There is a time in every competitive NBA’s team’s life cycle to go push their chips to the centre of the table and declare themselves ‘all in’.
For the Toronto Raptors, the summer of 2022 has clearly not been that time.
In theory, everyone should have known that. After all, that’s exactly what they told everyone shortly after they were eliminated by the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the 2022 playoffs, a year after the ‘Tampa tank’ in 2020-21.
“We still preach patience and growth here,” Raptors vice-chairman Masai Ujiri said at his end-of-season press conference back in May. “I know with how the results came at the end of the season, I know the expectations now become day-to-day. I understand that from a fan perspective or media perspective. It’s win now. But we’re thinking the long game here. Yes, there are windows. But when we first came here, we talked about development of our players. I hope we continue to do that at a high level. The goal is to win the championship at the end.”
But things change quickly in professional sports, and it’s always better to judge a team based on actions rather than words.
And as the second significant trade domino off the off-season finally tumbled over – the other being the Kevin Durant trade that never happened – in what has been one of the more protracted NBA summers in recent memory with the Utah Jazz dealing Donovan Mitchell on Thursday, the Raptors position couldn’t be clearer: this was not their time.
The wisdom of holding back – first in the Durant sweepstakes and now in the Mitchell deal – can only be judged over time.
But at first glance, it’ hard to fault the process. The Raptors were keen to engage in discussions for the disgruntled Brooklyn Nets superstar when there was a sense there might be a chance to snag a legend on the cheap, but less so when it would have required putting Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes in a deal or even second-team all-NBA wing Pascal Siakam, not to mention the years of draft picks the Nets were shopping for.
And as for Mitchell?
It’s hard to tell how serious the Raptors ever were about adding the 25-year-old three-time all-star to their lineup at the cost of some good young players (for argument’s sake, OG Anunoby, and Gary Trent Jr.) and varying amounts of draft capital.
The sense is not at all serious.
To the extent Toronto was rumoured to be a possible landing spot for the Jazz star most likely reflects Jazz president Danny Ainge trying to create a market for Mitchell beyond the New York Knicks, which was Mitchell’s preferred destination and long projected as the team most eager to acquire the Westchester County native.
In the end the Knicks refused to provide the kind of offer Ainge was looking for and it was the Cleveland Cavaliers who stepped up, trading a starter in Lauri Markkanen, a former starter and 20 points per game scorer in Collin Sexton (who is recovering from an ACL injury and who the Jazz have since signed for $72 million over four years), their 2022 first-round pick Ochai Agbaji, three future unprotected firsts and two future pick swaps.
The Cavaliers are, by definition, all-in.
What the return will be is uncertain. On the surface there is a lot to like about the trade. Their starting lineup will feature three all-stars under the age of 26 in Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, and Mitchell along with Evan Mobley, who was neck-and-neck for ROY honours with Barnes and easily projects as an all-NBA level player.
That much talent usually adds up to some measure of team success and given that Mitchell has three years left on his deal while Mobley, Allen and Garland are each under team control beyond that, Cleveland has plenty of time to figure out the details.
Given Cleveland has hardly been a destination of choice for free agents not named LeBron James, it’s hard to find fault in the Cavs splashing out to add to their talent base. How much better Cleveland can get after a season in which they hovered in the top-four of the Eastern Conference prior to the all-star break and limped home to an injury-plagued 9-15 finish is the question.
Similarly, whether the Raptors were wise in hoarding their chips this summer instead of making big bets on Durant or even Mitchell is one of those evaluations that can only be made over seasons rather than moments.
But that the Raptors opted to stand pat is telling right now and the message it sends is that Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster see more runway for the current group as they come off a somewhat surprising 48-win season.
There is plenty of reason for that. If the video clips from the Rico Hines off-season runs in Los Angeles are to be believed that Barnes is a stronger, more assertive and better-shooting version of the outstanding rookie who checked every box required for a future star in his 20-year-old season a year ago.
OG Anunoby should be able to stay healthy for 70 games one of these seasons. Fred VanVleet is coming off an all-star season and Pascal Siakam has had a full summer of training to build on his second all-NBA selection in three years and Gary Trent Jr. – still only 23 years old – had the best season of his career while Precious Achiuwa showed remarkable progress over the course of his age 22 season. Free agent signing Otto Porter provides the rotation the kind of shooting threat that was sorely lacking last year.
Toronto choosing not to dive into the deep end on Durant is probably a reflection on Brooklyn, more than anything. The Nets needed to land an eye-popping return for one of the world’s very best players and the Raptors – like any team in the pursuit of the future hall-of-famer – likely judged they wouldn’t have enough of a team left to win a title with Durant, which would defeat the point of the exercise.
That they chose to remain on the sidelines for the Mitchell deal is telling also.
The Raptors know what a franchise changing superstar is – the 2019 championship they won with Kawhi Leonard is proof.
Is Mitchell approaching that status or does he project to get there?
Well, let’s go through it: Offensively, is he the kind efficiency monster that can lift rosters and justifies re-shaping the nature of your team?
Objectively? No. As forceful and dynamic as Mitchell can be with the ball, among the 18 players who have had a usage rate of above 30 per cent the past three seasons (100 games played), Mitchell ranks 16th in true shooting percentage. Is that a compelling reason to take the ball out of the hands of Siakam, VanVleet or anyone else? I don’t think so.
Meanwhile defensively, Mitchell is viewed as either poor or below average – and that’s while playing his entire career with three-time defensive player-of-the-year Rudy Gobert covering up for him.
Given the demands Raptors head coach Nick Nurse puts on his entire roster – stars included – to be active defensively, at minimum, and ideally dogged, it would be hard to see Mitchell as a fit on that end.
And then there’s the notion that Mitchell’s ultimate destination is the Knicks – he has a player option for the 2025-26 season – and the possibility of putting all your trade resources on the table for a player who will have eyes for another market all along can’t be all that appetizing.
Does that seem like a Raptors-like investment? Again, not really, even if the organization is always confident that all it will take for any player to love playing here is to actually being here.
When examined in that light, where Mitchell can be characterized as a high usage player who is only league average when it comes to offensive efficiency, one who is suspect defensively and who has already made it clear that his heart lies in another market, it’s not that surprising that the Raptors were happy to stay on the sidelines as the trade market in the Eastern Conference played out.
The thing with going ‘all-in’ is, you only get to do it once, and you better do it right. Acquiring a Durant or a Mitchell means not having the chance to acquire the next superstar that makes themselves available. That’s the calculus Toronto was tumbling over all summer, and in the end they landed on keeping their powder dry.
Hoarding your chips until you have a stronger hand has risks too – it appears that the Nets and the Cavs, two teams who finished below the Raptors in the increasingly deep Eastern Conference will be better in 2022-23, and maybe significantly so — but in the long NBA summer of 2022, the Raptors judged that to be their best bet.
