Porter Jr. should be a natural fit with position-less Raptors

TORONTO – If there was ever any doubt how they felt about last season’s great roster experiment, the first 18 hours of free agency should have reaffirmed that the Raptors are all-in on position-less basketball.

Within 30 minutes of the negotiation window opening on Thursday evening, Toronto retained its own unrestricted free agents, Chris Boucher and Thaddeus Young. With the roster filling up quickly, they still had the non-taxpayer midlevel exception of roughly $10.5 million to address another need. Would they finally look to add a centre? Could they use it to bolster their depth in the backcourt?

On Friday morning, they agreed to terms with veteran forward Otto Porter Jr. As first reported by Yahoo Sports, he’ll sign a two-year contract with a player option on the second season once the league’s moratorium is lifted and deals can become official next week. The deal is believed to be worth most, if not all, of the MLE.

Positionally, Porter does not address a need on the Raptors’ roster. In fact, on paper he would seem redundant with the pieces they already have in place. But that’s by design. That’s how this team wants to play.

“If I can find more Preciouses and more Pascals and OGs, trust me, we’ll have 15 more of them on this team,” Raptors president Masai Ujiri said shortly after last season came to an end. “We’ll continue to pile them up.”

Yep, they sure have a type. Of the team’s 12 players under guaranteed contracts for the 2022-23 campaign, eight are listed between 6-foot-7 and 6-foot-9 in height with a wingspan of at least seven feet. The lone exceptions are Fred VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr., Malachi Flynn and Svi Mykhailiuk.

Pascal Siakam: 6-foot-9 with a 7-foot-3 wingspan
OG Anunoby: 6-foot-7, 7-foot-2 wingspan
Scottie Barnes: 6-foot-9, 7-foot-2 wingspan
Precious Achiuwa: 6-foot-8, 7-foot-2 wingspan
Khem Birch: 6-foot-9, 7-foot-1 wingspan
Boucher: 6-foot-9, 7-foot-4 wingspan
Young: 6-foot-8, 7-foot wingspan

At 6-foot-8 with a 7-foot-2 wingspan, Porter is a natural fit.

The Raptors want to play with length and versatility everywhere on the floor, traditional positions be damned. And without an elite rim protector dropping back and erasing mistakes, Nick Nurse’s defensive system relies on all five players being tied in. One weak link on that end and it all falls apart.

They won’t have to worry about that with Porter, a proven defender who can guard multiple positions. He’s got the size and strength to hold his ground around the bucket, with the quickness and the length to switch and challenge shooters on the perimeter.

But he does address one very important need in terms of skill set. He’s a 40 per cent career three-point shooter and should really help a Raptors team that lacked floor spacing a year ago.

While he never quite fulfilled his promise as a former third-overall pick of the Wizards in 2013, the 29-year-old has found his niche in the league as a steady, role-playing three-and-D wing. Going into his 10th season, Porter has played for four different teams including the NBA champion Warriors this past year.

He averaged 8.2 points and 5.7 rebounds, logging 22 minutes per contest over 63 games with Golden State in 2021-22. He was an important part of their rotation in the playoffs. After the Warriors’ Game 3 loss to Boston in the Finals, Steve Kerr made the decision to go small and start Porter, getting more shooting on the floor and matching up with the Celtics. It helped turn the series.

With so much youth at the top of Toronto’s roster, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have another veteran in the room. Like the addition of Young at the trade deadline, Porter’s presence should help a young club mature and take the next step.

It also helps solidify a second unit that struggled for most of last year. The Raptors’ bench ranked last in scoring and three-pointers made, and was tied for last in three-point percentage.

Bringing their own guys back was an important first step.

At one point, after an admittedly rough start to his contract season, it looked like Boucher would be lucky to earn the veteran minimum this summer. However, his campaign – and ultimately his career – turned around when he fully embraced the idea that sometimes less can be more. Instead of coming into the game and hunting shots, he fully leaned into his role as an energy big off the bench. His focus was on running the floor and crashing the glass, and he began to impact winning in a way he never had before.

The result is a well-deserved raise for the 30-year-old from Montreal. His new deal, which can be made official at noon next Wednesday, will be worth a reported $35.25 million over the next three seasons. The annual salary comes in just over the midlevel exception, which other teams could have offered him. Boucher did well to get a third year of guaranteed money – the club generally prefers to keep deals like this to two years, often with a player or team option for the final season. But they’ve also shown they’re willing to reward guys who put in the work and develop in their system and this was another good example of that.

Young also got off to a slow start after being acquired from San Antonio in February, understandable for any player joining a new team mid-season, let alone one who barely saw the floor with the Spurs. But he made an immediate impact with his leadership on and off the court, and once he got his rhythm and conditioning back, he established himself as a crucial rotation piece over the stretch run.

After trading down 13 spots in the draft to acquire him and his Bird rights, hanging onto him was a top priority, and they got it done quickly. With the Raptors structuring his new deal as a contract extension rather than a signing, they were able to complete it and make it official on Friday morning. It’s worth a reported $16 million for two years, with a partially guaranteed second season, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks.

“Thad is a high-level professional who complements our core very well,” general manager Bobby Webster said in a press release. “He is a smart and versatile player who will continue to provide valuable leadership to our younger players on the court and in the locker room.”

Porter gives Nurse another good and reliable option off the bench. With his injury history, they may have to manage his minutes to some degree – he hasn’t logged more than 24 per game since 2018-19. Suddenly though, this team is looking a whole lot deeper than it was back in January when Nurse could barely find seven or eight players to soak up rotation minutes.

It remains to be whether they’ll continue to start small or use Achiuwa with the first unit and bring Trent off the bench. That’ll be a decision for training camp. Assuming Flynn is still around, it’ll also be interesting to see whether he opens the season in Nurse’s circle of trust or if they use Barnes and Siakam as primary creators when VanVleet rests, as they got comfortable doing late last season.

The Raptors have 12 players with fully guaranteed contracts for next season. Second-round pick Christian Koloko remains unsigned; assuming they give him an NBA deal – which seems likely – he’ll be their 13th. The partial guarantee on Dalano Banton’s deal goes up slightly on Monday and then becomes fully guaranteed on opening night, if he’s not waived. Chances are he’ll be back.

Then, provided he has a solid showing at Summer League next week, Justin Champagnie would have the inside track on the 15th spot. They could always unload a contract via trade or potentially waive Mykhailiuk – who recently picked up his player option – and eat the small cap hit if they prefer somebody else in camp.

Most of the heavy lifting has been done, unless of course they’ve got something bigger in the works (do you know of any interesting names who might be available on the trade market?)