Morning Coffee - Mar. 6, 2025
The problem with tanking is that it's embarrassing; I'm embarrassed...
The Raptors organization, not players, embarrassed itself against the Magic - Raptors Republic
And that’s the problem with these farcical tank jobs. Maybe playing Barnes and Poeltl and Barrett and Quickley for three-quarters of a game is still going to be enough to win. Just getting them some run before losing isn’t always an option. So Toronto’s attempt to have its cake and eat it too ended up with no cake and no eating, and egg on its face for good measure.
Because players don’t tank. Walter sure as fuck wasn’t going to tank. Lawson sure as shit wasn’t going to lie down against the Magic. They had a lead with only a few minutes remaining. Sure, they didn’t win their minutes, but they had enough pride and enough sheer fluky shooting luck to pull it out.
Maybe Walter uses his game winner as a springboard to launch a superpowered last few weeks of the season. Even if he doesn’t, I am truly happy for him that he was able to have such a moment. HIs teammates were joyous, as Barned threw Walter over his shoulder to celebrate. But it is a bitter pill to swallow, given some thought, that his success spited the seeming intentions of his coach and his coach’s bosses.
If Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster want to lose games, they’ll have to make some real choices. Thirty minutes for Barnes isn’t going to cut it. Maybe try zero and go from there.
And the thing is — I’m not agitating for the Raptors to tank games. I still need to watch these damn things. Watching the best players play is significantly more fun than whatever happened in March of 2024, for example. I’m not in the front office. It’s no skin off my back if the Raptors get the eighth pick in the upcoming draft. But if the Raptors want to tank, then they need to figure out how to actually do the thing, first and foremost.
No half measures.
Both fighters ended up taking a dive in the Steve Martin flick. I’ll let Martin tell the story:
“For three rounds, nobody hit anybody. It was a dance recital. Finally, I think out of boredom, one of the guys connected with a right.”
And both fell down.
That’s more or less what happened between the Raptors and the Magic. Both teams tried their best, assuredly. At least, the players on both teams. But the Raptors were wearing cement shoes placed there by their own coaches, while the Magic just aren’t very good. It was, like Martin’s boxing match, a farce.
Coaches are supposed to have plausible deniability. Coaches aren’t supposed to lose games on purpose. Leave that to the front office. But what is Rajakovic supposed to say about resting Barnes and Quickley in crunch time? (Poeltl was on a minutes limit, so there is plausible deniability, a sheen of legitimacy, there.) And what is Rajakovic supposed to say about yanking Barrett with a few minutes left because he was simply dragging his lineup past the finish line? Had they successfully lost, what was he supposed to have told his players in the locker room? Hey, sorry about handicapping you guys, but good fight out there. I wanted to get a look at the rookies and G-League guys. There’s no plausible deniability anywhere to be found. It looked, to any bystander, trained or casual, like the coach was trying to lose the game.
NBA, not Raptors, must own Tuesday night’s calamity against Magic - The Athletic
The Raptors’ defining on-court issue this season has been struggling down the stretch with their best available players on the floor. Before Tuesday, the Raptors had the third-worst winning percentage and net rating in games that have been within five points in the final five minutes or overtime.
Key players made massive mistakes in the last two games: Quickley’s foul on Coby White resulted in the Bulls’ game-tying four-point play in the final seconds in Chicago on Friday, leading to a Bulls win. The Raptors led by as many as 16 in the fourth quarter before losing in overtime.
On Sunday in Orlando, the Raptors led by 17 with 4:31 remaining, giving away all but two points of that lead. They held on to that final advantage only because Magic forward Franz Wagner blew a layup after Barnes didn’t switch to him when defending an out-of-bounds play.
The Raptors made those blunders while playing their best-available lineups, excluding the restricted Poeltl. What could be more important than those players, who figure to be part of the core for the foreseeable future, getting those late-game reps, trying to improve a weakness?
Perhaps that played a part in Chicago Sky guard and TSN analyst Kia Nurse criticizing the Raptors’ approach to Tuesday’s game. Louis Zatzman of Raptors Republic called the strategy embarrassing for the franchise, a half-measure tanking move that should not become the norm. The Raptors have already instituted some of the “soft tank” strategies I brought up earlier in the week, such as sitting bench sparkplug Chris Boucher. If they want to lose some games down the stretch, they will have to be more decisive, for sure.
It is tough to hang this on the Raptors, though. With the trade for Brandon Ingram, they are trying to improve next season, which is a good thing, no matter how you feel about the particulars of the deal. The league would be in a better place, with more meaningful games, if fewer teams were willing to accept multiple lost seasons in a row.
However, the Ingram move makes getting a good draft pick this year even more important for the Raptors, considering that they don’t plan on returning to this spot in the standings. This is their big chance to add top-level, cost-controlled talent.
If the Raptors had won that game in Chicago, they would be just two games out of the final Play-In Tournament spot instead of four. The Raptors would have had a good chance at leapfrogging three teams and getting into the postseason. Even still, with their schedule, they have a chance, even if gaining five games on Chicago in the season’s final quarter seems unlikely (the Bulls own the tiebreaker with the Raptors).
Toronto screwed with their game against the Magic. It was shameful - Toronto Star
But make no mistake: The Raptors wanted to win but they didn’t need to, and they made the decision to leave the result to lesser players than their best talent.
Yeah, Rajakovic can couch it in terms of wanting to find out what his young players can handle in those circumstances and it’s a perfect cover. Trust me, his bosses were quite fine with what unfolded, too.
But what it was was screwing with the game, and I’m pretty glad the game screwed with them right back.
Look, I get the “losing is winning” mantra and what it means to lottery odds, and how catching or not catching the fast-fading Sixers and still-punching-above-their-weight Nets will affect the draft order when it is determined May 12.
And I recall the Ben Uzoh triple-double game at the end of the 2012 season, a win that dropped the Raptors from being tied for the sixth-worst record to the eighth-worst record. That played a large part in Toronto choosing Terrence Ross in the draft instead of having a chance to take Damian Lillard.
But I caution again that nothing in sports truly linear. Ross was good enough to net the team Serge Ibaka in a trade that was the first springboard to the Raptors’ 2019 championship. Lillard has been really good for very long but he’s never sniffed the chance to win a championship.
One plus one doesn’t always equal two and maybe Tuesday’s result won’t matter a lick in how the draft order ends up. Maybe Toronto ends up with the eighth- or ninth-worst record and wins the lottery anyway. Or maybe Toronto makes an inspired pick with the eighth or ninth draft selection.
But tacitly agreeing to not put out the best possible group, trying to steer something some way, is just wrong. Or unseemly or shameful or something.
The Raptors didn’t exactly script their own demise in Orlando on Tuesday — I would never suggest the players and coach do more than their best in every game they play — but they did try to manage it a bit. Despite the glee at the result and the good feelings it engendered up and down the roster, it still feels less than it should.
Sign mediocre players to large, long-term deals
Continuing the theme, what kind of player should you acquire if you are trying to show how NOT to be a GM?
The answer: Players with mediocre impact, according to advanced stats.
Bonus points if their impact is so-so on both offense and defense. And you hit the trifecta if the player is a former high draft pick, has a big ego, and wants to get paid accordingly. Indeed, when this type of player gets an enormous contract, that can hit your franchise like a cannonball fired at a dinghy.
For example, I'm convinced Brandon Ingram's new veteran extension with the Toronto Raptors — for three years and $120 million — will soon be among the worst in the league. Why? It's a very typical case of overvaluing raw scoring output without considering efficiency, gravity or passing.
Sometimes a franchise can overcome one bad deal. But when they stack several such contracts together, the future gets ugly.
Take Toronto's salary sheet, which is cluttered with expensive deals that run multiple years.
Two seasons from now, that will be $143 million in guaranteed salary for players that collectively average an xRAPM of just 0.1. In other words, Toronto has a starting foursome that, on the whole, is no better than the NBA average and probably will be competing for the play-in each season.
Maybe Phoenix would rather have this quartet of highly-paid players, but would any other team?
L2M Reveals Multiple Missed Calls That Should Have Cost Raptors Victory vs. Magic - Sports Illustrated
The first missed call came just moments before Ja’Kobe Walter hit the game-winning, off-balance three-pointer. As the Raptors attempted to inbound the ball to Walter, Orlando Robinson set an illegal screen against Kentavious Caldwell-Pope that went uncalled. Had the officials made the correct call, Orlando would have regained possession with a two-point lead and just five seconds remaining, putting them in position to seal the victory.
The second incorrect no-call occurred after Walter’s decisive three. On the Magic’s final inbound attempt, Robinson again should have been called for a foul as he defended Wendell Carter Jr. Robinson illegally impeded Carter’s ability to catch an alley-oop pass that could have led to a game-winning shot. With 0.5 seconds left, the correct call would have sent Carter to the free-throw line with an opportunity to tie or take the lead.
Raptors agree to 10-day deal with G League C Colin Castleton - Raptors Republic
Toronto continues to reorient the fringes of its roster after waiving PJ Tucker and promoting both Orlando Robinson and Jared Rhoden.
Castleton, 24, is averaging 17.2 points, 10.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.2 blocks and 1.1 steals in 16 games with the Osceola Magic of the G League this season. He previously signed a two-way contract with the Memphis Grizzlies earlier in the season where he averaged 4.6 minutes over 10 games before being waived on Jan. 10.
It stands to reason that the 6-10 big will see time with both the Toronto Raptors – given that Jakob Poeltl is slowly ramping up after returning from a hip pointer injury, and the team is looking to develop Jonathan Mogbo as a wing – and the Raptors 905.
The 905 could probably use the help even more than their NBA parent club, as they are currently on a six game losing streak, have fallen out of a playoff spot, and played their last game with only eight players available due to the recent run of bad injury luck that has struck the organization.
Castleton also has previous NBA experience with the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2023-24 season, where he played 16 games averaging 3.7 minutes. He was honoured as part of the Lakers team that won the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament.
Given the lineup that Darko Rajakovic ran out in the closing minutes against the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night (Jamal Shead-Ja’Kobe Walter-AJ Lawson-Jared Rhoden-Orlando Robinson), it is also fairly easy to foresee Castleton getting a good amount of run with Toronto. That could even come during important minutes in a close game like the we saw last night, although it would be disappointing if that kind of embarrassing display became the norm.