NEW YORK — A message to Toronto-area real estate agents regarding newest Raptor Bruce Brown: Stand down. No need to get your hustle on just yet.
“I’m not signing any leases,” Brown said over the weekend as he made his first road trip with his new team to play his second game as a Raptor, while touching down in his fifth city in the space of a week.
Brown was acquired by Toronto in the trade that sent Pascal Siakam to the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday. The six-year veteran signed with Indiana in the off-season after helping the Denver Nuggets to the NBA title a year ago. But it was a short-lived stint, which is the lot of a player who is good enough to be in demand by teams with big dreams (in addition to his role helping Denver to the title, Brown has been in the playoffs four other seasons) but has mostly existed on short-term contracts since being taken 42nd overall out of the University of Miami in 2018.
It’s expected that Brown will be targeted by a number of high-end teams looking to augment their depth for the playoffs, making for a real possibility that Brown could be on the move again sooner than later.
Nice to be wanted, yes?
“Yeah, that’s a good part of it,” the personable guard said about hearing his name in trade rumours. “But I’m thinking, ‘Damn I gotta move again.’”
How to manage in the meantime? “Stay off social media,” he says.
What it’s been lately has been intense. In the past eight days Brown has made his return to Denver and received his championship ring in a ceremony last Sunday, learned he was being traded while walking into practice in Sacramento with the Pacers on Wednesday, and has flown back to Indianapolis to gather some belongings before jetting to Toronto Thursday where he passed his mandatory physical to finalize the trade and scored 15 points and grabbed seven rebounds in a strong performance against the Chicago Bulls that night. On Friday, he was on a plane with his new team to New York for the Raptors’ game against the Knicks on Saturday.
On Sunday, Brown rested. But for how long, is the question.
The Raptors are back in action Monday night when they host the Memphis Grizzles before a three-day respite that falls between their current stretch of 15 games in 11 cities over 24 nights and another six-game, 10-day road trip that will take them up to the Feb. 8 trade deadline.
But Brown is under no illusions about whether or not he has a long-term home in Toronto. He’s certainly open to it — “Toronto’s a great city” — but having played for five teams in six years and four in the space of 30 months, he’s not putting down roots just yet.
“I’m leaving that to (president) Masai (Ujiri), whatever Masai wants to do,” Brown said in an interview in the tunnels of Madison Square Garden, home of the New York Knicks. New York is a team Brown has been linked with almost routinely because of the organization’s ties to his agency, CAA, and the close relationship between Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau and Denver Nuggets head coach Mike Malone. The Knicks were interested in signing Brown last summer but got outbid. Team sources confirm that they’re still looking to make moves before the trade deadline, and Brown is on their radar.
Brown is resigned about the whole thing. “I’m not requesting anything [in terms of a trade],” he said. “I know that’s been out there, but that’s up to (Ujiri) and whatever he wants to do.”
To be fair, Brown has indirectly had a hand in his mid-career rootlessness.
The versatile guard was an in-demand free agent last summer after proving the all-around game that he showed playing alongside the likes of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn from 2020 to 2022 would translate to the highest levels. After a strong regular season with Denver, Brown averaged 12 points, four rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.2 steals with a 60.7 True Shooting percentage in 26.5 minutes off the bench during the Nuggets’ 20-game post-season surge.
The Nuggets wanted to keep him but could only pay him $7.8 million. Had Brown been interested in signing for the mid-level exception, let’s say, doubtless there would have been a number of teams willing to pay him $53.4 million over four years.
But the Pacers came along with a unique contract structure: two years for $45 million with a team option on the second year. It was more on an annual basis than Brown would get elsewhere, but the short-term nature of the deal and the team holding the option on the second year meant the possibility of Brown being on the move was factored in almost from the day he signed it.
Just not this soon, ideally.
“Did I think I was gonna be [in Indiana]the whole year? Yes,” Brown said. “But obviously, the second year is a team option. But signing the deal I knew it was going to be maybe I stay, maybe they get off the deal. I knew at some point, something would happen. But when the season started I knew something would happen just because of how good [the Pacers]were doing and how they’re trying to maximize [star point guard Tyrese Haliburton’s]time there. I was told they weren’t trying to move me, but I was a big part of the deal [for Siakam], so…”
There’s no guarantee that Brown won’t stay with the Raptors. He’s only 27 and the fact that he offers skills both as an on-ball creator — he was the Nuggets’ back-up point guard in the playoffs — and especially as an opportunistic cutter who has had stretches of solid performances as a catch-and-shoot three-point threat makes him a good fit with how Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic wants his team to play. He’s a tough, versatile defender and also considered one of the better locker-room guys in the league.
All of which is why Brown and his game fit anywhere. He’s already sixth in minutes per game in Toronto and was part of the closing lineup in a six-point loss to the Bulls in his Raptors debut. He’s a smart player who defends up and down the lineup effectively and can draw on his experiences playing everything from point guard to the ‘point centre’ role he excelled in with Brooklyn to carve out minutes for himself.
“I mean, I’m just extremely confident in the way I play,” he said. “I know how to play the right way. I make the right plays. I’m not gonna shoot the ball every time if I don’t got anything. I’m not gonna force anything. So just being confident myself and making the right play, I think everybody would love playing with me.”
The Raptors owe it to themselves to find out just how much love there is for Brown in the marketplace. Ujiri was clear earlier this week when he said the suddenly free-falling Raptors — they’ve lost six of seven games and are 8-19 since they touched the .500 mark on Nov. 24 — will “definitely” be making more trades before Feb. 8. If the possibility exists to add additional draft equity for the coming rebuild (league insiders suggest Brown could fetch a protected first-round pick), the Raptors have no choice but to explore their options.
Brown knows all of this and is ready to roll with whatever comes next. He can’t control where he’ll be working the rest of the season, but he’s at least got a place to live when the year is over.
He recently bought a house in Boston, where he grew up. It gives him a home base regardless of where his NBA travels take him and, he says, a place to store his championship ring.
