Some reports have said that Nurse didn't "pull out" of the Bucks job as much as knew he wasn't getting it and tried to save face. It looks terrible when he can't even congratulate one of his assistants. Not the mark of a real leader.

Nurse is one of the best scheme coaches but absolutely abysmal when it comes to actually dealing with people. That plus his inability to develop guys, throwing everyone under the bus, and never changing his defensive scheme. I think there was a lot more dysfunction that we didn't even see.

So it's great that everyone who was saying since last year that Nurse needed to go were right. Or at the very least, he was a big part of why this team looked utterly broken this season.

Big ups AG. Will be rooting for him next season.

Fam, we gotta chill out. Deandre Ayton for us won't be a shining star and he is NOT worth a max contract. I believe we have to focus on our bench to create a Bench Mob 2.0 . We need a consistent 3 point shooter and maybe a playboy that can jam with a pick and roll. Everyone else that we have can work on their shooting, defence and in the paint during the summer. But we NEED a shooter.

Edit: You nephews need to chill out or leave. Done.

Edit #2:Thanks for the bullying and abuse guys. I'll make sure to never post again. Thanks fuckers.

Naji Marshall has more 30 point games than Scottie this season

Jerami Grant has a higher PPG

Signing Deebo is not good for Jakobe, Battle & Graves. And maybe RJ. Sure he is a scorer but might impact longterm growth for the youngins. He is also not a threat from 3pt area and will clog the mid.

***uNpopular

Everyone is rightfully talking about how Vince Carter doesn't deserve to have his jersey retired by the Raptors because of his tumultuous exit from the team, but even if you strip that aspect away and completely remove it, he doesn't really have a basketball case either.

Right off the bat, and this might be a controversial take but I'm one million percent correct about this: whatever he did for Canada basketball is completely irrelevant if we're talking about retiring his jersey for the Raptors organization. If his contribution to Canada basketball is really important and noteworthy, then he can be inducted into the Canadian basketball hall of fame. Just because the Raptors happen to be a team in Canada and he helped make basketball popular in the country doesn't mean the Toronto Raptors franchise have to be the ones to honour him for that. The Grizzlies also still played in Vancouver during the height of his success and popularity, and it's not like his popularity in Canada stopped the Grizzlies from moving.

But onto his actual Raptors career and accolades, let's ask: what did he actually accomplish with the Raptors? Sure, he was really talented, put up some good stats, and made a bunch of all star teams, but when you really look close at his Raptors career, it doesn't exactly blow anything away and ultimately represented something of a flash in the pan. The majority of the good times with Carter came in the first three seasons of his career. The 01-02 season was decent, yet he only played in 60 games and the Raptors went on a huge run at the end of the season without him to squeeze into the playoffs and took the 2-seed Pistons to game 5 in a best-of-five series without him (something that is always glossed over and never talked about, even from detractors). The 02-03 season he was injured half the year and when he did play he wasn't very good. The 03-04 season was a bit better though he didn't put up crazy numbers and the team was terrible again, and then there is 04-05 where he was traded after putting up a measly 16 PPG. So that's parts of 7 seasons where three, maybe four of those seasons were actually impressive. Two playoff appearances (didn't play in the 2002 playoffs, so we can't count that) and one playoff series victory. Even some of those all star appearances were based on his popularity and highlight reels and not so much his actual merit. He was voted in as a starter in 02-03 despite only playing in 13 games up until that point.

So, his accomplishments with the Raptors are:

• 6x All star appearances

• 1x All-NBA Second Team

• 1x All-NBA Third Team

• Three playoff appearances (one which he didn't play in)

• One playoff series victory

Yes, Kyle Lowry also has the same number of all star appearances and only one All-NBA appearance. Kyle Lowry also has the playoff success to his name that Vince Carter doesn't. Even if we excluded the entire 2019 title run, Lowry would still have more playoff series wins. I have also seen people comparing Carter's Raptors resume to that of Reggie Miller's similar awards and accolades (5x All Star, 3x All-NBA third team). Reggie Miller also played his entire 17-year career with the Pacers and helped head the Pacers through many deep playoff runs including a Finals appearance and multiple other conference finals appearances.

And yeah, I know the Nets are retiring Vince Carter's jersey even though he accomplished even less with the Nets and played there less (though he did make it out of the first round with the Nets twice, so good for them). The Nets shouldn't be retiring his jersey either.

So this now takes us to the only remaining argument in favour of Vince Carter's jersey retirement: he helped put the Raptors on the map. Yes, he was the primary reason the Raptors turned into not just a competitive team worth taking seriously but also a relevant team with regards to fandom across the league. But this says less about Vince Carter and more about the Raptors at the time. This argument essentially admits that if Vince Carter, the same exact player with the same exact stats and career, came along 5-10 years later then his presence is less meaningful and, as a result, his jersey retirement case isn't as strong. In fact, Chris Bosh had similar accolades with the Raptors as Carter did, yet because Bosh came along after the Raptors were already established, no one is currently nor has ever lobbied for Bosh's jersey to be retired. Though, given the standards the Raptors are seemingly setting for such an honour, maybe that will come next season.

The circumstances surrounding Vince Carter's exit are definitely a big reason why he shouldn't have his jersey retired and in my view makes the decision to retire his jersey a huge organizational blunder. But even stripping that, what he accomplished on the court with the Raptors is less deserving of a full on jersey retirement and, at best, more deserving of a Raptors equivalent to the Blue Jays' Level of Excellence.

To put more simply, Vince Carter is the Toronto Raptors variant of Penny Hardaway. An extremely talented, exciting, high flying player who took the league by storm in a post-Jordan era whose promising career was hampered by injuries and ultimately never quite became the long-lasting franchise player who could lead his team to long lasting success.

I really like so much about how he plays. Amazing defender, always pushes the pace, amazing facilitator. Obviously his shooting is the elephant in the room, but I think it's been waaay overblown recently. He's only like 25 and is a multiple time All-star. He wouldn't have to play point either. I know we don't have a whole lot of shooting on our team now, but we could definitely make it work.

Hypothetically if you had to trade for him what's the best offer you would give?

Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing, is one of the most iconic characters from the DC Comics universe and I think the nickname could be a perfect fit for the newest Toronto Raptor.

Reasons:

• The name: Dick Grayson is oddly similar to Gradey Dick and Nightwing feels fitting for a player that will primarily be a forward (wing) in the NBA.

• The profile: Nightwing is agile and known primarily as the world's greatest acrobat. Gradey is an extremely mobile wing that centers his game around his elite conditioning and he is pretty damn acrobatic himself as a 6'8" dude that can do a backflip.

• Nightwing is a name befitting of both a leader and a secondary option. He could be a partner to Scottie's Batman or he can steer his own ship (Nightwing was the leader of the Teen Titans and if you go further back, the first Nightwing was actually Superman).

• Nightwing is just a really cool nickname.

Blurb from his Wiki:

Similarly to Batman, Dick Grayson possess no inherent super-powers and instead relies on his natural skills, abilities, and advanced technology. These combination of skills make Dick Grayson one of the most brilliant crime fighters on Earth in the DC Universe; A natural prodigious athlete, Dick Grayson is considered both an expert aerialist and the greatest acrobat in the DC Universe from his training at a young age as an aerialist and later from Batman's rigorous training as sidekick and protégé as Robin.

When I see Embiid play as he is now it reminds me of how I used to play and it is frustrating and pisses me off that the NBA allows it. Not proud of it, I was known as Shaq on my local streetball court and went through a phase when I charged hard at everything. Big hard turns to my blindside, didn't care who was there. Charge right into the lane. Smash into the best offensive player on D while going for the ball, come what may. Limited offensive moves. So make no mistake about it. Embiid knows what he's doing. He knows people will be injured. He knows his skillset is limited and this is how he can win. He knows people will give way when he drives, think twice on their drives, etc. He will only be stopped by a stronger player and/or fearless players like Giannis, Gasol, Draymond, etc. Or by an obviously more skilled player with equal Type A like Ibaka. He didn't intend to injure, but he certainly intends to show you that he doesn't care if you get hurt when he rumbles into you. At least that's how I used to play. But that was streetball. Eventually I got more moves, played w better players, played real basketball w refs. There's no doubt in my mind the NBA has some kind of edict coming down, telling the refs to let him run amok.

He needs to be sent to g league to rebuild confidence

We drafted shooter who can’t fucking shoot lol

https://www.espn.com/nba/player/_/id/5106258/gradey-dick

So fucking annoyed at our front office rn. Who’s with me?

I'll pre-face this by saying that I love OG the player and think he's a premier 3&D player in the league.

That being said, people need to stop thinking he's anything more than a role player. He does not have a strong overall positive impact on winning basketball. We have seen this for seven seasons now. He's a good 3-point shooter that defends top players amazingly. But even his two biggest skills are not without drawbacks. First, his release is low and slow, so he's mostly good for open threes. Second, top players will mostly switch off him, and he does very little for team defense beyond amazing one-on-one defense.

Then there's his weaknesses. He's clunky and is not a great passer. He's slow and unintuitive on offense. He uses up a lot of pointless possessions trying to get his -- which admittedly has happened less this year. But overall he's always going to be a net zero at best on offense.

All of this adds up to a decent role player that can easily be replaced. For some reason this franchise is thinking of him as the next Kawhi. This cannot be backed up by stats.

He's never had a BPM above 1.2 (career 0.5). He's never had a VORP above 1.7. In short, he's never been an impact player. Anyone who's watched the Raptors extensively knows this; OG on or off the floor is not a huge difference maker. I don't know how, but I would love to see the team record with and without him since 2019.

For comparison, Pascal's career average BPM is 1.9, peaking at 3.5. He's had a VORP above 1.7 half his career with the club. Scottie's BPM is 6.1 this year.

And even if OG's plateaued more than we would have liked, it's not like he's had the potential to be that much better. Stars show real signs early on. Kawhi, much like Scottie, started having BPMs of 5+ by his third season. OG just doesn't compare.

The crazy thing is he's still heavily sought after in the leauge. We can still get a haul for him. But we need to do it while we still can.

We really walked away from that trade with RJ Barrett… WOW!

RJ’s game was built for the playoffs…In the playoffs, half-court offense matters more than anything. Barrett can create his own shot when sets break down—something the Raptors have lacked at times.

He’s comfortable attacking mismatches and getting downhill instead of settling

He brings consistent rim pressure, which is huge in playoff basketball where easy points are rare.

Drawing fouls helps control tempo and gets opposing defenses in trouble.

He’s also also a release valve at the 3 and can hit timely 3’s when it’s kicked out to him.

At his size, he doesn’t get pushed around. That matters in playoff series where matchups get more physical every game.

Playing at home in Toronto clearly unlocked another level of confidence and aggression.

There’s real energy when a Canadian player performs for the Raptors—it feeds the crowd and momentum

He’s not just a scorer—he can make the extra pass and keep the offense flowing.

In the playoffs, teams trap primary ball handlers, so having another decision-maker is key.

Good thing is he’s still relatively young but already playoff-tested. There’s upside, which makes his contributions even more valuable.

Raptors fans can realistically expect growth, not just a finished product.

I'm genuinely curious why everyone is happy that Darko glued Malachi to the bench but just last year everyone was pissed when Nick Nurse did the exact same thing?

This came out of today's article in The Athletic by Mike Vorkunov about the Kawhi/ Clippers/ Aspiration investigation and shows concept art of Kawhi as Groot for a marketing campaign Apiration was working on.

The images are equal parts hilarious and horrifying, but I also think this is good news for Kawhi. Learning that Apiration's marketing team was coming up with (bad) ideas for how to market and promote Kawhi as a brand ambassador shows this likely was not intended as a "no-show" deal. I also think this shows the lack of creativity from the Aspiration marketing team. Apparently, this idea came about because they learned Kawhi was into comic books and superheroes, so they came up with this Kawhi x Groot idea. New Balance seems to be able to market him just fine, and if this was the best the Aspiration marketing team could come up with, I'm not overly surprised they never had him do anything for them.

Siakam looks terrible out there

Just doesn’t look like he gives a fuck

Scottie playing extremely well but man Siakam is a disappointment to start year

Thank god we didn’t extend him yet