Five Key Offseason Questions: Toronto Raptors

The Raptors remain in the midst of their best multiyear stretch in franchise history. After never winning more than 47 games in a season during the first 18 years of their existence, the Raps have topped that total in each of the last four years, recording 50+ wins for the second time in 2016/17. After winning only one playoff series in the first 20 years of the team’s existence, Toronto notched three postseason series victories in the last two seasons.

Still, the Raptors’ 2016/17 season ended on a sour note. After acquiring Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker at the trade deadline in an effort to seriously threaten the Cavaliers in the East, Toronto was thoroughly outmatched in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, failing to win a single game against Cleveland. The resounding defeat created uncertainty about what the future looks like for the Raptors, particularly since key players like Ibaka, Tucker, and Kyle Lowry are unrestricted free agents this summer.

Here are five important questions facing the Raptors as they enter the offseason…

1. Can the Raptors afford to re-sign multiple key free agents?

Before considering whether or not it makes on-court sense to re-sign several of their key free agents, the Raptors will need to determine exactly how far into tax territory ownership is willing to go to keep this roster intact. With about $77MM already in guaranteed salaries on the books for 2017/18, the club would likely need to commit another $60MM+ to re-sign Lowry ($30MM), Ibaka ($20MM), and Tucker ($10MM). And that’s assuming Patrick Patterson, another valuable rotation piece, doesn’t return, since team president Masai Ujiri has said it’s not realistic to bring back all four players.

Those salary figures are estimates, but I think they’re in the general ballpark, and they’d put the Raptors way over the projected $121MM tax line. Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the company that owns the Raptors, has no shortage of money available, but it’s not like this is a championship roster that needs to be kept intact at any cost. Ownership will almost certainly draw the line somewhere — depending on where that line is drawn, it may not be realistic for the Raptors to re-sign certain free agents unless they move other contracts in trades.

2. Can the Raptors afford not to re-sign multiple key free agents?

After watching the Cavaliers’ decimation of the Raptors in this year’s playoffs, it’s easy to say Toronto should blow up its roster, focus on adding young talent, and work toward contending a few years from now, when LeBron James‘ peak is over. But that’s much easier said than done.

With $77MM already on their books for 2017/18, the Raptors aren’t in position to pursue another top free agent even if they renounce all their own FAs. And if they were to renounce their own free agents, that would mean losing very good players like Lowry and Ibaka for nothing.

If the Raptors cleaned house entirely, trading several of their veteran players, they probably wouldn’t get huge returns for any of them — DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas are good players, but have big contracts and lack some of the skills required to thrive in the modern NBA. DeMarre Carroll is overpriced, given his injury history. Cory Joseph is a decent trade chip, but he wouldn’t exactly inspire a bidding war. And the team’s other players are young enough that it doesn’t make sense to move them as part of a rebuild.

Retooling around DeRozan and some of the young players is another possibility, but that would likely set up the Raptors to be a middle-of-the-pack team for the immediate future, making it difficult to land lottery picks and acquire star talent going forward. It would also put them far behind division rivals like the Celtics and Sixers in terms of long-term upside.

This is a long-winded way of saying that the Raptors’ best bet, despite the team’s inability to knock off the Cavs, may be to bring back Lowry and one or two of its other free agents. That team wouldn’t be the favorite in the East, but it would probably still be a top-four seed. That’s not a bad place to be for the time being, as the club considers how best to build a legit contender.

3. Which players may need to be traded this offseason?

If the Raptors do re-sign Lowry and Ibaka, or Lowry, Tucker, and Patterson, the team would likely need to clear salary elsewhere to avoid the tax. The three most logical trade candidates on the roster are Valanciunas, Carroll, and Joseph, but it won’t be easy to get a great return for any of them, as noted above.

Valanciunas has improved on defense over the last few years, but still isn’t an elite rim protector, and his low-post style makes it hard to keep him on the court against certain teams. The trade market was over-saturated with that type of player this past year, with guys like Greg Monroe and Enes Kanter not generating much interest. Valanciunas is set to make $15MM+ in 2017/18, and his best bet for increasing his trade value – or his role in Toronto – would be to have him pull a Brook Lopez and develop an outside shot.

Carroll’s skill-set is a better fit in today’s NBA, but the three-and-D specialist has been plagued by injuries since coming to Toronto, putting a dent in both his on-court production and his trade value. With a $14.8MM cap hit in ’17/18 and another year left on his contract after that, Carroll will be a difficult piece to trade unless the Raptors attach a draft pick to him.

That leaves Joseph as the team’s most logical trade piece, and clearing his $7.6MM+ salary could help create a little breathing room for the Raptors to re-sign free agents. Still, for a trade to become a realistic possibility, the Raps will have to re-sign Lowry and be confident that the Delon Wright/Fred VanVleet duo is ready to take the reins in that backup role.

4. Are the young players ready to step up?

Speaking of Wright and VanVleet, they’re part of a large group of young players that could be ready for larger roles with the Raptors. Outside of those point guards, the Raps also have big men Jakob Poeltl and Lucas Nogueira waiting in the wings, with Bruno Caboclo and Pascal Siakam lurking as possible future rotation pieces. Norman Powell, of course, has been the best of the bunch to date, playing a key part in the club’s first-round victory over Milwaukee.

Many of those players showed some very promising flashes of potential this past season, and while Caboclo and Siakam may not be ready for expanded roles quite yet, the development of this group of players could be key for the Raptors’ ability to build a sustainable winner. If Toronto decides that Poeltl, Wright, and Nogueira can be solid contributors, it would become easier to move guys like Joseph and Valanciunas, which in turn would create more financial flexibility for a team that has some major cap decisions to make.

5. Is Dwane Casey the right coach for the Raptors?

Casey has been the most successful head coach in Raptors’ history, compiling a 261-215 regular-season record (.548) to go along with four playoff berths. However, the team has displayed a worrying habit of regressing in the postseason, with Lowry’s and DeRozan’s scoring and efficiency numbers taking major hits.

While it may not be fair to place all the blame for that on Casey, Ujiri did make a point during his end-of-season presser this month to stress that the team will re-think its style of play this summer. According to Ujiri, the key to improvement for the Raptors may not be continuing to change their players, but rather to change their approach on the court.

Ujiri sounds ready to give Casey a chance to make the necessary on-court changes, but if he proves incapable of adjusting, Toronto may eventually be in the market for a new head coach.

Here’s where things currently stand for the Raptors financially:

Guaranteed Salary

• DeMar DeRozan ($27,739,975)
• Jonas Valanciunas ($15,460,675)
• DeMarre Carroll ($14,800,000)
• Cory Joseph ($7,630,000)
• Lucas Nogueira ($2,947,305)
• Jakob Poeltl ($2,825,640)
• Bruno Caboclo ($2,451,225)
• Delon Wright ($1,645,200)
• Pascal Siakam ($1,312,611)
• Total: $76,812,631

Player Options

• None

Team Options

• None

Non-Guaranteed Salary

• Norman Powell ($1,471,382)¹
• Fred VanVleet ($1,312,611)²
• Total: $2,783,993
  

Restricted Free Agents

• None

Cap Holds

• Serge Ibaka ($18,375,000)
• Kyle Lowry ($18,000,000) — Player option declined.
• Patrick Patterson ($11,495,000)
• P.J. Tucker ($10,070,000)
• No. 23 overall pick ($1,645,200)
• Total: $59,585,200

Projected Salary Cap: $101,000,000

Maximum Cap Room: $20,910,939

• With nine players on guaranteed salaries and a cap hold for a first-round pick, the Raptors could add two cap charges for empty roster spots for a total team salary of $80,089,061. However, that scenario would involve waiving Powell and VanVleet, not to mention renouncing Lowry, Ibaka, Patterson, and Tucker. That’s not realistic. It’s far more likely that Toronto stays over the cap and makes an effort to re-sign some of its own free agents, forgoing potential cap room.

Footnotes:

1. Powell’s salary becomes fully guaranteed after June 29.
2. VanVleet’s salary becomes fully guaranteed after July 20.

Salary information from Basketball Insiders and The Vertical was used in the creation of this post. Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.