- Raptors coach Nick Nurse hinted that his team’s troubles go beyond COVID-19 related absences, Josh Lewenberg of TSN Sports tweets. With OG Anunoby returning on Friday, the Raptors have all of the players who were under the league’s healthy and safety protocols back in action. Toronto lost to Utah on Friday, its seventh straight defeat, and Nurse seemed to indicate the team needs more help. “We’re getting our (butts) kicked at the rim on both ends, not rebounding,” he said. “I mean the ship has got holes all over the place that we’re trying to patch up.”
Teams inquiring about Kyle Lowry‘s availability have been told that the Raptors aren’t planning on trading him, sources tell Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca. Lewenberg is the second Raptors beat reporter to suggest as much, as Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca wrote last week that the team is very unlikely to move its veteran point guard.
Both Lewenberg and Grange have presented their reports with the caveat that things could change between now and March 25, especially if Lowry’s preference is to move on. But with only six days left until the 2021 trade deadline, the 34-year-old still seems most likely to finish the season with Toronto.
Here’s more on the Raptors:
- The Raptors shouldn’t trade Lowry just because he’s getting older and is about to reach free agency, argues Dan Devine of The Ringer. In Devine’s view, the connection Lowry has formed with fans in Toronto is rare, and the return the team would get in any trade is unlikely to be worth ending that relationship unless the point guard decides he wants out.
- Norman Powell, who is eligible for free agency at season’s end, has been the subject of some trade speculation lately, but he’s not letting that bother him, as Lewenberg details. “I don’t concern myself with (trade rumors),” Powell said on Wednesday. “I’m just focused on trying to get these wins, trying to help the team win. I used to concern myself with that earlier in my (career), and now it’s just whatever happens, happens.”
- Blake Murphy of The Athletic ran through a series of hypothetical Raptors trades – many involving Powell – soliciting feedback from his fellow beat writers at The Athletic.
- Raptors guard Norman Powell, on a tear of late, has emerged as perhaps Toronto’s top trade asset ahead of the deadline next week, according to Josh Lewenberg of TSN Sports. Powell has an $11.6MM player option for the 2021/22 season.
The Raptors had four players – including starters Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam – cleared from the NBA’s health and safety protocols for Wednesday’s game, allowing their rotation to regain some semblance of normalcy, writes Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca. However, VanVleet and Siakam were predictably rusty in their returns, shooting a combined 5-of-24 from the floor in a loss to Detroit.
The loss was Toronto’s sixth straight, dropping the club’s record to 17-23 just one week away from the trade deadline. While the belief is that the Raptors are a better team than their record has shown, the front office will have to make some big decisions at the deadline, so there won’t be much time to assess the roster once it gets back to full strength, Grange notes.
Here’s more on the Raptors:
- The one player who remained out on Wednesday due to the health and safety protocols was OG Anunoby. However, he traveled to Detroit and the hope is that he’ll be cleared to play vs. Utah on Friday, Grange tweets.
- Blake Murphy of The Athletic weighs the pros and cons of trading Norman Powell, who will be eligible for unrestricted free agency at season’s end and is making a strong case for a lucrative new deal, with 19.7 PPG on .500/.446/.875 shooting this season. Multiple teams have inquired on Powell, according to Murphy, who wrote his article before the swingman went off for 43 points on Wednesday, further complicating the equation.
- The NBA has rescheduled a pair of Raptors games, the league announced in a press release. The February 28 game vs. the Bulls that was postponed has been moved to April 8, while an April 9 game vs. Cleveland has been pushed back to April 10.
- Raptors guard Fred VanVleet, who returned to the court for Toronto tonight, detailed his bout with COVID-19, as Doug Smith of the Toronto Star details. VanVleet dealt with a sore back and body, plus a high fever. “I wouldn’t wish it on anybody,” he said. “I’m just happy to be back with the team right now.”
The Raptors, who have been decimated by the league’s health and safety protocols, are getting closer to having their team back at full strength.
Starters Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet, as well as reserves Malachi Flynn and Patrick McCaw, have been cleared to practice on Tuesday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweets. The Raptors play at Detroit on Wednesday.
That leaves only OG Anunoby remaining under the COVID-19 restrictions. He’s listed as out for Wednesday’s game by the team, according to Blake Murphy of The Athletic (Twitter link). VanVleet is listed as doubtful to play, while Siakam, Flynn, McCaw are listed as questionable.
Toronto’s coaching staff, including Nick Nurse, were also placed under those protocols during the week leading up to the All-Star break.
The team’s fortunes have nosedived while playing shorthanded. The Raptors have lost five straight to fall five games below .500.
- The shorthanded Raptors are in the midst of a five-game losing streak, but the slide – which has come with Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, and two other players sidelined – shouldn’t change the team’s approach to the trade deadline, one way or the other, writes Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca.
- Raptors 905 general manager Chad Sanders has been named the NBA G League Executive of the Year for 2020/21, per a press release. Sanders’ squad had the best regular season record in the NBAGL bubble, at 12-3.
The Lakers announced on Friday that Anthony Davis would miss at least the next two weeks as he continues to recover from his right calf strain and tendinosis. However, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, Davis is unlikely to return immediately after the end of that two-week timeline.
Sources tell Haynes that the Lakers’ star forward/center is expected to be out for the next three weeks, and potentially longer than that. Even if Los Angeles slips a little more in the standings without Davis in its lineup, the team wants to be cautious in its handling of one of its two superstars, Haynes writes.
Including the game in which Davis went down, the Lakers have lost seven of their last 11, but they’re still comfortably holding a playoff spot in the West — they’re the No. 3 seed, at 25-13.
Here’s more from Haynes:
- Injured Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic (wrist) plans on making his return in about two weeks, sources tell Yahoo Sports. CJ McCollum (foot) said over the weekend that he’s aiming to return this week, so Portland could get two key starters back in its lineup before the end of the month.
- According to Haynes, Celtics center Tristan Thompson is a candidate to be moved prior to next Thursday’s trade deadline, with the Raptors among his possible landing spots. The Toronto native has long been linked to his hometown team, and while nothing has ever come of those rumors, a union would make more sense now that the Raptors are in the market for an upgrade at center.
- Cavaliers center JaVale McGee – who has drawn interest from contenders, including the Nets – isn’t entertaining a buyout, so if he changes teams, it will be via trade, says Haynes. While Brooklyn may prefer his teammate Andre Drummond, McGee’s modest $4.2MM salary will make him easier to move in a deal.
- We passed along a few more items from Haynes earlier today, including notes on DeMar DeRozan, John Wall, and Hassan Whiteside.
As our 10-day contract tracker shows, there are currently five players around the NBA who have active 10-day deals. Those players are as follows:
- Henry Ellenson, Raptors (runs through March 19)
- Sindarius Thornwell, Pelicans (runs through March 19)
- Damian Jones, Lakers (runs through March 20)
- Mason Jones, Rockets (runs through March 21)
- Quinn Cook, Cavaliers (runs through March 21)
Thornwell and Damian Jones are on their second 10-day contracts with their respective teams. Players can’t sign three 10-day deals with the same club, so Thornwell and Jones will either have to be re-signed to rest-of-season deals or will become free agents.
Since their contracts expire just a few days before the March 25 trade deadline, Thornwell and Jones likely won’t be re-signed immediately, as the Pelicans and Lakers look to maximize their roster flexibility for potential trades.
Ellenson, Mason Jones, and Cook are each eligible to sign one more 10-day contract with their respective teams after their current deals expire, but again, if teams prioritize roster flexibility around the trade deadline, those players may have to wait until after March 25 to get a second offer — Jones is the one exception here, since the Rockets are very shorthanded due to injuries and may not want to lose him for even a few days.
While there are just five players on active 10-day pacts for now, the Nets are a team to keep an eye on this week. They’ve had fewer than 14 players on standard contracts since March 8, when Andre Roberson‘s and Iman Shumpert‘s 10-day deals expired. Teams are only permitted to dip below that minimum roster requirement for two weeks at a time, so Brooklyn will have to add a 14th man within the next week — a 10-day signing is the most likely solution to address that issue, though the team could also make a trade or target a player for a rest-of-season contract.
The Pelicans and Lakers will also each only have 13 players under contract once their current 10-day players are no longer on the roster, so if they don’t re-sign those players right away and don’t add at least one player in a trade-deadline deal, they’ll each have to fill at least one roster spot shortly after the trade deadline, via a 10-day or rest-of-season signing.
Several other teams around the league also have an open 15th roster spot and could be candidates to sign players to 10-day contracts soon, as our roster counts page shows.
- Raptors head coach Nick Nurse expects his five players in the health and safety protocols – Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Patrick McCaw, and Malachi Flynn – to all return at some point this week, according to Doug Smith of The Toronto Star, who says some of those players are out of quarantine and doing work in the team’s gym.