Episode 21: Unpredictably Raptor
And we’re live.
Welcome to a brand new episode of the Red Black Comeback podcast.
It is a podcast that is ostensibly about the rebuilding efforts of the Toronto Raptors and the Portland Trailblazers, but it’s about so much more.
NBA, WNBA, basketball in general, culture, America, Canada, Europe, other places that are on the globe, which we just learned is not flat.
My name is Dave.
I’m in Toronto, Ontario.
Canada, I am one of the two co-hosts.
John in Portland, Oregon is the other.
John, how are you doing?
I’m doing great, Dave.
Well, yes and no.
I’m doing great and not great.
So it is two days away from tax day.
Start with the not great.
All right.
Not great.
Not great.
I am two days away from tax day here in the United States, and I still have not done my taxes.
Boo.
Boo indeed.
I’m doing great because it is NBA playoff time.
They start this weekend.
My Portland Trailblazers, I’m going to blow the lead here, but my Portland Trailblazers just clinched the eighth seed last night.
There you go.
Eighth seed in the play-in, which is great.
So, and, oh, and on top of it, WNBA draft is this afternoon.
It is today.
Yeah, this is the big day.
I just saw some great photos from people covering the draft on threads, and it looks like it’s going to be a good one.
Everybody looks, you know, fresh-faced and happy, looking forward to this day, and I can’t imagine what that feels like, but I can’t imagine it does not feel amazing.
There’s one other bad news, though, Dave.
Bad news?
Yeah, well, we were going to have special guest Kyrie Irving, but with that intro on the flat earth, he left, so we won’t be having him join us today.
Okay, can I say something?
Yes.
Kyrie has said and done some stupid stuff, but Kyrie is a net good.
I think we should stop, like, I’m sorry, man.
Kyrie has taken more flack for saying some dumb shit about flat earth 100 years ago than Miles Bridges took for, like, beating up his significant other, so, like, settle down on Kyrie.
He can’t hear you.
You left when you made the flat earth comment.
No, I’m talking to you.
Yeah, I’m just telling you, he left.
All right, Dave, so let’s see.
I already blew the lead on my Portland Trailblazers.
Well, why don’t you just keep on blowing the lead?
Because the thing is, like, this is a big moment for the Blazers, obviously, to climb back to respectability after, you know, you guys were contenders for a bit, and, you know, everybody thought that maybe there was going to be a year Portland was going to fight through, and obviously, it was hard for Damian Lillard because, like, he just happened to be a superstar in Portland at the same time as, like, the teams in Golden State, Houston, all these other places that are on the globe.
We’re just, like, really, really competitive.
Blazers could never quite get through as far as they or go as far as we thought that they could have, people, not just you and I.
So then you blow it up and you start again, and there’s a couple of missteps and whatever, but, you know, even the most seasoned Portland Trailblazers hater, and I’m not that guy, would have to admit that this season, regardless of what happens in the play-in, regardless of what happens after right now, the season was a success.
True or false?
True.
Definitely true.
And let me just give you a little color behind that.
So most people, if you had bet the over on Portland, you would have won by a big shot, by quite a bit.
Obviously, I already said they ended up…
When you say the over, you mean, like, wins?
Yeah, wins.
Yeah, if you’d bet the over on the Vegas line on the Blazers' wins at the beginning of the season, you definitely would have won.
Do you know what it was?
I don’t, because I don’t look at the past.
I don’t look at the negative.
I don’t look at the haters.
I just know that…
I will say, like, two months ago on this very podcast, I said the Blazers were going to end up in eighth, and lo and behold…
Two months ago?
Yeah.
I don’t care about two months ago.
Go back to the beginning of the season, because the thing is, you and I had predictions that if I recall correctly, which old internet heads will know should just be four letters on the internet, but, you know, new people don’t know how to use the internet.
But anyways, at the beginning of the season, you and I actually put down some predictions about our teams, specifically the teams that this podcast is ostensibly about.
Yeah, and I mean, I feel quite happy with where I ended up.
I put them at ninth, and to be fair, they were ninth until the very last game of the season, so I feel pretty good about that, and the upside is, you know, they ended up higher, so I’m good.
Okay.
Do you remember what I said about the Raptors?
I believe you said they would end up seventh?
No, no.
Well, I don’t know if I said that, but what I do remember saying, and multiple times actually, is that I can see the Raptors finishing as high as fourth and as low as eighth.
Yeah, that’s right.
You gave a range.
That’s right.
Yeah, I didn’t, I think I might have even said sixth, but the thing is, like, I wanted to make sure they had a range because, you know, like, you just never really know how the season’s going to go, and I knew fourth was really, really wishful thinking because just on paper, Cleveland, New York, Boston, Detroit, and other teams are better than we are.
However, the season goes the way the season goes, and yeah, anyways, Toronto Raptors finished fifth in the East and now have a first-round playoff matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers, which is not going to be fun.
Those guys at full strength are really, really, really, really, really, really, really talented and really, really dangerous, but I think that, you know, from the Toronto Raptors standpoint, the fan standpoint, we have to look at the season as a success.
Like, we can’t, you know, we’ve got some firepower now.
You know, Scotty Barnes is a great player.
Brandon Ingram is a great player.
Quickly and RJ Bear are good.
Pirtle is good.
Colin Murray-Boyles has shown that, you know, our pick on him was pretty shrewd.
You know, we saw Jacoby Walter take steps.
We saw Sandra Mamouk-Lashvili take massive steps.
It’s a good team.
Whether they’re good enough to bang in the playoffs after the first round remains to be seen, but the thing is, like, I wanted to err on the side of optimism while at the same time having a dose of realism, and I think that’s what I did.
I want you, right now, to go on record and tell me your prediction for the Raptors' first round series.
He is thinking hard, folks.
The wheels are spinning.
He’s thinking hard.
He’s thinking hard.
I’m not going to answer your question, but I will before the end of the episode, and I’ll just tell you why.
I want to just double-check that I know exactly who’s healthy for Cleveland, because when Harden and Mitchell and Mobley and Jared Allen played at the same time, and then Max Shulis came back, their net rating was insane, right?
I will say this, though.
You have a whole week.
I don’t think you can know who’s going to be healthy.
You have a week.
Playoffs don’t start until Saturday.
Yeah, but I also want to figure out exactly.
I’ll respond to your question before the end of this episode, okay?
What I will say is this, right?
Yesterday, the Raptors played the Brooklyn Nets at home.
Orlando was matched up against Boston, who was resting everybody, and Miami was playing Atlanta, right?
The Raptors had to win, and those other two teams, Atlanta and Orlando, had to lose for us to get the fifth seed.
If one of Orlando or Atlanta won, even if the Raptors won, Toronto would have got the sixth seed, and the difference between those two things is this.
The sixth seed plays New York.
The fifth seed plays Cleveland.
Cleveland’s a really, really good team.
New York’s a really, really good team.
But I like the Cleveland matchup much more than the New York matchup for reasons including but not limited to that the Raptors can’t beat the Knicks.
We can’t.
Every time we try, we can’t.
I think the last time the Toronto Raptors won in Madison Square Garden, I don’t even know what the other side of this joke is.
It’s been so goddamn long, and I like our chances against Cleveland much more.
One of my favorite subplots here is going to be sort of like, oh, well, the Raptors are going up against Cleveland in the playoffs, and the last bunch of years that happened was back when LeBron was single-handedly destroying our team in the playoffs 10 years ago and so, right?
And now we have a brand-new Cleveland team, a brand-new Toronto team, and a brand-new set of circumstances and so on and so forth.
I like the matchup much more with Cleveland.
I’m not going to say that I think that we’re going to win.
I think that we’re probably…
I think that it’s a bad matchup.
I think that What do you think of the roster?
I mean, there’s a few folks on the roster that I am super excited for.
I mean, when I saw that Bridget Carlton was our first pick, I was beside myself.
I love her game.
Yeah, so was everybody in Toronto because we thought we were going to get her.
Ontario native, for those not following along, we snagged her.
She’s great.
She is a scrapper.
She’s the kind of player that you want to help instill a hard work ethos in your organization.
So super excited about that.
I’m also excited about Nika Mule because I think she hasn’t had a chance.
I feel like she’s undervalued for her talent level, and I’m very curious to see how she…
Well, I’m just trying to figure out whatever happened to Nika Mule because she got drafted by Seattle.
It was supposed to be their apparent…
She tore her left ACL, and then she tore her right ACL.
So she’s had ACL repairs on both knees.
Now, is that a big warning sign?
Maybe, although this is the world in which ACL surgeries for pro athletes are fairly standard anymore.
So optimistic, especially because she’s young and she heals.
Look, I think that’s great.
I think that…
I remember watching Nika Mule play in college, and very, very solid player.
I was very excited to watch her in the WNBA, and never quite happened.
And I think that people in Seattle were sort of like, okay, well, Sue Bird retired.
Now who’s going to be the…
And I think that the assumption was going to be that Nika Mule was going to take a couple years but really step into those shoes, and it obviously didn’t happen and couldn’t happen.
And now she gets a brand new start in Portland.
I think that’s very good for her.
But at the same time, I mean, I don’t know.
I don’t know what she is yet, right?
I hope she’s great.
Don’t get me wrong.
I hope everybody’s great.
That’s my point.
I mean, I’m excited because it’s like she could be not great, but the amount that we had to give up to get her was literally nothing, and I think the potential…
Yeah, no, and I think that’s good, right?
I think that’s really, really good.
So, you know, I would assume that the people who listen to this podcast are basketball fans, NBA fans, WNBA fans, understood that, understand rather, that John and I, you know, like, you know, I think that John and I actually talk, you know, off this podcast, we actually talk more about the WNBA than we do about the NBA.
You know, I don’t feel the need to, like, prove that I’m a real fan or whatever, but, like, for what it’s worth, like, you know, one of the building blocks of my relationship with John is the fact that we both love basketball so much and how he’s such a big lover and supporter of the women’s game.
And, you know, didn’t one of your kids, like, grow up going to basketball camps with, like, Cam Brink and shit?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I met Cameron Brink at Cascade Basketball Camp in Oregon.
Yeah, but the thing is you also have, like, other connections to, like, that, like, you know, there’s…
All I’m trying to say to the handful of listeners we have, by which I mean the handful of thousands of listeners we have, actually, I don’t know how many listeners we have, but I will keep on making this joke, and even if John and I get picked up to replace Perkins on ESPN, I will still assume that only, you know, a handful of people listen to this.
But then again, I do know that a lot of people seem to like it when they email me.
But anyways…
Hashtag email Dave.
Hashtag do not fucking email me.
No, I really like talking WNBA with you because the thing is, like, you’re a real fan, and I like to consider myself a real fan.
So, look, man, I want to make a meal to work out for you.
What else have you guys done in free agency so far?
I haven’t really been paying attention to your free agency as much as the free agency.
So the other two names that I’m kind of excited for, Emily Engstler.
Not that she’s a star, but she’s one of those solid…
Oh, man, I love Emily Engstler.
She’s great.
No, I’m super excited about her.
I wanted her here.
Yeah.
Also excited about Suggs Sutton.
But then the most thing I’m most excited about is we picked up Carly Samuelson in free agency, not through the expansion draft.
We signed her as a free agent, which is two things.
One, she’s a great player, will provide a lot of veteran leadership.
Didn’t Carly, like, wreck her leg last year?
She might have.
I don’t care because that’s not why I care that she’s here.
I care that she’s here because, one, she provides veteran leadership to a very young team, which is awesome.
Second, coming from the Portland Trailblazers perspective where it’s almost impossible to assign star players in free agency, the fact that we were able in our very first year to sign a star free agent in free agency is amazing.
I don’t know what this feeling is like.
We can actually lure players in free agency.
Looking forward to that in the future.
I’m just psyched.
Anyway.
That’s amazing.
That’s my outlook.
I’m excited.
We’re not going to win a ton of games, but we’re going to be really fun to watch, and that’s all it’s about.
How are you guys looking?
Well, I think we’re looking great, but the larger conversation for me right now is that anybody who listens to us probably already knows stuff about the NBA and the WNBA, including but not limited to the new CBA in the WNBA that the players fought for.
A lot of people were wondering if Portland and Toronto were actually going to have an inaugural season in 2026 because that was pretty much up in the air until relatively recently.
But the new collective bargaining agreement touched off like I don’t want to call it a gold rush because that makes it seem, I don’t know, somehow less than it is.
WNBA players are finally getting paid what they deserve.
Actually, I’m going to resent that.
WNBA players are finally getting paid salaries that are commensurate with the grand scheme of things, having a television deal, playing in arenas with thousands of people watching, merch deals, endorsements.
You can’t watch an NBA or WNBA broadcast without seeing a CarMax commercial with Sabrina Ionescu and Asia Wilson and Sue Bird and whoever.
This is big business as much as anything else, and it’s really, really just wonderful to know and to see that the players are being compensated on a level that is more commensurate with what they do and who they are and what the league is and what basketball means and how capitalism works.
But more importantly, and I’m trying to find the best way to phrase this, but it all comes down to this, right?
With the salary increases in the WNBA, and this is sort of like a rising tide lifts all boats situation, right?
This is not just something that benefits the stars.
It benefits everybody, right?
The general salary is going up, way up.
I used the example of Jackie Young.
Jackie Young, when she re-signed with the Las Vegas Aces, her new annual salary was basically 10 times what she made last year, right?
So if you got a raise of 10 times what you make, whatever your job is, whatever industry you’re in, that’s important.
And when it goes from like $160,000 to $1.6 million or whatever it is, that’s life-changing money.
But more importantly than that, for a lot of WNBA players, this is the beginning of the opportunity to change the fortunes of families generationally, right?
We throw around the term generational wealth a lot, and I think that some people think that that means $50, $60, $100 million, which obviously it does.
But going from making $100,000 to a million is life-changing money.
And when you go from $160,000 to $1.6 million or whatever it is, when you go from being compensated the way that you were in the old CBA to the way they are in the new CBA, you are more able to pull your families out of generational cycles of poverty.
You’re able to pay for things that maybe, you know, like I’m not American, I’m Canadian, but as I understand it, there are a lot of things in American society, including but not limited to health care, that bankrupt people, right?
Hashtag social commentary.
Hashtag social commentary.
But the thing is, I’m just going to say that this generational wealth, this opportunity for generational wealth, you know, I used the idiom of rising tide lifts all boats, but the aftershocks and the tail of that goes far off the court, right?
It’s not just, oh, yeah, well, now Jackie Young makes more money.
Oh, now Elizabeth Pulliam makes more money.
Oh, yeah, well, now Kelsey Plum makes more money.
That’s true, but I also just think about what that money means, what it represents, what it opens up possibilities-wise, right?
And I also want to shout out Nafisa Collier and Brianna Stewart, because if they don’t start their breakaway league, the Players Association has so much less to bargain with, right?
The success of Unrivaled, the success of that.
So, I mean, I want to make sure that Nafisa Collier, Nneka Gumike, Brianna Stewart all get their flowers.
Oh, they just heard you.
Incredible stuff.
Nafisa says thanks.
Oh, and Nafisa, I want the best for the Lynx.
I want the best for Cheryl.
I want the best for Nafisa Collier.
I want the best for all the people, but Jessica Shepard and Alana Smith left to go to Dallas, the free agency, and Natisha Heidemann went to Seattle, breaking up the stud buds.
I’m not 100% sure what’s up with that or how they do that, but that’s a different conversation for a different day.
My thing is this.
So Minnesota has the number two pick overall, and they just lost three bigs, right?
Alana Smith and Jessica Shepard signed in Dallas.
You think they’re going Lauren Betts?
And Maria Klyndykova was drafted by Toronto in the expansion draft.
I think they’re going Lauren Betts.
Lauren Betts just won.
She’s 6'7".
I think you’re right.
I think I’m right, too, but she’s 6'7".
She just won a national championship.
She shot 60-plus from the field every NCAA tournament game.
Shot, I think, like 68% for the women’s March Madness.
Shot blocker.
Most outstanding player.
They need a big, and I think Lauren Betts goes two.
And I think you’re right that a lot of foreign players are going to go, right?
I think that, you know, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to pronounce her name.
It’s either Avo or AwaFam in Spain, good, solid player.
Nella Agloma, as you said, France, small floor.
She’s a wing, as you said.
She played out in the BWL.
I said that I think Toronto was going to go for Flaje Johnson.
I think she’s got a big personality.
I think that she’ll fit in well here.
And I also think that having players like Mabry and Sykes and Alomond is really good for, like, a young two who could, you know, she’s 5'10".
She can be a three to learn under, you know.
The ESPN thinks you’re drafting Raven Johnson as a South Carolina player.
No, we are not.
Who are you going to get?
Yeah, I was going to say, I think we’re going Medina Okot because you can’t coach size.
She’s 6'6", played in a amazing program.
She played for Staley, right?
South Carolina.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She played for Staley.
Don’t say that.
And I think she comes from a winning program, and I think that’s going to be enough.
I mean, I don’t think a lot of people, I think people think she’s going further down the draft, and I do not understand why that is because there are not a lot of 6'6", 6'7 bigs in the WNBA.
I agree.
Anyway.
Let me just go over a couple of things, right?
So the free agency season has been kind of crazy, a lot of movement.
Let’s just really say a couple of them out loud.
Sparks re-signed Julie VanLoo.
The Dallas Wings, you know, bucked up their depth with Lindsay Allen.
Mystic signed Michaela Onyenwere.
The Juana Bonner, as I mentioned, re-signed in Phoenix, as did Alyssa Thomas.
Jade Melbourne.
Jade Melbourne, Melbourne.
She’s going to Seattle as well.
So it looks like Seattle is sort of resetting everything because, as I think I told you when we weren’t recording, you know, Nekogumike went back to L.A., right?
L.A.
is clearly gearing up for something, right?
They signed Nekogumike.
They signed Kelsey Plum.
They signed Erica Hamby, you know, but Azrae, they let her walk.
They traded Rekia Jackson to Chicago for Errol Atkins.
They clearly are building a veteran team to compete, and obviously they still got Cam Brink, and obviously they still got whoever else they got, right?
You know, Megan Gustafson signed with your fire.
Cockhopper re-upped with the Mercury.
Dijona Carrington with Chicago.
I think Skylar Diggins, not Smith, Skylar Diggins signed with Chicago as well.
Nia Coffey went to Minnesota.
Tasha Howard also went to Minnesota, which is kind of awesome.
What?
Angel Reese was traded to Atlanta for picks.
Kayla McBride and Courtney Williams re-upped in Minnesota.
Ezi Magbagor re-signed with Seattle.
You know, Courtney Vandersloot going back to Chicago.
Courtney Vandersloot, like first ballot Hall of Famer, I’m actually kind of surprised that she’s going to play again, but that’s a different conversation.
The Valkyries grabbed Gabby Williams.
You know, like I said, Kelsey Plum is back there.
Sophie Cunningham.
You’re listening probably already out of date.
Would you out of date?
You think these guys are going to re-sign with somebody else?
No, I think there’s going to be action going on right before and right after the draft.
I think so too.
All I’m trying to say is like a lot of people are going to say a lot of things about where they think teams are going to be, where they’re not going to be, and I don’t think anybody knows anything yet.
I don’t know what Ariel Atkins and Nekogumike look like next to Kelsey Plum.
I don’t know how one locker room can have Skylar Diggins and Jonathan Carrington and Rekia Jackson.
Not for any reason other than the fact they’re big personalities.
I don’t know how they fit.
Courtney Vandersloot too.
I’m very interested to see what happens in Chicago.
But it’s funny because the thing is like for the listeners, John and I had to rush through this podcast today because of circumstance, and I feel a little bit less prepared than I would normally be.
But what I am and what we are lacking in specificity and very like drilling down on one specific thing, two specific things, I hope that what is coming through is that we are wildly excited for the draft, and we’re wildly excited for the WNBA season.
I don’t know if you have season tickets, John.
I am just a humble, poor person in Toronto.
I’m not poor, but I don’t make a lot of money.
But we have 10 game packs of the Tempo, and we’re going to be there on day one, and it’s going to be very, very, very, very, very cool to know that you were there right at the beginning.
And the last time I had this experience was in the first year that the Raptors played, right?
I was at those games.
Even though I was in high school, not really technically in Toronto at the time, I went to three games in the first season of the Raptors, and it was just exhilarating to know in 2019 when we won the championship, I could literally say like I was there at the beginning.
I remember when nobody in Toronto knew anything about basketball, which is to say the average fan, not like the hardcore sicko fan.
Of course they knew.
But it was amazing to watch basketball grow in Canada as a result of getting a team, right?
All of a sudden, more Canadians were getting scouted and going and playing in the States and ending up in the NBA, and we had multiple first overall picks, Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett.
We don’t talk about him.
But, you know, like when you look at the NBA now, you know, like the reigning MVP is from Hamilton, Ontario, right?
The front runner for most improved players from Toronto, right?
The best dunker in the NBA is from?
The best dunker in the NBA, Shadon Sharp, is from London, Ontario, right?
Jamal Murray is from Kitchener.
Will Riley, you know, all these guys, right?
And it’s really exciting because now we get to see what it is to have a WNBA team here and how that impacts, you know, girls and women who are growing up in this country, and they’re going to be able to see a certain kind of success modeled for them.
Like, you can do this, and we do have a team here, and we do have a place for you.
Because after the Raptors got a little bit big in Toronto, you know, you’d see more courts, and you would see more average people walking down the street in Raptors colors and maybe not Toronto Blue Jays or Toronto Maple Leafs colors, right?
All of a sudden, it was a very multicultural city and is a very multicultural fan base, right?
If you go to a Raptors game, you will see every kind of person that there is.
Hashtag Toronto soliloquy.
It’s a very, very diverse crowd or whatever.
No, and I mention this because the thing is, like, yesterday was the fan appreciation day, and the Raptors finished the season against Brooklyn.
And our super fan, Nav Batia, who’s been there since day one for the Uninitiated, if you’ve ever watched a Raptors game or saw a highlight, he’s the guy in the turban sitting baseline.
I believe he’s a car dealer.
But he’s been there since the beginning, and they were giving fan of the year stuff, and there was three specific fans that they shouted out.
And one was a little kid who started dancing at games, and my partner and I were actually at the game that they first discovered, this lovely little kid who dances in the aisle.
And there’s the dancing dentist, who is this older Indian man who looks like basically every single one of my older relatives.
And there’s Scary Terry, and Scary Terry is this white dude who, like, makes these, like, real scary faces.
And they always cut to him in the fourth quarter, and he’s, like, got this really funny…
And you pan back, and you’re like, oh, look at the diversity just of the people that they’re celebrating, right?
You’ve got this older white guy and his wife,