Where is Drake and the Raptors stars when it comes to recruiting for Toronto?

The Kyrie Irving trade rumours have been the biggest story of the NBA offseason. According to reports, players across the NBA have been actively trying to recruit Irving to play for their team. This begs the question for Raptors fans, where is Drake and the Raptors star players when it comes to recruiting for Toronto?

The trend in today’s NBA game is that players are gaining more power and control. It’s evident in the size of the contracts being handed out over the past two years and the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul having the power to dictate who they play for and under exactly what circumstances.

The players have also become more influential in the area of player movement. Players (more so than many general managers) now have the ability to recruit their counterparts to come play with them.

Many have criticized this practiced and likened it to AAU but in reality it’s more comparable to European soccer.

All of the top European soccer leagues have super teams and they have been great for business. From TV rights and ratings to ticket sales and merchandise, pairing up players like Messi, Neymar and Suarez is making these clubs billions of dollars off of their star power. The likes of Real Madrid, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Barcelona have become must watch TV across the world because they are loaded with superstar players.

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The super teams in the NBA have also become much watch TV with the 2017 NBA finals between Golden State and Cleveland having the highest TV ratings since 1998.

Theses super teams are in part being built by the players themselves by recruiting their peers to come join them in that city.

Karl-Anthony Towns and Jimmy Butler have been trying to recruit Kyrie Irving to come play in Minnesota, while Chris Paul and James Harden discussed their pairing prior to Paul’s arrival in Houston.

Carmelo Anthony was trying to recruit Durant to play with him in New York last year before he was out recruited by Draymond Green.

This begs the question for many Raptors fans, where is Drake and the Raptors players when it comes to recruiting other guys to Toronto?

One of the main reasons behind the Raptors partnership with Drake was because he was supposed to be a recruiting tool to help attract free agents to Toronto. He did get a finger wag from the NBA back in 2014 when he was fined $25,000 for making comments to Durant during his OVO Festival performance.

But we haven’t heard much from Drake in that department since.

Super stars like Tom Brady and Derek Jeter are used to help recruit high school players to play football for Michigan University and now this practice has traversed into the professional ranks in the NBA.

That is what Drake’s role was supposed to be.

Drake has been doing an excellent job helping to recruit players to the University of Kentucky over the past few years but hasn’t had much success of doing so for the Raptors of late.

Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan are the Raptors star players yet we never hear or see them actively recruiting their peers to come play in Toronto either.

Both Lowry and DeRozan have competed for Team USA and have the opportunity to spend a fair amount of time around the game’s best players but we don’t see them making plans to team up and make a run with any of those guys which is especially surprising considering how close the Raptors came last year to beating Cleveland.

Where were Lowry and DeRozan last year when fellow Team USA member DeMarcus Cousins was on the trade block and where have they been this offseason in recruiting?

The 2017-18 season is a major fork in the road for the direction of the Toronto Raptors. If it doesn’t work this year it could mean another rebuilding period is in the cards for the Raptors future.

You would hope this season would be all hands on deck for the Raptors star players and their celebrity team ambassador, but for now mum’s the word.

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