With Kevin Durant opting to sign with Golden State, do the Toronto Raptors have a better shot to land Pau Gasol?
Former Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant made headlines by announcing his intentions to sign with the Golden State Warriors. What Toronto Raptors fans should be excited about that is that Unrestricted Free Agent Pau Gasol had stated that he would wait for Durant’s decision before he’d make his.
The Raptors emerged as a front runner to sign the former Chicago Bulls centre in the past few days, along with the San Antonio Spurs. The Portland Trailblazers had also made a strong push to land Gasol, which probably has driven up his asking price —
Meanwhile, the Spurs and Raptors look like the front-runners to land Pau Gasol.
— ESPN (@espn) July 4, 2016
Where he might go: https://t.co/gk1ZcPOc58
— which means that Masai will have his work cut out for him…
Can confirm the Raptors' interest in Pau Gasol, as reported by @ESPNSteinLine. They'd almost certainly have to dump salary to make it happen
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) July 3, 2016
While the Spurs have serious championship credibility, don’t count the Raptors out of the picture too soon. Toronto was two wins away from the NBA Finals, and with Gasol in the mix along with the newly resigned DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry, DeMarre Carroll and Jonas Valanciunas, they would most assuredly have enough to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a run for their money.
The challenge facing the Raptors should they acquire the Spaniard is their cap situation. Gasol has apparently abandoned his contenders’ discount talk, as the cost to retain his services is reported to be between $18-22 Million per season. This would mean that Toronto would have to shed some serious salary to make room for Gasol, marking the end of Terrence Ross’ time in Toronto.
The Raptors would have to take on next to no salary in such a move and also not take on a trade exception as well. As reported by Raptors Republic’s Blake Murphy, the Raptors would have to do the following —
"In order to offer Gasol $18 million, Toronto would have to shed not only Terrence Ross but a second piece, likely Lucas Nogueira, and take back no salary in return. They could acquire draft pick equity in doing so, but in dipping below the salary cap, they’d also lose any trade exception created, as well as their mid-level and bi-annual exceptions.Essentially, the Raptors would have this net transaction if they dealt Ross and Nogueira to give Gasol $18 million.BEFORERossNogueira$5.76M cap space and $2.9M room exception OR $5.63M mid-level exception and $2.2M bi-annual exception13 players, hole at PF1/2, SF2AFTERGasol$2.9M room exception12 players, hold at SG2/3, SF2, C3Picks— Blake Murphy (Raptors Republic)"
Related Story: Raptors-Sixers In Trade Talks
As he states, it’s overly simplified, but sums up the Raptors’ situation in a nutshell. One of the few teams able to facilitate such a move for the Raptors would be (surprise, surprise) the Philadelphia 76ers. We could see one of the following deals take place —
Or
The second deal would be more favourable, but least likely.
We’ll keep you posted these developments.
BREAKING: During the completion of this article, Pau Gasol and the San Antonio Spurs finalized a 2 year, $30 Million deal (more here). Tough luck, Raptor fans
Next: Nerlens Noel To The Raptors?
All stats are provided by Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise stated. Matthew Allman is a staff writer for Raptors Rapture. For more coverage on the Toronto Raptors, follow Matthew on Twitter @ShadowRapsFan and also follow @RaptorsRapture for the latest in Raptors news.