Title: How the Raptors’ trade deadline outcome could impact roster decisions this off-season
Date: February 10, 2023
Original Source: Sportsnet
Synopsis: In my latest at Sportsnet, I set up the key decisions the Raptors punted to the offseason and what those scenarios may look like then.
Patience isn’t free.
The Toronto Raptors didn’t stand pat entirely at the NBA trade deadline on Thursday. Instead, they paid a price to delay some bigger-picture decisions about the upside of their current core and the ultimate direction of the franchise in the medium-term.
That decision is justifiable — NBA executives found the Raptors so intriguing ahead of the deadline in large part because there wasn’t a single “right” answer in their situation — but the simple act of not acting carries risk. Everything has a cost, whether it be time, opportunity, or leverage.
There are scenarios in which the Raptors revisit trade talks in the summer and are able to recoup at least some of the value they could have at the deadline. (I’m skeptical it would be equivalent.) There are scenarios in which things click and the front office decides to run this newly-reinforced core back for another year. There are doomsday scenarios that wipe the spreadsheets clean, as there always are.
Whatever path the Raptors take, the cost of making that decision in July instead of here in February is clear: They’ve made a two-footed jump into the precarious Bird Rights Trap.
Let’s reset for the remainder of this year and the summer ahead.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 