The Raptor salary situation combined with the Jazz renouncing the rights to Paul Millsap, thus negating any realistic chance of a S&T was enough to sour the mood of Raptors fans who have been high on Millsap since time immemorial. This morning the news broke that Millsap joined the Hawks on a two-year deal, which works out nicely for both parties. Hawks don’t commit long-term, and Millsap gets a chance to have a big contract assuming his 2yr/$19M stay goes well in Atlanta.
The power forward spot is one of the big glaring holes in the Raptors depth chart, and Millsap would have been a strong fit. Moving on to other power forwards available, Tyler Hansbrough is still available after the Pacers pulled his $4.1M qualifying offer, however throwing the MLE at him is clearly excessive. The bi-annual exception? Not so much. Wouldn’t be surprised if this actually happens because he’s probably about as buy-low as you can get. J.J Hickson is still out there as a free-agent who made $4M in Portland last year, and so is Carl Landry.
Landry is an interesting case because the only thing that’s holding him from joining the Clippers is whether he’ll be offered the full MLE as the Clips will have committed a whole lot of cash to Chris Paul. He’s looking for a long-term deal, and this could be where the Raptors have an advantage – throw the full MLE at Landry, and suddenly you’re in the mix. That’s all it might take to fix one of the reds in the depth chart.
Landry is one of those players that looks really good if you only watch his team on occasion, because he sticks out as somebody who has no business performing being undersized. As much as his craft gets him on highlight reels, it tends to hide the reality that he’s a pretty poor help defender and doesn’t rebound that well. Basically, a team should go for him if they need a scoring punch. I’m not sure the Raptors are that team, but if signed he would certainly boost the bench. The question will be whether it’s value for money, and I don’t see Masai Ujiri overpaying for, what is, essentially a specialty player.
There was also interest in Brandan Wright but nothing was heard from that end since.
Finally, this happened, our response on Twitter:
Jose Calderon to the Mavs, so happy for him. Hope they do well, I can see some nice alley-oops with him and VC.
— Raptors Republic (@raptorsrepublic) July 6, 2013
Spots are thinning out for ACC Practice Court Scrimage + RR Game Night – act now.
