As per Rick Bonnell, beat reporter for the Charlotte Observer, the Raptors may be in the hunt for freshly released unrestricted free agent, Bismack Biyombo:
Team to watch regarding Bismack Biyombo's unrestricted free agency: Toronto Raptors.
— Rick Bonnell (@rick_bonnell) June 29, 2015
Caution to the wind, though:
Day I knew Biz might not be a keeper: Lockout ends, training camp begins, and Rob Werdann is off in corner teaching him how to catch a ball.
— Rick Bonnell (@rick_bonnell) June 29, 2015
The 22-year old Biyombo’s $5.2M qualifying offer was declined by Charlotte, making him an unrestricted free agent. Why would the Raptors be interested in him? Well, they need rim protection which Biyombo provides at a half-decent rate (2.9 blocks PER36), though he has disappointed given his wingspan, size and jumping ability.
Biyombo hasn’t shown much since the 2011 draft, which is when he was picked seventh ahead of Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Kemba Walker, Brandon Knight and Nikola Vucevic. His saving grace used to be his rim-defense, when in 2013-14 he held opponents to 40.1% at the rim, however, last year that number ballooned to 54.8% as Biyombo’s timing in defending players was borderline comical.
Biyombo lost out to Jason Maxiell in Charlotte’s rotation and the problems have been lack of effort, and simply not ‘getting’ it. He has no offensive game, no jumper, and is basically an athletically gifted man who doesn’t know how to play basketball. How horrible of an offensive player is he – he hit one shot outside the paint all season!
If your’e into wingspan, though, he’s your guy. The 6’9″ PF/C has a ridiculous 7’6″ wingspan, except that he doesn’t really know how to play help defense so what good is it really? The only argument you could make for him getting minutes in a Raptors lineup is if Toronto is looking to replace Tyler Hansbrough with a similar sort of player, except that Hansbrough’s a better offensive player. Ouch.
