- Raptors rookie Scottie Barnes will have his sprained right thumb reevaluated when the team gets back to Toronto on Thursday, per head coach Nick Nurse. (Twitter link via Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca). [UPDATE: Barnes has been cleared to return on Friday, tweets Lewenberg.]
The Raptors are on a four-game winning streak, but Goran Dragic has been a DNP-CD in all four games, raising questions about his place on the roster. While the veteran point guard clearly isn’t a long-term keeper for the Raptors, there’s no indication that he’ll be traded or bought out anytime soon, writes Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca.
As Grange explains, it’s too early in the season for any real trade market to develop for Dragic, and it’s unlikely that either the player or the team wants to make significant concessions in a buyout arrangement.
For now then, the two sides remain in an “amicable” holding pattern, says Grange — Dragic will remain on the roster as a respected veteran and talented backup, and his situation will be revisited closer to the February trade deadline.
Here’s more on the Raptors:
- Within the same story, Grange says the Raptors seem likely to cut either Sam Dekker or Isaac Bonga in the coming days. Both players’ salaries for 2021/22 will become guaranteed if they remain on the roster through November 6 and Toronto can duck under the luxury tax line by waiving one or the other. Dekker and Bonga have played a combined eight total minutes this season, and would be pushed further down the depth chart once Pascal Siakam and Yuta Watanabe return from their respective injuries.
- Precious Achiuwa was one of the Raptors’ key offseason acquisitions, but the young center has experienced some growing pains so far this season. As Eric Koreen of The Athletic writes, head coach Nick Nurse benched Achiuwa in favor of backup center Khem Birch to open the second half of the team’s win over the Knicks on Monday. Although Birch doesn’t have Achiuwa’s upside, the veteran has exhibited better fundamentals, playing solid team defense, setting screens, and rebounding.
- Rookie forward Scottie Barnes will miss a second straight game on Wednesday vs. Washington due to a right thumb sprain, tweets Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca.
Agent Todd Ramasar, who represents Raptors forward Pascal Siakam, told Justin Termine of NBA Today on SiriusXM NBA Radio (Twitter link) that Siakam is set to re-join his teammates on the court within two weeks.
Siakam tore his left labrum in May, and went under the knife to surgically repair the injured shoulder in June. The 27-year-old recently resumed practicing with the club, as well as with its G League affiliate, Raptors 905, as he continues to rehabilitate.
Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca tweets that Siakam’s shoulder needs to be given the green light by his surgeon in Los Angeles. Blake Murphy of Sportsnet.ca notes (via Twitter) that Siakam’s timeline remains aligned with the Raptors’ original projection for his return following the surgery five months ago.
The 6’9″ forward was a crucial part of Toronto’s 2019 championship-winning team, and is hoping to bounce back following an underwhelming performance for the lottery-bound Raptors in 2020/21. After leading the Raptors to the second round of the NBA playoffs and being named to his first All-Star team in 2020, Siakam appeared to regress on both sides of the ball last season. Toronto finished with a 27-45 record while playing its home games in Tampa, and missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2012/13 season.
Veteran team leader Kyle Lowry was shipped to the Heat in an offseason sign-and-trade. The Raptors selected exciting forward Scottie Barnes out of Florida State with the fourth pick in the 2021 draft. In seven games, Barnes is looking like a serious Rookie of the Year contender, averaging 18.1 PPG on 55.1% shooting from the field, along with 8.9 RPG. As a 6’9″ tweener forward, Barnes could be a long-term replacement for the veteran Siakam.
For now, it will be interesting to see how head coach Nick Nurse opts to juggle his starting lineup. He had been starting Barnes and ascendant 6’7″ swingman OG Anunoby at the forward positions, with 6’5″ Gary Trent Jr. starting at shooting guard. One of this triumvirate could head to the bench upon a Siakam return.
- Raptors guard Goran Dragic received his second straight DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) on Friday, Michael Grange of Sportsnet tweets. “He’s a very approachable guy, very professional guy,” head coach Nick Nurse said of Dragic. “I talk to him everyday and I pretty much just tell him to stay ready… We’ll see where it goes from there.” Dragic is still viewed as a strong candidate to be traded during the season.
- Raptors forward Pascal Siakam is progressing from his shoulder injury, but he’s still weeks away from returning, tweets Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca. Grange says the best-case scenario is Siakam might return in mid-November.
- In a separate tweet, Grange says that Raptors forward Yuta Watanabe suffered a setback with his calf injury and was unable to practice today.
- With the Raptors set to face the Magic for the first time this season on Friday, the Scottie Barnes/Jalen Suggs debate has resurfaced, but fans in Toronto have to be happy with what they’ve seen from Barnes so far, writes Doug Smith of The Toronto Star. Barnes, whom the Raptors picked over Suggs at No. 4 in this year’s draft, has averaged 17.0 PPG and 8.2 RPG on 53.7% shooting in his first five NBA games while taking on some challenging defensive assignments.
- Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet was second in the league in minutes played last year and his workload has increased in the early part of this season, according to Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca. VanVleet doesn’t mind the extra playing time, saying he spent the summer preparing for it. “I feel good, that’s why you put so much work in during the offseason,” he said. “I spend every hour that I’m not on the court trying to figure out how I can get my body ready for tomorrow. So just being dedicated to the craft and trying to figure out how I can be the best pro I can be.”
Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet, one of just three holdovers from Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan era, is trying to lead a rebuilding Raptors squad much the same way DeRozan did alongside Kyle Lowry years ago, writes Eric Koreen of The Athletic.
DeRozan paid his first visit to his old club as a Bull, proving that he remains an absolutely clutch scorer to close out games. The Bulls would go on to win, 111-108.
“This is a new dynamic,” DeRozan said of how VanVleet has evolved to become the Raptors’ leader. “The conversations I have with Fred now, (leading a rebuilding team) is a new dynamic in your career that you have to figure out. It’s tough. But every great player goes through it. There’s not too many guys that just have a polished career. It’s another obstacle you can learn from and build on and turn you into a much better player than you even knew you had in you.”
There’s more out of Toronto:
- The current Raptors ownership group, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, has a convoluted structure, but it has ultimately enabled team president Masai Ujiri to run the organization as he sees fit, writes Eric Koreen of The Athletic. The various factions of the ownership group reportedly disagreed on the terms of Ujiri’s new contract, but that deal eventually got done earlier this year.
- Raptors head coach Nick Nurse explained the lack of playing time for guard Malachi Flynn, per Josh Lewenberg of TSN (Twitter link). “There’s a Fred and there’s a Goran (Dragić) and we’ve given (rookie Dalano Banton) a run,” Nurse said. “And Dalano’s the one you should probably be asking me about. He’s played outstanding every minute he’s been out there. You guys should be all over me for not playing him more.” It sounds like it could be an uphill battle for Flynn to crack the club’s point guard rotation.
- Injured Raptors forward Pascal Siakam was a full participant in the team’s practice today, and will join the club’s NBAGL affiliate, Raptors 905, to continue to work off the rust in their training camp, according to Josh Lewenberg of TSN (via Twitter). Siakam has missed the team’s first three games with a shoulder injury. Small forward Yuta Watanabe also practiced with Toronto today and is considered to be nearing a return for the team, tweets Michael Grange of Sportsnet. Grange adds that Siakam might be on track to rejoin Toronto earlier than the initially-anticipated target date of mid-to-late November.
Various factions of the Raptors‘ ownership group held divergent opinions on how to handle the contract negotiations with team president Masai Ujiri earlier this year, according to a fascinating report from Christine Dobby and Doug Smith of The Toronto Star. Ujiri finalized a new long-term extension with the franchise in August.
Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the company that owns the Raptors, is controlled in part by Rogers Communications (37.5%), BCE (Bell) Inc. (37.5%), and team governor Larry Tanenbaum‘s Kilmer Group (25%).
Edward Rogers – the former chair of Rogers Communications who has recently been embroiled in a public battle for control of the company with his mother and siblings – opposed the terms of the deal that Tanenbaum and Bell wanted to offer Ujiri, expressing that the compensation was too high and that general manager Bobby Webster was capable of taking over control of the team’s front office if necessary, sources tell The Toronto Star.
According to Dobby and Smith, Rogers explicitly told Ujiri he didn’t think he was worth the salary the rest of the Raptors’ ownership group wanted to offer him, prompting MLSE executives to go into “damage-control mode” and to tell Ujiri to ignore those comments.
Rogers insisted he would only agree to the deal if a dozen terms were met, including 11 relating to Ujiri’s compensation and one that would see Rogers Communications take its 37.5% stake in MLSE and combine it with the Toronto Blue Jays to create a separate company. However, because Tanenbaum holds the title of Raptors governor, he had the authority to make the final call on personnel issues without Rogers’ sign-off, which is the path he chose to complete Ujiri’s deal, according to The Star.
Rogers, who was “furious,” reached out to commissioner Adam Silver, but was told by two league officials that Tanenbaum had the right to make that decision, per Dobby and Smith.
Asked on Sunday about the negotiations, Rogers said he has the “utmost respect” for Ujiri and is happy he remains in his current role.
“Masai understands better than anyone that negotiations test both sides,” Rogers said. “The best deals involve compromise and leave all parties feeling like winners.”
According to Dobby and Smith, Ujiri’s contract with the Raptors includes a $15MM annual salary, with the ability to earn more in incentive pay if the value of the franchise continues to increase. Ujiri also received the new title of vice chairman to go along with his president title.
A league source tells The Toronto Star that another NBA team offered Ujiri a 3% ownership stake, with a salary higher than the $15MM per year he received from the Raptors. Soccer teams in the English Premier League also expressed interest in Ujiri, per Dobby and Smith.
Raptors rookie Scottie Barnes impressed during his first back-to-back slate on Friday and Saturday, Josh Lewenberg of TSN Sports writes. Barnes was used as the primary defender against Boston’s Jayson Tatum in game one, then was given the assignment of guarding Dallas’ Luka Doncic in game two.
“It’s a challenge that I’m willing to take each and every night,” Barnes said of guarding the NBA’s top players, according to Lewenberg. “It’s what I look forward to.”
The 6’9″ Barnes was drafted by Toronto with the No. 4 pick in July. He has averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds in 32.7 minutes per game during his first three contests, starting in every outing.
Here are some other notes from the Eastern Conference:
- Sixers coach Doc Rivers isn’t concerned by Joel Embiid‘s recent knee injury, Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes. Embiid managed to play in Philadelphia’s loss against Brooklyn on Friday, recording 19 points (6-of-15 shooting) and eight rebounds in nearly 30 minutes of work.
- Bulls guards Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso have been bringing chaos defensively, Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times examines. The pair’s strong defensive effort is a key reason why Chicago is 3-0 to start the season. “(Ball and Caruso are) so active (defensively) you’ve got to be aware of them,’’ LaVine said, as relayed by Cowley. “Even for guys like me and DeMar DeRozan), it helps us be in the passing lanes more, get some extra rebounds because then guys’ rhythm is off. They’re effort and energy bleeds throughout us as a team.’’
- Rod Beard of The Detroit News examines the positives and negatives of the Pistons‘ start to the campaign. Detroit is 0-2 and dropped both contests to Chicago, having been held to 88 points and 82 points, respectively. The Pistons finished with the worst record in the East last season at 20-52.