3 offseason tasks the Raptors should already be working on
By Mike Luciano
Masai Ujiri, Fred VanVleet, and the Toronto Raptors are one of many teams that are currently locked in a very uneven middle ground in the Eastern Conference playoff race. Toronto would be in the play-in tournament (at the time of writing) if the season ended today.
The Raptors need to pull off a serious balancing act here, as they need to make sure that they don’t lose sight of their offseason goals while simultaneously showing the league that they are a team that should be feared in a potential postseason clash.
The Raptors are well aware of the fact that the adjective “pivotal” doesn’t even begin to describe this offseason in terms of how it could impact the next half-decade of basketball. With some clear flaws and huge potential departures looming, Ujiri needs to be on his A-game all season long.
The Raptors need to hit the ground running in the offseason and check these three boxes with some degree of certainty. Ujiri has proven he can handle things like this in the past, so all he needs to do is reach into the deep reservoir of pixie dust that made him a star executive in the past.
3 offseason moves the Toronto Raptors must make.
3. Drafting a guard in the first round
The Raptors’ lack of guard depth has been discussed ad infinitum for the last few weeks, but this point needs to be hammered home by those around the team in an effort to convince the front office of how dire the situation is. Another “Vision 6-9” forward is not going to fix this.
While many have derided this draft class as top-heavy, considering how the talent pool falls off once Victor Wembanyma and Scoot Henderson are removed from the equation, this draft is actually very rich with guard talent that Toronto could exploit.
The Toronto Raptors must add to their backcourt.
Two names that stand out as ideal targets for the raptors if they remain in their current positions are Baylor’s Keyonte George and Arkansas’ Nick Smith. Trading for a player like either Amen or Ausar Thompson has some merit also, as does moving back for someone like Duke’s Dariq Whitehead or Houston’s Marcus Sasser.
The Raptors have reached a point where they don’t even know if any players not named Trent can even score points off the bench. In a league where guard depth is more valuable than it has ever been, this simply is not a tenable situation for an alleged contender.