyrie too
“What’s that? Myles Turner, the floor spacing big, is for sale?”
“I heard that too, what a great fit he would be in Toronto!”
Yak and a second, that’s my best offer.
Unfortunately we need rebounding probably more than we need a stretch 5 lol
Board man gets paid
Disagree. Scottie, Kawhi, CMB are all great rebounders and can cover for him. If anything, we need someone to box out better and that’s something Poeltl is usually good at. Turner doesn’t do that but at the same time, I don’t think his fit is as suspect as others mention. People want a stretch 5 who also does center things well, and you won’t find teams wanting to trade that sort of player really.
If Jakob comes back healthy and as he was two years ago then he is very worth the money
This is his breakpoint though. We can look past one season and chalk it up as an injury.
Lmfao no he absolutely is not. The extension is insane.
The contract is ridiculous, but Poetl still has value if he manages to stay healthy.
Extension is spelled with an s but thanks for your input I’m sure it’s valuable
then he is very worth the money
This is homer delusion
Yeah I forgot which subreddit I was on. USA is dominate. 🇺🇸
Yea that 30 year old center who was never athletic is totally going to just bounce back from a near crippling back injury that made him look washed all whilst on his last big money contract
People over 7 feet tall don’t grow on trees buddy
C’mon man
Bruv that Poeltl contract just gets worse every single time you look at it. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s what got Masai fired.
Prior to the Kawhi trade, I was theorizing if the Raptors would’ve been interested in swapping Poetl for Turner and buying low on Ja. Oh well.
I think Jakob is basically as good as an average backup so they will need another option but I don’t think they will able to get a center who is better than CMB to close games. He’s a 4⁄5 tweener so I can get why it’s hard to start him but I think he’s obviously a starting caliber player
Disagree. I think Scottie/Kawhi/CMB minutes will work best if CMB is at 5.
Doesn’t make sense to have too much of the cap on a center if you want to play those 3 guys together. Therefore I think that just a reliable big that is able to cover bigger guys in the league for 20 mins per game will be the best option. If yak stays healthy, he might actually be the right answer.
Just need one more good option at centre that can grabs rebounds and be a deterrent, no team does well with one centre.
Most teams only have one good center. The problem is we don’t have that unless Yak returns to form.
That’s literally all TJD does! I still believe!
(…why else did we spend a 2nd round pick on him…)
It was a flyer and also a 2031 SRP.
Still a flyer! He can still fly! Let the man play!
Think you’re overrating what he can do. He can rebound and not much more. He’s terrible at catching and also finishing at the rim. He’s not particularly big either.
I don’t exactly believe… but Darko’s systems are difficult to pick up mid-season. Give him a full offseason and training camp, maybe he can figure things out enough to find the floor from time to time.
Crazy how effective he is at 5
I’ll bet there are probably less than a handful of centers he cannot actually do a capable job with
The problem is accumulating fatigue and injuries
The only issue I really see is that for the raptors to have a deep playoff run or win it all they’ll probably have to play a couple of those centers like Embiid/Giannis/Jokic/Wemby etc. etc. but I think you should be able to cover some of those matchups with Kawhi if he’s healthy and Scottie.
Wemby is going to just keep improving so I’m under no illusions it would be the same this year, but CMB looked really really good defending Wemby last year in one of the games.
Jokic is probably the worst matchup for the CMB/Scottie/Kawhi trio. Giannis is a doable matchup. Embiid is a wildcard.
The best thing for Kawhi being on the Raptors is that he’s free to be at best the third best defender on the team, he’s never going to have to take the toughest matchups night to night.
At the end of the day most teams don’t have 2 serviceable bigs on their roster (see my flair)
CMB will do fine against back up centers. Poetl just badly needs a return to form.
Idk man, back injuries can be pretty debilitating and hard to make go away. On top of that, he’s 30 so he’s going to start regressing kind of soon. I wouldn’t feel optimistic about his level of play this season
he’s 30 so he’s going to start regressing kind of soon
He isn’t a guy that relies on crazy athleticism though. It’s all size, touch, and timing. If he’s healthy he should be a decent player for the remainder of his contract.
I hope we see a Kawhi, Graves, Scottie, CMB lineup at one point this season.
Who would you add to round it out? IQ, Shead, RJ or Jak?
A 6’7 center. That’s gonna be great
Dude was a beast against Cleveland in the playoffs at the 5
And iirc he actually defended Wemby pretty well too when they met
But I’m worried about him having to go against Giannis, Embiid etc for a full season
Kawhi will be on Giannis like the good old days (Scottie too), Embiid will definitely be a problem. I miss Marc
A large part of that is because the cavs front court are a couple of twigs that can be pushed around. He will most likely still struggle with heavier bigs
There’s not many heavier bigs left in this league
You’re actually right, it’s not sustainable at all. Big reason we lost to the cavs is because we were complete ass at defensive rebounding with CMB at the 5. People only see the defensive switchability which is unreal and incredible but cavs had a oreb/100 of 20.38 when he’s on the floor vs 12.54 when he’s off the floor. Peoltl was 14.29 on vs 18.56 off.
Net rating was -2.27 with CMB on the floor and -1.47 off. With peoltl it was +1.39 on vs -4.2 off. Defensive rating with CMB on was 115.55 and 113.18 off. Defensive rating with Poeltl on was 110.00 and 117.57 off.
So even though peoltl was getting absolutely cooked by the harden pnr when he was out there and we were all blaming everything on him because visually it looked like absolute shit, just having a big body even if immobile was still winning minutes because we weren’t giving out offensive rebounds like candy.
It’s only a problem vs like 4 centers at most as far as playing post D vs them. CMB a great finisher and help defender too
The center role is not what it once was. The games rules have changed so much the with analytics, the game have so much quicker. Center needs to be play perimeter defense now and cannot just drop back. Even if you watch the team round the league, traditional center is not really a thing anymore
budget moves!
I think it’s doing him a disservice playing him at the 5. But we got no other options.