Raptors Fans Are Worried About Immanuel Quickley | Should They Be?

Raptors Fans Are Worried About Immanuel Quickley | Should They Be?

It was a difficult season for Emanuel quickly, which makes Raptors fans question if he really is the franchise’s point guard for the future, especially going into this new era with Brandon Ingram joining the team. So, we’ll investigate the season that was for Quickley and what the future may hold for him in today’s video. Let’s get into it. This is Amateur Sports. It’s the YouTube channel completely dedicated to Toronto Raptors content and videos like this and live streams on the channel. Smash that like button if you enjoy along the way. Subscribe for more Raptors content just like it, especially as we get close to that NBA draft lottery. But today’s video is completely focused in on Emanuel Quickley. We’ve talked about Emanuel Quickley a lot in pieces over the course of the last few weeks, particularly in the Q&A videos that I’m now uploading every Saturday. So, make sure you comment something down below for this video. You want to have a chance to get featured in that Saturday video. But a lot of the discourse for Emanuel Quickley lately and throughout a lot of the season has been very very negative. And I said in the intro to the video that it’s been a difficult season for Emanuel Quickley. But really the difficulty for the season came from injuries and just the injuries alone and lack of games alone. Because when Emanuel Quickley was on the floor, especially after getting a healthy runway of games to really get his feet back under him, get his comfortability back out on the floor, Emanuel Quickley played some good basketball this season. But again, a lot of the discourse around the player this season has been negative. And when trade talks do come up, a lot of the trade talks do involve from the Raptors fan base, Emanuel Quickley. So why is that? And should Raptors fans actually be concerned and worried about this player going forward? And I think to start us off, a lot of the criticism of the player and a lot of the worry comes from something that’s not really in his control. That’s his contract. Look, every player is going to go out and get as much money as they can. Every player’s agency, it is their job to get that player as much money as they can. And a lot has been made of Emanuel Quickley’s contract. He just finished the first year of this contract where he’s making $32.5 million per season. And it was a five-year contract. It’s flat fee. It’s not a backloaded frontload. It is $32.5 million per season for five years. Now we’re through one season, so for the next four years. And many Raptors fans feel as though this is a little bit too much for Emanuel Quickley. And I’ll be honest, when he initially signed the contract, the figure of 32 and a half was higher than I expected and higher than I wanted it to be. I thought it was maybe a slight overpay for the time, but understood why the Raptors did give him that much. And especially with the fact that this is a flat fee contract, it’s going to stay at $32.5 million. We have to really remember that this is going to look a lot better as we move forward. like like I’ll pull the graphic up again here. $32.5 million from the season that we just had was 23% of the cap. But by year five, $32.5 million. That’s not even 16% of the cap. That’s 15.79% of the cap. Do you want to know what 15.79% of the cap would be from 2024, 2025? It’d be just over $22 million. and we’re going to be looking at Emanuel Quickley in a completely different lens when he’s making the equivalent of $22 million in year five the contract. Now granted, we’re not in year five. We are in year one. We wanted Emanuel Quickley to maybe play a little bit better this season, but like was this season really that bad for the player? I mean, statistically, let’s compare this season to last season. So last season, Emanuel Quickley with the Raptors put up 18.6 points per game, 4.8 rebounds, 6.8 8 assists, which was a nice upgrade from assists from his time in Toronto compared to his time with the New York Knicks. Efficiency wise shot about 45% on twos, almost 40% from three, 39 12% from three, which gave him an effective field goal percentage of about 52% and a true shooting percentage of 56.4. That was just in his time with the Raptors because he was playing a complete different role for the Raptors than he was with the New York Knicks. He was more of like an offg guard, two guard with the Knicks. Very clearly a point guard when he joined the Raptors. Let’s compare that season, 18.6 points per game, 232 24 season to that of the 24-25 season where, yeah, he did go down to 17.1 points per game, 3.5 rebounds, 5.8 assists. The field goal percentage is now 42%. And his three-point percentage is now down to 37%. This gave him a true shooting percentage of 57%. I started using true shooting percentage for my graphics this year because true shooting percentage factors in free throws, effective field percentage does not. And you know what? free throws, those are the most efficient shots. So, your ability to get to the line and shoot those efficiently really matters for a player. So, using true shooting percentage, so the true shooting percentage, which is is is my base for efficiency, has gone up a little bit. It’s still about the same, but here it’s 57%. But the rest of the numbers are a little bit down. Well, why is that the case? We have to remember like when Emanuel Quickley was getting the bulk of his games in and playing healthy, the Raptors were tanking. His minutes were dropping. So I think a bit of a more fair comparison for the player is actually looking at his per 36 numbers where it’s some eye opening statistics if we compare his numbers from last season to this season. Last season just with the Raptors and this season is games played like it’s similar games played played 38 games for the Raptors last season 33 games for the Raptors this season the statistics are kind of similar and in you know points per game has gone up to 22 points compared to 20. rebounding is a little bit down. Assists are about the same. Efficiency is about the same. Yes, the three-point percentage dropped, but his true stream percentage stayed pretty much the same. So, if we take like a per 36 analysis here and look, you could question the caliber of opponents he’s playing cuz at the end of the season when he’s getting most of his play time, a lot of those games against other tanking teams and hey, fair enough. But the season like on a whole with Emanuel quickly playing and then know this also includes game when he’s not playing at 100% and he’s not playing completely healthy. Like we had a pretty decent sample size of 33 games where he’s produced very similar numbers to last season which was a season in which Raptors fans were very excited about what Emanuel Quickley could do for the team. It was a season that earned him that 5-year $32.5 million per year contract. So I think there’s too much being made of this season for Quickley because when he was healthy he was playing very well and you know Raptors fans were so excited about him last season. We got a very similar version of him just now under a different lens because of the contract. But also there’s the injury concerns and he’s been labeled a lot now as an injury-prone sort of player. Like this just doesn’t make sense to me. Like has never had injury problems in his entire career. Like his rookie season he played 64 games out of a possible 72. I don’t quite know if he was injured for eight of them, but he played the first game. Great. Remember, he’s a rookie. Played the first game in a season and then missed it was like the next four, then played in the six game, then played in a huge run of games in a row, then missed a few games at the end of the season. But again, like 64 out of 72 games, and it I don’t know if he was injured to start season, maybe he’s just a rookie, so he’s not getting game time with the Knicks. I don’t know what it was, but like pretty healthy season. Year two, he plays 78 games. Year three, he plays 81 games. Both out of a possible 82 games. Fourth season. now traded halfway through the season. The Raptors played 68 games in total and you know what the Raptors were tanking the season. He missed some games because of the tank. Maybe he did get a little bit of injury problems, but 14 games missed some of those because of a tank. And then this season, yes, finally five years into his NBA career, his fifth season, yes, now injuries start to creep in. But this is a player who should be very, very far away from the injury-prone label. He got injured a couple of times this season. mostly through a lot of bad luck. Like he had the pelvis injury like he lands on his back weird like what what player can possibly avoid that? So I think a lot of the stress from Raptors fans regarding Emanuel Quickley. Number one, it’s the contract which as I tried to allude to is just only going to look better and better and isn’t even that much of an overpay as it is. A lot of the stress comes from being supposedly injuryprone, which we’ve kind of looked into it. He’s not injuryprone. And a lot of the stress comes from maybe suppose a down year statistically, which we’ve just gone through and discovered that it hasn’t even been a down year statistically. It’s been relatively the same. Now, you could say, well, he’s a young player on, you know, a growing team. We want those numbers to be better, which in that case, hey, fair enough. But I think that we should be very far from conversations that he’s overpaid, very far from conversations that he’s injuryprone, and very far from conversations that he had a bad season on court. All of this is just kind of to me a lot of people wanting to create a narrative. I find the Raptors fan base a lot of the time does want to look for an an enemy and tries to villainize its own players, which I don’t quite get a lot of the time. In this instance, I just I just don’t really understand it for Emanuel Quick. He’s a player who clearly likes being here, enjoys his time being a Toronto Raptor, really gives like 100% effort on the floor, and also is is just a really good style of point guard for the modern NBA. I think his playmaking can still stand to improve and I think that will continue to improve. like he’s made strides as a Raptor, made a lot of strides last season, made a lot of strides in the season that just ended as well when he was in the floor. And I think playing with a player like Brandon Ingram is only going to heighten his playmaking abilities. Getting more game time with Yakob Purle is only going to heighten those playmaking abilities. But in particular, the three-point shooting and the pull-up threat is just so important for really any team, especially for a Toronto Raptor team that is still going to be lacking in floor spacing next season. Like if the projected lineup is Emanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Scotty Barnes, Brandon Ingram, Yaka Purle, like Emanuel Quickley is the only real shooter in that lineup. Brandon Ingram can shoot but like maybe not super high volume. Barnes really struggled to shoot this season. RJ Barrett can shoot but not really high volume. Yaka Purle doesn’t shoot except the one time he did and he he made that one three this season. But like it’s an important player for the Raptors stylistically going into next season. He’s still relatively young in his mid20s. like this is a like a really good player the Raptors have locked up on a contract that’s only going to get better and better on a year-to-year basis and just fits super well with the rest of the group. Like this is a player the Raptors absolutely have to keep a hold of. Like unless a player like Jiannis Tentacuba becomes available then okay conversations can happen but this is absolutely not going to be a player that the Raptors are actively seeking to trade. So, a lot of these conversations have stem from, you know, I’ve done multiple videos where I talked about does RJ Barrett really fit with this group going forward. A lot of the comments on videos like that are, well, I’d rather trade Emanuel Quickley than RJ Barrett. Look at the contract difference. And it’s not a slander against Barrett. It’s just, does he really fit with the group? I’m not sure. Emanuel Quickley to me certainly does. So, I don’t think the Raptors will entertain really any sort of trade conversations being proposed around Emanuel Quickley, unless of course, you know, it’s a player like Giannis. But I could very much see it for Bar. I just really can’t see it at all for Emanuel Quickley. And I think the narrative around the player is being very misconstrued and I just really wanted to clear the air because I think it’s been a lot of unfair criticism that he just doesn’t deserve at all. I think he’s a good player that the Raptors fan base should really try and get behind because I think for this Raptors team to be successful next few years, Emanuel Cookie is going to be one of the key factors as a reason why it’s successful. So,

Immanuel Quickley has been heavily criticised for his season with the Toronto Raptors, largely as a result of injuries potentially affecting his on-court play. But this comes on the back of signing a 5 year contract worth $32.5 million per year and fans are demanding more of the player. With much change set to hit the franchise, should Immanuel Quickley be cemented into the organization’s future?

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0:00 – Why are Raptors fans worried about Immanuel Quickley?
1:38 – Is his contract really that bad?
3:28 – Was it really that bad of a season for IQ?
6:33 – Is Immanuel Quickley injury prone?
8:04 – What are Raptors fans worried about?
9:30 – IQ’s importance to the Raptors roster

This is Amateur Hour Sports. On this channel, Jacob Gramegna analyzes and breaks down the latest on the Toronto Raptors NBA team from trade rumors to post-game reactions, analysis, and much more. By subscribing to this channel you will be there first to watch and enjoy 3-4 videos a week all focused on this team and on game days Jacob goes live on the channel for a watch party where he interacts with chat, answers your questions, and analyses the game as it happens with play by play and commentary. Join the Amateur Hour Army today by subscribing and consider becoming a member to give extra support to the channel and help create better content more often.

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