Is now the time for the Raptors to sell high and trade Norman Powell? – The Athletic
“Is Powell’s contract team-friendly?” has been a roller coaster of a question practically since the moment he signed it. While the description above makes Powell’s career sound mostly like a typical upward-trending progression, it has hardly felt like that in real time. Powell’s playoff exploits help explain that; other than his virtual lost season of 2017-18, Powell has had A Moment in each of his postseasons. At those times, he seems irreplaceable. He will also go through stretches where he seems more or less unplayable. That disappeared during the regular season, but Powell was a disaster through the first four games against Boston in the playoffs, scoring just 27 points in 70 minutes. Games 2-4 in that series were decided by a combined five points in favour of the Raptors. The Raptors lost Powell’s minutes in those games by 19. Naturally, there was Powell saving the Raptors season in the two overtime periods four days later.
The value of Powell’s contract is not merely an intellectual exercise. It is something the Raptors need to figure out sooner rather than later. It might determine if Powell should remain on the roster not only in the medium-term future, but even next year.
Powell’s contract has been a going concern for the Raptors as it relates to the offseason as 2021, when, say it with me now, the Raptors have been very careful to maintain flexibility for a free-agent class that includes Giannis Antetokounmpo. Before this year, Powell’s 2021-22 salary of 11.6-million seemed better than anything he would be able to get if he declined his player option. Based on this year, it seems he could cash in at a number higher than that, even if a potential flat cap conspires to hurt his and his fellow players’ possible earnings.
Due to the Raptors’ poor health, Powell ended up starting a few more games than not before the hiatus. Adding in the seeding games, he ended up splitting his 52 games evenly between starter and reserve. If he had been eligible, he would have made an excellent candidate for Sixth Man of the Year, an award won by the Clippers’ Montrezl Harrell this year. A comparison between him and several other candidates for the award (plus Josh Richardson, given their historic ties, and Tim Hardaway Jr., a player who is off to a very similar start of his career to Powell), makes Powell look like an efficiency deity.
Anunoby is eligible for an extension to his rookie-scale contract. It would make complete sense, and send a message that he’s part of the long-term plans, but to tie him up this summer would put a dent in Toronto’s 2021 free-agent plans by taking salary cap money out of management’s collective pocket.
A case can be made for letting Anunoby go through next season and then re-signing him after whatever free-agent moves are made a year from now.
Powell’s situation is different, but equally intriguing.
He would certainly seem to have a long-term home here — in some circles, a 2021-22 starting backcourt of Powell and Fred VanVleet makes sense. But in the harsh reality of the NBA as a business, the 27-year-old might be the most tradeable asset Ujiri and Webster have at their disposal.
Powell will be paid about $10.8 million (U.S.) next season, and has a player option worth about $11.6 million in 2021-22. It’s not that the Raptors would want to get rid of him, but that’s an attractive number which, packaged with other bits and pieces, could yield a significant big man in return on the trade market. It’s impossible to even guess who that would be — there are too many moving parts at the moment — but Ujiri and Webster wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they didn’t examine all possibilities.
The best bet is that both will be back — Anunoby without an extension, Powell still as in-season trade bait — but the Raptors have shown they aren’t shy about making deals involving anyone on their team.
How worried should we be about Masai Ujiri leaving the Toronto Raptors? – Raptors HQ
Which is how Raptors fans come to feel a bit nervous. When Ujiri was installed in his front office role, his stated goal was to win an NBA championship. He spent the next six seasons attempting to do just that — and then, he actually succeeded. When you consider the history of the NBA and how difficult it is to win a title — before even considering the specific history of the Raptors — this is an astounding achievement. And while credit goes to the players and coaches for actually playing the games, Ujiri has earned his due as the mastermind of the whole scene, the man who put all the gears in motion over all those long years to produce that ultimate golden moment in the summer of 2019. Given his starting point, it’s almost like Ujiri willed it into existence.
But like Alexander the Great before him, there may not be any more lands for Ujiri to conquer in Toronto. Is it possible he may move on in search of some greater challenge in the NBA, some new impossible dream to fulfil in time? Could he desire to move beyond basketball’s day-to-day grind to build his organization Giants of Africa and/or the basketball scene of that continent with an even greater and more intent focus? Is there a grander league office position within reach, or even some political post that could use a savvy mind like Ujiri’s? These are all just wild guesses at this point, but it’s fair question to ask. Just how high has Masai set his sights?
In that sentiment, perhaps we can find some comfort. While the timing may not be right for MLSE and Ujiri to work out an agreement, it’s clear that whatever Masai asks for will be earnestly entertained in negotiations. Maybe he’s holding out for more money or he wants an ownership stake in the Raptors. While no one man is more powerful than the combined corporate might of MLSE, no one man has been better at building the Raptors into the big-time brand it has become. Ujiri has made a semi-defunct basketball organization into a league powerhouse. This gives him tremendous leverage. And since we know how patient Masai can be in his standard NBA dealings with players and agents, we can understand why he would take his time here. Ujiri knows who he is and what he has.
With the summer of 2021 looming as the biggest free agent bonanza of the past decade, MLSE likely sees the role Ujiri still has to play for Toronto. While we ourselves have been willing the idea of “Giannis to the Raptors” into existence, it’s Masai who could be the key figure to actually make it happen. He’s already been planning for years with an eye towards that exact moment, after all. And while that’s just one possible outcome, MLSE must know this too.
So, sure, everything has a price. And, sure, maybe Webster or someone else could do Masai’s job with the Raptors just as well. But there are some things that bring a value beyond the dollar figure at the bottom of a contract. Ujiri’s presence in Toronto counts as one of those things. Now let’s see if both sides can agree on that.
Toronto Raptors 2019-20 Player Review: Fred VanVleet’s career year – Raptors HQ
What’s Next for Fred VanVleet?
Which leads us to the 2020 offseason, and VanVleet’s free agency. What is all of the above worth to the Toronto Raptors? What might it be worth to other teams — teams that need a point guard, like the Knicks or Suns, or perhaps the Chicago Bulls, in VanVleet’s home state of Illinois? Maybe Dwane Casey makes a pitch to be reunited with his former player in Detroit?
Our salary cap master Daniel Hackett has the full breakdown here on what the Raptors can afford, and what other teams might offer VanVleet. If the Raptors want to maintain a max salary slot for the free agent class of 2021, they have about $18.5 million to spend this summer on VanVleet — and anyone else they intend to sign for longer than one year.
That’s tricky, because those other teams above might be willing to pay VanVleet $20 million annually — or more. (The Raptors can offer the security of an extra year, which may not even necessarily appeal to Mr. Bet-on-Yourself.) Consider that Malcolm Brogdon received a 4-year, $85 million contract from Indiana last summer, and that might be the market for VanVleet. (Note the numbers may need to be adjusted down across the board, thanks to COVID-19-related revenue losses.)
So I’m not sure where that leaves the Raptors with VanVleet. They very clearly want to keep him, and they should — I certainly want him back in a Raptors uniform — but if keeping him means reducing 2021 cap flexibility, then it may not be worth it.
If there’s anything to hang your hat on, it’s that Masai Ujiri remains (…for now?) in place as Raptors president, and if there’s anyone I trust to be creative with the salary cap, to sign the right players to the right contracts and to maintain future flexibility, it’s him.
Fred VanVleet had a great 2019-20 season. He’ll be rewarded with a new contract. And I have it at 80% that VanVleet remains a Raptor in 2020-21.
Gay: I’ll say this: Normally, there’s an obvious better option in those situations, but who would have been able to step in and play the minutes that Pascal plays at a high level? The answer is no one. There was no other option on the Raptors roster that could’ve given them a higher ceiling in my opinion. So although I may be in the minority here, I think Pascal absolutely should’ve been on the floor and in the big moments he was in, 10 times out of 10.
Where I can critique Nurse is the way he handled the struggling Siakam.
Look, Nurse knows Pascal more than I can ever know him and I’m sure he did his best to protect his player’s psyche, but at some point – even before the Boston series – he would’ve had to identify that Spicy P was no longer Spicy. He turned into Mild P, and Mild P wasn’t going to get the Raptors back to the Finals. I wonder if there was more that could’ve been done even before the Boston series to help Siakam get back on track.
It was obvious to me watching a million miles away that Siakam wasn’t himself, so Nurse would’ve known or seen that way before I did. I’m not saying he didn’t try to get him back on track because he definitely did and expected him to get back to being himself at some point. But whatever he was doing wasn’t working. It didn’t work in the seeding games, it didn’t work in the Nets series and we saw what happened in the Celtics series.
I just wonder at what point you change the approach there. Again, easy for me to say sitting on my couch with no circumstances or repercussions, but I think it’s a fair question to ask a coach who is usually unafraid of calling his players out and getting them to respond shortly thereafter.
Rafferty: Interesting.
I’m with you in that I have no problem with Siakam being out there, although my reasoning is a little different, which is that it’s an important learning opportunity for him. There might not be a player in the NBA who has changed as much as Siakam has over the last couple of seasons, and the way the Celtics defended him and ultimately contained him shows what he needs to do to take the next step. If he’s being benched because he’s struggling, whether it’s Game 7 or earlier in the series, I’m not sure he learns his lesson the same way.
The reason that’s important: Siakam is obviously the future of the Raptors. If they’re going to compete for another championship at some point in the next few years, they’re going to need Siakam to take another leap, maybe not as big as the ones he took over the last two seasons, but the Celtics series shined a light on the parts of his game that he still needs to work on. Painful as I’m sure it was for Raptors fans to see them lose the way they did in Game 7, there’s a good chance we look back on this series in a couple of years and point to it being a changing point in Siakam’s development.
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