The reeling Raptors appear doomed for an NBA draft lottery return this summer, but there are still plenty of reasons to pay attention to the team down the stretch, contends Eric Koreen of The Athletic.
Chief among them, argues Koreen, is watching combo guard Gary Trent Jr. make his push towards a lucrative new contract in free agency. As Koreen notes, Trent is enjoying a particularly prolific scoring run right now.
Koreen wonders if Trent will fetch something around the league’s mid-level exception, projected to be around $13MM, or something significantly more than that. He also writes glowingly about young new trade acquisition Ochai Agbaji, as well as intriguing 10-day signing Jahmi’us Ramsey.
There’s more out of the Atlantic Division:
- The Celtics’ strategy of conserving the minutes of oft-injured center Kristaps Porzingis as he returns from a hamstring injury worked swimmingly against the Pistons, per Brian Robb of MassLive.com. Porzingis played for the first time since incurring a hamstring strain that sidelined him for 11 days. He logged just 22 minutes, but scored 20 points while shooting 7-of-14 from the floor. He also grabbed eight boards.. “It felt great,” Porzingis said. “Yeah, just different because I had the minutes restriction. Just different spurts of playing. I barely played in the first and then in the second I had a longer stretch. Something unusual, but other than that it’s always good to be out there.”
- Barclays Center owner BSE Global announced that it will undertake work on some major renovations to the Nets‘ homecourt, per Lucas Kaplan of Nets. The project will reportedly include building out some fresh, premium fan clubs.
- New Sixers big man Kai Jones is looking forward to his opportunity to play for a contender after an emotionally trying offseason, he said during an interview with Shams Charania of Stadium (Twitter video link). After demanding a trade from the Hornets ahead of the season, Jones was cut instead. He explained to Charania that he has suffered some close personal losses and is now in therapy. “I didn’t want to die,” Jones reflected.
Trent is very one dimensional and while that dimension is valuable he is limited. An 11 PER and negative almost everywhere else. He’s a zero as a playmaker.
Yeah, I wouldn’t go past the mid-level exception personally but maybe there’s a team out there dumb enough to offer him more in a weak FA market.
Honestly, I’d be more concerned about his defense and continued complete inability to get to the rim. He was never a great defender, though decent enough, but it looks like he took a step back this year. Slower contests, less getting his hands into the passing lanes, generally just worse. And the shot creation is impossible to ignore anymore. Taking only 10% of your shots at the rim is unacceptable for a wing player, especially one who isn’t great in the midrange either. He’s looking like a score-only version of Fred VanVleet the longer he keeps this up. He’s a defensively limited player who can’t create his own shot consistently anywhere but the 3pt line. While his 3pt shooting has clear value, you can’t be *just* that if you’re earning more than the middy. He’s a worse Kyle Korver at present.
(Not that Korver was bad, but a worse version of him isn’t something teams should pay highly for)