Falling off a cliff

yeah, we saw the other side of the coin with Malachi Flynn and markquis nowell to a lesser extent

Devin Carter was drafted as a defense first point guard with a lottery pick and is now fighting for a roster spot on the Celtics.

Now check his DDPM and his ODPM increase yoy?

I specifically said college BPM. For the NBA we access to better metrics, like RAPM which has him as a clear positive player.

yeah but once the extension kicks in we are not talking about a 2nd rounder anymore. i wonder if AJ lawson or martin would have helped just as much in the series if they got more minutes.

we shouldnt basr a players value from 1 series alone. cleveland could have been a perfect storm where everyone played above their capabilities.

understandably seems he got a bit sentimental about the guys he found in the rough and won a championship with. hung on a little too long to almost all of them. I don’t really blame him.

he really went on an all-time run in drafting and player development for 4 or 5 years there.

I believe the full haul as it stands right now is: RJ, IQ, Shead, old Kawhi (-2 FRPs), and Ja’Kobe Walter.

Definitely fumbled the full potential value but that’s still 3 starters, and two early bench players. Honestly the biggest screw up was Powell for GTJ imo. Powell never ended up getting very expensive but he was valuable everywhere he went.

That’s trades. But contracts and contract extensions aside from Yak have been our strong points. Even IQ, while overpaid, has the contract structured in a way that’s extremely beneficial for the team by the end of it.

We’ll see how they do with RJ, i sincerely hope Bobby can pull it off.

I dont get the IQ contract hate. He averaged 16 pts on good efficiency with a fantastic ast/TO ratio and has extremely good underlying metrics. He had the 2nd highest EPM on the team last year. 2nd in BPM, had a higher WS/60 than Barnes, etc. Injuries, sure, but prior to last year he was mostly just out for tanking (and didnt have many injury concerns when the contract was signed).

Im not sure what people expect from a dude making that much. He provides more/as much value as the guys around him in that pay range:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/players.html

IQ contract was a bet on a star leap. Didn’t happen but it gets relatively cheaper each year.

The other complaints are silly. There was never a good offer for any of these guys. At some point, it’s on other FOs to not drastically underrate them. The Clippers didn’t even want to give up Terance Mann for FVV. Terance Mann!!

With Kyle it was always going to be like that. The trade was a favour to the greatest player in franchise history bc he couldn’t have played in Miami without being signed & traded. Miami didn’t have the cap space.

The big LARP here is that you didn’t include the Norm trade. That one was so much worse.

To make it even more dramatic, we’ll have to have a re-match against Philly/LeBron too. Maybe we’ll even sign Kyrie to give him a match up against LeBron too, lol

I agree it’s definitely fair, it’s just that a lot of people were expecting Kawhi to just get the full max so even a little savings helps a lot.

$11m is notable since the Raptors are right against the cap and it gives them more wiggle room to re-sign their upcoming RFAs.

He just took a cheaper deal than the max I can definitely see it being a legacy play thing but a lot of players reject the PO if an extension is available since it’s more money overall (and you never know at his age) but we’ll see. I would say it’s more likely he rejects than extends based on what people in the know are saying.

Davion is a more proven shooter but he did make his first shooting leap in year 3 so i can see the vision

He’s also pretty clutch honestly. Yeah his percentages aren’t good but it feels like this past season he hit a lot of clutch shots

by half decent you mean top 10 in the league, then yes. He doesnt turn the ball over. Its crazy considering how defences already know hes not going to shoot and hes still so effective.

His ceiling is low, but his floor is also pretty high (to his standard). It’s a great deal, cause realistically he could get 10-12 range. But Jamal being undrafted undersized non-shooting PG isn’t exactly a super wanted guy. Raptors lock a bench PG for cheap, Jamal gets guaranteed money. Win-win.

Seems like a fair to good player. If you’re scoring is abysmal I wouldn’t consider that a great player or worth more then 8 mil a year

How

A bench player making 8 million a year seems fair.

That’s part of the problem. A PG - even a backup - who can’t score in 2026 is an issue. It’s a lot harder to make plays for other people when the defense doesn’t have to guard you.

Ja’Kobe is 10x the player RJ is, if we extend RJ, we have no room for Ja’Kobe. And this FO still hasn’t extended him on his expiring contract, we need to move off cap space. RJ is the odd one out because IQ and Poeltl contracts cannot be moved

https://www.darko.app/trajectories?ids=1630558,1642347

He’s not a better defender, but Davion is indeed likely worth a bit more than the 8 that Shead signed for.

Id say if you look at trajectory, Ahead is better than Davion was at the same age or in the same NBA season. That said, Davion did develop into something useful over time after his stint with the Raptors.

1 and done vs 4 year goat. Appreciate what Walker did for us but he wasn’t there long and didn’t impact winning as much as like Kingston Flemings did last year. Sad to see he hasn’t played up to his draft position tho

Exactly. And Quickley going down is not a matter of “if” anymore. It’s a matter of “when”. The front office screwed up with that extension