Toronto Raptors’ 2024 ideal offseason: Keep Scottie Barnes long term, add guard depth

I strongly believe the Toronto Raptors need at least one more year near the bottom of the standings before truly attempting to return to the playoffs. One massively wayward year that does not even produce a lottery pick is not enough to fortify a foundation.

We can argue the merits of that later, but let’s all agree, for the moment, that the Raptors need to come out of 2024-25 with a lottery pick to add more young talent to the mix. Typically, the move for a team inclined to lose would be to trade away your useful players who are not part of your long-term plans, create cap space if possible to absorb other teams’ bad contracts (while obtaining future picks and prospects for the trouble) and hope the lottery balls bounce your way.

Unfortunately, the league landscape is not set up well for the Raptors to execute that plan. Their most obvious trade candidates, Jakob Poeltl and Bruce Brown, don’t have much value — Poeltl because his player type is not especially in demand, Brown because his salary is too high. Meanwhile, the teams that are most incentivized to save some money by getting off of burdensome contracts, such as the Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves and others, could lack the ability/desire to execute a salary dump of some combination of the Stepien rule, too much money being tied up in too few players, an obvious open window for contention, the punitive second apron and hyper-aggressive ownership.

Accordingly, as I charted out the Raptors’ ideal offseason, an annual exercise of mine, I continuously ran into impediments. They are not in a great spot. Given that, I think what is in order is a responsible summer of bookkeeping, which is not going to make fans very happy after a difficult season. You cannot control what is happening around you, though; you can only prepare yourself to take advantage of circumstances when they change.

I am not including two-way signings or training camp invitees in this process. As a reminder: In this process, I am trying to operate on the optimistic side of realistic, not in a dream scenario that has no chance of actually transpiring.

June 26: Draft Bobi Klintman with 19th overall pick of NBA Draft

Free agency has more realistic short-term answers at guard and up front for the Raptors. The draft is the perfect place to swing hard for wings and forwards with good positional size (this is why I still defend the idea behind the Bruno Caboclo pick), which the Raptors are suddenly lacking beyond Scottie Barnes. In that sense, French forward Tidjane Saluan and Colorado’s Tristan da Silva would both be candidates, but I haven’t seen trustworthy mock drafts that have either falling to the Raptors.

Klintman’s name has been connected to the Raptors for a while now. He needs to add strength to his 6-foot-9 frame, as do most 20-year-old prospects, but his shooting has trended in the right direction as he has played in Australia. He doesn’t have the burst to become a scoring force, but that is fine. The Raptors need to stockpile bigger wings. I also wouldn’t mind Pacome Dadiet or Jaylon Tyson in this spot. Guard Isaiah Collier has enough upside that I’d take him here if he slips.

I’ve already made my feelings on the Raptors/Zach Edey fit clear.

June 27: Draft Ryan Dunn with the 31st pick of the NBA Draft

The Raptors are on the clock, baby. At least they will be on the clock, assuming they don’t trade this pick between now and the end of the first round, as the first and second rounds will now be on different days.

When I spoke to Sam Vecenie as the season wound down, he mentioned Dunn as a high-level defender, and his 6-foot-6 frame with a 7-foot-1 wingspan should make him a terror right away. He is a very good all-around athlete. He has virtually no offensive game, and the Raptors will have to make a judgment call on how much they can improve that. With a second-round pick, though, give me somebody who has a clear NBA-ready skill with some room for growth.

June 28: Trade Bruce Brown to New York for Bojan Bogdanović, Jericho Sims and a 2025 second-round pick (Brooklyn)

It turns out you can make too much money on an expiring contract — at least in a world with the punitive second apron.

Despite Brown’s poor play in Toronto, I’m sure many good teams would like to get Brown for their rotations. However, any team that is over the second apron cannot aggregate salaries to make a trade. Beyond that, good teams lack draft picks to trade. Try to find a trade partner for Brown’s $23 million team option next year. It is not easy.

Maybe there is a package that could work with Memphis built around Luke Kennard, also on a team option, and Zaire Williams. I doubt it, given Brown does many of the same things offensively that Marcus Smart does. Even this trade with the Knicks strains credulity. However, Bogdanović is 35 and his season ended because of a foot injury that required surgery. The Knicks were interested in Brown before the trade deadline, and if they want a solid player who figures to be healthy in that salary slot, Brown could qualify.

If I had to bet, the Raptors will either have to keep Brown on the roster, hoping he builds his value during the season, or they will have to decline his option and let him walk for nothing. If the Raptors can move him, the deal will look something like this, and not feature the first-rounder they were hoping for when they got him in the Pascal Siakam trade.

In this exercise, Eric would try to re-sign Gary Trent if the money and term made sense. (Dan Hamilton / USA Today)

July 1: Re-sign Gary Trent Jr. to a two-year, $35 million deal with a player option for 2025-26

Even with Brown gone, I would not go all in to re-sign Trent. Years, more so than salary, would be the sticking point for me. However, if Trent’s price gets too high, the Raptors would lose the ability to use the full mid-level exception while staying under the luxury tax.

A compromise, then: Trent gets $17 million this year and a chance to hit free agency next year if he plays well. If he doesn’t, another $18 million is guaranteed and he would have a second chance to set his market higher than this, which is actually a slight pay cut from his previous contract.

That is valuable flexibility for Trent. He is 25, and could attract a market from the myriad shooting-starved teams with cap room — the Detroit Pistons, Orlando Magic, San Antonio Spurs and even Oklahoma City Thunder make sense for him.

Malik Monk should be the most in-demand player of Trent’s player type in free agency. After that, beauty will be in the eye of the beholder, with nobody guaranteed to make more than the mid-level exception. If that is how it plays out for Trent, this deal would make sense for player and team. The Raptors would get an elite shooter with some defensive value, while Trent would get a chance to improve on some of his weaknesses (help defence and playmaking).

July 1: Raptors agree to a five-year maximum-level contract extension with Scottie Barnes, with the possibility of the supermax

We cannot know exactly what the figures of this deal will be until there is at least a projection for the 2025-26 salary cap, when Barnes’ new contract would begin. It will be for 25 percent of the cap, which should be around $40 million for a starting salary, with the chance to reach 30 percent should he win MVP, Defensive Player of the Year or make All-NBA next year.

It is a no-brainer, and the only question is whether there is a player option after the fourth year. Since this is an ideal offseason for the Raptors, let’s say Barnes locks in for the fifth year here.

July 3: Re-sign restricted free agent Immanuel Quickley to a four-year, $108.4 million contract extension

If the Raptors keep one of Brown or Trent, their path to significant room under the salary cap is blocked. Therefore, keeping Quickley at his cap-hold number of $12.51 million would become irrelevant, and getting him on the books to provide cost certainty to allow the Raptors to stay below the luxury tax threshold would become paramount.

According to Hoopshype, the Knicks offered Quickley a rookie extension worth about $18 million annually last year. This deal would start at $24 million with an average of about $27 million. That is what quality starters with upside earn.

July 4: Sign Monte Morris to a two-year, $18 million contract using the majority of the non-taxpayer mid-level exception

Morris ranked 17th on my ranking of Raptors’ targets in free agency. If the Raptors’ offseason breaks like this, then Morris makes sense as a stop-gap backup point guard who can competently run things in case of an injury to Quickley.

If healthy, Morris is solid, and a safe pair of hands. The qualifier is important, as Morris missed 20 games in 2022-23 and played in only 33 with the Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves this past regular season. He has been largely healthy since his trade to the Wolves. The Raptors can expect him to shoot around 40 percent on stand-still 3s. He’d be a nice piece to help set a floor for the team’s second units.

Conclusion

This offseason would give the Raptors 16 main roster players under contract, although Javon Freeman-Liberty is only guaranteed for $150,000 through the Las Vegas Summer League. About half of his $1.89 salary becomes guaranteed if he is on the roster on opening night, with the rest becoming guaranteed in January.

If the Raptors waive Freeman-Liberty before opening night, the Raptors would have a payroll of less than $169 million in this scenario. The tax threshold is projected to be $172 million, which would act as a de facto cap for the Raptors. That would allow the Raptors to a) give some small guarantees to bring more players to training camp (you can bring up to 20 players to camp) and b) waive a player with a guaranteed contract, such as Jalen McDaniels, to keep Freeman-Liberty or someone else.

It is less room than you want to give you the flexibility to take on more money in a trade. That should be a consideration for the Raptors, especially if it means adding some picks in midseason moves. Perfect is the enemy of good, though, and the Raptors can use the stability Morris would provide them compared to a minimum-level backup guard.

Additionally, the moves would give them about $142.3 million worth of commitments to 10 players under cost control in 2025-26: RJ Barrett, Barnes, Quickley, Poeltl, Kelly Olynyk, Gradey Dick (team option), Ochai Agbaji (team option), Morris, Klintman and Dunn. If Trent opted into the second year of his contract, that would be about $160 million to 11 players, which should allow for a decent amount of wiggle room under the tax.

(Speaking of ideal, it would be great to provide a change of scenery for Chris Boucher and McDaniels. Let’s not pretend that other teams will be actively trying to acquire those players unless the Raptors are incentivizing them to do so, which they should not do. Picks and prospects aren’t going anywhere for the Raptors right now.)

Here is what the depth chart would look like heading into training camp.

It is a competent roster with the ability to possibly challenge for a Play-In spot. Crucially, I think it is not so good of a roster that it would prevent the Raptors from lottery ball chasing by putting their thumb on the scale, should they opt for that route.

(Top photo of Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett: Cole Burston / Getty Images)