- For the Raptors, balancing the team’s young core and aging veterans may become especially tricky during the 2020 offseason, according to John Hollinger and Blake Murphy of The Athletic. Among the team’s top six players, ascendant young point guard Fred VanVleet, 35-year-old center Marc Gasol and 30-year-old big man Serge Ibaka will all be unrestricted free agents at season’s end.
Teams around the NBA continue to reopen their practice facilities to accommodate voluntary individual workouts for their players. The Kings, Pacers, and Heat are among the latest teams to do so.
As James Ham of NBC Sports California details, Sacramento opened its facility on Monday, and a handful of players have already taken advantage of the opportunity to get some work in.
The same thing happened in Indiana this week, according to J. Michael of The Indianapolis Star. Michael’s source didn’t identify the specific players who have been back at St. Vincent Center, but said some players have returned to the facility, even as many staffers still aren’t cleared to enter the building.
As for the Heat, they reopened their facility at AmericanAirlines Arena on Wednesday, writes Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel. All but three of Miami’s players are still in the South Beach area, per Winderman, so a number of those players figure to make use of the building.
The Cavaliers, Trail Blazers, Nuggets, Jazz, Hawks, and Raptors are among the teams that have also opened their respective facilities. Raptors forward Malcolm Miller confirmed today that he was the first player back at the club’s facility in Toronto earlier this week (Twitter link via Blake Murphy of The Athletic).
As the list of teams with reopened facilities grows, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Tuesday night that the league believes 22 of its 30 teams will have their building opened back up by next Monday (May 18). However, situations remain fluid.
For instance, the Wizards had reportedly targeted this Friday to reopen their practice facility. That target date is now up in the air, since the stay-at-home order in Washington, D.C. has now been extended through June 8, tweets Fred Katz of The Athletic.
Players who have been given the green light to participate in individual workouts at their teams’ facilities face restrictive guidelines. They can only work out for an hour at a time, with no more than four total players in the building. They also must undergo temperature checks before entering the facility and are required to wear a mask when not engaged in physical activity.
Warriors minority owner Mark Stevens will return to active status as a team stakeholder and also rejoin the team’s executive board once this season officially ends, Tim Kawakami of The Athletic reports. Stevens received a one-year suspension and was fined $500K after he shoved and yelled at the Raptors’ Kyle Lowry during Game 3 of last season’s Finals.
Despite reports to the contrary, Stevens was never bought out, nor was he in danger of being kicked out of the ownership group, Kawakami continues. Warriors majority owner Joe Lacob believes Stevens had a momentary lapse in judgment and has served the suspension without complaint, Kawakami adds.
We have more from the Western Conference:
- The Pelicans plan to reopen their practice facility in Metairie, La. next Monday, March 18, Christian Clark of the New Orleans Times Picayune reports. Louisiana’s stay-at-home order prohibits the team from using the facility through Friday, when that order is set to expire. At least five teams are known to have reopened their facilities since the NBA gave the go-ahead to conduct individual workouts under supervision and safeguards.
- The Nuggets have created virtual locker rooms to stay in touch and engaged, according to Mike Singer of the Denver Post. Rather than staying connected via e-mails and text messages, the Nuggets have conducted a handful of team Zoom calls.
- Suns wing Kelly Oubre Jr., who underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in early March, showed explosiveness in an Instagram post, Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic writes. Oubre, who wasn’t wearing a knee brace in the video, could return to action this season if it resumes, Rankin adds. Oubre will be an unrestricted free agent after the 2020/21 season.
- Blake Murphy of The Athletic examines the draft history of Raptors president Masai Ujiri, who’s widely considered to be one of the top executives in the league. Ujiri was responsible for drafting Pascal Siakam in 2016 and OG Anunoby in 2017, along with signing Fred VanVleet as an undrafted free agent in 2016.
The NBA is allowing teams to begin reopening their practice facilities for controlled individual workouts beginning today, and while only three clubs – the Trail Blazers, Cavaliers, and Nuggets – are doing so immediately, others will follow suit next week. The Raptors are the latest team to join that group, announcing today that they’ll reopen their practice facility on a limited basis starting on Monday, May 11.
[RELATED: Kings, Heat Plan To Reopen Facilities Next Week]
The “strict protocols” outlined by the Raptors in their press release are even more restrictive than the guidelines the NBA has provided to teams. While the league allows for up to four players at a time in practice facilities, the Raptors will permit just one player in their building at a time, according to the team. A single coach will be allowed to accompany the player.
Additionally, the Raptors stress in their announcement that activities which can be done at home – such as weight lifting – won’t be permitted at their facility. The basketball court is the only area that will be open, with locker rooms, weight rooms, medical facilities, and other areas of the building staying closed.
As some teams around the NBA begin to reopen their practice facilities for voluntary workouts, others are continuing to play it safe, with Mavericks owner Mark Cuban suggesting this week that he’s apprehensive about allowing players back into Dallas’ building until the league permits coronavirus testing on asymptomatic individuals.
Although the Raptors’ stance isn’t as extreme as Cuban’s, the measures they’ve implemented as they prepare to reopen their facility suggest they feel the NBA’s safety guidelines could – or should – have gone even further.
- The Raptors are in touch with officials at the city and provincial level in the hopes of being able to reopen their practice facility for individual workouts, writes Doug Smith of The Toronto Star. As Smith notes, Toronto Mayor John Tory hopes to have an answer for the team by the end of the week. “A couple of athletes and a couple of trainers, quite literally, so you’d have a very small group of people in there,” Tory said. “That proposal, that we worked on back and forth with the Raptors, is under very active consideration. I think the discussions have been going well.”
Frank Ntilikina hasn’t lived up to the hype of being the Knicks‘ No. 8 overall pick back in 2017, but some around the league believe the 21-year-old still has a future in the NBA — even if it’s not with New York.
“If (the) Knicks move him or let him walk, teams will take a chance,” one Western Conference scout tells Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic. “… Maybe his role moving forward is a high-level defender off the bench that you can stick him in the corner. That could be his calling … Depends on coach and system to find the right place to play.”
Here’s more from around the Eastern Conference:
- Thomas Bryant‘s value on the trade market could be limited, John Hollinger writes in a piece on The Athletic. The former executive believes the Wizards would have a hard time landing a first-rounder without taking back a bad contract, though multiple second-rounders may be in the cards.
- The Cavaliers may be wise to explore moving down in the draft, Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com explains. The top of the draft is loaded with guards and bigs, while Cleveland is badly in need of a long-term option at the wing.
- Blake Murphy of The Athletic wonders how long 34-year-old Kyle Lowry can remain as productive for the Raptors. LeBron James and Chris Paul are the only 33-and-older players who had more win shares this past year than Lowry.
- Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times stressed again this week that sources close to Boylen “paint the picture of someone who fully expects to be back next season.” However, Cowley also reiterated that there has been plenty of speculation linking the Bulls to Raptors assistant Adrian Griffin, who played college ball with Karnisovas at Seton Hall. A source told The Sun-Times that Everseley, a Canadian and former Toronto executive, remains on good terms with the Raptors.
While the Raptors should have some flexibility in free agency this offseason, they may ultimately have to decide between re-signing Marc Gasol or Serge Ibaka, especially if they re-sign Fred VanVleet, writes Eric Koreen of The Athletic.
As Koreen details, Ibaka – who is several years younger than Gasol – looks like the safer choice, particularly since Gasol has been slowed by health issues this season. However, considering the Raptors may prefer to hand out a big-money, one-year deal rather than make a multiyear commitment, age concerns may not be a major factor in the team’s decision, says Koreen.
After breaking down the Raptors’ numbers with each center on the court and noting Gasol’s abilities as a playmaker and as a positional defender, Koreen concludes that he’d probably prioritize Gasol over Ibaka if he were making the decision, since the Spaniard likely increases the team’s ceiling a little more — even if he comes with some added risk.
The Raptors haven’t had meaningful cap room since 2015, so it remains to be seen whether the organization’s reputation has improved enough since then to make Toronto an appealing free agent destination for top free agents, Blake Murphy of The Athletic writes in a mailbag.
While Toronto hasn’t historically competed with big-market U.S. teams for stars on the open market, Murphy notes that last year’s championship should go a long way toward boosting the team’s appeal around the league.
Hosting a recent All-Star Weekend and establishing themselves as one of the league’s best-run franchises are also points in the Raptors favor, according to Murphy. So is the fact that quality players like Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, and Serge Ibaka chose to sign new contracts with Toronto rather than jumping ship, and Marc Gasol waived his trade kicker to join the club last season.
Here’s more on the Raptors:
- Murphy touched on several other subjects in that mailbag, addressing Fred VanVleet‘s and Ibaka’s upcoming free agencies, Stanley Johnson‘s player option, and the possibility of an OG Anunoby rookie scale extension, among other topics.
- In a separate story for The Athletic, Murphy profiles Malcolm Miller, who has been a bench piece for the Raptors for the last three seasons. Although Toronto has liked Miller enough to keep him around that long, he has never really played regular minutes, so it’s unclear what his future holds as he prepares for restricted free agency this offseason.
- On a conference call, undrafted rookie Terence Davis admitted that he expected to spend half the 2019/20 season in the G League (Twitter link via Murphy). Instead, Davis has become a reliable rotation player at the NBA level — he’s the only player on the Raptors’ roster to appear in all 64 of the team’s games so far.
- In case you missed it earlier this afternoon, we explored how a spot on an All-NBA team could impact Pascal Siakam‘s future earnings.