 What's the word y'all? Going into last season there was one team that was harder than others to predict how good they could potentially be. That's the Toronto Raptors, man. I remember reading some publications where some people believed that they could be as bad as the 13 seed or as good as the four seed. Cause y'all gotta remember all of the factors going into last season. Cal Laurie had left for Miami and the virus season, they were playing in Tampa instead of Toronto and Pascal Siakam had a down year. And all those questions kind of got answered frivvably blossoming to an all-star. They got to play at home finally in front of fans, at least sometimes, and Pascal Siakam blossomed back into an all NBA player. So I decided to bring my guy Samson Folk of the Raptors Republic to talk all things Toronto Raptors. I ain't even mentioned that they drafted the rookie of the year. There's a lot to talk about. Let's get into it. Now let's talk about the Toronto Raptors. I am joined by Samson Folk of Raptors Republic. I found out who you were because someone sent me an article last season where you talked about Gary Tran Jr., you wrote about Gary Tran Jr. by him being the best Grenadier and all of basketball. And since then I can't get enough of your stuff so I appreciate you taking the time and talking Raptors with me. Man, it's a pleasure and also a big shout to you because not everyone gives credit in this space and you have such a large platform which it's cool to be on by the way but to shout out a piece like mine and for people who are trying to shake and move in this industry in fact that you would give a shout out it's meaningful man that's awesome that you did that. I try my hardest because I know there's so many people working to have a voice and your voice is big to me. I just got done reading your previous piece and I wanna start off there about Scottie Barnes. It says right here you watch nearly 600 possessions of Scottie Barnes' rookie season. What were some of the biggest takeaways from that piece? Yeah, so the first is that he's way better at isolation basketball than he has any right to be and the second is that he was lagging behind as kind of a connector piece which was supposed to be a big part of his game and that I think he had a really great ratio of high risk to high reward passes and stuff like that. So he was pushing the envelope as a player for his own offense and to deliver easy baskets for others and Raptors fans who are familiar with an offense that had Fred Van Vleet leading it for some time or has been leading it for some time, assists don't always mean that you really assisted a bucket. It just means you passed to a guy and Scottie, his assists are worth a lot because he's typically giving guys layups. That's the thing. I'm gonna put the link to the article in the description along with some of your other, some of your other work. But I wanna talk about Scottie because as a general NBA fan like me, the rookie of the year race was one of the ages where I feel like I switched between basically Scottie and Evan Mobley throughout the entire season. I ended up with Scottie. Kay Cunningham had a great second half and came into the conversations. But at the end of it, I went Scottie and he ended up winning the award. I'm assuming that you did too as a fan. Yeah, I was on Kevin O'Connor's podcast and I actually went Mobley at the time but it was right before Scottie started making his big push at the end of the year and he did have a better finish than Mobley and Kayd probably is the most polished of all three but he has such a difficult role to fill on Detroit that his efficiency fell and so the numbers didn't pop the same. But Scottie, I mean him coming away with winning the rookie of the year, I think he's totally, that's great. And he's also like a hall of fame vibes guy, you know? Like people really love him for the personality that he is. The NBA is pushing him as a personality, not just like the Raptor social media people but the NBA as well. And so yeah, it's cool to see a guy that magnetic kind of be representing the North as it were. I knew that it was the right pick right after they drafted him and he embraced Canada. And now it's like, of course I follow him on socials and he's always talking about how great Canada is. He's always, when he's streaming, he's always telling the world how much he loves it and he's traveling and making appearances all over the place. He's one of the guys that embodies the entire country and I really love that. Especially considering some of the things that have been said about Canada, specifically Toronto and the media in the last couple of weeks. It's cool to see a guy from, I'm pretty sure he's from Florida. Go up there and really embrace it. And I wanna go back just a little bit because I don't have many Raptor friends, right? So when I refer to the Raptors to talk about the Raptors, I always call Kyle Lawry the greatest Raptor of all time without even talking to like a die-hard fan within your organizations. But is that a good take or not? I think that's the take that the fan base would definitely be with. Maybe some people would quibble and they'd have a different definition of great. Like Kawhi had the highest peak with the Raptors maybe, which is true, but Kawhi also, is he the only finals MVP to ever leave the team? Like you can't be the best player of an organ or the greatest of a organization with that. Dip to the next team. And Kyle, he had so many years of excellence. So yeah, I think it's him. So after you lose Kyle, what was your expectations for the Toronto Raptors? Cause I saw it so many different ways going into the season where some people believe that they could be a playoff team, but there was other part of fandom that thought that this team is probably gonna be back in the lottery again. So you going into last season, how'd you see it? I didn't see a top five seed. They definitely achieved a lot more on defense than I expected them to, partially because of the scheme. And Nick Nurse also got more wins out of that team because he was willing to sacrifice bodies. Like the top three in minutes per game for a long stretch was Pascal, Fred and OG, and then Gary Trent Jr. shortly behind. Like he was on those guys. Pascal ended up at the end of the season leading the NBA in isolations, closeouts, and minutes per game. Like that's an absurd thing. I don't know if that's ever been done before. So they definitely, they get the try hard award, but they also have guys like Scotty Barnes and they have like hot shooters like Gary Trent Jr. and OG has like, I would say a fairly significant game to game can give you some scoring pop. So they provide that potential in the playoffs that didn't turn out actually, but they definitely, I would probably going forward, take the over on most things regarding them. Cause I think, you know, with Nick Nurse and with players who are willing to play defense and go after it, a lot of the low hanging fruit of the regular season is something that they're going to be munching on for the next few years. So you mentioned how you guys sacrifice bodies by having a lot of minutes for your top players. Do you think that with the off season that you had bringing back Daddy's Young or bringing in Otto Porter that next season or this upcoming season we won't have to rely on Pascal playing the most minutes in basketball for you guys to achieve the things that you want to achieve. Yeah, I think they probably, the load will be lessened, but also Otto isn't, Otto isn't the most durable guy. Oh, I know. I really like, yeah. Yeah, I like Otto's game a lot. Yeah, he's like, he's got a great game. He was before he had all of his injury problems. One of the, the best three and D archetype players ever. You know, like he just, he was slinging that thing and he played good defense, but I'm excited for him. What role he'll play, I think is quite concrete, but how often he'll fill that role is maybe something to consider. But I don't think that the Raptors, you know, they want to keep leaning into this five out long style where even I shouldn't say five out on one end, there's everybody can step out on the switch, basically. Everybody can switch, everybody can swing over to be a second or third helper at the rim and try to rebound on defense, bring the ball up, these central tenets of how they play, but offensively they space the four differently. Like they, they move guys off of the three point line and put them below the free throw line so that they can be better at offensive rebounding. They play this hellacious style. So if guys lean farther into this scheme and then it becomes something that they they get even better at it. Guys like Donald Banton, maybe guys like Christian Coloco, if they can have better seasons than expected because this scheme kind of papers over traditional ball skills, you don't really have to have them. You can contribute doing other things like try hard shit. Wait, no cursing. No, I can say anything you want to. OK, but if they can paper over that kind of stuff, they could start winning minutes that don't necessarily depend on a superstar. Like they had they had a lineup. I called it the the Funky Fest Quartet, which was basically they had no shooting on the floor, but they gave up hardly any points and they rebounded about half of their misses over hundreds of minutes on the NBA floor. It's just weird basketball. So they can find different routes to success rather than just relying on guys. Hopefully that's one of the reasons I really like Nick Nurse. He's not afraid to just mess around with lineups. Like I don't know what that five is you're referring to. But I'm sure 80 percent of coaches is not running a lineup where there's no shooting whatsoever. And Nick Nurse is like, we'll figure it out. Yeah, it's trying to find ways to scheme. You know, the the market inefficiencies of basketball is such an interesting question. And it's when you find that like the seven seconds or less sons did or, you know, is drafting Steph Curry on market inefficiency is like the the development of the three point shot and what it became in marketing and fishing. I don't know about that. But when you find something that the league is neglecting but creates winning minutes, then you just got to you got to be like a pig at the dinner table, man. You got to lean into it, especially in the regular season, because that's kind of the conversation I just had with the chase down pod who talk about the calves. You know, it's a very similar thing when they were running this huge lineup when nobody else in basketball was doing it and it was working for them. And I think like you're saying the Raptors do something similar. I love the Raptors just because it feels like whoever gets a rebound can do what they want with the ball, where you have like one point guard who frequently does not traditional in any way. And it's like the entire roster, unless I have my cousin Pierre is still high on Malakai Flynn on being a big portion of the Raptors one day. And I guess he just dropped 70 and a pro game. So maybe that's happening this season. But I just like that between Scotty, O.G. and Pascal, anything can really happen off of a rebound. And it's just fun basketball. Yeah, they really thrive mostly with Pascal and Scotty because they're so good at post entry passes. Height helps as it turns out Fred Van Vleet. It's kind of tough to get over some arms there. But the grab and go stuff and the early work that particular O.G. is the guy who gets out on the break, establishes position on like a six for four guard and then kind of puts them under the rim. And when a Pascal or Scotty grab it, take it up. Even precious a Chua as these burgeoning ball skills that were very, very big in the playoffs series against the 76ers and down the stretch that if you get the ball, take it up the court, see what happens. It's a funny, funny thing that they do. But they've definitely they've seen gains from it for sure. So you mentioned O.G. and I'll be there. And there's been a lot of rumors of around him this offseason. I think the first one I read was from Jake Fisher talking about how he was disappointed with his role. And I think Scotty Barnes turned that down on his live stream saying that that was false. But recently, Nick Nurse came out and he talked about the role of O.G. and trying to get him more involved. How do you see it happening with O.G. because I'm still very high on O.G. Going into last season, again, I'm I'm not immune to bad takes. We were ranking small forts as you do once it's the dead of the offseason. And I had, I think O.G. I didn't know be number eight and DeMar de Rosa number nine. Like I was projecting that O.G. was going to have a better season than DeMar. And obviously DeMar signed to my team two weeks later. And it's like, oh, now I got to, you know, take that back because he ended up being on the second team. But how do you see O.G. and Obie's future with this team considering there are some rumors surrounding him? Yeah, first of all, I think that Jake in that initial report reported it accurately, honestly, like he said that O.G. and other people are kind of questioning his role within the Raptors and other teams want him because other teams want O.G. because he shoots the three ball and he defends, you know, at like an all NBA level, even though he hasn't been selected yet. It's right. That's a very attractive thing. We know he's great at it. He just hasn't got the votes yet. Exactly. And so O.G. This is also something that Nick Nurse talked about during the season. Like the reason why O.G. despite not being the Raptors best post player led them in post touches, post points and post assists is because that's a static, easy way to get a guy to touch. You know, it's just like he goes down the floor, gets into position, you work the ball around, you toss it in. That's a touch. That's ego. That's all that kind of stuff that NBA players are supposed to have and works. And I think an easy way to do this is something that the Raptors dabbled in and something that I think Nick Nurse in particular neglects from past Gal and O.G. more than he should pick and roll. The Raptors hardly run any pick and roll that grab and go stuff that we both love probably too often turns into just an isolation or a post up rather than like kind of getting a screen in there because screen help is great. Ask Damian Lillard how it's been for his career. It's a pretty good thing. Right. And to give those guys more reps with a guy who's dedicated to put a body on their defender and get them clearance headed downhill, especially guys like Pascal and O.G. who finish like demons at the ring. They're both great there. I think that would help a lot. So it's kind of two for one. You provide more of those pick and roll possessions instead of those more static isolation possessions for for both of those guys. But O.G. is squarely couched into that. I I don't think he should be forgotten. I mean, his type of creation looks so much more awkward than it is effective. Like he's a more effective on ball creator for himself than a lot of players in the NBA. And he still to this day is the guy on the Raptors who his assist percentage off of drives has always been higher than Pascal's. I think Pascal clipped him this year. But O.G. has a pretty good read for advantage when he's going downhill. And so even though it looks awkward and every once in a while, he'll fall over, which is a pretty big caveat for the record. Right. But yeah, give him some more screen help. I think that'll that'll be something good. So this is why I like your stuff. I don't even really think about assist percentage of things like that. But you read it and you're like, OK, that's that's something. There's been this big hanging cloud over the entire NBA over the last month or so. And his name is Kevin Duret. Um, I know you've probably been asked this a million times a part of different appearances. What is the temperature on Kevin the Kevin Duret sweepstakes in Toronto? I think probably pretty cold at this point, right? Because it and the thing is betting odds when everybody was reporting them, like that it's fun to see it go up and be like, oh, my God. But that doesn't actually mean the Raptors have a better chance. That's just like hubbub kind of messing around. And more than likely it's because Raptors fans started betting more on Kevin Duret going. But I don't think the likelihood is very high. But I know why they were joined together because it wasn't like either. It wasn't like the Raptors were pining for Kevin Duret. It wasn't like Kevin Duret was like, get me to Toronto. But Toronto has the reigning rookie of the year who looks like, you know, a future superstar. They also have O. G. Annobe, you know, who's I don't think he like O. G. I think was probably disappointed with how he was used. I don't think that equals, you know, asking out or anything like that. But so there's there's guys who are being rumored to move. There's so many good young players and it looks like the Raptors are a team that has the the incumbent members of the roster to actually field a contender once Katie was there. So I think the conditions of everybody actually made it more than like the interests. You know what I mean? So yeah, I don't think it's I don't think it means that he's going there. Me personally, Katie in Toronto, that would be fun. Like you can't you can't turn your nose up at Kevin Duran. It would rule. It would kick ass. But I don't think the likelihood is very high because the Raptors are probably low balling like an unbelievable. At this point, that's what you have to do, because it seems like nothing else is really happening. They're saying, did you see Malachi scored 70? Is that like a centerpiece to you? You know what I mean? Yeah, they're they're sending the ball. Don't stop tweet about like Malachi being a pure hooper. They're like, hey, Sean Marks, for your consideration, bro, please. Yeah, I don't think it'll happen. If there's anybody in the NBA that I trust, it's it's Masai to make something happen. I'm not saying that Kevin arrest specifically, but just like the track worker speaks for itself as far as him being able to build a team. And that's one of the reasons why I really like what they're doing. The last thing I have for you before we get out of here is Vegas has the over under for the Toronto Raptors at forty four point five. If you were a better man, are you hitting the over or the under on that win total? So I think prior to the Tampa Bay season, it was seven or eight years, one of them for sure that the Raptors had achieved the over against Las Vegas. And then they took a one year break and then they achieved it again last season. Obviously by a significant amount, like probably 13, 14 games. And I saw it was forty four and, you know, betting aside, like you just asked me, like, hey, do you think that the Raptors will win forty five or more games this year? I would say yes. And I feel pretty strongly about that. They once you prove that your defense has a four, everything else in the NBA to win games becomes much easier. And especially, yeah, I don't think it's likely that the Raptors regress in many ways. And that's largely because of Scotty's presence on the roster. How good a lot of people think Scotty is going to be. The fact that Scotty started out the season as a very poor defender at the NBA level. And then finally, by the end of the season, had ended up being like somewhere between neutral and positive. And, you know, Nick Nurse once again, at that thing that he's going to lean on guys like he's not. He wasn't sacrificing a twenty two point deficit to the Portland Trailblazer. So he could get Malkai point possessions. He didn't care. He was like, we're going to do a full court press for sixteen minutes of the second half. And we're going to try and get back in this thing. Of course, they lost. And so, you know, but I think that that ethic of just like balls to the wall all the time, good or bad, however you perceive it, it does equal more wins. Maybe it equals more injuries. You know, Tom Tibido has a huge lineage of that. I know that. I think they would. They would hit you. I think they'll hit you over. That's the way I look at it as well. I would probably go over on this one and I look at it as far as like what about last season would be hard to replicate, right? And I think about that with like the Bulls, the Marta Rosen season with a little hard to replicate, in my opinion. So that's why I'm kind of if you. But there are even the Bulls numbers like forty one. And I find it hard to believe that we might be a below five hundred team. But I would go over for the Toronto Raptors, for sure. A lot of the stuff that I really like. There's also another bad take that gets tweeted at me like once a week. And we were talking. This had to be after Pascal Siakam's rookie season. His name had come up because we were talking about something. I don't even know the context anymore, but I blurt it out. I'm not a I'm including Pascal in the trade because we were doing mock trades. I'm including Pascal because I don't think he'll ever be an all star. And it was just something I said, not really thinking about it. And now it gets rubbed in my face a couple of times a month. This was this was year two. This is like year two, Pascal. Oh, dude, Raptors fans weren't picking him to be an all. Exactly. It was the first two games. He was still doing like G League adjacent stuff. Yeah, that's that's fine. Like if I think those types of players, if you're the person who says, I see the vision by the way, then you should be lauded for that. Like, that's hell, yeah, you saw the vision, dude, really well done. But if you're someone who's looking at this player who has like to assist off the bench is playing like 14 minutes a game, you're like, I don't think he'll be an all star, by the way. I don't think like these types of unprecedented growth or developments like Pascal Siakham is and is widely considered by the draft community and the NBA community, any of the thinkers in there. They're like, if you mapped out Pascal's career, how many people picked this and two times all NBA as the outcome? It's like, you got to be honest. This is all nobody's saying, yeah, he's making to all NBA. He would probably be the only person to say that just out of pure confidence. Oh, yeah, one day I'm going to do it. But other than that, it's like nobody else. And I guess Masai probably saw it a little bit because that's how he ends up there. But like, that's it. That's it. But I have one that counters that one. Yeah. After Rookie Giannis, I said he was going to be great. I didn't think it was going to be all time great. But I definitely thought that he was about to do something great. So, you know, you give and take when you're talking about the future of NBA players, you're going to lose some, you're going to win some. And predictions, like predictions are just fun. Analysis, analysis at its best isn't predictive. It's, you know, descriptive, I would say, right? Like something happens and you want to go after the game and have somebody tell you what happened and why a team succeeded. Now, with betting becoming such a big thing, is it more valuable to kind of get people who are good at predicting? Maybe. But I've always enjoyed people who something happens and they say, this is why this happened. And this is the basketball that went on, you know, everyone can get lucky and look at a guy who's like 18 years old and say, like, this guy is it. But it's tough because not only do they have their just basketball skills that have to manifest in this fantastic way out of court, but they also have a personal life and they also have like the interests of the team affecting all that kind of stuff. So that's always tough. I don't draft guys. I don't know how they do it. I can't do it every year. Oh, man. And you know, I've never met a draft guy that that shot over 60 percent. It's impossible, unless you're saying Zion's going to be great. Was like, he's the first overall pick, you know? There are some people that I definitely respect in the draft world, but even they don't shoot above 40, 50 percent, it feels like. So it is hard, man. It is extremely hard. That's why I'm happy that I do what I do, which is casually talk basketball. I could not survive in a higher level position because my team would be so bad. I'm trading draft picks for thirty two year old players that are they were good last year. Like I would be terrible at my job. So this is the right way for me. There's a scene guys like from the scene get hired into the NBA. I'm just like, man, I wonder how crazy a job got like immediately from just being somebody who's like, hey, wow, this is a really interesting clip. I wonder how this tool project and now you're in an NBA front office and they're like this decision you make, it affects whether you hear next year or not. That most notorious one recently is Mike Schmidt from ESPN. He went to become an assistant GM for the Trailblazers. I'm like, wow, that that came out of nowhere for me. I thought he was just a draft guy and now he's so much more. Another guy I saw at Summer League as well. So it's like a lot of stuff happening. Oh, well, Samson, I don't want to take any more of your time. I appreciate you stopping by. Let the people know where they can find you. Yeah, I'll be doing a lot of work for Raptors Republic this year for my money. It's probably the best site if you want Raptors coverage in the world. I think it's still the most popular if you go to Google Trends or something like that Raptors site in the world, the YouTube is the same, all that stuff's the same. And I do some work for Yahoo Sports as well. And yeah, more than anything, Kenny, thanks for having me on, man. It's cool to be on such a big platform and you're very gracious in giving with it. So I appreciate that and big shout out to you, brother. Thank you, man.