Masai Ujiri returns, but the Raptors offseason was far from ideal

The Raptors elected to facilitate a Lowry sign-and-trade instead of using their cap space, and they deserve criticism for how the offseason panned out.

Masai Ujiri returns, but the Raptors offseason was far from ideal originated on Raptors Republic.

Flexibility. 

It’s a word and a concept that is deeply ingrained in the minds of Raptors’ fans, especially those who have followed the team closely under the leadership of Masai Ujiri, particularly over the past two years. Ujiri prioritizes flexibility not just on the court with players that can play multiple positions and thrive in different schemes, but also off the court in how he approached this offseason. In fact, flexibility was the main justification for the Raptors losing Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka last offseason, preferring to preserve cap space rather than hand out multi-year deals, and at the 2021 trade deadline, when the Raptors decided to hold onto Kyle Lowry and flip Norman Powell for Gary Trent Jr. and his smaller cap-hold, retaining flexibility in order to have as many options as possible this offseason in hopes of increasing the the Toronto Raptors odds to win a championship in the near future.

With all that added flexibility, the Raptors have agreed to sign-and-trade Kyle Lowry to the Miami Heat for Precious Achuiwa and Goran Dragic.

The Raptors also re-signed Gary Trent Jr. to a 3-year, $54 million deal, with a player-option on the third year. And they signed Khem Birch to a three-year, $20 million deal. Their biggest free-agent “get” was either Sam Dekker or Ishmail Wainwright, depending on your preference. And, after fielding offers but ultimately deciding against sending Dragic to a third team, the Raptors will operate as an above-the-cap team, limiting their ability to add free agents beyond the $3.19 million remaining of the mid-level exception (they also have the $3.73 million biannual exception available, but if they use it this year, they would not have it available next year). View their full cap sheet here. 

In essence, the Raptors decided to help facilitate a sign-and-trade to Lowry’s preferred destination instead of using their cap space to sign free agents. They did that likely due to a combination of factors: wanting to help Lowry, liking Achiuwa as a prospect and Dragic as a veteran/trade piece, and, perhaps most importantly, feeling like they weren’t in a good position to sign free agents to good-value contracts. 

It’s by no means a “worst case scenario” offseason. The Raptors have chosen a fairly clear direction by going younger and building a big, long, and athletic roster that projects to defend well and score in transition, with just enough guard-play to create some scoring looks in the half-court. But my main gripe with the offseason is simple: if you asked the Raptors’ front office a few months what an ideal offseason would look like — their first offseason with cap space since 2015 — it’s hard to imagine that they would say this. 

Bobby Webster says moving up to No. 4 made going young this season a "more desirable path"

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Let’s start with the Lowry sign-and-trade. Instead of letting Lowry walk and operating as a cap-space team — using the cap flexibility that they worked over the past couple of years to create — the Raptors claimed that their main targets quickly priced themselves out of their range before pivoting to a Lowry deal. We don’t know exactly who those targets were, but we saw players that would have been fit both the timeline and the roster sign very reasonable contracts, including Richaun Holmes and Spencer Dinwiddie.

Of course, it’s impossible to tell how attractive of a market Toronto was to any of those potential targets, but that is kind of the point: For all the good Ujiri has done as the President of the Raptors, he is yet to turn it into a legitimately attractive free agency destination, and despite many fans hoping that a championship and the increasingly cultural relevance of the city had changed that, it appears to have not.

Instead, the Raptors received Precious Achiuwa, the 20th pick in the 2020 NBA draft and a 21-year-old with legitimate upside, along with Goran Dragic, a 35-year-old who fills a hole on the roster but does not fit the timeline and will likely be shipped out by the trade deadline. They received no draft picks. Let’s forget the fact that the Raptors decided against using their cap space and just focus on the deal, because that’s not a very great return the greatest Raptor of all time. Of course, it wasn’t a “trade.” It was a bonus for helping Lowry land at the destination he was going to land either way. But considering that the San Antonio Spurs got Thad Young, a future first-round pick and two second-round picks for DeMar DeRozan, a younger but more flawed player, it’s completely fair to be disappointed. 

The hope is that Dragic plays well with the Raptors and that it turns into a sellers market at the deadline, netting the equivalent of a first-round pick or more. But considering the up-and-down season Dragic just had, all the basketball he has played recently with the condensed NBA seasons, and the need for the Raptors to prioritize young players this season, that seems like a big risk. I think it makes more sense for the Raptors to move off of Dragic before the season starts in order to have an extra season to develop whatever prospects return in the deal, but we’ll see. 

On the optimistic side, receiving Achiuwa and Dragic for facilitating a Lowry move is nothing to scoff at. It certainly beats letting Lowry walk and overpaying free agents on long-term deals, which is possible given just how difficult it has been for the Raptors to find value in free agency during the Ujiri era.

But what makes the decision to facilitate a sign-and-trade rather than use their cap space so much worse was what they did at the 2021 trade deadline, flipping Powell for Trent. Part of the justification for that deal was that Trent had a significantly lower cap-hold than Powell, giving the Raptors significantly more cap space to work with. Unfortunately, they failed to use that cap space and signed Trent to a player-friendly deal.

The Raptors signed Trent to a 3-year, $54 million deal with a player-option on the third year. I’m surprised Trent’s value was that high in the first place considering he hasn’t shown a whole lot outside of his three-point shooting (admittedly a very important skill in the NBA and specifically for the Raptors). But the player option is a step too far, because in the best-case scenario that Trent does outplay his contract, he will have the option to opt-out and fetch more money in just two years, and he will be much harder to trade because of the fear of him opting out. Meanwhile, Chicago’s Lauri Markkanen, a more accomplished player than Trent, remains a restricted free agent, with no obvious teams driving up the price. Of course, the hope is that Trent develops in the Raptors system and outplays his contract, but if the Raptors are so confident in that, maybe they should have signed him to a longer-term deal.

(With that being said, I really liked the Birch deal. The Raptors got a relatively unproven player on a long-term deal at fair value, and I don’t think we can say the same about Trent).

It’s those things coupled together — the Raptors prioritizing cap space over the past years only to not use it, to facilitate a relatively unsexy sign-and-trade instead, and to bring back Trent on a player-friendly deal — that leave me disappointed in the offseason. I think the front office deserves some legitimate criticism given how they prioritized cap-space over the past years only to miss out on their free agent targets, essentially misjudging the market, because it’s very unlikely that signing-and-trading Lowry for this package was their No. 1 option all along. 

With that being said, we are still talking about Masai Ujiri, the man who built the Raptors into a championship team and who is signed long-term to head the team. As much as he deserves criticism for the way he has handled free agency this offseason and in offseason’s past, he is still one of the best executives in sports and it’s very clear that the Raptors value scouting, player development, and the trade market more than free agency. At least, that seems like a much more clear path to success given how free agency turned out. 

Now, given how many young players with high upside on team-friendly deals the Raptors have, I’d say they are in a really good position to make a trade that takes them over the edge if a few of those players take a step forward with the added opportunity. The Raptors have all of their future first round picks, too. Damian Lillard and Bradley Beal are the names to watch right now, but the NBA moves so fast that there will always be stars on the trade market — stars that the Raptors can protect defensively — and the Raptors are absolutely a team to watch when it comes to aggressively targeting the next one that becomes available. 

For now, however, the Raptors are legitimately young and relatively inexperienced. Their core is really good, but they will play rookies and second-year players who are still figuring out how to succeed in the NBA, and while they will be very fun next season, I think their inexperience will show against the improved Eastern Conference. Losing Lowry hurts in that regard, too. (I’ll have a longer piece examining their “depth” in the coming weeks and how good they project to be). 

It was not the sexiest of offseasons for the Raptors, but we have underestimated Ujiri before, so do so at your own peril. The hope is that Scottie Barnes fits into the roster alongside OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam; It’s that Trent and Birch outplay their contracts and either stick around long-term or are flipped for a star; And the hope is that Achiuwa eventually develops into a starting-calibre center and that Dragic plays well enough that a contender (like Dallas or New Orleans) overpays for him before the trade deadline. The chances of all of those things happening seem slim right now, but it’s not impossible. 

To be frank, the Raptors offseason left a lot to be desired, especially if you thought they would try to bolster their chances to contend for a championship as soon as next season. They haven’t and they won’t. Instead, the Raptors got much younger, and while you can argue that that was the wrong decision given that Siakam and Fred VanVleet are already in their primes, at least they picked a clear direction. 

That’s more than the Boston Celtics or Philadelphia 76ers can say. 

Masai Ujiri returns, but the Raptors offseason was far from ideal originated on Raptors Republic.