The lease on the greatest one-year rental of all time has ended. And the tenant isn’t renewing.
My heart twinged as I read the tweet. I stayed on it for about a second longer before scrolling to the next one. It was about something to with a study that showed how exposure to environmental hazards can accelerate aging. Funnily enough, I thought staying on that first tweet accelerated aging faster than any environmental hazard could.
Let’s leave aside the analysis of how Kawhi Leonard and Paul George collaborated and surprised everyone, and who the winners and losers are. It’s pretty damn obvious.
What’s important is that this is player power at its finest. GMs may still be the primary architects of teams but it’s players who collaborate well outside the collective bargaining agreement constraints and leave it to the GMs to do the administrative work. Idiots like Chris Broussard have no idea how the players operate and are just guessing. They should be culled from the media. More connected people like Chris Haynes and Adrian Woj have access to these decisions minutes before they’re public knowledge. There are no insiders except the players.
This is the era of the superteam and the Raptors and Pistons are rare occasions where multiple superstars didn’t come together to win titles. We should feel proud of that because Masai Ujiri built this team piece-by-piece with Kawhi Leonard being the last one. Ujiri’s comments earlier that this was a process in which DeMar DeRozan and Dwane Casey played a big part are bang on. The championship for the Raptors was a journey years in the making and that’s why it felt so good. It was not a summers worth of negotiating and collusion. This was long and passionate sex resulting in a whopping orgasm, not a quickie.
People talk about respecting Kawhi Leonard’s decision. What choice do they really have? Disrespect it? What does that even mean? I will live with Leonard’s decision like it’s a thorn stuck in my throat. That’s about the best I can do. If he had stayed the Raptors would have been favorites to come out of the East again and have a chance at another ring. With the Clippers they’re in a dog fight to get to the West finals. If it is entirely about winning then shouldn’t he be optimizing for a chance to get to the Finals?
Maybe it’s about going home. That narrative is a cheesy one at best even if it turned out to be the tipping point in his decision making. Would he have gone home if OKC hadn’t relinquished Paul George? Tough to say but you have a sense that the Raptors may have been close on this one weren’t it for George’s intervention. It’s hard for me to believe the reports that the Raptors were close to landing Paul George and Kawhi Leonard but the Clippers offered more. You would imagine Pascal Siakam is a trade chip (if peppered with others as part of a package) that could have landed George rather easily. Unless Ujiri wasn’t willing to give up Siakam which would be quite questionable. You could also question Leonard’s judgement that Paul George will take him to greater heights than what the Raptors had on offer. It’s all speculation and I’m sure we’ll analyze this further.
Either way, it’s water under the bridge. The silver lining here is that he didn’t go to the Lakers.
It goes without saying that we are thankful for Kawhi and no words in this column can describe that sufficiently. He was the best player in our history. We just wish it lasted longer.
The Raptors are now in a situation where they’re possibly in a gap year. There are no free-agents out there who can replace what Leonard brought and given that we couldn’t execute a sign-and-trade, we got nothing back. We also had to wait until Leonard’s decision so missed out any free-agents that would have been suitable given our major loss. I can name you a list of free agents available but it’s a useless exercise without first addressing what the Raptors strategy for next season is. We also have no cap space so there’s also that.
The strategy decisions that Ujiri has on his hands now are something like this:
- Challenge for next season
- Challenge by just adding fringe players via trade/free-agency
- Challenge by trading some our key assets like Lowry, Ibaka or Gasol
- Have next year or two be a developing year
- Perhaps target Anthony Davis in 2020 or Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2021
- Organically build with Siakam as your key star
Which one of these four (and perhaps others) options Ujiri chooses to pursue has a big bearing on what the summertime moves will be.
There’s a healthy take on NBA.com on whether the Raptors can build around Siakam. Most people view him as a permanent second fiddle which is asinine given that he’s 25 and the growth he’s shown. I do have faith that he can be a multi-year All-Star and possibly a top player. I just don’t know what the timeline for that is, which is a view shared my many fans. You can read Pascal Siakam’s player review for more detailed analysis on that.
Most teams have gone through free-agency and set their course for next season – the Celtics, Sixers, Bucks, Clippers and Lakers have clear paths. The Warriors are constrained through injury and the Rockets may be up for some reshuffling. OKC’s decisions to shed George puts him in flux with Russell Westbrook dangling awkardly. Though the Raptors have more certainty than OKC, they still have decisions to make on what their next window of title contention should be. Tied closely to that is at what point do you maximize the value of your assets. Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka would have been an amazing trade chips if we were truly rebuilding in the absence of Leonard (and my still be) but given the player movement over the last few days the options are now limited.
The lateness of the decision has certainly hurt the Raptors. I’ll choose to ignore that we could have had Leonard, Lowry and George, as that sounds like a rather ridiculous proposition to decline given the long-term contracts for Leonard and George.
Whatever the case Ujiri certainly had a Plan B and until we see what that is, we can put the Nando De Colo talks on hold.
