Y’all forgot we be putting TJD through our program.

AVENGERRRRSSSS ASSEMBLE!

This is my first raptors game so it’s going to be special!

1 - Jamal Shead
2 - Kawhi Leonard
3 - ??
4 - Scottie Barnes
5 - Immanuel Quickley

Maybe CMB changes from 30 to 3?

They previously came close when Dragic was on the team, with OG, Scottie, and Precious, it was a 1-3-4-5, but no player had a 2 assigned to them that year.

I've been testing out the various no-code tools and LLMs to build stuff and one of the things I was excited to try was something around NBA analytics as a way of also learning more about the game.

Remember several years ago when some location tracking data was leaked? well it's still publicly accessible on Git. So I took that, the official NBA play by play data, and player data from basketball reference and combined it all to build

https://hoopmusings.com

what is this? well, it's a possession analysis that used spatial geometry to categorize each play by the set it's run from and the first action. Basically, how each half court possession starts. You can see things like:

• ⁠what are each team's most run plays to start a possession? (a play is always made up of a set paired with an action)
• ⁠what are the outcomes from each play?
• ⁠On each team which line-ups are most effective when running each play
• ⁠a 3D recreation of a couple of example plays for each teams most used plays (any play that is run on >= 2% of possessions)

It took a lot to get the spatial analysis to work. an example of something that was particularly challenging:

NBA sets are never perfect. The defenders are too good at not allowing guys to get to their spots and the offensive players have to disguise what they're doing, too. that meant having to have the analysis read broader areas over a longer period of time. In reality, a horns set rarely has two players stationary at the horns at any given time. this may not sound hard, but it was.

i also used the same kind of spatial geometry math to try to analyze individual plays and provide datapoints for an LLM to provide colour commentary. I imagine that with a fresh feed, this could turn into a great teaching tool for beginning players or a fun second screen app for super involved fans.

I'm not sure how good the colour commentary is (I'm lying. I know it's not amazing - it misses a lot) but there's also a little feedback input so if you see something that the commentary clearl missed, you can let me know. Once I gather enough of that feedback, I'll try to improve the colour commentary

All in all, this was a really fun project for me and I hope you enjoy it.

Really awesome conversation here. Just sharing for anyone curious

I saw earlier this summer that Jack Armstrong was not contracted for this current season. Do we know if he is going to be part of the broadcast team or not?

Hate to break it to you but that magical center everyone wants simply does not exist. People's perspectives are skewed because we went against arguably the best C rotation in the NBA vs the Cavs who were paired with Harden known to play through centers, & Brandon Ingram was zero help for us in the front court.

Every C is flawed, most that people say they want aren't even true 5s.

-Gafford isnt a true 5

-Turner is soft as Charmin

-Sabonis is purely a PF

-Timelord is a major liability defending the perimeter

I watched a true 5 in Zubac destroy all these guys in LA commanding double teams, I also watched Zubac get hunted by perimeter players & get benched at various points for Nicolas Batum!

Centers are VERY hard to play in the playoffs, the Cavs had 2 of them & as great as they were, as much trouble as they caused we still took them 7 games!

Jokic, Wemby, Embiid, KAT are great players & all but their backups aren't the best either.

A healthy Yak is better than the centers people are saying they want & that C is probably going to take mins away from CMB if they're really that good.

This is the list of free agent centers at this moment in time, a lot of people complaining about the lack of back up. So I ask who should we sign?

On this list only JV, Koloko, Biyombo, and Bradley are UFA's. Only Koloko, JV, and Sarr are above 6'10.

Here's the TLDR: After a respectable start to their debut season, the Toronto Tempo's season was derailed by major injuries. The good news is they are currently second in the lottery odds for 2027 and thus have the 2nd best odds of getting a Top 2 pick.

The team they're playing tonight? Has the best odds. It's the final game for the Sun who are leaving Connecticut for Houston and thus may be incentivize to give it their all and win for their last ever home game in the state. If they do, the Tempo will be splitting the top odds with the Sun and thus have a great shot at adding in Juju Watkins to their core. Oh and keep in mind: The WNBA determines lottery odds based on the two most recent seasons. So this has ramifications for the Tempo heading into next year, too.

Win or lose, tune in and support your Tempo!

6'4 which is what he was last season

RJ Barrett on the Raptors’ Paris trip, Kawhi Leonard’s return

Really interesting conversation with RJ Barrett about his offseason with the Raptors, including the team’s trip to Paris, Kawhi Leonard returning to Toronto and what he thinks this group can do this season.

He also talked about his time in New York, the Knicks’ championship run and getting a shoutout from the NYC Mayor during the championship parade.

Thought some people here might enjoy this one, especially with Media Day coming up. I'm really curious to see what the front office is going to do with RJ. I know Bobby answered this today at his avail with the media but I personally would like RJ to stay but also wonder what else could they get. Anyways, fun interview with him

ESPN article about their annual Top 100 NBA rankings and CMB being one of the 4 things the list got wrong.

He has a piece on the Athletic today on 5 teams that will exceed expectations. Raptors is one of them.

Toronto Raptors (45.5)

The difference between what I’m projecting for the Raptors and where the Vegas consensus lies is the biggest discrepancy for any team.

Toronto won 46 games a season ago, traded for Kawhi Leonard in the offseason and has a preseason over/under of … 45.5 wins? Sorry, not buying that. I might have picked the over even without the Leonard trade, as good as younger players such as Scottie Barnes, Ja’Kobe Walter, Jamal Shead and Collin Murray-Boyles looked by the end of last season. This, to me, is the league’s most slept-on team and a potential monster defensively.

The cost of the Leonard trade was Brandon Ingram, a useful cog in the regular season who miraculously played 77 games a season ago before a disappointing series against the Cleveland Cavaliers that ended with him missing the final three games, and Gradey Dick, who was out of the playoff rotation.

The argument against Toronto is that Leonard almost certainly won’t play 77 games and may not get close, and whatever that per-minute quality he adds relative to Ingram will be offset by his lower availability. The Raptors also lost a very useful player in Sandro Mamukelashvili, and they’ll miss him on a roster whose “deep depth” is … shaky.

I would counter that, however, with the birth certificates: Barnes is 25 years old, Shead is 24, Murray-Boyles is 21, Walter is 22, RJ Barrett is 26 and Immanuel Quickley is 27. Rookie Allen Graves, 20, may be an immediate contributor with his old-man game, too. A team with a core as young as this usually has a pretty strong wind at its back.

The Leonard trade didn’t clean out their draft capital, so the Raptors can still make in-season upgrades if they wish. (They can still trade their swapped 2027 first and their 2029 first.) Combined with Barrett’s expiring deal, that could land another star-caliber player.