The Counting Crows recorded their signature hits years before anyone knew who they were. For years they were a small band gigging in the Bay Area, playing what would become some of the signature songs of the 90s, singing at times about wishing for fame. Then fame hit in 1994 after August and Everything After came out, and all those dreams came true. It turned out, Adam Duritz and the others were not ready for the big leagues.
The NBA often sees teams think they’re ready for the big leagues only to fall flat on their faces when finally entering the chase. Since 2016-17, five top-five players have been traded to another team. This is measured very roughly, defined as a player’s Box Plus-Minus from Basketball Reference being within the top five in the league during the last full season (so I can include Kawhi Leonard, duh) before being traded.
This list does not include Kevin Durant, by the way, who finished sixth in BPM in 2021-22, the season before he was traded to the Phoenix Suns. (Which went … poorly.)
So let’s just include Durant to add an extra data point. Two teams in the Raptors and Lakers that acquired such talents through trades won championships immediately after. The Rockets came close with Paul. The Nets didn’t come very close, and then immediately had to destroy the franchise. The Suns didn’t come very close and have been more slowly destroying the franchise. The Lakers (again!) didn’t come very close with Doncic but are always going to find a way forward. No franchise destruction there.
Which means given these odds, trading for a top-five player (or, top-six, let’s say) gives you a 2-in-6 chance at a championship, a 2-in-6 chance at franchise detonation, a 1-in-6 chance at a deep playoff run, and a 1-in-6 chance at being set for the future. (But that’s only because Doncic is so young, which is not the case for a certain Milwaukee Bucks superstar, so we can disregard that path.)
Which brings us to Giannis Antetokounmpo. The rumours linking him to the Raptors have only grown. In my mind (this is not reporting, to be clear), this is the most real the rumours have ever been between Antetokounmpo and Toronto. My read is that the Raptors are trying very hard to trade for him, and Milwaukee is of course currently undecided on its preferred course of action.
Meanwhile Antetokounmpo just finished third in BPM in 2024-25, which is more or less where he has finished every season for the better part of a decade. He fits within this cohort of megastars. He has the same wattage, the same abilities, the same pedigree. He just averaged a truly preposterous 33-15-7-1-1 stat line in the Milwaukee Bucks’ first-round loss to the Indiana Pacers. The man has panache.
But are the Raptors ready for him?
When the Rockets traded for Paul, they already rostered Harden — who, as seen later in the chart, was a co-star even beyond Paul’s abilities. The Raptors’ roster in 2018 was wildly deep. (Just for fun, Kyle Lowry is a Hall of Fame lock, Marc Gasol in my mind quite likely, and Basketball Reference has both Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet as non-zero possibilities. Depending on the outcome of these Finals, Siakam could have real chances.) The Lakers of course paired Davis with LeBron James.
Even the teams that didn’t make it work had plenty of talent on board. Doncic also joined James. The Nets paired Harden with another player on this list in Durant, and the Suns added Durant to Devin Booker.
Yes, the Raptors have Scottie Barnes. I see him as a future high-level star, and I think his interior passing, interior finishing, and defence will all combine to make him a playoff riser. But Barnes is not (at least yet, perhaps ever) of the caliber of Harden, or Lowry, or James, or Durant, or the other co-stars most of these teams already rostered. He is a one-time All Star who is very good with enormous promise.
And besides, I don’t see it as a possibility that the Raptors acquire Antetokounmpo without sending Barnes to Milwaukee.
Without Barnes in the package, Toronto’s deal would be centered around RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to make the money work, plus some young exciting players like Gradey Dick, and then all the picks and pick swaps Toronto could muster. I don’t see that offer beating at least a dozen other possible packages around the league.
With Barnes in the package (and, yes, still an insane amount of draft picks), the Raptors could probably only be beaten by two realistic packages in the league. The Rockets offering Amen Thompson plus picks, and the Thunder offering Chet Holmgren plus picks. I don’t think either team makes that offer. In my mind, Barnes being on the table would seal the deal for Toronto. Barnes and Barrett would work financially, as long as the deal happens after July 1.
The Raptors would still have Brandon Ingram. He is an excellent player. I could envision him thriving alongside Antetokounmpo. Much like Khris Middleton did in 2021. (Of course though, if Barnes is not of the caliber of most teams’ incumbent stars upon trading for a top-five player, Ingram certainly is not.) Quickley and Poeltl would still be in town, too.
But that would be it for Toronto’s trusted, playoff-ready rotation. Would Dick and Ja’Kobe Walter be ready for playoff minutes? They’d better be.
But for my money, that’s not a championship contender. I think the Raptors probably would be championship material with Barnes and Antetokounmpo and Ingram. Not without Barnes.
For every 2019 Raptors, there is a 2022 Suns horror story. A team who mortgages its future on a surefire star, but doesn’t have enough in the tank, is too misshapen after the trade, and is too asset-depleted to solve its problems. Those Suns won a respectable 45 games their first year with Durant (though he was injured), then 49 the following year (and lost in the first round), and finally a putrid 36 this season past. And they have been miserable the entire time.
And yet, I’d do the trade anyway. I would be thrilled to cover Antetokounmpo so closely. (Again. I was the team writer for the Bucks for some time.) The Raptors would immediately matter again. Games would feel meaningful again. The Xs and Os would matter beyond pure academia. To the extent that the Raptors are ‘ready’ for a player like Antetokounmpo, they are at least ready to make a go of it. To turn their summer camp atmosphere into more of a crucible.
The Counting Crows released, in my mind, one album that truly mattered. Every track on that first album August is a masterpiece. “Anna Begins” may not be a kind portrait of love, but it’s an enduring one. “Mr. Jones” needs no introduction. But fame struck them so hard that they were never able to create anything that saw behind the veil again. Most people never get to do it once.
Not being ready for the big leagues doesn’t mean reaching that stage is a tragedy. It’s not an exaggeration to say that my life would be tangibly worse had the Counting Crows never released August and Everything After. And I imagine an Antetokounmpo-led Raptors would lead an analogous existence. Perhaps the franchise wouldn’t be ready for a championship race, but it would matter for the first time since 2020. There is value there. Done right, such a team can toe the line in the present and the future, can be a team that matters without burning all bridges to distant lands in the hopes of extending that present.
So are the Raptors ready to land a big fish like Antetokounmpo? It depends on what you’re looking for.
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