You play GM: Decide the fate of the Toronto Raptors offseason
Contend without Kawhi
Even with Kawhi Leonard gone, the Raptors still have some solid pieces. No, they won’t be the conference favorites, but there are some building blocks for a successful team. With Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, and Serge Ibaka all on one-year contracts, the team should run it back one last year before hitting the reset button.
With Leonard gone and the team not quite at the top-end, they’ll likely want to avoid the luxury tax. For these purposes, the $132 million projected tax-line should be looked at as a “cannot exceed” mark.
You also shouldn’t take on money past this season unless they look at it as a bargain contract. The only contract the Raptors have on the books for 2021 is OG Anunoby’s rookie deal and Norman Powell’s contract.
Siakam is set to be a restricted free agent that summer with an extremely small cap-hold. If Kawhi leaves, the Raptors won’t want to sign him to an extension before that in order to maximize their cap landscape.
Toronto is set up to be major players in the summer of 2020, you don’t want to jeopardize that with any signings for this “gap year”.
Even with Kawhi off the books, Toronto doesn’t have any money in terms of cap space. They can spend up to approximately $22 million to re-sign Danny Green, use their cap-exceptions, and fill out the roster with minimum deals. Once you account for mandatory minimum contracts, the Raptors have only $15.5 million to play with.
Let’s say Danny Green is willing to come back at a one-year $15 million deal.
Re-sign him
You can sign him, and use the Mid-Level Exception to sign someone with the approximately remaining $3 million you have left under the luxury tax.
Decide to re-sign Danny Green to a one-year $15 million deal.
Let him walk
Or you can let him walk. If Green walks, you can use the Raptors entire $9.7 Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception and the team’s entire $3.8 million bi-annual exception.
Decide to let Green walk and use both your exceptions to sign free-agents.