Columnist image

TSN Raptors Reporter

| Archive

TORONTO – NBA trade season is upon us, and it rarely disappoints.

Deadline week has already given us four meaningful transactions to parse. Twenty players have switched teams, including an all-star big man, multiple high-scoring wings, and one of the game’s most exciting young guards. Nine draft picks have also been swapped. And all that went down before we had even gotten inside of 48 hours from the actual deadline, scheduled for 3 p.m. ET on Thursday.

The biggest domino, Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons, remains on the board. James Harden’s future in Brooklyn is still up in the air. Is Portland’s fire sale complete? What comes next for Indiana, or Sacramento? What other surprises does this wonderfully crazy league have in store? It should be a fun few days.

Where do the Raptors fit in all the chaos?

Six weeks ago, evaluating where this young Toronto team was at, where it could go and what it needed to get there seemed like an impossible task.

They were hovering around .500 before the calendar flipped to 2022, which was more or less on par with where most people had expected them to be, but with injuries, inconsistency and a late-December COVID outbreak it was tough to get a good read on their progress.

Consider this: Through the team’s first 32 games, its five best players had only shared the court three times. Since January 1, though, those five – Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Scottie Barnes and Gary Trent Jr. – have played and started together in 12 of 20 games, with the club going 11-1 in those contests and 14-6 over that stretch.

There’s a lot to like, particularly from that group. VanVleet is now officially an all-star, and has looked the part for a while. Siakam, the reigning Eastern Conference Player of the Week, just missed the cut but is playing the best basketball of his career. Anunoby has quietly taken another step forward, especially as a playmaker and clutch performer, Barnes continues to put together a fantastic rookie season, and Trent is one of the league’s hottest scorers right now.

Suddenly, the Raptors – who were supposed to be in the very early stages of their development – are looking like a team that can make some noise in a wide-open Eastern Conference playoff race. Riding a six-game winning streak, they’ve moved ahead of the pre-season championship favourite Brooklyn Nets for sixth place.

President Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster have to like what they’ve seen from this group, but what have they learned from it and how does this recent run change their approach at the deadline, if at all?

“It’s the question of the moment,” Webster said on Tuesday. “Two, three weeks ago before we came together, I think we might have had a different conversation. I think we’re cognizant of what the team looks like now, but we also realize it could go the other way. So there’s a sense of optimism but also, what’s the overall timeline for this team? What were the expectations coming in, and are we ahead of schedule, behind schedule, or kind of right on schedule?”

If there was ever any doubt, there isn’t now; the Raptors feel really good about their core group, at least good enough to see how it fares over the stretch run before revaluating in the off-season. All five of those guys are between the ages of 20 and 27, and they’re all under long-term control. You never want to say anything is impossible in this league, especially at this time of year, but it would be shocking if any of them were to be moved this week.

“Obviously, with the way the players are growing and playing together, I think it probably suggests less of a major move,” Webster said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t get those calls and we’re not talking about them, but I think the good vibes of the current group hopefully bodes well for the future.”

“I think we have a solid core,” VanVleet said last week. “If we’re talking about building a championship-calibre team, we definitely need some additions, but that can come in a lot of different ways. My favourite additions are the guys that we have getting better.”

With their five-most valuable players out of play, barring a mega offer, that essentially rules out of the possibility of a blockbuster. The Raptors probably won’t make the biggest move of deadline day, and they definitely won’t make the biggest move of the week, given some of the deals that have already been made. But, with that said, it would also be a surprise if they didn’t do anything at all.

Another thing that this front office should’ve learned over these past few weeks is that those five guys – as impressive as they’ve been – need some help. If this team is going to make a playoff push, and that appears to be the goal, it needs to get deeper.

Dating back to early January, the Raptors’ starters rank first, second, third, sixth and seventh in minutes per game. Siakam and VanVleet, in particular, have been carrying massive and likely unsustainable workloads, and it’s not hard to see why. Nick Nurse doesn’t have a ton of great options at his disposal, hence the tight rotation. On most nights, he’s leaning on seven guys – the starters, as well as Chris Boucher and Precious Achiuwa. While those two have been giving them good minutes recently, Toronto ranks last in bench scoring, averaging 22.6 points per game, 4.5 fewer than anybody else.

The sense is that the Raptors have been among the league’s most active teams in the weeks and days leading up to Thursday’s deadline, but the bulk of those conversations have involved adding pieces without subtracting from the current rotation. That’s where Goran Dragic’s expiring $19.4 million contract comes in. With it, they can match incoming salary, while attaching an asset or two – draft capitol and a prospect, perhaps – to sweeten an offer.

“I think it’s a unique piece,” Webster said. “There aren’t many of them around the league, so you get to be in conversations that you typically [wouldn’t be in].”

“It greases deals in the NBA, which is the name of the game this week.”

How much would they be willing to attach to Dragic’s contract? Naturally, that depends on what they’d be getting back. It’s believed that they’re open to parting with a first-round pick and a young player, like sophomore Malachi Flynn. At that cost, the expected return would be a player who fits their short and long-term plans, somebody that addresses an immediate need while also complementing their core beyond this season.

A few things to keep in mind: The Raptors are right up against the luxury tax for this season, so they’re likely unwilling to take on more short-term salary than they’re giving up in any deal they make this week. As an above-cap team with enough space under the tax for next season, they do have some flexibility to add long-term salary, something that Webster indicated they would be open to doing.

In terms of need, the centre position is usually the first thing that comes up. They don’t have a player listed taller than 6-foot-9, but that’s by design rather than something they see as a weakness. They like the versatility that all of their length, quickness and athleticism gives them, especially on the defensive end. Adding a traditional big man isn’t as high on the priority list as you might think. They’re search for depth is more about targeting certain skill sets, like shooting or playmaking, than a specific position.

“By no means do we think this is the final look,” said Webster. “And I think that’s why this week’s important for us, if we can find a player that would complement that group, whether it’s positionally or if they look like [the players we already have].”

If adding another shooter is the priority, Atlanta has a couple interesting wings in Danilo Gallinari and Bogdan Bogdanovic. They both have another year left on their deals, and Bogdanovic has a player option for 2023-24. The question is whether those guys are available, with the Hawks looking to dodge the tax while also remaining competitive.

Veteran Kings forward Harrison Barnes checks off a lot of boxes. His salary lines up with Dragic’s, and he’s under contract for next season. He’s also hitting 41 per cent of his threes and hasn’t shot below 38 per cent since 2017-18. But what is Sacramento up to? Tuesday’s trade with Indiana – moving sophomore Tyrese Haliburton for two-time all-star Domantas Sabonis – might indicate that they’re in the market to buy and not to sell.

Rockets veteran sharpshooter Eric Gordon is likely available, but draft compensation might be a sticking point, as it could be with any of these guys. Is he worth a first-round pick? Would Houston be willing to give him up for Dragic and a second?

It probably wouldn’t take much more than Dragic to pry Evan Fournier (who has two more years on his deal) from the Knicks, or Gary Harris (who’s contract is also expiring) from Orlando.

If they go the centre route, Spurs big man and former Raptor Jakob Poeltl would be a great fit, though the framework of that deal would need to be bigger as he makes just under $9 million this season and just over it never season. San Antonio doesn’t have much incentive to shop him – he’s still just 26 and is on a team-friendly deal – but a first-rounder should at least start the conversation.

Reportedly, the Pacers are less inclined to move Myles Turner after trading Sabonis, and their asking price of two first-round picks may have been too rich for Toronto’s blood anyway. Jusuf Nurkic is expiring and only makes $12 million, but he’s worth checking in on, with the Blazers unloading CJ McCollum, Norman Powell and Robert Covington earlier this week.

The Raptors are in a good position going into the deadline, and they should be in a good position coming out of it. The roster isn’t likely to look drastically different at this time next week, at least the top of it won’t, but they’ve got the means and should have the motivation to strengthen that position going into the stretch run.

“I just think we've made progress,” Nurse said. “We've talked about that for a while… We had some dips and players in and out and whatever, but I think we've learned the team, they've learned each other, there's some connectivity there. It isn't perfect and it isn't maybe what we thought it would look like, but we're just trying to keep improving them as a group and go forward.”