3:44pm: The Grizzlies would be looking for more than Lowry and Valanciunas in return for Conley and Gasol, according to Mitch Lawrence of Sporting News, who hears that Memphis asked for Pascal Siakam (Twitter link). The Raptors aren’t trading Siakam, but would be willing to include Delon Wright and a future first-round pick, says Lawrence.
Toronto’s 2019 first-round pick is committed to San Antonio, so the 2021 first-rounder would be the next one available.
2:18pm: While the Grizzlies have reportedly been primarily engaged in talks with the Jazz and Pistons for Mike Conley, another potential suitor has entered the mix, according to Jake Fischer of SI.com. League sources tell Fischer that the Raptors have contacted Memphis and offered Kyle Lowry and Jonas Valanciunas in a deal for both Conley and Marc Gasol.
It’s a fascinating offer from Toronto’s perspective, as the second-best team in the East appears willing to give up an All-Star guard and an important rotation piece in a proposal that would reshape its roster. Lowry has been made aware of the Raptors’ trade talks involving him, per Fischer.
On the other hand though, it’s hard to see why the Grizzlies would jump at Toronto’s offer, unless the franchise isn’t totally committed to rebuilding. Lowry has a cap number similar to Conley’s, albeit with a contract that expires a year earlier. Valanciunas has a $17.62MM player option for next season.
By comparison, Utah’s offer for Conley reportedly includes a sizable expiring contract (Ricky Rubio‘s) and a first-round pick. It could also feature a prospect like Dante Exum or Grayson Allen, according to Fischer. Detroit’s offer for Conley is said to include Reggie Jackson and a first-rounder. The Grizzlies are believed to be seriously considering both teams’ offers, per Tony Jones of The Athletic (Twitter link).
According to Fischer, the Grizzlies turned down the Raptors’ initial offer and would prefer to receive younger players – such as OG Anunoby – and/or draft assets from Toronto.
Meanwhile, Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca provides a different perspective, tweeting that he’s heard the talks between the Grizzlies and Raptors were initiated by Memphis and didn’t progress very far.
While Grange’s and Fischer’s accounts on which team initiated the talks seem contradictory, it’s possible both are accurate — perhaps Memphis made the first call and the Raptors, in turn, returned the Grizzlies’ call to let them know what they’d be willing to offer. If the Grizzlies didn’t like what they heard, discussions may not have advanced from there.
Makes no sense for grizzlies
I understand why raptors would want gasol but why would they want Conley. When Lowry a similar player makes no sense to me
Slightly younger and one less yr on contract
And a better player at this point
Plus like with Derozan the Raps may want to rid themselves of a star who can disappear when in the playoffs
The Raptors don’t want either player. This is reported as fabricated and coming out of Memphis to get other teams to up their offers.
That said, Conley is supremely underrated as a player (while being overpaid). He’s really, really good.
Really? Whatever Raps may gain in NBA 2K, they lose with a roster shock, that almost can’t end well.
Agreed! It’s almost as if this report didn’t come from the Raptors, and as if the Raptors would never have even considered this trade!
The reporters are just pushing forward slanderous garbage from the gong-show Memphis front office.
I may want to borrow “roster shock” in the future.
However TOR should do it, even at the loss of Wright and a ’21 1st also. TOR is trying to beat the close but no cigar problem, or else they may lose Leonard instead.
Lowery may be declining, and was a mistake as an allstar. He was underrated once but now his accolades look silly compared to Conley.
As a fan it would be great to see a change of scene for Conley & Gasol.
I’d agree with this if Conley and Gasol were actually better than Lowry and JV… but Gasol has seriously slowed down too.
I love Conley and I love his game, but he’s not a definite upgrade from Lowry, and you can spend those other trade assets (21 1st, Wright) elsewhere.
Honestly, Conley & Gasol would look great on the Raptors, but giving up Lowry & JV (never mind Wright and a 1st) would be, at best, a lateral move, and likely hurt the team’s ability to compete this year.
You’re probably right, due to roster shock.
This surprised me. Wonder if Lowry, JV, VanVleet gets that done, the numbers add up. Not sure if I buy Gasol and Conley being that much better than JV and Lowry moving forward to justify throwing in 1st round picks.
Giving up Derozan for Kawhi is one thing, but then going ahead and trying to trade your franchise guard for a comperable guy is stupid. That kind of treatment of your star players is going to hurt them going forward if they do this.
That what I’m saying I get wanting gasol. But trading for Conley when Lowry a similar player makes no sense to me. Plus why they need to makes this big if a trade when they doing so well
Because they have shown some weakness to the other top teams and KLo seems to disappear come playoff time. I like the current roster as is but have to admit Conley, Green, Leonard, Siakam and Gasol would be an absolute headache to matchup with.
I think the only way this would ever make sense is if the Raptors knew that Lowry’s back was so bad that he’d never be able to play at 90% or better.
But, again, real reporters have checked multiple sources and found this story to be a complete fabrication from the Raptors stand-point.
You’re 100% correct, and that’s why this trade offer isn’t real – as has been reported by real reporters who actually check multiple sources.
Completely fabricated, and the Raptors wouldn’t do the deal just with Lowry/JV straight up for Conley/Gasol… unless the Grizzlies are sending a bunch more, of course.
This is just like the “almost completed” deal with Charlotte – made up garbage click bait. The “reporters” reporting this should be ashamed and entirely ignored for not checking with more than one source of information.
Part of Lowry will always resent Kawhi, they should move him somehow
**whispers** Lowry might be the weak link
Lowry obviously was upset when Derozan was moved, and some of his comments this year about Ujiri makes me wonder if he has made a “soft” request to be moved if the opportunity arises.
He has not meshed great with Kawhi on the court either. A move for Conley may seem lateral, but I wouldn’t blame the Raptors for thinking that they need to try something else to see if they can get the stars to mesh better.
In fairness, Kyle and Kawhi have hardly played together. But you’re not wrong that they haven’t looked in-sync yet this season.
And yet they’re still currently tied for the most wins in the league (3rd place by win %).
I think the Raptors can be confident that time together can fix nearly all of their problems.
Conley is a the guy you want to go to war with. Toronto needs to go all in to win this year. Next year is not a given.
don’t believe this at all
Shaking up the Raps roster like this seems like a lateral move at best and those pieces don’t do much to help rebuild a franchise like the Griz. Seems like a bad deal for both teams. The way Ibaka has played at the 5 I don’t think warrants the Raps to try and bench him for Gasol
I don’t think the Raptors would bench Ibaka for Gasol, I would imagine they would treat the rotation the same as they do with JV, starting one of Gasol or Ibaka based on matchup, and having Serge play both the 4 and 5.
Assume Leonard is gone next year. Lowry is a heck of a player, gives 110 per cent but he is older and owed 34 million next year. Grizzlies need to find some one to take Conley who has an extra year on his contract. Wright is a good player so maybe this works. It is always about money.
This is one of those offers that I would take if I was the GM in 2K. Moving Chandler Parsons 25 million is near impossible without attaching assets. If the Raptors include 2 1st round picks along with JV and Lowry. You could be good enough this year to finish outside the top 8, send your pick to Boston. Rebuild the following season, you would have over 75 million coming off the books between Lowry, Parsons and JV. You could go into the rebuild with max cap space to manuever bad contracts. F******* it, hire Sam the Man.
Moving forward a season, no guarantee Kawhi sticks around. Leaving Lowry to be “The Man”… he is FAR FROM being THE MAN, specially his playoff performance history. Gasol and Conley will give it their all, with or without Leonard.
Not to mention, this trade helps Leonard NOW, both offensively and defensively
Conley and Gasol for Lowry, JV and OG…only if there’s some kind of assurance that Kawhi signs a new deal to stay in Toronto.
Even then, if Kawhi saw that the Toronto front office was incompetent enough to make this terrible trade, he’d be a fool to stay.
A bunch of the Canadian sports sites are reporting this offer was brought forward as the backbone of a trade by Memphis in an attempt to determine interest in their players, but talks didn’t get far.
Whatever that’s worth, there it is.
It’s almost as if the two “reporters” putting this forward didn’t bother to check with any other sources!
Is there any point of the raptors going for AD?
This is entirely fabricated. Jake Fischer of SI dot com and Mitch Lawrence of Sporting News should be entirely ignored.
Real reporters already covered how this was something the Grizzlies asked the Raptors about, only to have an incredibly short conversation. There is absolutely no truth to the Raptors offering this, because if they did the trade would have already occurred.
Besides, even if you try making a trade with the Grizzlies, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to send you the player you think you’re getting…
Which “real reporters”?
Michael Grange, for example, who has a long history of reliability and impartiality.
We definitely trust Grange — I included one of his tweets in this post. But he’s the only one I’ve seen who comes close to contradicting the other reports, and even his wording hardly suggests that those reports are fabricated.
This was what he wrote in his story: “Multiple sources I spoke with confirmed that there had been discussions, but from my understanding it was the Grizzlies initiating contact and trying bid up the market for their veteran stars as they rebuild, with Toronto only listening politely.”
That wording (“from my understanding…”) is a little vague and the whole thing sounds to me like it came from Raptors sources who don’t want to upset the guys who were mentioned in the rumor. Nothing in there that explicitly says the Raptors didn’t make an offer, and Lowry himself essentially confirmed that the team has told him they’ve had trade discussions about him.
Maybe you could argue semantics in regard to which team made which specific offer and who initiated the talks, but I think it’s really unfair to Fischer to call it “completely fabricated.”
I think the difference is that Grange is extremely careful in his wording, and isn’t prone to click-baiting. He has a long history of quality reporting, and I think the reason his version of things is different is because the reality of the situation is actually different.
I think you’re right that the Raptors management has started to be more aware and open about when a player comes up in trade talk – even if they have little interest in the deal – after the DeRozan fiasco.
Honestly, I don’t think SI dot com is a trusted source, since they’re more click-bait driven. I’m open to being wrong, but Fischer sure seems to push that Toronto offered those players, but that not only goes against the history of their GM’s strategy and work, it also goes against all basketball logic and sense.
Seems like Fischer only talked to the Grizzlies front office, and they’re leaking all kinds of garbage – as we’re seeing in the supposed Charlotte trade. Fischer’s relatively new to the scene, and doesn’t break news often, so I understand why he went with this story. But that doesn’t make it good reporting.
Honestly Mitch Lawrence seems to be just making stuff up – using hypotheticals in a way that sounds more like reporting than it actually is. Not really any different than some random person on Twitter making up potential trades without actually considering the needs/wants of all parties involved.
As someone who follows this stuff pretty closely, I think you’re wrong about Fischer. He’s been a reliable source of info since his Liberty Ballers days (I know this because we’re always very skeptical of using writers from team blogs, but eventually had to relent in his case because it always ended up being accurate, heh).
I’m not saying he’s not relaying the information that his source with the Grizzlies is telling him.
I’m just saying that he didn’t double check those sources outside of the Grizzlies camp.
If it was true, as supposed in this post, that Toronto took the call and offered that deal, then Grange (and a bunch of others) would have had that info and reported it.
Much like with all the “reporting” that’s just relaying Rich Paul’s information, this doesn’t pass the basic test for accuracy or truth.
I love this site – I think you do a great job relaying information – but in this article, I believe you should have put Grange’s counter-perspective higher up (and with more “ink”), and let these contradictory reports stand against each other.
Fischer says he heard one thing, Grange’s sources say it’s not what Fischer reported.
One of them is getting bad/misleading info.
Grange is a bit of a curmudgeon at times, but I’d pretty much always bet on him reporting the truth.
Unless he’s going up against Shams or Woj, or multiple reports at the Athletic.
Not sure I agree with the presumption that all of Fischer’s sources were on the Memphis side — seems odd that they would have told him the Raptors were in contact with Lowry about the talks.
For what it’s worth, Fischer and Lawrence both had the Raptors making an offer, while Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer and Tim Bontemps of ESPN both strongly suggest that the Raptors at least engaged in discussions with Memphis (and included Lowry in those talks). Definitely possible I’m wrong, but I could easily envision a scenario where the Grizzlies called and asked about Siakam/OG types, which the Raptors “politely listened” to, before saying “Well, no, but here’s what we might do instead.” Which in turn got reported as their offer.
This discussion is probably all moot anyway, since it sounds like there’s no traction either way, haha.
The Lowry bit (being talked to by the front office) was after last night’s game – after the Fischer article was out there all over the place.
Again, I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong, and I think it makes sense that the teams would talk… but the offer listed seems extremely out of character for Toronto, and we know that the Grizzlies have a ton of garbage leaking out, while this Toronto front office typically does not.
Whenever something is leaked, we should always start with, “who does this leaked info help?” It doesn’t seem like enough reporters are engaging in questioning the reliability or the motivation of their sources.
As you said, it’s obviously not happening (I mean, it was never going to happen) – but I do think putting someone as reliable as Grange higher up – and with more space – in articles like this would go a long way to de-sensationalize thing, and accurately pass on real information.
Now, watch this trade go down later today and me look like a complete idiot.
I hear you. And I agree with you on your points about reliability and sensationalization. Our general stance is that if a writer we trust reports something, we treat it as reliable until another reliable source says it’s not.
I view Fischer as reliable, and I don’t think Grange’s report is a strong enough dismissal (more just a re-framing of the talks rather than saying “Toronto made no offers” or “this is false”) to treat Fischer’s account as inaccurate. But it’s obviously a nuanced situation.
I wonder if Grange’s contradictory report just ends up sounding more soft or like re-framing because he’s from Canada.
As a Canadian (with an obvious Raptors bias) living in the USA, the way we talk is so very different.
A Canadian saying something firmly can easily sound like a softened version compared to our American counterparts.
So while I read Grange’s tweet(s) etc as a very strong rebuttal, I can see how what I view as some “polite/cultural softeners” would be read as a less strong statement.
Thanks for engaging on this topic, by the way. I’m sure you’re extra busy today too, and I appreciate that you took the time to talk about the sourcing and your reasoning for why you posted what you did.
I also find SI.com dubious (and the mag depressing). Pressure from above for ratings could change a “good man”. But IDK Fischer & don’t linger there