Start with the obvious problem: Tacko Fall plays for Philadelphia. He spent Thursday night doing his usual job for the team that signs his checks, checking in for the final 54 seconds of a win over the Raptors while the Sixers crowd chanted his name. Nick Nurse put him in. Jabari Walker got booed at the scorer's table for the crime of not being seven and a half feet tall. Wishing doesn't change which jersey Fall wears.
That confusion says more about the people having the argument than about the Raptors front office. A fanbase spent part of a loss litigating the rotation of a player who isn't on the roster instead of dealing with the actual hole in that rotation. Toronto built a lead as big as 17 points in the first half Thursday, got outscored the rest of the way, and lost 123-112. That's three straight losses now, on the second night of a back-to-back, without Kawhi Leonard, Scottie Barnes or Trayce Jackson-Davis. RJ Barrett had a huge night and Immanuel Quickley kept pace, and it still wasn't enough. When the frontcourt depth chart thins out the way Toronto's did Thursday, leads evaporate against a team getting contributions from everywhere on its bench.
The Raptors do need a competent backup big. Jackson-Davis was out, the group behind him got outworked inside, and a 17-point cushion turned into an 11-point loss because nobody could hold the paint. That's a real, fixable organizational problem, and somebody in that front office should answer for it. Tacko Fall isn't going to fix it. He's never wearing that jersey.
Rating
RatingPhiladelphia sits near the top of the East this week. Toronto's at 5-7. When you're winning, nobody in the building feels pressure to change anything, novelty center included. Fine. That explains why Nick Nurse has no reason to play Fall more. A Raptors fan wanting him is a different question entirely, and those are two different teams. Pretending otherwise doesn't get Toronto any closer to fixing what actually went wrong Thursday.
Be mad about the frontcourt, just aim it at the right address. Toronto's bench got outplayed by a team that had 54 garbage-time seconds to spare for a mop-up center and still won by double digits. Toronto needs to admit the cupboard behind Jackson-Davis is bare, and that falls on the people who built this roster. The seven-foot-six Sixer fans can't stop talking about had nothing to do with it.
