Should Raptors build roster similar to Warriors’ small-ball model?
By Brian Boake
The Golden State Warriors won last season’s NBA title and are a strong favourite to repeat. Can Raptors management duplicate their results? Should they try?
Your scribe has spent altogether too much time wondering about whether the Toronto Raptors are on the right track with their current roster.
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Happily, a post in RealGM has eased my blood pressure. “[Analysts] misconstrue the Warriors as the unquestionable future of basketball when, in reality, they are actually the model or prototype for a type of game that only they have the personnel to play.” That sentence is the money shot for me. When I look at Golden State, I don’t see the future. I see a “Black Swan“, an admixture which has created a completely unpredictable explosion.
What Golden State management seems to have done brilliantly was not planned. When they selected Stephen Curry with the seventh pick of the 2009 NBA draft, they could not possibly have conceived they now had in their corner the greatest shooter of all time (not my words, at least not yet – but my memory of ABA & NBA players goes back to Jerry West, and I’ve certainly never seen a better shooter than Curry).
Klay Thompson, the other “Splash Brother”, must be the luckiest man in pro basketball. I cannot imagine a team better able to use his prodigious offensive skills than Golden State. Thompson is a so-so defender, but his limitations can be masked because his teammates are strong defensively, and because the Warriors are quite happy to play shootouts. That’s perfect for Thompson, a long-range gunner who needs space to release successfully. All shooters do, of course, but no one creates space for his mates better than Curry.
Draymond Green was the #35 selection of the 2012 draft. He’s far better than the Warriors’ first-round pick of that year, Harrison Barnes. If they had thought so highly of Green and his astonishing development into an MVP candidate, surely they or someone else would have chosen him earlier.
[20-second timeout: Not that we needed any further proof of how difficult drafting can be, but have a glance at some other second-rounders that year: #34 – Jae Crowder, #39 – Kris Middleton, #40 – Will Barton. Contrast those guys to some Lottery selections: #5 – Thomas Robinson, #10 – Austin Rivers, #13 – Kendall Marshall. Now you know why I’m perfectly happy to toss Raptors draft picks into Trade Proposals for established players.]
Building a team with 65 wins in 72 games? No sweat – draft a skinny kid with chronic ankle problems from an unknown college, a one-way shooting guard, and an undersized tweener no one wanted. Surround them with complementary pieces. All done. The Warriors are a magnificent fluke, and a joy to watch.
For the Toronto Raptors and their fans, there’s no lesson here. What’s important is flexibility: the Raptors need to be able to compete against small-ball lineups, and against paint-clogging giant ones. We need floor-spacing shooters and tall men who can create and score near the hoop.
Never confuse a blip for a trend.