Too early after the parade to ask what we might do with our one pick and for free agency if Kawhi stays and if he goes? Gasol pretty much sounded like if Kawhi doesn't re sign he might opt out of his final year.
The Raptors pick is 59th. It's essentially irrelevant what they do with it because your odds at getting anything of real, tangible value at 59 are slim to none. Your best hope is either some draft-and-stash Euro lottery ticket or that
maybe you get really lucky and end up picking a guy who fills a 13th-15th spot on your bench.
As for Free Agency:
If Kawhi stays and Gasol stays: Not much. Raps will be well over the cap in that scenario. So all they'll have is the taxpayer's Mid-Level Exception (I don't have the #s in front of me but I believe it's usually about a $5-6m contract) and veteran's minimum deals to fill out the roster
If Kawhi goes and Gasol stays: They'll probably be just barely under the cap which essentially makes it not a whole lot different than the above scenario.
If Kawhi goes and Gasol goes: They'll be somewhere between $80m and $90m depending on what shakes down with guys like Miller and Boucher and other pending FAs. It's enough to offer a nice, but not max salary deal to someone, which means probably not getting a marquee free agent but maybe being able to snag someone off the second tier and hope they step up. This scenario is also the one in which the Raptors potentially look to pivot depending on how next season starts off. If this Kawhi-less, Gasol-less Raptors team stumbles out of the gate with a championship hangover and a depleted roster, you could probably see everyone on the roster not named Siakam and Anunoby sold off to the highest bidders in an effort to stockpile younger talent and draft picks in order to head into the 2020-21 season with as much firepower as possible to kickstart a full-bore rebuild.
You'll have to forgive me, I haven't found a good list of free agents yet that's not either an annoying slideshow or a jumbled/alphabetical list of
every name on an expiring contract. So I don't have good guesses of guys to target.
Personally in scenario #1 the one name I do know I'd love to see is the iconic one: Vince. He's said that next season is his last and I feel like it would be the perfect feel-good ending for him to come in and ride the wave of enthusiasm for this team and nostalgia for his time to the finish line of his career while playing essentially the role that Norm Powell should've been playing as a bench sparkplug. He may not have dunk champ athleticism anymore, but he can still shoot the 3 and lead and hustle.
In general the one name I did stumble on early in an alphabetical list that would be intriguing is Dragan Bender. He's going to be released by the Suns, who royally ****ed up his development since drafting him 4th overall in 2016 by basically never letting him play and sticking him behind the immediate gratification and ultimate futility of Marquese Chriss (who, coincidentally, is also being released to UFA status by Cleveland this summer) to scrap and fight for frontcourt minutes scraps. I feel like a more welcoming, low-pressure environment that could use a bench 4 that can shoot and pass would be beneficial to him, especially if Gasol were to be gone and the 4/5 spots suddenly thinned out. It's important to remember that even after 3 disappointing seasons, he'll only be 21 years old at the start of next season. He was a young draft pick in 2016.
