The math is getting a little bit clearer.
The Toronto Raptors know one thing they didn’t (theoretically) know yesterday, now that Gary Trent Jr. announced he will pick up the option on his contract for the 2023-24 season. For the Raptors, It means cost certainty for at least one season on the 24-year-old shooting guard, who will earn $18.5 million next year.
The news – first reported by Chris Haynes of TNT – was mildly surprising, given the expectation had been that Trent Jr. would test the free agent market.
But after an up-and-down year and a new collective bargaining agreement that allows teams to offer extensions on existing deals that are worth up to 140 per cent of the value of a player’s existing contract, it appears that Trent Jr. decided that the bird-in-hand is the safer play.
Under the new provision of the CBA, Trent Jr. can sign a four-year extension that would kick in for the 2024-25 season, take him through 2028-29 and be worth a total of about $113.6 million.
It might be less than Trent Jr. could have been hoping for at the beginning of last season when players like Tyler Herro and Jordan Poole were signing extensions for $120 million and $130 million, respectively. But it’s a nice pay day if that’s how it shakes out, and would still give the Minnesota native another crack at free agency before he turns 30.
The decision was made easier, per team sources, by the fact that Trent Jr. wanted to stay in Toronto — that he’s been training at the OVO Athletic Centre almost continuously since the season ended being one evident example.
There are more shoes to drop for the Raptors as Jakob Poeltl and Fred VanVleet are both unrestricted free agents. The general math is that the Raptors had about $60 million to spend on Trent Jr., VanVleet and Poeltl before tipping over into the luxury tax, which affects teams with payrolls over $162 million for 2023-24.
The Raptors have paid into the luxury tax when they were championship contenders but have avoided doing so otherwise, in part because teams that aren’t in the tax collect a payout from the ‘taxes’ collected from the teams over the tax — a lump sum estimated to be worth about $15 million this past season.
With Trent Jr.’s number locked in at $18.5 million, it leaves about $41.5 million left to sign VanVleet and Poeltl once place holders for draft picks and empty roster spots are accounted for. Per league sources, it’s expected Poeltl, the big Austrian centre Toronto acquired at the trade deadline, will be looking for a deal with an average value of $20 million per season, while VanVleet is expected to be looking for something in the $30-million range.
When I did the rough math on that scenario with Sportsnet’s Blake Murphy, VanVleet and Poeltl could get first-year salaries starting at $26.7 million and $17.9 million and still have contracts that averaged $30 million and $20 million per year. That would add up to $44.6 million on the first-year deals when combined, or $3.6 million more than the $41.5 million they theoretically can spend and stay under the tax threshold.
Presuming the Raptors want to keep their core together – and they’ve given no signals that they don’t want to, with VanVleet and Poeltl forming one of the NBA’s best pick-and-roll combinations after the all-star break and the metrics for their starting five as a whole all suggesting a more competitive version of the team that went 41-41 last season – something will have to give.
The simplest solution would be trading fourth-year guard Malachi Flynn — who is owed $3.8 million next season — and not take any salary back. Another option would be moving Otto Porter Jr., the veteran wing who played just eight games last season before missing the rest of the year after having surgery on his toe. He is owed $6.3 million. Moving that much off the books would likely leave enough to squeeze in VanVleet and Poeltl and still have plenty of room under the luxury tax, but the question is if there is a market for the oft-injured player.
The other possibility is that VanVleet moves on in free agency. Teams with cap space such as Houston and Orlando have been mentioned as possibilities, but then again, at this time of the off-season an agent who can’t stir up interest around a quality free agent isn’t doing their job.
For all the buzz around VanVleet, it still seems to make the most sense – given the Raptors’ clear intention to re-sign Poeltl – for the Raptors to make every effort to hang on to the former all-star point guard.
More will be known on Thursday night as the NBA Draft unfolds. Toronto has the No.13 pick but is open to all range of possibilities.
“Our whole operation around the draft is to try to know at least all the ranges of picks just in case something comes across the table that’s too good to pass up on,” said Raptors assistant general manager and vice-president, player personnel, Dan Tolzman as he held a media briefing on the team’s draft plans.
Little of substance was shared, as one might expect, but the Raptors are at least prepared to be flexible in what is considered a deep draft.
“And so as we get to know our pick at 13, we’re also really taking a close look at the players up in the top five, top 10, whatever, just in case,” said Tolzman. “And then same with move-back opportunities, too. You try to really know the different options out there — draft night is so crazy. You never really know what comes your way, to where you don’t want to be caught off guard just because we focused on 13 the whole time. How realistic is it that we can move up? I don’t know. But at the same time, you don’t want tonot be prepared for it.”
There are plenty of variables and uncertainties that will come into play in the coming days, but with Trent Jr. in place, there is suddenly one less unknown factor — which helps.
