The Raptors haven’t had meaningful cap room since 2015, so it remains to be seen whether the organization’s reputation has improved enough since then to make Toronto an appealing free agent destination for top free agents, Blake Murphy of The Athletic writes in a mailbag.
While Toronto hasn’t historically competed with big-market U.S. teams for stars on the open market, Murphy notes that last year’s championship should go a long way toward boosting the team’s appeal around the league.
Hosting a recent All-Star Weekend and establishing themselves as one of the league’s best-run franchises are also points in the Raptors favor, according to Murphy. So is the fact that quality players like Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, and Serge Ibaka chose to sign new contracts with Toronto rather than jumping ship, and Marc Gasol waived his trade kicker to join the club last season.
Here’s more on the Raptors:
- Murphy touched on several other subjects in that mailbag, addressing Fred VanVleet‘s and Ibaka’s upcoming free agencies, Stanley Johnson‘s player option, and the possibility of an OG Anunoby rookie scale extension, among other topics.
- In a separate story for The Athletic, Murphy profiles Malcolm Miller, who has been a bench piece for the Raptors for the last three seasons. Although Toronto has liked Miller enough to keep him around that long, he has never really played regular minutes, so it’s unclear what his future holds as he prepares for restricted free agency this offseason.
- On a conference call, undrafted rookie Terence Davis admitted that he expected to spend half the 2019/20 season in the G League (Twitter link via Murphy). Instead, Davis has become a reliable rotation player at the NBA level — he’s the only player on the Raptors’ roster to appear in all 64 of the team’s games so far.
- In case you missed it earlier this afternoon, we explored how a spot on an All-NBA team could impact Pascal Siakam‘s future earnings.