3 reasons Raptors would hang up phone in any Trae Young trade offers

Reason No. 3: The cost would be too great

The Raptors are not bereft of assets they could include in a trade for a star player. They have a young budding star in Scottie Barnes, multiple valued starters such as the mercurial OG Anunoby and Gary Trent Jr. (although he could hit free agency this summer), plenty of filler salary and they owe just one future first-round pick, sent to San Antonio in the trade for Jakob Poeltl.

The Raptors may very well elect to use those assets to make a trade, but it won’t be for Young. His high-scoring nature and importance to the Atlanta Hawks will lead to sky-high trade demands from Atlanta. After all, wouldn’t you ask for the sun, the moon and the stars for a 25-year-old game-changer?

Trae Young will cost a ton for the Toronto Raptors.

Do they ask for Scottie Barnes plus picks? Or Anunoby, valuable rotation players and a bevy of picks? The Rudy Gobert trade was so bad it will lead to a correction on the trade market, but by how much? The Hawks themselves will want to recoup the picks they lost in the Dejounte Murray trade last summer.

To build a contending team around Young, the Raptors would need the players they would send out in the trade. Moving the core of their team (and likely losing free agent Fred VanVleet in the process) just to add Young doesn’t necessarily make them better, it just makes them different.

Trae Young is a talented player, even if his scoring numbers and highlight plays mask his very real flaws. What Young is not, and likely never will be, is a Toronto Raptor, as the team won’t be part of the host of teams lobbying to trade for the All-Star point guard.