Weekly Takes - Monday, April 18 Edition

Weekly Takes - Monday, April 18 Edition

1. My three stars from the Maple Leafs blowout win over the Capitals on Thursday…

1. Ilya Mikheyev

2. William Nylander

3. John Tavares

How they have played this season against bottom feeders has been… pathetic, but credit where credit is due. They have walked the walk against the league’s best.

2. My three stars from the Leafs sloppy win over the Senators on Saturday…

1. Mitch Marner

2. Michael Bunting

3. Auston Matthews

3. My three stars from the Leafs win over the Islanders on Sunday…

1. Marner

2. Nylander

3. Bunting

4. It is tough to analyse the first two weeks of the Blue Jays season without coming off as reactionary because, well, they have played 10 of 162 games this season, but their needs are quite clear.

They are going to need a second southpaw in their bullpen to compliment Tim Mayza and they are going to need a significant bench piece at some point.

They may also need another starter if Hun Jin Ryu continues to throw 88 MPH fastballs down the middle, but the hope would be that the answer could come internally with Nate Pearson.

5. A week late but here are my award predictions from the 2021-2022 NBA regular season…

MVP: Nikola Jokic (Runners Up: Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo)

ROY: Scottie Barnes (Runners Up: Franz Wagner and Evan Mobley)

MIP: Darius Garland (Runners Up: Mikal Bridges and Dejounte Murray)

DPOY: Rudy Gobert (Runners Up: Jokic and Draymond Green)

6 Man: Tyler Herro (Runners Up: Gary Payton and Montrezl Harrell)

EOY: Zachary Kleiman (Runners Up: Andy Elisburg and Masai Ujiri)

COY: Nick Nurse (Runners Up: Taylor Jenkins and Erik Spoelstra)

6. My takeaways from the Raptors game one loss to the 76ers on Saturday…

• The injury to Barnes absolutely sucks for both him and the Raptors. There were not many positives from game one but he was most certainly one of them prior to his injury. It would have been great for him to gain experience this spring, not that he looked like he needed it. It is hard to see the Raptors having much of a chance without him.

• Barnes’ injury capped off a “everything that could go wrong has gone wrong” night for the Raptors. Coming into the series, they were the better team on the offensive glass, the better team in transition, the better team at protecting the ball, and the better team in the paint. All of that went out the window in game one and the reality is, given the gap in talent, the Raptors have to get back to being better in all of these areas compared to the 76ers if they want any chance to win this series. It will be tough to do so without Barnes but they should not be this bad in these areas in game two and moving forward.

• The areas where the 76ers were better coming into the series remained in place in game one. They have a serious matchup advantage at the centre position and they are the better three point team. For as good as this Raptors team is, and for as much as I think they can win a series against an elite team, the fact remains that they are a flawed team from a construction standpoint. That is not a knock on Masai Ujiri at all, as he did not build this team to win a championship this season, but this is the reality. Their upside is only so high. It will be on Ujiri to address the centre position and three point shooting off the bench in the offseason in order for this team to take the next step.

7. There may not be another organisation in North American sports that is as ignorant as the Los Angeles Lakers.

They leak to the media that they are firing Frank Vogel before they even told Vogel himself and then 12 hours later leak to the media that they want Nick Nurse, a head coach who is under contract with another team.

Why would Nurse or any other coach even consider joining the Lakers, given how they treated Vogel on his way out?

Let alone the fact that the team has absolutely no future, led by a coach-killing superstar in LeBron James who is the de facto general manager and head coach.

There is nothing attractive about the Lakers head coaching job once you get past the lure of the brand.

8. In July of 2019, the Clippers signed Kawhi Leonard, traded for Paul George, had a great supporting cast, an owner that was willing to spend, and a great, stable management staff.

Three seasons later they have only three playoff series wins to show for it.

They have gotten tremendously bad luck each season but the Clippers are a great example that even when you do everything right, it is still near impossible to win a championship.