Raptors keeping close eye on rivals
Ujiri not expected to be as busy on deadline day as others in conference
Close to being the hunted instead of the hunters in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, the Toronto Raptors have reached the league’s trade deadline in an unusual position.
With a solid roster that is a game out of first place and charging, they now must worry about what teams around them will do in pursuit of them, rather than what they have to do to track some other team down.
That’s not to suggest there aren’t ways for president Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster to improve the 37-16 team before Thursday’s 3 p.m. deadline, but the bigger interest comes in what teams around them might do.
The Boston Celtics, who lead the East by a game despite having the same number of losses as the Raptors, could use a boost to their bench scoring and frontcourt depth. The free-falling Cleveland Cavaliers need help nearly everywhere on the roster but have little in the way of assets to offer. The Washington Wizards are said to be dangling centre Marcin Gortat. The Milwaukee Bucks need rim protection and frontcourt bulk. The rest of the current playoff teams — Indiana, Miami and Philadelphia — have holes to fill.
The Celtics, beaten 111-91 by the Raptors on Tuesday night, are al- ready poised to add Phoenix centre/ forward Greg Monroe, who has been bought out by the Suns. Tuesday’s result won’t necessarily hasten any moves for Boston GM Danny Ainge, but watching Toronto’s second unit run roughshod over his team should be cause for concern.
So, for maybe the first time ever, the Raptors seem more settled one through15 than any of the teams that are pursuing them and even more settled than the one they are in the process of tracking down.
“I love our group,” Kyle Lowry told reporters Wednesday. “I love what we have.”
The question will be what other teams do to improve before Thursday afternoon and whether that prods Ujiri and Webster to either make a late move right at the deadline or fully explore the market of bought-out players that will emerge in the next month.
League and team sources say there have been routine discussions of a myriad of trade possibilities, just like there are for every team at this time. But with the Raptors loathe to give up anything from a young, relatively inexpensive, wildly successful back- up group, and with veterans who have the best chance in franchise history of getting the Raptors to the NBA final, no talks have gained any substantial traction. The Raptors do have an open roster spot and can assume just about $4 million (U.S.) in salary before there are serious luxury tax implications.
Ujiri has also long held the belief that a team truly comes together when it has a full training camp, preseason and a regular season to develop cohesion. Last year’s moves — acquiring Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker — were done as much for the future as they were for the immediate jolt they gave Toronto. The Raptors held Bird Rights to each player, meaning they held a negotiating edge when each became free agents in the summer. It is much more Ujiri’s style to acquire players with the longer term in mind.
And while Ibaka and Tucker were necessary last season — the Raptors had a gaping hole at power forward and a need for a veteran perimeter defender — no such gaps exist on this roster. More experience always helps, and a team can never have too much three-point shooting in this iteration of the NBA, but Toronto is poised to be good now and likely as good a few years from now.
It’s an unusual place in which Ujiri and Webster find themselves going into deadline day, one that allows them a bit of luxury waiting to see what other teams do rather than being forced to do something themselves.