Thursday morning, a report from Ian Begley from SNY It appeared in December Nix offered wild birds Two first-round picks to and anunobe. This comes after it was reported earlier this week, by Bruce Arthur from the Toronto Starrevealed that the Raptors received an offer from an unnamed team of three first-round picks for Anunoby.
So far, Masai Ujiri is unaffected.
But how long will this remain the case?
It’s not just Anunobi that Toronto is sitting on as a potential high-value business piece. Pascal I’m sorry He is allNBA player. Fred VanVleet He is an all star. Gary Trent Jr. It will be a required shooter/defender for almost any competitor.
If the Raptors want to concede this season’s struggles and put a cap on this current core of players, they’ll be in a position to take the Oklahoma City path of rebuilding. Scotty Barnes becomes yours Gilgos Alexander Tea building block, and everyone else is tipped for a truckload of capital project.
Let’s say Siakam deserves three first-round picks. Anunoby three more. VanVleet potentially has two. Another for Trent. That’s nine first-round picks, plus Toronto controls all of its picks going forward. That’s a long time coming, but if you’re a Raptor, are you ready to start over? The reason these players are worth so much is because they are so good. difficult to replace.
The Raptors might go the two-man trade route, but keep their core intact. If so, VanVleet and/or Trent will most likely ship. Assuming Trent turns down his player option for next season, they’ll both be unrestricted free agents this summer.
Earlier this month, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps reported that Toronto has offered VanVleet the maximum extension allowed for four years, $114 million. Fanfleet refused. from ESPN:
But one thing is clear: VanVleet believes he deserves more than what Toronto can currently offer him.
“Without getting too deep into it… [I’m] Just trying to position myself commercially, and not get an extension on a deal I did three or four years ago,” Van Fleet told ESPN.
“I felt like I was over this decade so far. So just trying to put myself in a position to put the cards in their hands. They had to make a decision from an organized standpoint.
“I love being here. I love being a Raptor. I have a great relationship with Masai and Bobby, so I’m confident we can find [a deal]. It’s a great partnership we have, so going forward I’m not going to make it easy for them and they won’t either, and that’s just the way it goes.”
At the 2021 trade deadline, the Raptors fielded Norman Powell To the Blazers for the same reason they may end up dealing with VanVleet over the next few weeks. They didn’t want to pay Powell what it would have required to keep him, and they didn’t want to lose him for nothing in free agency.
If you’re an aogiri, that’s a good problem. A bunch of good players that other teams really covet, and it’s likely he’ll be fine too. At the same 2021 deadline, it looked like a close formality for the Raptors to make a move Kyle Lowry. But they didn’t.
Ujiri will not give up. We know a lot. We also know that “good problems” are problems nonetheless. This is not an easy decision. I’d certainly like to trust Augiri to put a contender together if he suddenly found himself armed with a barrel of OKC-like shots, but there’s no guarantee. It can be a long process. the thunder He’s been at this since 2020 and is only now a .500 team because the SGA has turned him into an MVP-level player.
Does Barnes really have that kind of pro? I would say no, categorically. I think it’s a man you build with, not around. Same with Anunobi. Siakam is the star, but he will turn 29 in April. His schedule will not fit into the Barnes Plan/Venture Capital.
I don’t know the correct answer. this is not my job. I suspect Vanfleet and Trent will be transferred, and Sicam and Anunobi will remain. That would give Toronto at least two more first-round draft picks to add to their box, which would be a very nice package to go out on the market trying to bring in a superstar alongside Siakam and Anunoby. This seems to be the shortest path to conflict.
But which star will become available? And will the Raptors be able to compete against OKC, Houston, or New York – all armed to the teeth with a capital renovation? Would they abandon a group of really good players for the chance to become great, only to end up in the same or perhaps even worse place than where they started? Go ask a Blazers fan about it.
These are all theoretical questions, but you can bet Augiri is thinking about them. These are the decisions that General Motors charges big bucks for dollars to make. It’s not easy. The only thing we know for sure is that if Oguri decides to trade any of these people, he will have no shortage of suitors.