Tuesday night the Toronto Raptors did the expected, and evened up their series against Milwaukee with a narrow 106-100 victory. It’s a completely reasonable thing to want to focus on the good here, and talk about Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan both having solid games to change the narrative that they can’t get it done in the playoffs, but it’s hard to watch that game and also come to the realization that this young Milwaukee squad isn’t going away, and they aren’t going to give up anything easily in this series. This will be a tough, long playoff series and it could easily break either way, and although I still favor the Raptors to get out, it might be worth exploring the long-term implications of this series whether or not the Raptors are victorious.
First of all, with Cleveland expected to be waiting in the next round, should the Raptors beat Milwaukee, it would be a safe bet that everything from here is playing with house money. After all, who could fault the team for losing to the defending Champions who are led by LeBron James? Whether or not the Raptors make it past Cleveland, as long as the series is somewhat competitive, there would definitely be an argument in favor of running it back again. With LeBron yet another year older, you could hope that perhaps he wouldn’t be quite the same player and that would open the door for Toronto at least a little bit.
Even here though, what does that look like? The Raptors can’t bring everyone back, that simply isn’t an option, with Kyle Lowry, Serge Ibaka, PJ Tucker, and Patrick Patterson free agents and just over $90 million already committed. The easiest of the bunch to figure out has to be Lowry, who you’d assume is back assuming the Raptors are willing to commit the money to keeping him. His maximum contract is a 5-year deal worth approximately $202 million. Perhaps Masai Ujiri manages to convince Lowry to take a discount of about the same percentage he talked DeMar DeRozan into a summer ago, where the Raptors saved around $15 million over the course of DeMar’s contract. A similar 10% discount on Lowry’s contract brings the total down to $180 million, with an initial year of $32 million. That would bring the Raptors commitments up to just over $120 million and put the team in the luxury tax zone, before even talking about any of the other guys.
If I had to order the other three players, I’d say Serge Ibaka is the most likely to return, but also at a high price, and PJ Tucker third. With those two signings possibly looking to bring the team into the neighborhood of $150 million in salary before additional moves, there would have to be other moves made to reduce the burden, as well as the likely acceptance that bringing back Patrick Patterson simply isn’t financially feasible. We’re a long way into guessing here, and it’s certainly possible Masai manage to work some magic to make the numbers look better than I can, but it’s hard to see this not being a very expensive proposition to bring back this core to make another run. If the team does try, they’ll have to move at least one salary to make this work, and while the fan base would certainly probably prefer that to be DeMarre Carroll, with his injury struggles and inconsistent on-court production, finding a suitor for the last two years of his contract could be difficult, even in a rising cap environment. It may end up being that either Cory Joseph or Jonas Valanciunas has to be moved just to keep the numbers palatable for MLSE. Perhaps even both, depending on the level of organizational confidence in Delon Wright, Jakob Poeltl and other young players.
That’s a complicated scenario to play out, and clearly not an easy path even if keeping a good team together is always preferable to rebuilding in any form, and it also assumes that all of those players decide to return. While that seems a safe bet with Kyle Lowry having found his most successful years in the NBA in Toronto, and Serge Ibaka and PJ Tucker have given no indication they’d rather play elsewhere, it’s certainly possible one or more of those players decides to move on.
On the other hand, if the Raptors were to lose to the Bucks, it could change the way the team is seen both within the organization and from outside. Despite last year’s trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, this would be the third time in four years where the Raptors would have lost in the first round with home court advantage, and that would definitely open up questions over whether or not this core simply can ever contend, not just for a NBA title, but to be one of the elite teams in an improving Eastern Conference. LeBron might not be going anywhere for a few years yet, and with Giannis ascending every year and young teams like Washington and the Celtics improving, the road may get tougher every year in the near future. I’ll preface this with this is the ‘darkest timeline’ outlook, and I’m intentionally painting the worst case scenario because the team may have to take these things into consideration as they plan out the future.
Despite the fact that the Raptors are one of the youngest teams in the league, their leaders aren’t young. Lowry is 30 now, and a decline at some point during his next contract is certainly not an unreasonable assumption. Tucker and Carroll are both also on the wrong side of 30, and Carroll has already had a couple of rough seasons with the Raptors in terms of health. While DeMar DeRozan and Serge Ibaka are both 27, neither of them can be considered totally a lock to sustain their current production. Prior to arriving in Toronto, Ibaka had been seen around the league as someone who was already in decline, with his athleticism not what it once was. He’s looked like the Ibaka of old since coming to the Raptors, but there may be more than smoke to the player he looked like in Orlando.
For DeRozan it’s a complicated question. After all, his game is described as an old man’s game, and he’s a player who works hard during every offseason to improve himself. Just during this campaign alone, he’s grown leaps and bounds as a decision maker and in the way he reads defenses and has even been giving improved effort on the defensive end late in the year. On the other hand, the way he plays simply might not be sustainable as a player ages, looking at historical context. It’s not a leap to say that DeMar’s game depends on being able to shoot a large quantity of free throws while not shooting often, or a high percentage, from three-point range. Since his first All-Star berth in 2013-14 his free throw rate(FTr) has been well over 40% each season, while his 3 point rate(3PAr) has never topped 15%. There have been 11 other players with similar shooting tendencies as young players since the year 2000. Even if you adjust these parameters slightly to 35% FTr and 20% 3PAr, to assume that he shoots a few less free throws and becomes a better three point shooter as he ages, that list narrows to just two players, Dwyane Wade and Allen Iverson. Given that, it’s not unreasonable to question how DeRozan’s game will evolve as he ages. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the growth of his game over this season, and it would certainly seem safe to assume he continues to improve in future years, but father time is undefeated, and not everyone’s game ages equally.
I bring up these questions, not as criticism for the players, but to demonstrate how complicated the scenario is if the Raptors do lose to Milwaukee, as far as the future of the franchise. It would certainly be preferable to It’s also reasonable to question how safe Dwane Casey’s job is should the team bow out in the first round, and wonder who replaces him should the team decide to move on. There is undoubtedly still hope if the Raptors decide to go in the direction of a youth movement, and with the talented youngsters on board, a full rebuild is likely unnecessary, but player development is never a sure thing, either.
If the team decides to move on and focus on the younger generation, what does that even look like? That’s a hard question to unpack, because while it’s easy to fall in love with players like Delon Wright, Norman Powell and Jakob Poeltl, and they all are loaded with potential, you wouldn’t want to hand any of them the reins of the franchise, at least not yet. Losing to Milwaukee is an unpalatable option, because none of the doors appear to have good options behind them if you decide to accept that this core simply won’t be a contender, and that’s a hard thing not to consider if they only manage one first-round win in four tries as the higher seed.
Whether management decides to stay the course or change direction, it’s clear that the team will have a complicated future. Will that be trying to manage their pocket book as they retool for more deep runs through the playoffs, or trying to rebuild on the fly for their youth movement while also moving on from the elder statesmen of the team? Either way, there seems to be a lot more riding on this playoff series than simply a berth in the second round for the Toronto Raptors.
