After Scottie Barnes went down with an ankle sprain last Monday, a report from ESPN indicated that he was expected to miss several weeks. However, the Raptors forward appears on track to beat that projected timeline, according to Michael Grange of Sportsnet, who says there’s optimism Barnes could return to action as soon as this week.
Within the same story, Grange explores which Raptors players are and aren’t likely to be in-season trade candidates ahead of the February 6 deadline. Notably, sources who have spoken to Grange believe that starting center Jakob Poeltl will probably stick with the team through the deadline rather than being dangled as a trade chip.
As Grange explains, Toronto would ideally like to just spend one season rebuilding and then begin pushing back toward contention next season in a relatively weak Eastern Conference. Poeltl is under contract for at least 2025/26 (with a player option for ’26/27), so he could be part of the Raptors’ next playoff team. And if the retooling process don’t progress as quickly as hoped, he’d still have trade value in a future transaction window.
Here’s more on the Raptors:
- Grange identifies big man Chris Boucher and swingman Bruce Brown – both on expiring contracts – as logical trade candidates for Toronto, but notes that the club is unlikely to extract a significant return for either player due to their large cap hits ($10.8MM for Boucher, $23MM for Brown) relative to their production. “If there was big demand, he wouldn’t be on the Raptors,” one Eastern Conference executive said of Boucher.
- As for Brown, Grange hears from team sources that the veteran has bought into what the Raptors are trying to build and wouldn’t be opposed to sticking around, meaning it’s not entirely out of the question that he stays in Toronto and re-signs in the summer.
- In a separate story for Sportsnet.ca, Grange takes a look at the impressive strides that forward RJ Barrett has made this season as a play-maker and de facto point guard with Immanuel Quickley having missed most of the season due to injuries. The 24-year-old, who never averaged more than 3.0 assists per game with the Knicks, increased that number to 4.1 APG after being traded to the Raptors last season and has bumped it up again to 6.0 APG so far in 2024/25.
- After the Knicks and Raptors informed the U.S. District Court last week that the NBA hadn’t provided them with any updates on its investigation into the Knicks’ allegations of stolen files, the league reached out to both teams on Monday to begin the process, reports Stefan Bondy of The New York Post (Twitter link). The Knicks, who initially filed a lawsuit against the Raptors and were referred back to the NBA’s arbitration process by the court, have maintained all along that commissioner Adam Silver isn’t an impartial judge and beat that drum again on Monday. “The NBA has admitted to sitting on this serious theft of proprietary and confidential files for several months,” the team told The New York Post in a statement. “The NBA has a clear conflict of interest and a lack of desire to see a fair outcome in this matter – which we’ve said all along.”
Depends on who they get in the draft, but the Raptors logically could get back into contention in just one year. Maluach, Bailey, or someone like Demin could be a huge add for the Raptors (still think their chances of getting Flagg are zero).
Their chances for Flagg are 12.5%
That assumes the NBA doesn’t rig it. Which they almost certainly will. The best prospect in a draft going to a different country wouldn’t be something they’d allow, especially not for a draft as loaded as this one.
I am hoping for the Wizards. That being said they might rig it for the nets or a big market team.
You realize they have a representative from each team in the lottery in the room when the lottery happens, right?
That changes literally nothing, lol. The NBA is fully capable of rigging the draft behind the scenes. The teams pulling the ping-pong balls is just the part we get to see.
You mean how the Knicks got Ewing! Everyone knows that was rigged.
So the NBA won’t let Flagg go to the Raptors in the 2025 draft but they were OK with one the most hyped prospects Zion Williamson in the last 10 years going to the Pelicans in the 2019 draft, especially when no one would’ve noticed if they would’ve rigged the pick to go the Knicks that year as they had the worst record in the league.
The Pelicans are still in the same *country*, and given that the NBA stepped in to own the franchise that became the Pelicans for a few years, they do value it. Apples to Oranges comparison.
Why would the NBA want to prevent the success of international teams? International expansion is The NBA’s primary goal. It’s where greatest revenue growth currently comes from. It’s Adam Silver’s stated #1 priority.
Toronto is the third largest media market in North America, and every US team benefits. If Raptors fans discovered the league was rigged against international teams, that would cost the league billions. It would also cripple plans to convince Mexico City, Paris, and Madrid to join the NBA.
The league won’t let Flagg go to the Raps, unfortunately. Too much money and hype for him to go there. Any of Harper, Demin, Bailey will help though. They have a good young nucleus and can be a good playoff team in 2 years after this year. Trade Brown, Boucher and even Mitchell if you can get a few 2nds and a couple young guys. Trade Poetl if you can get a 1st and another good young player (hello Memphis….).
Hopefully Barnes is out until mid January, we don’t need any extra wins.
It’s a shame we haven’t gotten a chance to see what the Raptors look like at full strength. Doesn’t sound as if that will happen any time soon with Quickley out long term.
A starting 5 of Quickley, Dick, Barrett, Barnes, and Poetl might be sneaky good. And Agbaji, Boucher, Olynyk, and Brown are solid role players off the bench.
But that’s by design. The goal was to tank from the start of the year. If we want to compete, we need a star. If we get lucky in the lottery, this can be a one and done though.
“Sneaky good” aka actually not very good at all, and so people are surprised if they win a game
EonADS, Pro sports leagues aren’t above deviousness, but why would the NBA want a foreign team to be successful? The NBA aspires to be a global brand. Market size and profit are the league goal, and every American NBA team benefits from international expansion and team success. Money talks.
Toronto is now the 3rd largest media market in North America, recently passing Chicago, and the Canadian market is still broadly under-developed. Every NBA ownership group wants to see Canada developed, just as they do Mexico and Europe.
This isn’t new territory in the business of sport in N America. When the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series twice in the 90’s, that fueled baseball’s media expansion in Canada, but all of baseball profited. The Raptors’ title in 2019 has had a similar effect.