Title: What comes next after Raptors’ quiet deadline: Buyout options, 2020 & 2021 cap sheets, VanVleet’s market and more
Date: February 10, 2020
Original Source: The Athletic
Synopsis: In my latest for The Athletic Toronto, I wrote about a quiet trade deadline that still shed some light on the Raptors options in the short- and longer-term.
A quiet trade deadline does not mean a trade deadline without consequence. No emotions are emotions, as an old friend may say. No decisions are decisions.
The Raptors held their ground at Thursday’s trade deadline, meaning what you see is what you get for the rest of the year. Kind of. There is the potential for minor tweaks at the end of the roster. And to be honest, “what you see is what you get” isn’t entirely fair since what you’ve seen so far is, the Raptors would hope, poorly representative of this team at its best come April.
It’s a little trite to suggest that returns from injury are effectively deadline acquisition, but for a team that’s spent nearly zero percent of the season with its full rotation healthy, you can understand the thinking in a strong seller’s market.
“We’re sitting second in the East, which I think we’re all happy with,” general manager Bobby Webster said Thursday. “I think the good part is we feel like we continue to grow. We haven’t been healthy all year, so I think where we are now, we’d all take, you know, with some improvement.”
Letting the deadline pass without movement made for a boring bi-annual changeover of my salary cap spreadsheets. There is still relevance, though, to where the Raptors go from here, in the short, medium and longer term.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 