(08-04-2026, 09:05 AM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: Let's define what "wrong in Toronto" actually looked like. They averaged 49 wins a season for a 10 year window. During that time Toronto's top 2 players always had WS's that combined to total between 15 and 21 wins. The exception was the Covid season where they had their only losing year during that span of time.
For reference, Naji produced the teams highest WS last season at 4.3. One thing I notice about those Toronto teams during that period is they tended to be deep with productive players. Most teams had 6-8 players who produced more 'wins" than Naji produced last season. One of the things that seems to be happening is Masai is trying to rebuild the depth here. The average NBA players has a WS/48 of .100. Gafford, Lively (7 games) and Cisse were the only players on last season's team to achieve that. Naji got close at .095. Sasser tends to land at about that .100 mark and is dramatically better at it than Williams or Nembhard. Aldama also tends to land at above .100 and doubles the mark PJ typically achieves. Risacher is trending toward average and in his second season was considerably better than what Klay provided.
The 6-9 narrative comes largely from adding Barnes to a team that had Siakam and OG on it already. Few criticized the pick and I personally think the narrative oversimplifies things. Toronto was a team in transition the last few years. It's long time star faded and was traded. They got by for a year with FVV, then he left. They traded OG for guards who haven't been especially productive (neither of which is 6-9). They moved on from Siakam and handed the reigns to Barnes and he hasn't proved he can carry the team. The falloff in wins also corresponded to a coaching change as Nick Nurse was fired. And, as players got more expensive, the investment available for the bench faded as well.
Since I'm on a WS kick, let's look at what we have in 26/27 and make projections based on historic norms through that lens:
Naji: 4.3 (what he did in his current role last season)
PJ: 2.0 (this is where he lands every year. It is an issue)
Lively: 5.0 (he has to be on the court to do this, but his best is good enough)
Gafford: 4.5 (his 3 year average in Dallas. It has been as high as 7.8)
Christie: 2.7 (he's done that twice)
Irving: 5.0 (it used to be higher, but this has been the new norm in recent years)
Sasser: 2.0 (his peak thus far)
Risacher: 2.5 (it could be higher as it went up from his rookie season)
Aldama: 5.0 (his peak before a dropoff last season)
That's 33 wins plus Flagg and not counting anything from the rookies. I don't think we are going to get much from most of the rookies, but I will point out that Morez had a 6.1 Win Share last season and his .292 WS/48 ranked in the 99th percentile among college bigs. That projects to be slightly above .100 in the NBA as a rookie and could produce a WS of 3.5-4 if he can get 20 minutes a game. That wouldn't really be additive as a rookie compared to what we already get from Lively or Gafford. It would add a couple of wins if he gets his minutes from PJ. So, let's call it 35 wins before we talk about Flagg.
True superstars can take huge jumps in their second year. Lebron (whose numbers often compare favorably to Flaggs) went from 5.1 to 14.3 his second year. His 3 points shooting went from .290 to .351 BTW. Durant went from 2.3 to 7.9. Others progress more slowly (Kawhi) and others come in with higher values as rookies and hold steady for a few years (Barnes and Tatum were both in the 6 range as rookies and held flat until they had jumps after a few seasons). I think a floor of around 6 for Flagg makes sense and maybe you get to 9 if everything falls perfectly into place.
The point of going through all of that is I think this is a 39-41 win team. If you go back and look at the Masai teams in Toronto, total team WS was always very predictive of actual wins. We won't know how clunky the roster actually is until we know more about the roster. And we won't really know that until we get through the TDL and next summer. If we are sitting here with this same group this time next year, then I'll start to worry about Masai's vision. But, for now, I'm happy to just see him up the talent quotient and have more to work with in future trades than he had when he arrived.
I'm curious what 49 wins in the east equates to in the west? 45?
Win shares is a limited box score stat that does a poor job capturing defense (as all box score stats do). Good defenders like Lively, PJ, Naji and Sasser are going to have lower win shares than their actual on court impact. Gafford probably has less on court impact than his win shares as his block rate is disproportionately high compared to the rest of his defense. The fact that Gafford and Kyrie have similar win shares should really put that stat to question. Also you need to be careful using some of these guys historical averages. They have so many players demanding minutes a lot of these guys may get less minutes than they are used to.