Like everyone else involved with or invested in the Toronto Raptors, Gradey Dick is still waiting to see if the trade for Kawhi Leonard will actually happen and whether he will be a Clipper next season or not. Considering that he fell out of Darko Rajakovic’s rotation last season, landing with a new team would be in Dick’s best interest. After a rough third season, he could use a fresh start and reportedly welcomed a trade out of Toronto.
However, that fresh start may not immediately come with a chance at lots of minutes. ESPN has Dick fourth among shooting guards on the Clippers’ depth chart behind fifth overall pick Keaton Wagler, Bradley Beal, and Benedict Mathurin. Beal just signed with the Clippers a few days ago, but Mathurin is still technically a restricted free agent, so the wing rotation can still change if he ends up elsewhere.
With Darius Garland and Keaton Wagler joining the team and Leonard hopefully going to Toronto, the Clippers are moving in a new direction. Joining a younger team would give Dick a better shot at claiming regular minutes than staying with a Raptors team trying to compete with the league’s best and a coaching staff that lost faith in him last season.
Still, there’s a lot of talent he will have to compete with to earn a steady role and a bounce-back season isn’t guaranteed.
2026-27 will be an important season for Gradey Dick
The Raptors’ picked Dick thirteenth overall in the 2023 NBA Draft, hoping that he could grow into a 3-point specialist for a team in desperate need of one. He shot a respectable 36.5% in his rookie season, but that number dropped to 30.1% in his third season as his role diminished. When his 3-pointers aren’t falling, Dick doesn’t bring a ton of other stuff to the court, and he couldn’t meet the Raptors’ defensive standards.
The Raptors’ choice to use a lottery pick on Dick already looks bad, although using him to land Kawhi Leonard notably softens the blow. He needs to put together a good season or risk being stamped as a draft bust and end-of-bench player for the rest of his career—which would definitely be easier with the Clippers and their young roster.
Dick has already played three seasons. Still, at 22 he is young enough that there’s a reasonable chance that he will bounce back and finally play up to the potential he showed in college. He will have to make the most of this new opportunity or risk not getting another one.
Add us as a preferred source on Google