Raptors free agency primer: Cap sheet, assets, exceptions and the big picture – The Athletic
How can the Raptors add to the roster?
Trade Exceptions
The Raptors have two small trade exceptions:
Terrence Davis II – $1,571,981 – Expires February 11th, 2022
Matt Thomas – $1,571,981 – Expires February 11th, 2022Those can be used to take back a player without sending salary out to match. Trade exceptions can not be combined or with players to aggregate salary, so ones of this size are fairly limited in value.
Trade rules
Teams above the luxury tax operate under different trade rules, so Toronto’s flexibility here could change based on how they approach free agency. Luckily for us, they’re simplified: A tax team can only take on up to 125 percent of their outgoing salary in a trade, plus $100,000.In the scenario where the Raptors are a below-tax team, the following rules apply:
An important note with all of the non-guaranteed contracts the Raptors have is that those players count as $0 for salary-matching until their deals are guaranteed. The flexibility to guarantee and trade these players for salary-matching is real, but it requires the other team to, you know, pay the players those salaries.
Sign-and-trade
The CBA no longer allows players to receive the fifth year on a deal and the higher annual raises, so there’s now less financial incentive for a player to seek a sign-and-trade. The sign-and-trade has come back in vogue the last few seasons, though, because they can still help a player get to a preferred landing spot that doesn’t have enough cap space and/or helping the team losing a player recoup an asset.
As noted earlier, if a team acquires a player in a sign-and-trade, the luxury tax apron becomes a “hard cap” that they can’t cross at any point during the year.
The Heat and Knicks are the two primary suitors to watch for in the Lowry situation. Those are the teams that could have significant cap space, a need at the position and the competitive situation for chasing a player like Lowry. Most other potential suitors would require a lot of cap manoeuvering and/or help from Toronto in a sign-and-trade. The salary-matching rules apply for both teams, so what the Raptors have to or are willing to take back in salary will depend on the other team’s cap sheet and what direction the Raptors are going cap-wise, as well as Lowry’s starting salary.
Sign-and-trade deals must be for at least three years, though only the first year has to be guaranteed.
NBA Draft 2021: Discussing the Raptors’ options with prospects guru Sam Vecenie – The Athletic
Mobley would fit exceedingly well with this Raptors roster construction in my opinion because they have the kind of developmental and roster infrastructure that would optimize his skillset. Mobley has a very modern game for the centre position. He loves to play in ball screens and dribble-hand-offs. Having such a potent pull-up shooting threat like VanVleet as a partner in those screens would really open up the middle of the floor for him as a passer, driver, and scorer. But he can refuse those hand-offs if teams overplay and deny the guard, and drive himself. He plays with great flexibility and bend, allowing him to push past opposing centers. He’s a mismatch nightmare offensively because of his overall dexterity level.
Having said that, the thing I like most about Toronto’s fit is that they’d be able to take some of the pressure off of him guarding bigs early in his career. The Raptors would obviously prefer not to play guys like Siakam and Anunoby on opposing centres, but they’re big and strong enough to at least help share the load with Mobley depending on the matchup, which is something he’ll need early in his career as his frame continues to fill out and his body gets better. By the time he’s in his third or fourth year, he should be able to handle the role full-time. But it’d be better for him to not have to do it all himself. He’s best as a versatile perimeter defender in all sorts of ball-screen actions (switch, drop, flat coverages — however, you want to play with Mobley, you can), and as a weak-side rim protector rotating over. He’ll be highly effective in those scenarios, and I think he has real All-Defense upside at some point if he gets stronger. It’s just going to take some developmental time that the Raptors would assuredly give.
