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.
Yankees-Dodgers was a dream come true for MLB revenue. Do you think a Raps-Memphis final would be? You’re not wrong necessarily but I think the league would want Flagg in the USA first and foremost, if they could have their way. They may want to grow the game, but not at the expense of immediate $$ in the US.
Mtog-
You overlook the audience and revenues that the NBA receives from the foreign market.
For example, when the Raptors played the Warriors in 2019, the American networks did indeed get fewer viewers than if both teams are American. But 8M to 14M Canadians watched those games on Canadian networks, which the NBA has similar licensing terms with. The same will apply if Paris or Mexico City ever make the Finals. American networks will make less, but the NBA makes more. It’s the nature of global businesses.
US television ratings may be worse when Toronto goes to the Finals, but total global revenues project to be better than with about 20 NBA teams.
The NBA wants to take this to still another level (which the NFL and MLB cannot):. true “World Cahampionships.”. Check out UEFA to see how revenue doubles when the stakes go international. The biggest payday comes when Victor Wembanyama and Paris play against LeBron and the Lakers. This is the legacy Silver wants to leave.
Problem is you may gain a few million Canadian viewers (and most will only watch when the team is great) vs losing millions of US viewers. Advertising revenue, tv revenue, merchandise sales etc go down if the raps are in the finals overall. Also the raps revenue is in CDN dollars which today is 30% less than the American dollar. That’s huge. I’m not saying the league doesn’t want global revenue or exposure but they will want American teams to win before anyone else. End of the day they’re not going to bite the hand that feeds them. All other American teams also lose revenue if/when the raps play them. I’m not saying 100% the draft is rigged but I have some doubts.
Mtog- I stand by every statement I made about the Raptors’ and Canada’s revenue contributions to the NBA and MLB. A little research on the Internet would serve you well. Toronto & Canada now represent more than 6% of the NBA’s revenues, and that portion is growling faster than the US portion (although considerably less than Europe and Asia.)
You understand the concept that the NBA bases all decisions on business. Toronto would not be an NBA franchise unless it made all stakeholders richer.
Hopefully Flagg or Bailey to raps if NBA doesn’t screw them.
Raptors get healthy. They will challenge for 10-9 seed. But it’s probably best to get in lottery. Even a lottery pick this yr. Will be a big addition. Yeah I can see them coming back next yr stronger. Plus they will have some cap.
RJ is having a career year ……. I remember all the RJ haters !!!!!!!!
Exactly
The NBA is an association, not a single organization or business. The nature of their common business interests would NEVER lead to a consensus among them to direct high end draft capital to one team vs another. If the “NBA” is rigging drafts (and results seem to at least suggest they might be), then it’s being done by a smaller group of individuals at the top. Who? Well, for most of this century, the NBA has been completely dominated by secondary market teams, so it could only be done by Silver on behalf of that group. TOR is in the group. It’s how their owner chairs the Board of Governors.
However, even if the NBA is rigging some drafts, they might not this year. Smart rigging, of anything, requires focus and selectivity. So, they’d likely focus on drafts with generational prospects. Flagg is a potential star, but he’s not a unanimous generational prospect. In fact it’s not a lock he’ll even be the #1 overall pick. It is worth noting that the 4 unanimous generational prospects in this century (LeBron, AD, Zion and Wemby) have all gone to non-prime market teams that, at the time, really looked like they could use a boost.
In short, the “NBA” would have ZERO problem allowing the top pick to go to TOR, and, if they were of a mind to direct it anywhere, TOR would be as likely a spot as any right now.