TORONTO — While Darko Rajakovic would much rather be coaching his team into the second round of the playoffs, he’s ready for the off-season to begin, and it’s going to be an important one for the Toronto Raptors.
“Probably like two or three months ago, I started planning the summer, planning next season,” Rajakovic said on Tuesday, less than 48 hours after his club’s season came to an end in Game 7 of a hard-fought first-round series with Cleveland. “It’s an ongoing process. That never stops.”
The organization has always put a premium on off-season development, whether it’s through individual work, mini camps, or team bonding excursions. The fruits of it showed this past season, as many of their young players took meaningful steps forward, from budding superstar Scottie Barnes to breakout sophomores Ja’Kobe Walter, Jamal Shead, and others.
Now, they know they’ll need to do it again.
With some of their financial constraints and in a tougher Eastern Conference, internal growth remains the best and most realistic path to improving on an impressive 46-36 campaign and spirited playoff run.
In Rajakovic’s estimation, Barnes is only at 60 per cent of his final form. As of Tuesday, it had actually gone down to 58 per cent – “I just realized there is more room for growth,” the head coach joked.
The two-time all-star doesn’t turn 25 until August and will spend the summer focusing on skill development, including his off-the-dribble moves and finishing at the rim, while continuing to work on his shooting. He hit just 30 per cent of his three-point attempts in his fifth season as a pro.
After spending much of his first year and change with Toronto trying to get back and stay on the court, Brandon Ingram is looking forward to a full off-season of work. At 28, the team believes he is still evolving as a player.
Coming off an excellent rookie year, the plan for Collin Murray-Boyles is to get stronger and faster in an effort to withstand the grind of a full season, presumably in an expanded role at the centre position. Walter spoke about adding more muscle. Jakob Poeltl wants and needs to use the time to get healthy.
There is plenty of work to be done, but some of the most important work will come off the court, where general manager Bobby Webster begins his first full offseason at the controls.
One of his first orders of business is also the easiest: taking care of his head coach.
We were always going to learn something about Rajakovic in his third season with the team. They already knew that he could lead a rebuilding group – building a culture from the ground up and getting guys to buy in and keep a focus on the big picture. That’s a tough gig and he aced it, but this is the first time he was going to face real expectations and, with it, real pressure.
Through it all, he kept one of the league’s youngest teams even-keeled and committed to an identity that centred on hard play and defence. Despite a lack of shooting and size on the roster, they made meaningful improvements on offence, particularly in the half court, and finished as a top five team on the defensive end of the floor. In the playoffs, he made timely adjustments, which helped Toronto claw back from a 2-0 series hole to force a deciding Game 7.
With one year left on his contract, the sentiment around the league is that Rajakovic has done more than enough to avoid going into next season as a lame-duck head coach.
While Webster wouldn’t address this or any other contractual situation directly at his end-of-season press conference on Wednesday, the expectation is that the Raptors will reward Rajakovic with an extension this summer.
“I think Darko did a great job,” Webster said. “The first two years, we always said great communicator, great energy, great development. But to [go from] 30 wins to 46 wins, that’s a huge improvement. And then to make the adjustments in the playoffs when some of our main guys were [hurt], Darko did a great job.”
From their easiest decision to perhaps their toughest, it will be interesting to see how they approach RJ Barrett, who is coming off an excellent seventh season and an even better playoff series. The 25-year-old is also going into the final year of his contract and will be extension eligible in the off-season. He wasn’t subtle when asked about his future earlier this week.
“Of course, I’m trying to stay here,” said the local kid from Mississauga, Ont. “I understand the business, but I want to stay here. I have no problem saying that. I want to be here. I want to be here for the rest of my career. I don’t ever want to leave. I don’t have any problems openly saying that. That’s out of my control. I’ve done my part on the court this year and I’ll continue to do my part. Let’s hope things work out that way.”
The Raptors have three different paths they can take with Barrett, each of them coming with a certain level of risk. They could extend him, trade him, or let him go into the final season of his deal. That third scenario is the most likely and appears to be where the team is currently leaning.
With that, you run the risk of creating an awkward situation, like the one the Raptors put themselves in with Pascal Siakam. Barrett is a professional, but so was Siakam. It’s an uncomfortable dynamic, by nature, and with Siakam, it became so untenable that they were forced to trade him with minimal leverage at the deadline that season.
An extension is possible, but like with any contract negotiation, it will depend on the price and term. Unlike last summer, when Barrett was also extension eligible, it’s something they should at least explore. Finding something that works and makes sense for both sides could be challenging, given the other financial commitments the Raptors have made.
The other option is to trade him. With his strong postseason play and expiring contract, he figures to have more value than when they tested his market last summer or at the trade deadline. However, this is a team that’s trying to get better and Barrett has proven to be an important piece.
They’ve traded popular players before. Webster was instrumental in the deal that sent fan favourite DeMar DeRozan out of town, but the backlash was minimal given the return was Kawhi Leonard. It would be hard to justify moving Barrett, especially after his Game 6 heroics, without upgrading at the position. There isn’t an easy or obvious answer.
Their only pending free agent of note is Sandro Mamukelashvili, who will almost certainly decline his $2.8 million player option for next season and hit the open market, where there should be interest in a floor-spacing backup big man coming off a breakout campaign.
The 26-year-old struggled in his first career playoff series, but he’s an ideal fit in Rajakovic’s system, as well as in Toronto’s young locker room. As it stands, with their starters owed $163.4 million for next season, or 99 per cent of the projected salary cap, the Raptors don’t have much wiggle room, but bringing Mamukelashvili back appears to be a priority.
“He fit in really well here,” Webster said. “We’ll talk to his reps, we’ll talk to Mamu. I think he obviously wants to be here. There are financial realities of the NBA, but we’ll do everything we can to retain him.”
With that in mind, they could probably use the $7.1 million that is owed to Gradey Dick next season, the final year of his rookie contract. After starting all 54 games he played as a sophomore in 2024-25, the former 13th-overall pick transitioned to a bench role this past season and eventually fell out of the rotation altogether. He was buried behind Jamison Battle and converted two-way player A.J. Lawson late in the campaign and into the playoffs.
Shooting was supposed to be his signature skill coming out of Kansas. However, at 34 per cent over his career and 30 per cent last season, the jumper hasn’t been reliable enough to make up for his shortcomings on defence.
“Whatever happened this year, he needs to learn from that experience and come back ready to contribute next year,” Rajakovic said. “And that means on both ends of the floor. Defensively, he needs to make a big step, and he needs to be more consistent as a shooter. We know that he’s going to put the work in. We believe in him.”
He’ll get the chance to bounce back, but with Walter – a superior shooter and defender – breaking out, it might not come in Toronto. There should be teams willing to take a low-cost flier on a 22-year-old former lottery pick. With the resources they’ve already used to draft and develop Dick, watching him go and potentially flourish elsewhere would be tough, especially if they can only recoup a second-round pick. But a fresh start might be best for both sides.
Trading Dick, re-signing Mamukelashvili, and running it back with the rest of this group wouldn’t exactly make for the most scintillating off-season. More importantly, it might not be enough to keep up in an improving Eastern Conference.
The Pacers are just a year removed from going to the NBA Finals and will be getting Tyrese Haliburton back after adding Ivica Zubac. The Celtics will have a full season of Jayson Tatum, while the young Hornets and Hawks are looking to build off their strong second halves.
Without taking anything away from Toronto’s season, a lot has to go right for a team to improve its win total by 16 games, exceed almost every reasonable preseason projection, and then push the heavily favoured Cavaliers to the brink of elimination.
Despite Poeltl’s wonky back and the late-season injuries that limited Ingram in the playoffs and cost Immanuel Quickley the entire series, the Raptors were one of the league’s healthiest teams. Can they bank on another 77-game season from Ingram, or on Barnes taking another big leap, or on Murray-Boyles continuing his upward trajectory as a sophomore? Or will they look to address the glaring holes in the roster, weaknesses that were exposed in the playoffs, like shooting and size?
“You look big picture, we had a top-five defence and probably an average offence,” Webster said. “And so, you know in this league you need to be essentially top 10 on both ends to be a contender and then top five.
“So, the balance here is how do you improve the offence without taking away the top-five defence, or do you double down on the defence and then figure out the offence? The foundation of this team is on defence… But at the same time, the reality of the NBA is having a good defence and a good offence is what succeeds.”
The degree to which they’re stuck has been a bit overstated. It’s true, they have some contracts that would be hard to move without attaching assets and could limit their maneuverability – Poeltl, most notably, but Quickley and Ingram to a lesser extent.
But they also have several interesting young players, including Murray-Boyles, who could get them into almost any bidding war, if they wanted. They have all their first-round picks and Barrett’s $29.6 million expiring contract to work with. They have options and a front office that’s not afraid to explore them.
This leadership group, previously led by Masai Ujiri, now under Webster, is almost always in the mix whenever a star player becomes available. Don’t be surprised when their name pops again in rumours this summer. Whether there’s a player out there who makes sense for them and their timeline remains to be seen, and no, Giannis Antetokounmpo doesn’t fit that bill as much as he used to. They also have to determine whether this is the right time for them to go all-in.
“For those who know us, we’re always gonna be opportunistic in any trade market,” Webster said. “It’s the reason why we kept all our first-round picks. I think, financially, we’re well positioned in the future to take on money if we have to… But it would have to materially move us ahead from a contender standpoint.”
These are big decisions that lie ahead, and ideally, Webster feels emboldened enough to make them. He too is going into the final year of his contract. Last summer, he replaced the dismissed Ujiri as head of basketball operations and was given a raise, without an extension or his predecessor’s president title. It was an endorsement of the young executive, but a tepid one.
The current front office is made up entirely of holdovers from Ujiri’s staff, so naturally, sources close to the team have described its approach to the past year as being in “survival mode.” It’s hard to blame them, but that’s not exactly an environment that’s conducive to making big, and possibly bold, decisions with the long-term health of the organization at the top of mind.
Same as Rajakovic, Webster and his crew have earned the right to make those decisions with some semblance of job security. The expectation is that they will also be extended over the coming months.
The Raptors are fresh off their best season in half a decade, and with that comes excitement, promise, and pressure. How do they top it? This summer should go a long way in determining what comes next.
