There may be all the time the possibility that it is going to all make sense in time and the logic of the moves made or not made will seem self-evident in retrospect.
However the reverse can be true: that in time — and possibly earlier than later — some decisions shall be exposed as overly cautious or selecting short-term gain over long-term profit.
Or possibly Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster are only old softies, they usually couldn’t bear to part with players who they drafted, developed, and won with, a lot in order that the one move they made was to reacquire an old friend they never desired to trade in the primary place.
What they did do was defensible. In adding one-time Raptor and now former San Antonio Spurs centre Jakob Poeltl, Toronto got the perfect player in the trade, one that matches a need and suits culturally. They usually did it without giving up a rotation piece, apologies to veteran out-going centre Khem Birch.
However it seems like a half measure, and possibly it’s. Perhaps it’s a management team looking at the Raptors’ NBA-worst 3-10 record in close games and considering that before they hang it on the coach or rush to judgement about players, ‘let’s see if a few leaks will be plugged before all the pieces gets tossed overboard’.
As well, larger picture, if Scottie Barnes is auditioning because the Raptors No.1 option and franchise lynchpin, possibly let’s have him play in a balanced lineup rounded out by a high IQ veteran big man (Poeltl) and see if his growth will be accelerated that far more.
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In that context, while adding the Spurs big man seems at first glance just like the Raptors lunging clumsily for a play-in spot, possibly a larger purpose is being served.
Because without that sort of strategic ballast, the move by itself — and the dearth of other moves to go with it — seems underwhelming.
Virtually all of the discussion surrounding the Raptors for the past month has been in the context of a team that’s playing poorly and has chemistry issues — Ujiri brought up bouts of selfish play greater than once — amongst a core of players facing contract decisions and a roster with more holes than a single move could address.
Add all of it up and it seemed this was the time to be daring.
And if being daring wasn’t an option in the short term, it was at least a time to chart a course and explain for the people how a team now 4 years faraway from their championship glory was going to get back there again.
Talk is affordable, of course.
And it’s fair that if the franchise is giving consideration to moving on from O.G. Anunoby or Pascal Siakam — the players on the Raptors roster most certainly to generate a franchise-changing haul of young talent and picks in a reset or rebuild or retool — possibly waiting until the summer is the clever move.
As Ujiri said. “In the summertime there are 29 losers seeking to make their team higher.”
Again, absent that line of considering, adding the player who Toronto drafted in 2016 with the ninth pick and traded to the Spurs in the summer of 2018 in the deal that brought Kawhi Leonard to the Raptors seems like doubling down on a low-ceiling group that has struggled play .500 basketball to this point this season.
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Perhaps another aspects were at play.
Perhaps the rapid shift in the market, with Kyrie Irving after which Kevin Durant demanding — and getting — trades from Brooklyn to Dallas and Phoenix respectively, was disruptive to other teams attempting to make big swing deals. The Nets profiled as a interesting partner for the Raptors to have interaction with once they still had Durant, but less so once they acquired a slew of draft picks and a pair of good young wings from the Suns.
And the Suns — one other team that were rumoured to have been possible partners in deals for Anunoby or Siakam? Well suddenly they were full.
Still, even acting conservatively comes with risks. Going into the deadline, a popular line of considering was that the Raptors would must trade one of Fred VanVleet or Gary Trent Jr. since each were likely pending free agents this summer and signing each could push the Raptors to the sting of the posh tax — not the place to be for a mid-pack team.
Now, the Raptors have added Poeltl’s free agency to contend with as well. VanVleet, Trent Jr. and Poeltl together could command salaries in the range of $70 million combined in 2023-24. Failing to sign all or any of them risks losing precious players for no return, a huge no-no that might be the management equivalent of falling asleep at the wheel on the highway. Meanwhile, the Raptors needing to sign all of them will give each of them considerable leverage at contract time.
Alternatively? One other way out of a pending money crunch could be to trade Anunoby or Siakam in the summer, a wrinkle that bears watching.
“The best way I look at the deadline (is) it’s really not a great place to make long-term decisions,” said Ujiri. “That’s one of the ways we looked at it in terms of some of the things we were getting … hopefully we will have a little bit of patience. All the pieces we could have done today possibly we could do in the summer.”
One other risk is that adding Poeltl will likely cost the Raptors draft position this season — they’re just 3.5 games out of the fifth-best odds at the highest pick in a talented, top-heavy draft. Conceivably the Raptors could still tank, but it surely’s unlikely.
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And by trading away a first-round pick to the Spurs that’s top-six protected in 2024 (2025 or 2026 if the Raptors don’t find yourself picking somewhere between seventh and thirtieth they lose the pick) and two more unprotected second round picks, the Raptors are prioritizing being a playoff team with none obvious path to being a team that would win a series when it gets there.
For now anyway. Within the meantime? The 2024 draft is widely considered one of the weaker ones in some years, actually not price tanking for. The protections are a calculated risk but so long as Toronto plays decently next season — in whatever configuration — sending away a protected pick in a soft draft shouldn’t be a move that’s more likely to haunt them.
However it wasn’t a great day for individuals who want clarity and certainty. Moderately than lines in the sand or a path to the celebrities, Ujiri offered only the ‘all the pieces in time’ approach. Trust and keep on with us.
As slogans go it’s not the sexiest, but you could have to acknowledge the sincerity.
“We’re trying. I believe we’re trying. Growth shouldn’t be linear,” said Ujiri. “We’ve had a really bumpy road (this season). That’s what you expect sometimes with a young team. Now we have a young team. I believe players have made progress individually (but) as a team, it’s been up and down. We had a really rough stretch. But I feel in these guys. We imagine in them. We predict growth sometimes takes a while. There’s a level of impatience now with how we take into consideration things and do things. Hopefully we will have a little bit of patience.”
They will have all of the patience they need. Ujiri is in the second yr of a five-year contract and Webster has all of the job security Ujiri can offer. They’ve steered the Raptors to eight playoff appearances in nine years and counting, with their championship rings handy to wave at anybody who desires to beat back on their methods with an excessive amount of vigour.
But in the NBA patience has a cost too. On Friday night, the Raptors host the Utah Jazz. Poeltl, 27 and with seven seasons as a quality, role playing, defensive-minded big on his resume will likely start. Opposite him shall be Jazz rookie big man Walker Kessler who dominated the Raptors at times last week in Salt Lake City.
Kessler is what happens whenever you act decisively and go all in on rebuilding quickly, quite than incrementally. This time last season, Utah was an elite team on the mistaken side of its peak.
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Jazz president Danny Ainge proceeded to not only rip off the bandaids but add iodine to them. He traded franchise cornerstones Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell in the summer and made some additional moves at the deadline Thursday. The result’s a treasure trove of future draft assets, a young all-star in Laurie Markkanen, Kessler who has the look of an all-NBA defender and Ochai Agbaji, who looks like a quality two-way player at shooting guard. All this on a team that’s two games under .500 and in perfect position to do anything: attempt to make the playoffs, tank into a deep lottery position, chase the subsequent star that comes available by trade, package picks to climb in the draft or patiently draft and develop with multiple kicks at the can over time.
The Jazz picked a path, just as some of the NBA’s other encouraging turnaround stories did before them. The Memphis Grizzlies, Latest Orleans Pelicans, Orlando Magic, and Oklahoma City Thunder all made tough selections — or were forced into making tough selections — to maneuver on from superstars or recognize when teams had reached their ceiling.
The turnaround hasn’t all the time been smooth or without hiccups, and luck played a role, but in each case the outcomes are encouraging young teams with obvious upside.
Do any of those adjectives fit the Raptors because they added Poeltl? The team’s best players — VanVleet and Siakam — shall be 29 by season’s end and haven’t been capable of lift the team this season. Anunoby has been widely reported as unhappy in his role with the Raptors and that doesn’t project to vary unless he does. Essentially the most encouraging elements on the team are its younger core — 21-year-old Scottie Barnes, 23-year-old Precious Achiuwa, 24-year-old Gary Trent Jr. and 25-year-old Anunoby. But adding Poeltl appears to be more of an investment in the current of VanVleet and Siakam than that of the long run. Poeltl’s presence could eat into Achiuwa’s minutes, Barnes’ room to operate and rookie centre Christian Koloko’s horizon.
Seeing exactly how far the present group can go along with just a big of help isn’t a bad investment, but even then it’s a bit underwhelming. On a day when some pretty good players moved for bundles of second-round picks the Raptors didn’t jump on that train either and missed probabilities at snaping up the sort of role players — shooters and play-makers — that might tell the team and everybody else that they’re going to live and die with the present group.
Make no mistake. At the top of the day, the Raptors are higher now with Poeltl than they were yesterday without him. But for the moment, Toronto doesn’t come across as a team that’s going places, and in the event that they are, they’re heading there slowly.
Sometimes in the NBA being too patient means you get run over.
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