Toronto Raptors: A
Toronto receives:
Marc Gasol
You don't trade for a 34-year-old center unless you believe it's a big upgrade and you're trying to win immediately. In this case, Toronto made perfect sense as a Gasol destination. With Kawhi Leonard's free agency hanging over the franchise, the Raptors do not want to waste their opportunity to compete for a championship. In the Masai Ujiri era, they have never had a good passing center. Gasol is a great one, and he will immediately add some juice to Nick Nurse's offense, setting punishing screens and directing his teammates like a point guard. While he is no longer a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, he is still a superior defender to Valanciunas. He will be particularly useful against Joel Embiid in a potential series with the Sixers, being physical with him on the inside and drawing him out to the perimeter.
The Wright loss may change how the Raptors play, though. Toronto is a less versatile team now, but it still has one of the best backup point guards in the league, Fred VanVleet, under contract. Had the Raptors kept Wright, they would have been faced with a difficult decision in July, when he will be a restricted free agent. Losing him does not hurt them that much in the long run.
Miles has dealt with injuries and shooting slumps since signing in Toronto in 2017, and he lost his spot as a regular in the rotation. His shooting might be missed in a playoff series, but the Raptors will surely try to address this hole in the buyout market, with a couple of new roster spots to fill. Ujiri's work is not done.
Your reaction to this trade likely hinges on how you value Gasol and Valanciunas and what you think of Toronto's title chances. In theory, Toronto is exactly the type of team that should make a trade sacrificing depth for star power. The question is whether or not this was the right trade. If you believe in Valanciunas building on his last couple of years of improvement, if you believe Gasol is no longer a difference-maker or if you believe the Raptors still aren't good enough, then you probably don't like what they did here. I would argue, though, that Toronto has gotten tougher, more difficult to defend and more playoff-ready, without giving up too much.
Losing Delon sucks. Really liked him but I like how we have a legit big man C now who is a threat from 3 and the post and is also a pretty good defender (unless he's fallen off). Lets hope we can win the Ellington sweepstakes for his 3 point shooting help now too.
Also, where does this leave us this off season now? I know we'll be doing everything to re-sign Leonard, but what else can we do? Can we target another big name guy? or would we have to trade Lowry to do so?
With lots of cap space, and bad intentions.
Toronto Raptors: B-plus
At this stage of his career, Gasol can no longer be considered a star player. At a position where players are scoring more efficiently than ever -- the average center has a true shooting percentage of .595 this season -- Gasol has become a volume scorer, with his .541 true shooting percentage worse than the league average across all positions (.558).
That makes the Raptors an ideal fit for Gasol, assuming he's ready to accept a smaller role. When he plays with Toronto's starters, Gasol won't need to create much of his own offense. The Raptors have plenty of other options for that, and his playmaking from the high post and floor spacing will fit in well with the offense Nick Nurse wants to run.
Toronto may turn Gasol loose offensively with the second unit, the role Valanciunas played before he was sidelined by thumb surgery in mid-December. (Amazingly, Valanciunas' usage rate of 25.6 percent this season is higher than Gasol's 22.6 percent usage.) There, he should benefit from far superior floor spacing -- compared to what he saw in Memphis -- and the opportunity to feast on lesser defenders. According to Second Spectrum tracking, Valanciunas was double-teamed on just 7.1 percent of his post-up opportunities this season, as compared to 12.8 percent of Gasol's post-ups drawing help.
There's no question that Gasol is an upgrade over the more limited Valanciunas, particularly at the defensive end of the court. The concern is whether Gasol will be amenable to the kind of role reduction Valanciunas accepted this season, when Nurse moved him to the bench in favor of the starting frontcourt of Serge Ibaka and Pascal Siakam that has been so effective for Toronto.
In certain playoff matchups, particularly against Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers, starting Gasol next to either Ibaka or Siakam will probably make sense for the Raptors. But whether Gasol starts or not, he's probably not going to be the right choice to finish games against the stretchier East bigs, Al Horford of the Boston Celtics and Brook Lopez of the Milwaukee Bucks. Toronto didn't have to worry about sitting Valanciunas in those situations. Will Gasol be OK with it?
That concern noted, the structure of this deal made it one the Raptors almost had to make. They didn't have to give up a draft pick of value, leaving impending restricted free agent Wright as the only value Toronto is surrendering. With Fred VanVleet already under contract for 2019-20, re-signing Wright was no sure thing. The Raptors also benefited by moving Miles' $8.7 million 2019-20 salary. Mired in a shooting slump that has seen him make just 31 percent of his 3-pointers this season, Miles had moved to the fringes of Toronto's rotation.
Amazingly, the Raptors managed to cut their luxury-tax bill from nearly $30 million to $26.5 million with this trade. (That figure includes Gasol's trade bonus.) That will go up when Toronto fills out the roster, having dropped to 12 players after dealing Malachi Richardson to Philadelphia in a tax-saving move Wednesday ahead of this three-for-one deal. The Raptors could be aggressive in pursuing buyout candidates using their taxpayer midlevel exception, which they did not dip into last summer.
For all the talk of Toronto being all-in on this season ahead of Kawhi Leonard's free agency, this trade -- like the one for Leonard -- allows the Raptors to build a veteran-laden team competing for the championship now without sacrificing their young core of Siakam, VanVleet and OG Anunoby. Toronto has few long-term salary commitments -- only Anunoby and Norman Powell are under contract beyond next season -- and plenty of flexibility if things don't work out for this group.
Sign Melo and ZBo and let’s party like it’s 2009A? ESPN clearly has never seen Gasol play. Clearly a C-.
For all those hyperventilating about the deadline passing:
NBA Rumors: 10 Best Buyout Candidates Who Could Be Available
I like basketball a lot but explain to me the rationale behind this trade so go ahead for enlighten me not too sure I like this
Traded a middle of his prime pick and roll centre for an end of his prime all around centre. Upgraded significantly 3 point shooting, passing and defence at the C position.I like basketball a lot but explain to me the rationale behind this trade so go ahead for enlighten me not too sure I like this
I like basketball a lot but explain to me the rationale behind this trade so go ahead for enlighten me not too sure I like this
Pels buying him out?There’s also the thought of Markieff Morris being a Raptor. He had previous trade interest in the Raps awhile back when he was with the Suns because he’s friends with Lowry.
A? ESPN clearly has never seen Gasol play. Clearly a C-.
For all those hyperventilating about the deadline passing:
NBA Rumors: 10 Best Buyout Candidates Who Could Be Available
The higher we go up that list, the more my reaction is muted shock-horror a the idea. JR Smith? Kanter? Melo? Nooooooooope.
Blake Murphy seems to think Kanter might replace Monroe.