Raptors Discussion: v71|RIP Bruno era (2014-2017)

[Brobust]

What a joke. Philly gets somewhat relevant again after years of being awful and they get a Thursday night national game right away.

Lets not be the Sens fans of the NBA.

 

[MapleLeafistan]

Another W.

5 game winning streak.

 

[Clark4Ever]

The Raps have quietly moved up to 2nd place in the East, and 4th place overall in the NBA.

This team is much deeper than it was last season thanks to the emergence of our youth, and the players have adapted well to the new offensive scheme.

 

[MapleLeafistan]

Was watching the Memphis feed...they also said how the Raptors have snuck up to the top of the NBA standings. It's not the same old Raptors team where they could shut down Lowry and Derozen and win. Raptors have spread out scoring more evenly. The Raptors 2nd unit/bench is the strongest in team history. Also, Anunoby is really turning some heads.

 

[Budsfan]

Game Preview: Raptors at Kings | Toronto Raptors

Game Preview: Raptors at Kings

Holly MacKenzie - Raptors.com
Posted: Dec 10, 2017

Toronto Raptors (16-7) @ Sacramento Kings (8-17)
When: Sunday, December 10, 3:30 P.M. ET.
Where: Golden Center
Broadcast info: SN1, SN590
LAST MEETING
The Raptors lost a tough 102-99 decision in their last meeting against the Kings, when officials ruled that a three-pointer from former Raptors guard Terrence Ross came after the final buzzer had sounded. After multiple reviews, the shot was ruled off and the Raptors recorded a loss despite 25 points from Kyle Lowry, 23 points and 13 rebounds from Jonas Valanciunas and 17 points from Pascal Siakam. The Kings were led by 23 points from Rudy Gay and 19 points and 10 rebounds from DeMarcus Cousins. Neither Cousins nor Gay are on Sacramento's roster, with Gay now a member of the San Antonio Spurs and Cousins playing for the New Orleans Pelicans.
LEADING INTO TONIGHT'S GAME
Injury report: Delon Wright (right shoulder) and Lucas Nogueira (right calf) will miss the game for the Raptors. Harry Giles (bi-lateral knee rehabilitation) will mis the game for the Kings.
Gritty win: The Raptors kicked off this four-game west-coast trip with a gritty victory in Memphis against the Grizzlies. After a slow start, the Raptors came alive late, spurred by the Lowry + reserves lineup, digging in defensively to hold the Grizzlies to 14 points in the fourth as they turned a 17-point first-half deficit into a nine-point road win.
Five straight: Friday's win against the Grizzlies was Toronto's fifth in a row, the team's longest winning streak this season. In the five-game stretch, the team is averaging 120.0 points per game, 13.0 three-pointers per game, and 27.0 assists per game. DeMar DeRozan has averaged 20.8 points, 6.6 assists and 5.0 rebounds during the streak, while Kyle Lowry has continued flirting with triple-doubles, averaging 19.6 points, 7.6 assists and 7.5 rebounds.
EXTRA ASSISTS
500 deep: Toronto's game against the Kings will be the 500th game Dwane Casey has coached as head coach of the Raptors. He is the longest-serving head coach in franchise history (seven seasons), as well as the winningest, with an overall record of 277-222 since arriving in 2011-12.
An afternoon matinee: Sunday's game will be a 3:30 P.M. ET tip for fans watching from Toronto, and a 12:30 P.M. matinee local time. This will be the earliest start time for the Kings since the 2008-09 season.
Familiar faces: The Raptors will face a familiar face in Sacramento, with veteran Vince Carter on the Kings roster. During Carter's seven seasons with the Raptors, he won the 1999 Rookie of the Year award, was named to five All-star games, and was an All-NBA Third Team selection in 2000, and an All-NBA Second Team selection in 2001.

 

[Glenn Isildur Healy]

I'm enjoying the improvements and surprising contributions made by our young players. Poeltl, Siakam and OG especially. However, it ultimately comes down to how we do in the playoffs regardless of what seed we finish in. DeRozan and Lowry needs to not only match their RS performances but take it up a notch.

 

[Glenn Isildur Healy]

Siakam cannot shoot whatsoever

 

[The Nemesis]

Siakam cannot shoot whatsoever

He's had games and spurts where it's been better (ie good enough for what's expected of him offensively) but yeah he's still super raw.

I'll take it though. At least he doesn't have a super-broken Lonzo Ball style jumper.

 

[stickty111]

Jakob Poeltl with the 3 from the corner!

 

[Glenn Isildur Healy]

Jakob Poeltl with the 3 from the corner!

He's got a nice looking stroke!

 

[Glenn Isildur Healy]

He's had games and spurts where it's been better (ie good enough for what's expected of him offensively) but yeah he's still super raw.

I'll take it though. At least he doesn't have a super-broken Lonzo Ball style jumper.

Let's not sugar coat it. His shooting is atrocious and his percentages back it up. Just check his free throw percentages and his jumpshot percentages.

His jumpshot is definitely broken. His footing is awkward and sometimes you see his elbow tucked in and sometimes you don't.

Poeltl, JV and even Bebe have far smoother shots than he does

 

[Glenn Isildur Healy]

Like what I'm seeing from Ibaka both defensively and offensively
Doesn't look like he's moving with mud on his feet

 

[The Nemesis]

Let's not sugar coat it. His shooting is atrocious and his percentages back it up. Just check his free throw percentages and his jumpshot percentages.

His jumpshot is definitely broken. His footing is awkward and sometimes you see his elbow tucked in and sometimes you don't.

Poeltl, JV and even Bebe have far smoother shots than he does

Oh for sure the others are better shooters. But it's not quite as bad for Siakam as it looks at first glance. His FT% is completely borked, but some of that is small sample size (he's got the fewest FTA on the team of anyone with at least 300 MP this season (basically every quasi-regular except Bebe). He was a nearly 70% FT shooter last year, which is passable for a non-stretch interior guy.

And his overall FG% is being heavily dragged down by his 3Pt% because he's trying to push himself into the "new culture" Raptors conversation by becoming more of a stretch 4.

His shooting %s are (ranks exclude minimal output of McKinnie, Brown, and Bruno):

• Overall 2pt: .682 (3rd among regulars behind Wright & Poeltl)
• 0-3 Ft (40% of his FGA): .811 (2nd behind Ibaka) Of note here is that <7% of his overall FGA are dunks, so most of his interior shots are putbacks, tips, and actual short shots.
  
• 3-10 Ft (25% of his FGA): .485 (5th behind Wright, Ibaka, DeRozan, Poeltl)
• 10-16 Ft (1.5% of his FGA): .500 (5th behind Wright, Poeltl, Miles, Ibaka)
• No FG between 16 Ft and 3pt range
• 3pt (33% of his FGA): .205 (10th, ahead of only JV)

His %s would look a lot better if he would stop jacking 3s until he actually learns to do it. If he can. And if he can't, no big deal because that's not his game.

Overall, his jumper issue is that he has a big-man jumper. Like you said his form is inconsistent, and he has a tendency to get his arms and feet out in front of his body, likely because a career of shooting right around the basket means he's never had to learn efficient energy transfer on the jumper, so from range he compensates with a more heave-like, shot-putting mechanic to try and muscle the extra 10-20 feet of range he needs.

The elbow thing you can probably fix if you drill it into him. Getting his feet under him more is probably harder to address, but it's doable. But at least he's marginally aligned and not doing anything super crazy like Michael Kidd-Gilchrist's insane corkscrew over-tuck, or shooting it from his face like Shawn Marion, Josh Childress, the Joakim Noah medicine ball heave, or Lonzo Ball's baffling side-saddle over-tucked, side-spinning "cycling" shot.

Siakam's jumper is problematic. Those other guys' jumpers are broken.

 

[Glenn Isildur Healy]

Oh for sure the others are better shooters. But it's not quite as bad for Siakam as it looks at first glance. His FT% is completely borked, but some of that is small sample size (he's got the fewest FTA on the team of anyone with at least 300 MP this season (basically every quasi-regular except Bebe). He was a nearly 70% FT shooter last year, which is passable for a non-stretch interior guy.

And his overall FG% is being heavily dragged down by his 3Pt% because he's trying to push himself into the "new culture" Raptors conversation by becoming more of a stretch 4.

His shooting %s are (ranks exclude minimal output of McKinnie, Brown, and Bruno):

• Overall 2pt: .682 (3rd among regulars behind Wright & Poeltl)
• 0-3 Ft (40% of his FGA): .811 (2nd behind Ibaka) Of note here is that <7% of his overall FGA are dunks, so most of his interior shots are putbacks, tips, and actual short shots.
  
• 3-10 Ft (25% of his FGA): .485 (5th behind Wright, Ibaka, DeRozan, Poeltl)
• 10-16 Ft (1.5% of his FGA): .500 (5th behind Wright, Poeltl, Miles, Ibaka)
• No FG between 16 Ft and 3pt range
• 3pt (33% of his FGA): .205 (10th, ahead of only JV)

His %s would look a lot better if he would stop jacking 3s until he actually learns to do it. If he can. And if he can't, no big deal because that's not his game.

Overall, his jumper issue is that he has a big-man jumper. Like you said his form is inconsistent, and he has a tendency to get his arms and feet out in front of his body, likely because a career of shooting right around the basket means he's never had to learn efficient energy transfer on the jumper, so from range he compensates with a more heave-like, shot-putting mechanic to try and muscle the extra 10-20 feet of range he needs.

The elbow thing you can probably fix if you drill it into him. Getting his feet under him more is probably harder to address, but it's doable. But at least he's marginally aligned and not doing anything super crazy like Michael Kidd-Gilchrist's insane corkscrew over-tuck, or shooting it from his face like Shawn Marion, Josh Childress, the Joakim Noah medicine ball heave, or Lonzo Ball's baffling side-saddle over-tucked, side-spinning "cycling" shot.

Siakam's jumper is problematic. Those other guys' jumpers are broken.

The issue is that you're pairing Siakam with Poeltl (neither with a jumpshot) and then spacing becomes a problem. You can't just have both of them clogging the lane. As well, Siakam is given all these great open looks because he does a good job moving the ball in the perimeter (is a passing threat). It becomes a little embarrassing to be passing those looks up.

Lonzo's shot reminds me a lot of Kevin Martin's shot (who was an excellent shooter). His form can work but I see his weakness like Siakam not being able to transition from catching the ball to shooting the ball well. Martin's shot on the other hand is all in one motion. When Siakam's elbow is tucked in and he doesn't rush his shot, it's alright. His biggest issue, like you mentioned, is getting his feet set. I once saw one of his feet aligned to the net and his other net swayed to the side. It's really weird.

 

[The Nemesis]

The issue is that you're pairing Siakam with Poeltl (neither with a jumpshot) and then spacing becomes a problem. You can't just have both of them clogging the lane. As well, Siakam is given all these great open looks because he does a good job moving the ball in the perimeter (is a passing threat). It becomes a little embarrassing to be passing those looks up.

Yeah. I'd like to quietly move Valanciunas for... something and split those two up. Siakam can pair with Ibaka and you can run a Poeltl/Bebe 2nd unit, with Anunoby being able to sub in for smallball in either set. Bebe/Poeltl isn't ideal either, but the Raptors just don't have enough shooting bigs to avoid having at least one cloggy interior PF/C pairing.

Lonzo's shot reminds me a lot of Kevin Martin's shot (who was an excellent shooter). His form can work but I see his weakness like Siakam not being able to transition from catching the ball to shooting the ball well. Martin's shot on the other hand is all in one motion. When Siakam's elbow is tucked in and he doesn't rush his shot, it's alright. His biggest issue, like you mentioned, is getting his feet set. I once saw one of his feet aligned to the net and his other net swayed to the side. It's really weird.

Martin almost shot from his hip. He would gather the ball around his abdomen/chest and almost immediately launch into his shooting form straight out from that point up to his shoulder instead of bringing the ball up to his head in order to cock his shooting arm. It made him have a super quick release, but an incredibly blockable shot (but that was fine since he was super good at creating enough space to take his shot)

Lonzo..... I'm not sure what to do to fix him beyond entirely rebuilding his form. You watch him and he almost begins his gather at the opposite hip, then as he launches his arm travels partway across his chest. His elbow is almost tucked in too far to begin. It drifts sort of out to a proper position, but his starting point is pulled over so far that his forearm and hand lag behind the elbow and he shoots from the opposite side of his face (a righty shooter basically shooting off his left cheek). This funkiness means that he has to shoot from a hip-leading, side-saddle position (which isn't bad in and of itself. lots of people can shoot just fine from that set position if they keep everything else aligned) and basically makes it look like he "cycles" the ball across his body as he gathers in front of himself, pulls down and back to his opposite hip, and immediately up and forward back across his chest before launching the shot out in front of the opposite side of his face (the same side of his body as where the ball started). That whole circuit slows him down, gets his arms out of sequence with the rest of his body, absolutely murders his kinetic chain/power transfer, and forces him to try and add back a bunch of power with a harder wrist flick and "pushier" shot from in front of his face (the one part of his motion that I do feel he shares with Martin. But lots of guys, especially smaller ones who don't have strong legs, shoot from their shoulder/face to add strength they can't channel through their jump properly). That lag/pull is also going to cause him to leave a lot of shots short and to the left of the hoop, or to the right if he overcompensates even more. It also slows him down in terms of transitioning from receiving the ball to setting himself to shoot, but I imagine that's something he's never really had to address because he's a lead guard who usually has the ball in his hands instead of playing off the ball and having to ready himself before a catch & shoot. It's so, so, so funky. It's like the unholy bastard child of Martin, Kidd-Gilchrist, Chuck Hayes, and Shawn Marion.

Siakam's problems just seem more fixable to me because they feel like they're less about pure mechanical wrongness and more about a combo of lazy inconsistency and lack of need for proper mechanics because he's a raw late-comer to the game and always been a springy interior big who prioritized attacking the basket on both ends and getting shots back up quickly to not give defenders time to react. And because shooting from <10 feet means he didn't need his legs or proper transfer mechanics to get more than enough power into the ball to get it to the hoop. It's the shot of big man who's simply firing up a lot of quick rebound put-backs instead of actually being involved in a real systematic offence. It's not that he's learned and used a wrong way to shoot from distance, it's that he never really learned in the first place. So there's less to overwrite.

 

[The Nemesis]

That's the stuff of nightmares. I mean, the thumbnail for that video is so wonky that it's almost more believable if you told him he's a really opened-up and awkward left-handed above-the-shoulder type shooter instead of that being the form of a guy who's going to shoot with his right hand.

 

[Glenn Isildur Healy]

Yeah. I'd like to quietly move Valanciunas for... something and split those two up. Siakam can pair with Ibaka and you can run a Poeltl/Bebe 2nd unit, with Anunoby being able to sub in for smallball in either set. Bebe/Poeltl isn't ideal either, but the Raptors just don't have enough shooting bigs to avoid having at least one cloggy interior PF/C pairing.

Unfortunately, I have a hard time seeing any team being interested in JV unless we attach an asset with him.

I prefer Ibaka/Poeltl in the starting lineup. Offensively, you can have Ibaka in the perimeter and/or on the wing and Poeltl down low or at the top of the key. Poeltl is versatile enough defensively that he could guard some PFs while Ibaka is the rim protector. We already see a lot of Ibaka/Poeltl towards the end of the game so why not start them together.

Siakam/Ibaka scares me a bit rebounding wise and don't like them together offensively. I prefer Siakam's defensive versatility in the 2nd unit because he's going to be paired with JV or Bebe. JV at least has a mid-range jumper so better than Siakam/Poeltl

 

[Glenn Isildur Healy]

Martin almost shot from his hip. He would gather the ball around his abdomen/chest and almost immediately launch into his shooting form straight out from that point up to his shoulder instead of bringing the ball up to his head in order to cock his shooting arm. It made him have a super quick release, but an incredibly blockable shot (but that was fine since he was super good at creating enough space to take his shot)

Lonzo..... I'm not sure what to do to fix him beyond entirely rebuilding his form. You watch him and he almost begins his gather at the opposite hip, then as he launches his arm travels partway across his chest. His elbow is almost tucked in too far to begin. It drifts sort of out to a proper position, but his starting point is pulled over so far that his forearm and hand lag behind the elbow and he shoots from the opposite side of his face (a righty shooter basically shooting off his left cheek). This funkiness means that he has to shoot from a hip-leading, side-saddle position (which isn't bad in and of itself. lots of people can shoot just fine from that set position if they keep everything else aligned) and basically makes it look like he "cycles" the ball across his body as he gathers in front of himself, pulls down and back to his opposite hip, and immediately up and forward back across his chest before launching the shot out in front of the opposite side of his face (the same side of his body as where the ball started). That whole circuit slows him down, gets his arms out of sequence with the rest of his body, absolutely murders his kinetic chain/power transfer, and forces him to try and add back a bunch of power with a harder wrist flick and "pushier" shot from in front of his face (the one part of his motion that I do feel he shares with Martin. But lots of guys, especially smaller ones who don't have strong legs, shoot from their shoulder/face to add strength they can't channel through their jump properly). That lag/pull is also going to cause him to leave a lot of shots short and to the left of the hoop, or to the right if he overcompensates even more. It also slows him down in terms of transitioning from receiving the ball to setting himself to shoot, but I imagine that's something he's never really had to address because he's a lead guard who usually has the ball in his hands instead of playing off the ball and having to ready himself before a catch & shoot. It's so, so, so funky. It's like the unholy bastard child of Martin, Kidd-Gilchrist, Chuck Hayes, and Shawn Marion.

That's a very good point about Martin compared to Lonzo.

I was watching another video and they were mentioning that Lonzo is left eye dominant despite being right handed. That is why his set point begins on his left side. However, unlike KD as an example, his is extremely exaggerated. Thus, he has two parts to his shot and making it more likely that it doesn't go straight.

The suggestion is for him to be a mid-eye shooter so setting up his shot between his eyes so that it's closer to his dominant eye but doesn't affect his shooting mechanics

 

[Dr.Funk]

You guy's raggin on Lonzo

 

[Clark4Ever]

TFC wins the MLS cup, the Leafs go 2-0, and the Raps win again on the road.

What a perfect weekend.

 

[The Nemesis]

You guy's raggin on Lonzo

Pfft. Send me some $500 garbage shoes. Maybe I'll retract my statement. But I sure as hell won't say "thank you"

 

[Dr.Funk]

Damn it Casey! If DeAndre Jordan is on the floor JV needs to be on the floor.

 

[stickty111]

Does Powell really provide anything to this team?

 

[stickty111]

Yikes that looks bad

 

[Suntouchable13]

Back to back in baskteball is kinda f***ed up.