The NBA’s trade deadline has come and gone. The league’s all-star festivities kick off later this week and, after the Toronto Raptors play on Tuesday and Wednesday, it will be time for a welcome break.
By the time the team reconvenes in Miami for a game on Feb. 21, there still will be 27 contests to be played, or a third of a season.
Here’s what you can expect the Raptors to try to accomplish over the final two months and an early look at the salary cap picture heading into the summer:
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FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCE
General manager Bobby Webster laid things out pretty clearly after making a flurry of moves last week.
Toronto will need to balance the primary need of the franchise, which is landing an elite prospect via next June’s draft, with getting at least a handful of games with the full existing core together to get a better sense of where the group is heading into the off-season.
Those players rarely had all been available at the same time (due mainly to starting point guard Immanuel Quickley missing most of the season) and now the most talented scorer on the team, newcomer Brandon Ingram, will have to be integrated into Darko Rajakovic’s system.
Ideally, Quickley, Ingram, Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett and Jakob Poeltl will get some reps together before the season ends — but not too many, if they want to have a good shot at Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey or the other top prospects.
The Raptors plan to give plenty of run to youngsters Ja’Kobe Walter, Gradey Dick, Jonathan Mogbo and Jamal Shead the rest of the way. That should help on two fronts, since they’ll get crucial experience and it will take players who are better right now out of the lineup.
“I think we’re super charged with the young guys,” Webster said. ‘”And I think that’s what you’ll see for the rest of the season, the growth of Jamal, the growth of Ja’Kobe, sort of sophomore jump of Gradey, these are what our eyes on”
As Webster said, “it’s still a rebuild … Takes time for players to come together. It takes time for them to ascend.”
Toronto’s youngsters will get all the minutes they can handle the rest of the season.
IS THE PLAY-IN A POSSIBILITY?
If Toronto went with its full roster and avoided significant injuries the rest of the way, absolutely.
The Raptors face the easiest strength of schedule in the entire NBA from now on. Opponents have a combined .415 winning percentage, per Tankathon.com.
A win at Philadelphia, the NBA’s biggest disappointment so far, on Tuesday would leave the Raptors just 3.5 games behind the Sixers.
Philadelphia is 1.5 games out of the play-in, with Chicago, the team right in front of the Sixers, potentially set to stumble a bit after trading top scorer Zach LaVine.
Ninth-place Atlanta traded away two strong players in De’Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic, and could be set for a free-fall as well with second-best player Jalen Johnson lost for the season.
However, we’ve already established what the plan is in Toronto (expect the veterans to get plenty of rest), and to expect Raptors players to stay healthy based on the way things have gone so far this year seems like a bad bet.
Toronto players have missed 175 games due to injuries. Only nine teams have missed more and only two teams have missed more time on average from its highest-paid players (New Orleans and Philadelphia), according to Spotrac.com.
The Sixers face the third-easiest schedule and might have Joel Embiid and Paul George available a lot more often, so they’ll probably rise.
Toronto probably has dug too big a hole to get to the play-in and will try to avoid being in the mix.
LOOKING AHEAD WITH SALARIES
Webster mentioned that Toronto will try to get an extension done with Ingram (Chris Boucher also is extension eligible, but while he has stuck around forever, consider that unlikely for cap reasons).
Webster also was asked repeatedly if the team can make the salary cap math work with a massive Barnes extension set to kick in.
Everything should be fine for next year, though if the Raptors move up to land the top pick or even one in the Top 3, the fact that those prospects now command well north of $10 million US a season makes things trickier, although in a nice problem to have type of way.
This also is assuming they can find common ground with Ingram on a deal that will pay him somewhere between the $36 million on his expiring contract and, say, $42 million annually.
It would be really tight if Flagg or the second pick come to town, but it could be doable, though they’d have to get Ingram to start a little lower on a deal that escalates annually.
Even so, they just might be in the tax in order to fill out the roster. Toronto only has ever paid the luxury tax twice, but it was interesting that Webster discussed how things have changed league-wide in terms of how the tax might be perceived.
It used to be you only paid if you believed you were a title contender. Now, more teams might see just being in the playoff mix as enough incentive to go into the tax (though the penalties of the “repeater” tax if you keep going into the tax are absolutely still deterrents).
Even if the 5-9 pick arrives via the lottery and even with the NBA’s salary cap rising, Toronto still will be in a bind two summers from now. That’s because Poeltl and Barrett’s contracts expire then (Poeltl has a team option, but if he’s healthy, he’ll decline it because he’ll be worth more on the open market).
Re-signing both (assuming Ingram still is on board) would put Toronto well into the tax in 2026-27. Ochai Agbaji will also be up for a new deal then, too.
Would ownership and management be comfortable being there if the group, while talented, isn’t a realistic contender? Yes, this is looking quite a bit ahead, but if Ingram stays, one or both of Barrett or Agbaji might have to eventually go to make it all work.
But that’s tomorrow’s problem for the Raptors.
@WolstatSun