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As a naysayer of tanking myself, I'll explain my thinking on this take. Myself, I've always qualified that tanking over multiple seasons as a franchise strategy doesn't work. And it hasn't won anyone a championship yet. The kind of tanking I've always been against is tanking as a long-term strategy to build a team (e.g. if the ping pong balls don't go your way, fail harder next ear). We tanked for half a season, and if it jump-started the rebuild and we're a decent team with just developing the guys we have, then great. but... I would like to point out that we would have had a good shot at getting at least fifth without tanking. I'm not saying without trading Vuc and Fournier and Gordon. That's not tanking so much as committing to a rebuild. Tanking is what we did when we started holding out players for no good reason so we wouldn't luck into a few more wins. Not holding those guys out nets us maybe two wins, I'm thinking. Two games would have given us either the same ping pong balls as the Cavs or Rapters (depending on who we got those extra wins against), or left us at fifth worst in the league. At that point, most likely scenario is either we're doing better than we actually did or the same. It's still unlikely at that point we drop to sixth in the draft. The only other team within win range of us that wouldn't have improved our position swapping with would be Minnesota. The only way we take over their spot with two extra wins is if we beat them specifically, and they won by 32 points in that late-season game. Terrence Ross and Gary Harris and Otto Porter aren't making the difference there. So likely we're either jumping to third like Cleveland did (we'd have the same odds they did), or we're staying at 5 assuming all the balls come out the same. It would be different if we won three games, but I feel like that would be unlikely. Finally, I don't think any of the non-tanking crew here thinks we shouldn't try to build through the draft and develop players. The argument I've always understood is that improvement should always be the goal. A good example of things that bother the anti-tankers like myself is the situation early in our last rebuild when we didn't sign Jameer because we didn't want him taking minutes away from Elfrid. He wasn't asking for a bunch of money; he's basically said he would have signed for almost nothing. Hennigan dumped him because losing games was in no way a negative to him at that point. It was obvious that having Jameer would have been better for the team, but losing games weighed less in his mind than five or so extra minutes of playing time per game for Elfrid. This is why I think the team should keep MCW around, as well as at least one of Ross/Harris, and they should find a vet big who doesn't mind sporadic minutes. having a few decent vets might win us a couple more games next season and keep us out of last place in the league. It's my opinion that that's okay, because the lottery makes it a crap shoot anyway, and it's just not worth the damage it can do. Go listen to Oladipo talking about the locker room in Orlando when he was here. I've heard it. It's damning. There was no sense of trying to get better as a team, or even really learning to. It was about proving you are the next star, bottom line, that's it. That's what happens when tanking and Best Player Available becomes a religion. And that's what I don't want.

I so hope he does. I think he has a solid chance to be a more athletic Fred Van Vleet and a smaller but not insignificant chance of being truly special. I want that special Cole I see as a possibility so bad. Mostly 'cause if this dude pops, he's going to change this franchise's history. He's got confidence like I haven't seen often, and the special version of him is the prototype for success in the modern NBA. Athletic guard who can defend well enough and shoots it with confidence from all over. And special Cole next to Suggs would be scary. But he's gotta do that. He's gotta get his shooting %s up to that special level. That's basically all that's standing in his way.

Seeing his picture and hearing those numbers and what has transpired with this franchise from the trade deadline to now draft day I could not be any happier. Hard to believe this has all happened in 4 short months.

Again incorrect, as already stated by others. A large proportion of minutes/games last season went to players that are/will no longer be on the team. Gone - Vooch, Fournier, AG, Randle, Birch, Mane, Thornwell, Franks, Hall, Cannady, Bone, Clark, Aminu, Mason, Porter, Ennis, Bacon, Brazdeikis, Wagner (19 players.) Brazdeikis and Wagner both could possibly be brought back on cheap deals as end of bench guys, total games played for the season 434 Of the players left a couple played just over half the season, the rest, much less or nothing at all - Anthony, Bamba, Carter, MCW, Fultz, Isaac, Hampton, Harris, Okeke, Ross (10 players) total games played for the season 291. They account for 36% of total minutes played of all players last season. On top of that, Ross and Harris are most likely to be traded by the start of the season or by all star break and MCW likely will see next to no playing time.

If I was a young guy about to make millions of dollars like Suggs I would be happy Toronto did not pick me because Raptors players are the highest taxed in the NBA. And of course the obvious difference in weather between the two cities. On a totally different thought, I wonder with Suggs being a high draft pick and one of the most recognizable players in college basketball that we might actually get a real national TV game this year.

So real question: I’m the Raptors. I know most people think we’re going to take Jalen Suggs. We like Scottie Barnes more. Why don’t they call the Magic, whom you would assume like Jalen Suggs, and dangle a trade with them for them to get the #4 pick? My thought on this potential back office negotiation: 1. They did make the call. Their demand was too high and the Magic said “No, at that price, we’re fine with #5.” Or maybe the Magic weren’t interested in trading at all as a game of chess (they’re calling to move back to #5, meaning there is only 1-2 teams they can consider trading with to get the player they actually want). 2. The Raptors we’re afraid that if they traded #4, the Magic would actually pick Scottie Barnes, whom they wanted, based on reports of how much they loved Barnes. I nonetheless think it’s incredibly that the Magic FO wasn’t forced to trade for the #4 pick to get Suggs. Great job, however it happened, to land Suggs without giving up anything extra.

Ummm. Let's see how the rebuild goes before we make any claims on the success of our strategy. No one has ever said that tanking won't get you better draft picks. What we have said is that the overall process usually doesn't lead to success because your team is so bad that even getting a good draft pick or two doesn't change the overall picture. There is also the issue of a losing culture and not developing your young players properly. I'm glad we got what we perceive as good draft selections right now. I hope we'll field a good team this year and not be looking at more calls for tanking after 50 games or so of the upcoming season, but I'm not too confident it will work out that way.

Also count me as someone else who wants to see us bring back Mo Wagner. I liked his energy and shooting last year. He's better defensively than I thought.

The Terrance Clarke memorial was neat. As the resident Kentucky fan…this guy would’ve been special. Maybe similar stock to SGA or Quickley.

Not going to lie a shed a tear at the Clarke honorary selection. Nice moment.

Classy move by the NBA for Terrence Clarke and his family. I don't love Silver but this was a good move.

Still about 3/4 of the minutes played were by the guys currently on the team, including Anthony, Okeke, Carter, Bamba, Harris, etc.

Not correct. You can't just turn off a tank. You have mostly the same players who you tanked with still on the team.