In the dying seconds of the trade deadline, the Raptors front office completed yet another great trade, moving power forward Jared Sullinger, and two second round picks, to the Phoenix Suns for small forward P.J. Tucker.
This year the Tucker deal had finally come to fruition, as he had been linked to trade talks involving the Raptors in deadlines past. Tucker had always been seen as a perfect fit for the Raptors as his style of play fills a lot of their needs. This year the price was right, and the deal made sense for both teams. With the Serge Ibaka trade completed earlier in the week, the 10.7 minutes per game Sullinger was averaging were going to completely disappear. The Raptors address their backup wing issue after Terrence Ross being traded to Orlando, and the Suns don’t move any salary in the deal but add two draft picks to help boost their rebuild efforts.
Tucker might not be someone who starts a ton of games for the Raptors, but he will be someone who finishes a lot of them. His strengths as a player might not show up as much in the box score, but the 31 year old veteran adds an ability to stretch out the floor, be an extremely versatile defender, and provide a certain level of toughness/crazy the Raptors have been missing.
Tucker’s greatest strength is his defensive versatility, at 6”6 245lbs he has similar perimeter defensive skills as Patrick Patterson possess. The ability to guard low post strong 4’s, and then switch onto quick big wings, and even in rare cases bully smaller guards. His quick lateral movement, defensive smarts, and physicality make him a force on the defensive end. There’s no doubt that the Raptors have struggled mightily on the defensive end this season, ranking 16th in the league in defensive rating at 106. The additions of Ibaka, Tucker, and the return of Patterson to the lineup will absolutely help the Raptors defensively, especially late in close games where they have struggled closing.
In clutch situations, the Raptors have had some of the worst outcomes in the entire league recently. From the beginning of the season to January 18th, the Raptors were 14-12 in 86 clutch minutes played, with a 106.5 offensive rating, 95.4 defensive rating, totaling a 11.1 net rating. From Jan 18th up to the All-Star break the Raptors were 2-10 in 48 minutes of play, with an offensive rating of 87.5, defensive rating 112.3, and a horrifying net rating of -24.9.
During that rough patch, the Raptors without Patterson were stretched pretty thin finding pieces for their frontcourt late in games. With Siakam on the floor, the Raptors would try and stay afloat but he faltered and was moved out of the rotation. The Valanciunas/Bebe lineup worked nicely, but with two foul prone players on the floor together and no capable third centre on the roster, they are a risk rotation wise. That left Casey no option other than go small, and sometimes way too small.
Now with the two deadline deals completed, the Raptors have a lot of lineup options moving forward centered around solid defensive players. A closing lineup that would be interesting to see is a Lowry/DeRozan/Tucker/Patterson/Ibaka. This lineup would boast some of the Raptors best perimeter defenders, able to make easy switches, and with four solid defenders it might be easier to hide DeRozan on the weakest offensive player. Even with this lineup being small, it doesn’t sacrifice rebounding. Ibaka is a more than capable rebounder, and for Tucker’s size he is a well above league average rebounder for his position with a 11.6% TRB% putting him in the 90th percentile of small forwards in the NBA this year.
The defense for this lineup makes of sense, but the spacing offensively is where it’s really fun to think about. Even though Tucker isn’t a knock down three point shooter, he can be very effective when setup in the right spots. 38.5% of Tucker’s shots come from behind the arc and he’s shooting 34.9% on 2.4 attempts per game. 78% of those threes are coming from the corners, where Tucker is most efficient working from either side, shooting around 50 shots from each.
In this scenario Tucker works best from the right side, as you can see from the Patterson and Ibaka shot charts, Patterson is obviously positioned more on the left side as he’s taken more than double the shots from the left corner than the right. Ibaka primarily operates from up top, where he has been very efficient from straight away and both wing positions, shooting around 40% from each area.
This spacing is ideal for the Raptors ball handlers of Lowry/DeRozan to run high pick and roll with Ibaka, or any of the horns sets the Raptors use so frequently. This kind of spacing opens up pick and pop opportunities for Ibaka, a ton of space for Lowry/DeRozan to isolate, and when the defense collapses on the drives they have two shooters positioned in the corners. The Raptors don’t usually play a five out style offense, even though Tucker and Patterson aren’t the corner three point specialists like Trevor Ariza, just the threat of having them standing on the perimeter ready to shoot adds another scoring threat to the Raptors offense.
Tucker isn’t the kind of player who is going to turn many heads offensively, he’s averaging 7 points on 6.2 field goal attempts, shooting 41.5% in 28.5 minutes per game. It’s tough to judge how some of his numbers will translate over to his new teammates on a potential 50 win team, compared to a potential 25 win team.
The Raptors have many new options now with their rotations, a lot of experimenting will need to be done during the first few games. The trade for Tucker is a great move, the versatility he adds to the Raptors rotations, and the boost he gives the team defensively is a huge upgrade for a team trying to make a deep playoff push.
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