New: Raptors G Terence Davis was released after his arraignment, the NY DA’s office says.
He faces 7 charges, inc. two counts of assault, harassment, endangering the welfare of a child and criminal mischief.
Davis’s next court date is Dec 11.
The criminal complaint against him: pic.twitter.com/zASAIHzWoa— Rick Westhead (@rwesthead) October 28, 2020
Who will win the Raptors training camp roster battles? – The Athletic
How much is guaranteed, really?
The financial terms of such a question are laid out in each NBA contract. Most are fully guaranteed; no matter what a team thinks of a player or decides to do with him, he gets his money. A good number are partially guaranteed, offering a bit of floor in the event plans change or a camp goes poorly. Others guarantee nothing whatsoever, financially or existentially.
Most players have something to play for in training camp, in the preseason and game to game when the season officially begins. Stanley Johnson may be guaranteed his $3.8 million salary, but he is guaranteed nothing else about his basketball present. Yuta Watanabe and Alize Johnson are guaranteed nothing but opportunity, however small. Some teams enter camp with a roster spot or two wide open to foster competition and to open a helpful evaluation window. The Toronto Raptors are doing a bit of everything in Tampa, Fla., over the next three weeks.
And so we’ve come to one of my favourite annual pieces, where we try to figure out who will be on the opening-night roster.
The introduction of two-way contracts has added a fun wrinkle to this exercise. They matter more than ever this year, as two-way players are capped at 50 active NBA game days rather than 45 days with the team. Their two-ways could essentially be 16th and 17th men rather than pure developmental plays. The Raptors have used their two-ways well, with Lorenzo Brown, Chris Boucher, Malcolm Miller and Oshae Brissett all earning eventual NBA contracts; only Jordan Loyd (EuroLeague) and Shamorie Ponds (waived) weren’t elevated.
Raptors 905 has been a helpful tool for main roster players, too. It’s provided experience for a number of Raptors prospects, and the success of that program has at times informed the back-end roster decisions. Win-now teams often prioritize floor with their last few spots, but the Raptors have opted to try to develop young (and inexpensive) talent.
How that plays out this year is a little less clear. The latest rumblings have an optional G League season taking place in a bubble to help get the G League Ignite prospect team some meaningful games and work as a G League Showcase Extended ahead of the in-season transaction window. In this setup, the 905 would play 12 to 15 games, with players sent to the G League bubble and staying for the entirety of the mini-season. A quarantined league setup would allow for call-ups as necessary. If the Raptors were completely healthy, you could see four players being sent down to join; if injuries unfold as they did last year, I might be starting at power forward for the 905.
NBA previews: Kawhi, Harden, Beal and more ‘situations’ – The Athletic
The Raptors have set up their cap strategy to have max room for a potential Giannis pursuit, with several key players on either expiring deals or ones with options for next season.
It’s a good plan, but let me just saunter in and whisper something: Um … what is Plan B here?
If Antetokounmpo signs the supermax extension before the season, the Raps may face a bit of an existential dilemma. As presently constructed, they’re good, but not good enough, built around 20-something perimeter players Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet, and a fleet of useful role players headlined by defensive ace OG Anunoby.
And, of course, Lowry. Combining a bulldog mentality with an analytically-friendly shot chart, he’s become the personification of Raptorness. He also turns 35 in March and is on an expiring $30 million contract. If the Raptors are trying to get more assets to build around their younger guys, he is by far their best trade chip. Meanwhile, at this stage, Lowry might prefer a more immediate chance to get a second ring than the odds he’d have in Toronto.
Imagine, for instance, a deal with Brooklyn that swapped Lowry for Spencer Dinwiddie and Jarrett Allen (see below). Or Denver for Gary Harris, Will Barton and picks. Or similar-type deals with the Sixers or Heat. (The Lakers, Bucks and Clippers, sadly, probably can’t get in on this with the hard cap and Lowry’s $30 million number).
All of which is to say, the Raptors are going to get a lot of calls on Lowry, if and when they decide they’re open for business. And Lowry is at a point in his career where he can effectively make that decision for them.
Raptors appear to be giving Terence Davis the benefit of the doubt – Sportsnet
“We’ve spoken at length with Terence — multiple people in our organization,” Webster said. “Obviously we wouldn’t make the decision if we weren’t comfortable with the information that we had. Obviously, it doesn’t preclude us from getting new information that will come out in the future for us to make a decision. But we felt we were thorough on our end.
“ … You know us, we take this incredibly serious,” Webster continued. “There’s no basketball issue that would ever prevent us from doing anything [with regard to his role with the team], but we also have to go with our relationship and our understanding of the conversation and what happened.”
Clearly Webster’s hands are tied, to some degree. Any disciplinary action taken before the league’s investigation is concluded — which likely won’t happen until after Davis’s Dec. 11 court date at the earliest, one would assume — would be grieved by the players’ union.
And clearly the Raptors feel the need to be fair to Davis as this all plays out, or at least they’ve been comfortable to do so. The club picked up the non-guaranteed second year of Davis’s contract on Sunday. The logic was that failing to do so before the investigation finished would have triggered a grievance from the players’ union.
But it would have sent a message, regardless. So would keeping Davis at a distance during discretionary team events.
It might have been construed as a different kind of leadership.
But Webster seems to have shown some of his cards, at least in implying that the club believes they were “thorough” in their own inquiry. And that rather than keep Davis at arm’s length for now they have decided to keep him as part of the group — “we also have to go with our relationship and our understanding of the conversation and what happened.”
It’s not hard to read between the lines and conclude that Davis — arguably the team’s most promising prospect based on a strong rookie season for the undrafted shooting guard — has already been given the benefit of the doubt, well before his court date.
Raptors must wait for the NBA to decide if Terence Davis II will face discipline | The Star
Putting Davis, whose $1.5 million (U.S.) contract for the coming season became fully guaranteed Sunday, on some kind of paid leave while the league investigates the charges and the probe by New York City police continues, might have seemed a logical step. But, Webster said, it is not something the franchise could have done unilaterally.
Under terms of the league’s agreement with the union on domestic abuse, sexual assault and child abuse, any discipline is handled at the league level.
“That policy does govern his punishment or suspension or what may come of it.” Webster said. “The administrative leave part, as I understand it, can only be done by the NBA … I think we need to be respectful of the process here.”
The process is not over. While Davis has been charged — 11 counts ranging from assault to endangering the welfare of a child — nothing has been proven or even addressed in court. And the league’s investigation, which would mirror that of the police in scope, has not been concluded.
“We’ve spoken at length with Terence, multiple people in our organization (and) obviously we wouldn’t make the decision if we weren’t comfortable with the information that we had,” Webster said. “Obviously it doesn’t preclude us from getting new information that will come out in the future for us to make a decision, but we felt we were thorough on our end.”
Whether Davis will begin the season with the Raptors is not clear.
Are the Toronto Raptors being slept on, again? – TSN.ca
However, the thing about this Raptors team is that they routinely defy logic. For years now, this has been a group that’s overcome the loss of important players and made a habit of exceeding expectations and proving people wrong. If they’re being slept on again, if they’re being picked to fall down the standings or even to miss the playoffs altogether – well, they should be familiar with what that feels like and know how to take it with a grain of salt.
Despite going 17-5 in the games that Kawhi Leonard missed due to injury or load management during the 2018-19 title-winning season, many believed the Raptors would take a nosedive after the Finals MVP left for the Clippers. Instead, they actually improved on their regular- season success in 2019-20, setting a franchise record for win percentage (.736) and pushing for 60 victories – a mark they were on pace to hit if the campaign hadn’t been shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Not only were they able to excel without Leonard and Danny Green – their best player and another starter from the championship club – but they did it in spite of being one of the most injury-riddled teams in the league last season. Even before the halfway point, six of their top seven players had already missed at least 10 games apiece.
Regardless of who was in or out of the lineup, they seemed to find a way to win – the whole was always greater than the sum of its parts, a cause for encouragement going into the new campaign.
“I’m excited about what we’ve got,” recently re-signed guard Fred VanVleet said last week. “I think we’re kinda headed back in the direction of where we were pre-Kawhi, where people are overlooking us again, which is not a bad place to be in. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do and we’ve got to get a lot better as individuals, and then we’ll go out there and see what we can do. I’m excited. I can’t wait to get back to work.”
With the Raptors opening training camp in Tampa – their temporary home – this week, Nick Nurse will have less than a month to get the team’s new players up to speed and essentially rebuild his frontcourt before the season tips off in late December.
Who starts? Who rebounds? What gives? Five Raptors questions as training camp opens | The Star
Who starts? There may be some debate about who joins Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam in the starting lineup but there shouldn’t be.
Aron Baynes is the lone true centre on the roster capable of doing the job right now — Chris Boucher is more a hybrid four-five — and it’s hard to imagine him not getting that final starting position.
The more important question is who finishes games and it’s not hard to imagine a Lowry-VanVleet-Norm Powell-Anunoby-Siakam group closing out games.
Who makes the team? The Raptors have quietly re-signed Canadian forward Oshae Brissett and the deal includes a substantial guarantee on this year’s contract — a reported $300,000 (U.S.). That has to give him the inside track on the 15th roster spot.
That’s good for him — Brissett showed some promise as a defender in short bursts last season and head coach Nurse is enamoured of his skills — but it also may push second-round draft pick Jaylen Harris into one of the two-way deals the team has at its disposal.
Who rebounds? The Raptors have been one of the top defensive teams in the NBA over the last two seasons, in large part because of a bunch of interchangeable players who can switch a lot of defensive assignments.
But that tends to leave them vulnerable on the glass and without either Marc Gasol or Serge Ibaka, both of who were excellent defenders in the paint, rebounding could very well become an issue.
It’s going to have to a collective effort to improve that facet of the game and something to watch during the abbreviated three-game exhibition season.
It’s okay to wish Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka were still on the Toronto Raptors – Raptors HQ
In losing Gasol, the Raptors lose the connective tissue that tied together what was a disjointed roster with championship potential. They lose a thrilling passing big, who changed the way a lot of Raps fans — myself very much included — enjoy basketball. Watching the team play without a 7-foot savant darting guard level passes around is gonna shock the system. Baynes and Len will be fine, sure, but in the brutish way that most normie centres are. Screen, dive, dunk, drop back and guard the rim, knock some fellas around — that’s all well and good, but it ain’t Gasol. Baynes even seems like the type of guy who will quickly earn fan favourite status, but he’s not a master gardener, or a part-time open-ocean rescuer, or the only player on Earth for whom a scoreless effort can look cooler than a 20-point night. There’s also no goddamn way Baynes can hold his rosé on a hot day like Gasol.
The connection to Ibaka runs even deeper. If Kyle Lowry is the engine that drives the Raptors on the court, Ibaka was the hub from which the team’s charm flowed off of it. Yeah, he on his own is a gregarious leading man, who frankly should have probably ended up in Hollywood a lot sooner. But the way a great point guard accentuates the best elements of their teammates’ games, Ibaka did so with the previously untapped character notes of those he played with. Toronto runs a serious operation, where attention to detail and giving a shit are prerequisites to hanging around. Ibaka was the team’s rogue fun-enjoyer. He stirred the pot, stuck cameras in teammates’ grills, and forced them to eat animal genitalia with a straight face. As a result, Ibaka got more out of the members of the two best teams in Raptors history than any beat reporter could have possibly revealed. He pierced through veneers like teeth breaking the membrane of a rocky mountain oyster. Without Ibaka there are no scarves, no Delon Wright gleefully slurping down lamb brains, and the amount of time we saw an open and chatty Kawhi drops from 20 minutes to absolute zero. Ibaka, perhaps more than anyone else, is why Raptors fans are clingers.
The Raptors embrace their move to Tampa – The Athletic
But, there is some potential benefit to being in Florida — which could show up on the 15th and 30th every month.
The idea that NBA players in Toronto pay more in taxes has been way overblown for … well, forever. Canada has smaller Social Security and Medicare taxes than the United States, for example. So the gap in annual net income isn’t as extreme as many may believe.
But Ontario’s top combined federal and provincial marginal tax rate is 53.53 percent — whereas in Florida, it is 37 percent, and that’s all federal, as the Sunshine State has no state income tax. It’s part of why most U.S. athletes playing in Canada maintain their permanent residency in the States, so any endorsement or bonus money they receive isn’t subject to the higher tax rates.
U.S. players in Canada are taxed based on their Canadian “duty days,” which are days physically spent in Canada from the first day of camp to the end of their teams’ playoff runs. A percentage of total days spent in Canada during the season is then applied to their taxes — usually, about 66-67 percent of a U.S. player’s salary is taxed in Canada. In Florida, that tax will be zero percent. (The rest would be taxed based on the player’s permanent U.S. residence.) Players also receive tax credits from their home states for any tax paid in Canada, so they’re not double taxed.
Because those duty days will now be in Florida, where there is no state income tax, players will be taxed by whatever their home state dictates for those days. So they’ll be dropping from Canada’s 53.53 percent to the 37 percent federal tax, plus whatever their state tax rate is. For example, VanVleet is an Illinois resident; the state has a 4.95 percent state income tax rate, so VanVleet’s tax rate should drop from 53.53 percent to 41.95 percent for the time the Raptors are in Florida instead of Toronto. (VanVleet and any other player with a new deal could also lessen the Canadian cap hit by structuring a new contract to include bigger bonuses; for example, Canada only taxes a signing bonus up to 15 percent, per a tax treaty between the United States and Canada. VanVleet’s new $85 million contract is structured to receive $15.9 million in advanced payments, per a source, though that’s not treated the same as a bonus.)
Why the pandemic just earned some NBA players millions of extra income – MarketWatch
For next season, the Toronto Raptors home games, which are normally taxed at the “brutally high” Toronto rate, according to Raiola, will be taxed in the U.S., where taxes are lower compared with Canada.
“The difference between the U.S. top rate, 37%, and Canadian top rate, which is 53.5%, is a difference of 16.5% on whatever they make. It’s a lot.”
The 53.5% rate in Canada is for people who have over $220,000 of taxable income, and the 37% rate in the U.S. is for individuals who make $518,401 or more —which applies to nearly every player on the Raptors active roster.
That 16.5% difference in federal taxes between the U.S. and Canada will amount to millions in savings for highly paid Raptors players like Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam, who make more than $30 million a season.
For example, the All-Star guard Lowry will save a minimum of $2.475 million from the move.
In addition to lower federal taxes, there is also no state income tax in Florida. This is also a huge savings for some players. At one point, the Raptors considered playing their home games this season in New Jersey, which has a top income tax rate of 10.75% for people who make over $5 million before ultimately deciding to play in Florida. Playing in Florida as opposed to New Jersey will net Lowry an additional $1.613 million in income tax savings as well.
Relocation has Raptors fighting uphill battle from the get-go | Toronto Sun
Raptors general manager Bobby Webster and his management team are busy at the moment overseeing the recreation, or a close-as-possible facsimile, of their OVO Training centre in an adjoining hotel to the one where they currently reside.
Fair to say no other management team in the NBA is dealing with that just five days from the first official team workouts.
“The NBA doing it in Disney (last season) in the ballroom in a packed convention centre space really gave us the idea to do it,” Webster said. “But then to actually construct it ourselves is what we are doing here.
“If you can imagine a world-class basketball court, a world-class training room, a world-class weight room, there are challenges in doing that in the equipment, but essentially the idea here was to create a world-class practice facility in a place where there isn’t one.That’s been fun and challenging for us.”
That idea is basically to take two unoccupied ballrooms in the adjacent hotel and install two courts, offices and as many of the facilities that the team has at their disposal in Toronto.
The question becomes at what cost is there to whatever else a management team should be — or in the case of their 29 opponents, is doing right now?
But that’s only one item on a lengthy list of to-dos the Raptors have. By the time training camp opens this week, the team will have had less than two weeks to accomplish countless things.
The players and the staff will all have the option to leave the team hotel and take up residence, with a healthy living allowance from the club, in condos or units throughout the Tampa area, which will be yet another task that the Raptors.
Then there’s the question of whether or not to bring their respective families down to Florida with them, another decision that will entail further man-hours and time away from the actual task at hand.
Webster said the team is making the best of their situation, something they have become pretty good at throughout the history of being the one or two (Vancouver, briefly) teams in the NBA to play outside the continental U.S.
Send me any Raptors-related stuff that I may have missed: rapsfan@raptorsrepublic.com