Uncertainty looms large over Raptors
Free agents might avoid signing with team still figuring out where they will play
Imagine you're an NBA free agent and Bobby Webster is on the phone, talking Toronto Raptors to you and your agent.
You're a young man, maybe in your mid-20s, with a wife and a two-year-old daughter.
The offer made on the phone sounds reasonable. The team is beyond reproach. And then the question has to be asked.
“Where will we you be playing this season?” the player asks.
The explanation will be long and winding and without any real answers. Maybe in Toronto. Might be Tampa. Might be split, half and half. Might be Nashville.
Training camp opens in just over two weeks. The regular season is just a month away, and the Raptors are a team still trying to figure out where to call home, the only Canadian team in an otherwise American NBA.
If I'm a free agent, and I have two or three offers, why would I choose the unknown? Why Toronto?
Will I be finding a place to live or being put up in a hotel for the entire season? Will my family be with me or will we be apart?
So many questions under the circumstances, and at this point, so few answers.
It's lonely and it's difficult to live separated from home and family — but it's a new fact of sporting life in Canada.
COVID-19 has brought uncertainty to all of our lives. But it's also brought uncertainty to sports and entertainment. Some of the TV shows we're waiting for haven't arrived for the latest season. We know the NBA season is a go, with the draft being held Wednesday night, free agency beginning Friday, and the season ready to kick off on Dec. 22.
We think the NHL will play, although we're not sure when.
And time is of the essence for the normally precise Raptors, still without a definitive home.
A lot has happened since the championship run of 2019.
Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green left last year. Fred Vanvleet, Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol are officially free agents in a day. It looks like Vanvleet may return, although that isn't any kind of certainty. And it looks, from afar, like the double-edged sword at centre, Ibaka and Gasol, will likely be gone.
So there's all kinds of work to do to fill out a roster and then compete in an Eastern Conference that now features Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and maybe James Harden with new coach Steve Nash in Brooklyn. It has Doc Rivers coaching in Philadelphia with an already improving roster. The Boston Celtics got better in the draft. The Miami Heat just played in the NBA Finals.
You can wait all you want for Giannis Antetokounmpo, who may or may be available a year from now, and may or may not want to play in Toronto. But you need a team right now. Kyle Lowry is one year older, Pascal Siakam was somewhat exposed in the playoffs, and the roster will be thinned out by free agent departures.
And that's just the basketball part. The life part, the living part, the family part, is a component all on its own. Every team in the NBA will train in its own facilities this season, open camp close to home, play in its own building, with or without fans.
Every team but one.
The Raptors still hope to get clearance to play in Toronto but how is that even possible when the opening of the border has been pushed back another month, quarantine rules remain in place, and COVID-19 cases in America are seemingly out of control. The conditions that wouldn't allow the Blue Jays to play in Toronto have worsened significantly. A vaccine is the on the way, but when, how soon, and how quickly does that change matters for a Canadian team in an American league?
So the Raptors go where? To a mystery city with mystery training facilities and probably living expenses still to be worked out still with the Players' Association.
So you're an NBA free agent. The Raptors are an option. But you don't know where you will be living or playing. You don't know much of anything. It's a great unknown at a time when players require answers.