If you’ve been living under a rock, Giannis Antetokounmpo trade rumours started to fly in after another disappointing postseason outing for the Milwaukee Bucks. In fact, it was their third straight first-round exit in three consecutive years. Milwaukee has tried changing it up, getting rid of Jrue Holiday, who was a part of their championship squad, and this season, even getting rid of long-time Buck Khris Middleton, who brought them names like Damian Lillard and Kyle Kuzma. They even tried a change at head coach, ditching their championship-winning Mike Budenholzer for another NBA champion in Doc Rivers, but nothing has seemed to work. Fast forward to a couple of days ago, and the rumours ended up coming true.
So now the rumours have changed to who these potential fits could be. One of the places that’s picking up traction lately is the Toronto Raptors.
Although odds don’t mean much, the oddsmakers have taken this into account, and Toronto’s odds have actually gone up quite a bit in the Giannis sweepstakes. It’s not the craziest thing in the world to think that Antetokounmpo would consider Toronto as a landing spot, as Masai Ujiri has been a fan of his for quite some time now.
Could this be their moment? 12 years later? Let’s get to the question now. How would Giannis affect the Raptors’ competitive window? Well, it’s not a very easy question since there are a lot of variables. First of all, it would all depend on who’s shipped out of town in the trade.
For the sake of this trade, we’ll say Scottie Barnes is still in town, as Masai wasn’t open to trading him a few years ago for Kevin Durant. We’ll say Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett are the ones who are lost in this deal, along with this year’s first-round pick and a few more future ones as well. First of all, many will imagine that since Toronto is getting an MVP-calibre player like Kawhi Leonard that this deal would put them in the same boat as the 2018/19 squad. I don’t see it that way. If Toronto had a starting lineup consisting of Jamal Shead, Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jakob Poeltl, then there would be a very clear flaw that would arise with this lineup.
The obvious flaw in this lineup would be the spacing. Although Jamal Shead showed improvements in his three-point shooting as the season progressed, he finished his rookie year shooting only 32.3 percent beyond the arc. Brandon Ingram would be the best shooter in the lineup with a 37.4 percent showing last season in limited run. Scottie Barnes had some stretches of hot shooting but ultimately finished with a 27.1 percent three-ball. Antetokounmpo doesn’t really shoot the three, but when he did last season, he ended up with a 22.2 percent, and Jakob Poeltl actually surprisingly shot 33 percent on a very limited sample.
Although the spacing might be bad, that lineup would actually be a defensive nightmare. Jamal Shead’s defence is one of his best qualities as of now. Scottie Barnes has always been a solid defender and was nominated late in the season as the Defensive Player of the Month. Giannis Antetokounmpo is a former Defensive Player of the Year, and Jakob Poeltl does his job as a rim protector. Should Toronto trade for Antetokounmpo, and those front-court players are still on the team, we would probably be looking at a different starting lineup. A possible outcome would be to bench Jakob for either Ochai Agbaji or Gradey Dick to open up some spacing for the team.
So as far as next season, the roster would relatively be similar, plus Giannis, and that team could contend for a top 5 seed in the Eastern Conference, but I don’t see them beating the likes of Boston, New York or even the Indiana Pacers, who are quickly becoming playoff performers. In fact a lot of the core pieces are locked down for quite some time. Jakob Poeltl has a player option for $ 19.5 million for the 2026/27 season. Brandon Ingram is here for at least 2 more seasons. Ochai Agbaji has a team option for next season, so he will probably still be around for one more year. He’s the only rotation player who could be gone after next season contract-wise.
So, as of the current state of the Raptors roster, I don’t think they’re ready to contend yet. But Masai Ujiri is known to be one of the best front office executives in the league. He could construct this team into a contender, especially with a talent like Giannis around. Should he want to go all in, there are also a good number of youngsters that rebuilding teams could be interested in.
