POTENTIAL TRADES POSE DILEMMA FOR DELIBERATE RAPTORS.
IMPULSE FLIES IN FACE OF WHAT MANAGEMENT BUILT
The Toronto Raptors were on the floor at the Air Canada Centre on Thursday night when reports broke that the Cleveland Cavaliers had traded for Atlanta’s three- point sniper Kyle Korver.
This news immediately shoved the Raptors into the most popular parlour game in sports: Make a Big Trade or Stand Pat?
Not only had the Cavs, the defending champions who had vanquished Toronto in the East final last year, made themselves better, but the trade signalled that the Hawks were piling into the Shermans: tank mode. Their all- star power forward Paul Millsap, the kind of player the Raptors have long coveted, will almost certainly be moved before the February trade deadline.
And so, the parlour game was in full swing while the Raptors and Utah Jazz were still taking their warm- ups: Should Toronto throw a pile of assets at the Hawks to land Millsap, who could be a free agent at season’s end?
It’s an enticing possibility. Millsap, alongside Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, wouldn’t quite give Toronto a group to match Cleveland’s Big Three, but it would at least be a Three of Unusual Size. It would make the Raptors seemingly more able to slug it out with the Cavs’ absurd lineup, which when playing at full strength this season has only lost a handful of times.
It’s an aggressive move that would turn the Raptors from a team that is still growing, as everyone involved says at every turn, into one that wants to contend for a title right about now. It would be, to mix metaphors for a minute, a mighty swing.
Two hours later, the Raptors reminded us of the virtue of patience. Coming off a long road trip that had seen them away from home since before Christmas, the Raptors struggled to get much of anything going against a very good Utah Jazz team. They trailed by nine after one quarter, by four at the half and by two points entering the fourth. Through 44 minutes, the Raptors had never managed a lead.
And then they simply shoved the Jazz out of the way.
DeRozan hit a contested 18- foot jumper to give the Raptors their first lead at 89- 88, then a DeMarre Carroll steal gave Toronto the ball right back. Lowry found DeRozan for a cutting dunk, Utah turned the ball over again, and DeRozan passed to Lowry for an open three- pointer that splashed through the netting as the ACC crowd roared. Under 90 seconds of game time, and suddenly it was 94-88 for the Raptors. On a night when they clearly weren’t themselves, they sorted themselves out at the end and dusted off a strong opponent. This is what very good teams do. We should probably be more used to it by now.
The results of one game are no basis on which to evaluate whether Toronto should try the kind of franchise- altering move that a trade for Millsap would entail. Had the Raptors not been able to win, one could have argued the opposite: see, not good enough to beat a tough defence.
But Thursday night helpfully demonstrated that even without an all- in move, the Raptors will be a tough out in the spring. Missing Patrick Patterson for the third straight game with a knee injury, coach Dwane Casey moved Lucas Nogueira into the starting lineup to counter Utah’s towering Rudy GobertDerrick Favors combo.
It didn’t work, mostly: the Jazz held a decisive rebounding edge for most of the game and all the large people in the paint clogged things up for DeRozan, who had a lousy 8- for-26 shooting night. But Lowry scored 16 of his 33 points in the fourth quarter, missing just one of his six shots in the frame, with three rebounds, two assists and three steals. “He’s like a little pit bull,” Casey said afterward. “He just took over the game down the stretch.”
Lowry is also a free agent after this season, and he’s clearly the key to this team keeping its new-found spot in the upper reaches of the Eastern Conference. The Raptors have in him the kind of player who takes a good team and can make it great. It’s no coincidence that when he faded in the playoffs last season, whether due to injury or fatigue or a combination of the two, the Raptors went from a very confident two- seed to a team that needed seven games to survive each of the first two rounds.
Taking a step back, what president Masai Ujiri and his staff have built is a Raptors team with a usually reliable scorer in DeRozan, some very good pieces like Carroll and Patterson, a low- post threat in Jonas Valanciunas, and a killer closer in Lowry. The rest of the roster is a mix of useful players: Cory Joseph, Terrence Ross, Norm Powell, rookies Pascal Siakam and Jakob Poeltl. How much of that depth group would Ujiri have to hand over to land Millsap? He’s been building this thing slowly and deliberately, but a Millsap trade would suggest some kind of urgency. The starting lineup would be much improved, but Toronto’s back end — depth has been a key strength — would likely be cratered.
Coming off last season, there was an argument to be made that Ujiri needed to be aggressive. Instead, he opted for continuity, bringing back the core adding forward Jared Sullinger — who still hasn’t played — and drafting the two rookies instead of packaging the draft picks for instant help. Continuity was the right call: the Raptors were viewed by many around the league with some skepticism last spring, but they are firmly a top-five team in the NBA today.
Patience has worked, so far. It would be a surprise to see the Raptors abandon it now.