What do you want these Toronto Raptors to be?
Going into the trade deadline that’s the question dictating what you want the team to do. We’ve seen enough from them to know what they are right now: the best team in franchise history and one that has taken a small step up from last season. They’re a good team but not a great one and not a contender for the NBA title unless we see an unprecedented number of injuries to major stars in the playoffs.
Is that enough? Is there anything wrong with being content with being a pretty good team for a few years?
The answer to that one is somewhat tricky. Obviously there is nothing “wrong” with it per se – there are no moral judgments at play here, just a discussion about which targets the Raptors should be shooting for. But it can be “wrong” in the sense that it’s not what’s best for the team, based on what their goals are. This is an attempt to answer the same question that Tim Chisholm proposed a few days ago, but from more of a philosophical perspective as opposed to the historical and practical angle he employed so effectively. He’s 100% correct that the Raptors have a great opportunity to make roster improvements and to potentially take advantage of an uncertain pecking order in the East but the issue of what the Raptors should do goes beyond opportunism, it’s about what kind of franchise they want to be.
As it stands right now, the Raptors have historically been anywhere from the bottom of the league to the middle of the pack but have never really stood above it. There have been brief moments, and we’re living one of those right now, where they’re close enough to see how the elite live but they’ve never quite managed to take their place among them. They’ve been somewhat comparable to the Milwaukee Bucks or the Atlanta Hawks in that they assemble a few pretty good players and ride them as far as possible, and when that group falls short they eventually regroup with another set of pretty good players. Because being pretty good is often easier on the financial bottom line teams like this will overpay to become or stay a pretty good team, which is how we get fun anomalies like “Joe Johnson, the $119 million man”.
Right now the Raptors are in the same place Atlanta was in when they offered Johnson that deal: a good but not great team in a position to make the playoffs consistently and even win a series or two but without much of a chance of ascending beyond that. If they decide to do what the Hawks did in 2010 and stay the course I’m not sure many would fault them. They avoid regressing back to being a lottery team, they rake in a little playoff revenue and they keep the buzz surrounding the team active for at least a few more years. The Raptors could sit on their hands now, keep their stockpile of assets and make a perfectly defensible decision – being good is never actually a bad thing.
“Defensible” is not the same as “right”, though. With the effort put into rebranding the franchise and the work that has gone into tweaking the team every offseason it seems that the Raptors are trying to send the message that being a pretty good team is not enough for this franchise, that they strive to be among the league’s elite. The “right” decision for the Raptors is the one that is consistent with their stated and implied goals and everything points to the franchise trying to take that step up to elite status. They’ve been stockpiling all of these assets for the last few years and are in a good position to make a deal: they have four 1st round picks in the next two seasons, some promising young talent in the pipeline and a lot of tradeable contracts on the roster. There’s no time like the present for a major move if only because the Raptors don’t even have the roster space for all of the assets they currently have.
All of this is a roundabout way of getting to the crux of the issue: the Raptors are in a very good position as buyers if they can avoid getting sentimental about the talent they have and if they’re willing to take the chance and make a significant move. This isn’t the time for them to get attached to the promise of their prospects, the potential value of their picks or for them to play it safe. This is the time for them to make bold moves, upgrade talent and try to move into the upper echelon of NBA teams. They need to be looking beyond the likes of PJ Tucker and Markieff Morris and Thaddeus Young to the top tier talent available and make everybody available if the right deal comes along.
There are risks involved, of course – that’s true of any significant change. Continuity seems to be a priority for the Raptors, with the concern centring around this core having a lot of mileage together and there being no guarantee that new additions will mesh with whatever Raptors are leftover. This places too much value on continuity, which does have some impact on the success of a team but is secondary to talent. No team ever ascended to the top by holding on to the in-their-prime talent that got them to the middle of the pack and trying different combinations of role players around them. The thing keeping the Raptors from getting to the top of the league is not the difference between the likes of Greivis Vasquez and Cory Joseph or Tyler Hansbrough and Bismack Biyombo – sure, those are upgrades but they’re minor ones. The Raptors are not behind the top teams in the league because they haven’t played together long enough, they’re behind those teams because their overall talent is not on the same level. Getting top-level talent comes before continuity and right now the Raptors are not there.
The 2016 version of the Houston Rockets are an example of the other major concern for the Raptors. They made moves that were clear upgrades in terms of talent and that were a good theoretical fit but did not work out well in reality. This is where trust in the people running the team comes into play and the Raptors front office, particularly Masai Ujiri, have done a lot to show their competence over the years. They’ve drafted well, “won” most of their trades and done an excellent job of plugging holes in the roster during the offseason. It seems safe to say that Masai wouldn’t leave the fate of the franchise in the hands of somebody who is only available because of repeated issues with heavy drinking – the closest he’s come to risky manoeuvres like that has been the acquisition of Javale McGee which, in his defense, did work out for a while because McGee was incredibly productive while things were working in Denver. Masai’s track record is not without blemishes but it is among the best in the league.
The Raptors have a trustworthy front office and are not at a level where continuity is sufficient to get them to their intended destination so they need to be looking past the lateral moves and minor upgrades to chase the big fish. If the likes of Al Horford or Blake Griffin are out there for the taking they need to put everyone who is not a two-time all-star starter on the table and try to make it happen. I’m not saying that the Raptors can definitely pull off a move like that, it can be hard to pry talent like that away from their current team and there will undoubtedly be a lot of suitors, but that level of talent needs to be the target with lesser options like Ryan Anderson and Thaddeus Young being fallback options and only pursued if they can be had below market value. If they’re not able to make something significant happen by this seasons trade deadline then they need to gear up for another offseason of significant changes – on the court, off the court or both – because it’s pretty clear that what they’re doing right now will not get them where they want to be.
