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TORONTO – After completing the OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam trades, Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri repeated one word, seemingly preparing himself as much as he was preparing anyone else.
“I don’t know (whether) to call this a rebuild or a restart or whatever we want to put it, but a normal rebuild with other teams takes… five, six years. Do we have patience for that? said Ujiri, president of the Toronto Raptors. “Do we have the patience to build our team for three to five years? Somehow, some way, we’re going to have to be patient. And one of the things I tell you, one hundred percent, that I’m not going to fool anyone about it, is that I have patience.”
On the surface, the Raptors’ action on Thursday went against that. For the third year in a row, they gave up a first-round pick right before the deadline arrived. Only one other team, the Dallas Mavericks, gave up a first-round pick. The Raptors apparently can’t fully commit to a youth movement.
However, Thursday was much different than the 2023 and 2022 deadlines for the Raptors. What they did by adding Kelly Olynyk and Ochai Agbaji and sending four players essentially amounted to diversifying their portfolio of assets around the core of the team. That core is still Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley and maybe RJ Barrett.
“We’re trying to find the right combination,” Raptors general manager Bobby Webster said in a post-deadline news conference.
In addition to trading Otto Porter Jr., Kira Lewis Jr. and the first-round pick to Utah, the Raptors also traded Dennis Schröder and Thaddeus Young to Brooklyn for Spencer Dinwiddie, whom they immediately waived, wanting to take a closer look at Barnes and others. . younger options with the ball in their hands.
“Even in personal conversations with many teams in our similar position, (the consensus is) that young people need leadership,” Webster added. “And I think we lost a little bit of that veteran presence when we did previous deals.
“And then you’re trying to find the right chemistry of who can guide these players. It’s hard for us to lose Thad. … So we are simultaneously bringing in young players to develop and grow, but we also create an environment around them, where they learn professional habits, they are held accountable, they understand how to play basketball at the NBA level. We are learning to win.”
The two offices had very different purposes. The Raptors wanted the Utah players and decided it was worth giving up the worst of the three picks they got from the Pacers for Siakam. Trading for a pending unrestricted free agent in Olynyk is risky. The Raptors did it with Young and Jakob Poeltl in the middle of the previous two seasons, and ended up re-signing them to player-friendly deals (though not so egregiously, from a team perspective) to retain those players. There’s also a chance that Olynyk decides to go elsewhere, although the fact that he’s Canadian and turns 33 shortly after the regular season ends limits which teams would try to sign him. At first glance, a two-year deal for the mid-level exception seems reasonable, essentially filling Schröder’s cap spot. Olynyk is eligible for an immediate extension, and Webster said Olynyk wants to be in Toronto.
Translation: They hope to find common ground in a contract.
“We’ve been big fans of Kelly,” Webster said. “I think the way we look at him specifically is he’s got a steady hand and I think we’ve seen that with the bench units, especially the bigs, he’s going to bring a veteran presence skill set, a voice that we think that unit I might need some help.”
More than anything, the Raptors seemed unwilling to invest more in the 2024 NBA Draft. Before Thursday, if their own pick fell into the top six, they would have had three first-round picks, as well as an early second-rounder in what is considered a weak draft. According to multiple reports, the New York Knicks were offering a 2024 first-round pick for Bruce Brown, but the Raptors wanted a future pick, not wanting to get too leveraged in this draft class.
The Raptors are also giving up the least desirable of their picks, which will end up going to the Los Angeles Clippers or Oklahoma City Thunder, whoever ends up with a better record and, consequently, a worse pick. They still have the Pacers’ pick and the Detroit Pistons’ second-round pick, as well as potentially having their own. Getting Agbaji, who is in the second year of his rookie contract at a sudden position of need, the wing, is a good bet.
“I think Ochai’s energy will revitalize Scottie,” Webster said.
Keeping Brown means the Raptors are highly unlikely to have cap space to splurge on free agents. They would have to decline Brown’s $23 million team option and let Olynyk and Gary Trent Jr. enter free agency to get closer to $40 million in cap space. Then again, there’s no one on the market who’s likely worth that, at least those who would consider the Raptors a realistic option.
The Raptors will most likely retain Olynyk, see what Brown’s trade value is over the summer and next season, and consider bringing back Trent if the price is right. For now, Olynyk and Brown will stabilize the bench and give the Raptors a few more options to close out competitive games.
As for the future? Well, let’s see who becomes indispensable.
Grades
• Webster said no one met the Raptors’ asking price for Brown, or they would have done something. With only two first-round picks moved that day, the Raptors’ request seems pretty obvious.
• The Raptors also didn’t move Trent. He is set to become an unrestricted free agent after exercising his 2023-24 player option in a surprise last offseason.
“Gary is 25 years old and a 40 percent three-point shooter. So you can start there,” Webster said when asked if Trent was part of the team’s plans going forward. “I think he would probably even admit that he didn’t get off to as good a start as he would have liked, but he’s settled in and we’re seeing it. So I think it’s a little bit TBD on Gary, but I think we’re seeing him grow with this group. We’re seeing him pick his spots offensively. “I think you’re seeing him be a little more aggressive defensively, which is something we’ve seen over the years.”
Trent is young enough to receive an offer above the mid-level exception from some team this summer, but having his Bird rights potentially hold him instead of getting some second-round picks for him is a defensible piece of management Of the template. To determine he is right.
• The Raptors have 13 players on the main roster, which means they have two empty spots on the roster. They could convert one of their three players on two-way contracts, Jontay Porter, Javon Freeman-Liberty or Markquis Nowell, to a main roster contract, or they could leave the organization. The Raptors have to fill one of the positions within two weeks. They want to see what Barnes can do in a more dominant role, but they still need a point guard.
• Finally, Webster was asked if being able to keep the pick they owe the San Antonio Spurs for Poeltl, who is protected in the top six, in the next three drafts would impact how the Raptors approach their final 31 games. . The Raptors entered Thursday’s game tied with Memphis for the sixth-worst record in the league, although obviously, the lottery can change the draft order.
“We’re going to prioritize watching this group play,” Webster said. “If we finish in the top six or outside the top six, especially the way the new (lottery odds) are, trying to play that doesn’t make a lot of sense. At the end of the day, it will be the lottery balls.
“I think the big priority for us is playing with that young group together: getting Gradey (Dick) into that group, seeing how they fit together because that will give us a lot more information on how to build this team.”
(Top photo by Kelly Olynyk: Troy Taormina/USA Today)