The Raptors are converting Jamison Battle‘s two-way contract into a standard deal covering three years, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (via Twitter).
As Blake Murphy of Sportsnet.ca observes (Twitter links), Toronto will use a portion of its mid-level exception to give Battle a three-year deal. Once the move is official, the Raptors will have on open standard roster spot and one two-way opening, with one of those likely earmarked for center Orlando Robinson, whose second 10-day contract with Toronto recently expired.
Battle will be paid the veteran’s minimum in 2025/26 and ’26/27 and his deal will be partially guaranteed for those seasons, according to Murphy (Twitter link), who expects the sharpshooting forward to receive more than the minimum in ’24/25.
Battle, 23, went undrafted in 2024 after playing five college seasons at George Washington, Minnesota and Ohio State. He was initially signed to an Exhibit 10 deal for training camp, but impressed the Raptors in the fall and was promoted to a two-way deal in October, just before the ’24/25 season began.
In 35 games during his rookie campaign, Battle has averaged 5.4 points and 1.8 rebounds while posting a strong shooting slash line of .458/.417/.857 in 12.6 minutes per contest. The majority of his field goal attempts have come from three-point range.
Is it normal for a player to make more in year 1 and then get the vet minimum in the next 2 years?
Yeah because the rookie minimum is quite low. There is a big jump from year 1 to year 2 in terms of minimum salaries.
@joe_roc It’s common at this time of year to incentivize players to sign deals with team-friendly structures.
You couldn’t sign a player to a $5MM first-year salary and then drop it to the minimum in the second year due to the limits in annual pay raises/bumps.
But at this point in the season, when the prorated minimum is quite low, you could offer, say, $1MM or $1.5MM for the rest of the season, which is well above the prorated minimum (for Battle, that’d be in the $450-500K range), with minimums for the following seasons.
Useful bench guy. Not much of a player outside of that jump shot, but it’s a finely honed weapon. Reminds me a lot of Isaiah Joe as a rookie/sophomore with the Sixers.
A poor man’s George Niang haha
Grady,Agbaji,Walter,Shead,Boucher, Mogbo,Battle…fun bench