It’s trade deadline day and the Raptors went all in on their philosophy. Trading for 6’8″ Thaddeus Young, and benching one of their only three players under 6’7″, Fred VanVleet. Just kidding, he didn’t get benched… He’s getting bought out.
All good though, Toronto’s real best player was still available. Again, just jokes… Go Team LeBron.
The Raptors look like an extremely intimidating AAU team: just a bunch of giants. None of which are super tall, but all of which are taller than most of your team. They also channeled their inner-AAU basketball tonight: all offense, no defense, with the first quarter score finishing with Houston up 41-37. In fact, the only defense was a lengthy full-court press. They’re just writing this analogy for me. Toronto thankfully won every other quarter.
I’ve had Pascal Siakam on my fantasy team all season, and once again, tonight did not disappoint. Though he got in foul trouble early in the third, he still finished with 30 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists: one of his weaker games as of late. Can someone say back-to-back player of the week?
The bench also did their best job to woo Thad Young into getting excited to play alongside them. On the second end of a road back-to-back, with their only all star on the sidelines, the bench managed to combine for 39 points. Toronto’s newest acquisition, Kevin Porter Jr. also should’ve had two points on a fourth quarter buzzer beater, but I’ll let it slide.
Gary Trent Jr. showed all of us why we need to trust in Masai and Bobby with 42 points! I still remember some of you complaining after the Powell trade, so just keep those receipts when Thaddeus Young averages 13.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, 1.4 steals, on 49% FG%, and 30% 3-PT%.
This game had second night of a back-to-back written all over it. Or maybe it just had Houston Rockets written all over it. There were many moments where the Raptors failed to box out, or make a simple defensive rotation, but they also got whatever they wanted on the offensive end. At the end of the day, a win is a win, and Toronto has eight of those in a row.
Also, what do you think Alperen Sengun whispers to the ball?
“Please get me out of Houston… PLEASE get me out of Houston!”
Maybe he should just take a page out of James Harden’s book. It seems like he tries to go to a new team for every bottle of beard oil he uses. I’m happy for Embiid though, he goes from a disgruntled teammate to a… disgruntled… teammate? But this one wants to be in Philly… I guess for now.
I still hope Toronto manages to grab a ball handler or center in the buyout market. But as for now, the AAU experiment is working, and they are rolling. Saturday will be a real test, as they go up against the best big man *cough* player *cough* in the league, Nikola Jokic. Jokes! We all know who the best player is:
The End.
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