The Raptors didn’t have to give up Collin Murray-Boyles, Ja’Kobe Walter, Jamal Shead, or Allen Graves to pull this off.
They got to a Game 7 without Brandon Ingram, essentially, and Gradey Dick was out of the rotation altogether.
Absolute flex. Absolute no-brainer win.
Gavin McKenna on Auston Matthews: “My captain… He’s on the first line. I’ll have to prove myself to play with a player like that, but that’s my goal…. My game is a playmaker. He’s a shooter. I think we could complement each other pretty well.”
Potentially the best defensive lineup in NBA history:
PG- Stephon Castle
SG - Dylan Harper
SF - Carter Bryant
PF - Jayden Quaintance
C - Victor Wembanyama
Pascal Siakam: ~$42M annual salary
OG Anunoby: ~$40M
Combined: ~$82M
Brandon Ingram + Immanuel Quickley + RJ Barrett + Jakob Poeltl: ~$118M
So the Raptors traded away two championship-proven, elite two-way forwards and ended up paying MORE for the replacement group.
Either Bobby Webster badly misread the asset base, MLSE/Keith Pelley imposed the wrong constraints, or both.
Infuriating.
We live in a world where Scottie Barnes can finish top-five in DPOY voting and not make All-Defensive First Team. There are so many easy fixes in our league that need to be addressed. We are playing with legacies here. It’s unacceptable.
Watching McDavid and Draisaitl putting up record breaking numbers until hitting the Atlantic the past 2 years and now Marner doing nothing for 9 straight years in the Atlantic and now all of a sudden is a stud in the pacific.
The pacific should be moved to the AHL.
Pretty massive second day on the job for Mats Sundin and John Chayka.
This is the third time in history the #leafs owned the No. 1 pick, following 2016 (Auston Matthews) and 1985 (Wendel Clark)
Brady Tkachuk goes pointless as the Sens get swept by the Canes. For all the flack Matthews and Marner took for their playoff performances, neither of them ever went pointless in a series or got swept. Tkachuk has a lot to answer for.