Garrett Temple turned his twilight years with the Raptors into a coaching job. After watching him mentor young Raptors players for the past three seasons, the Mavericks hired him as an assistant coach under new head coach Dusty May.
The Raptors are hoping to reunite with championship veteran Kawhi Leonard, but also made sure that their bench would have another veteran presence when they signed 12-year vet Kyle Anderson in free agency.
Anderson is more than “just” a replacement for Temple’s invaluable leadership, however. In terms of on-court production, he is an upgrade.
Kyle Anderson can still play significant minutes
Anderson moved around a lot over the past few seasons. After two years with the Minnesota Timberwolves, he split the 2024-25 season between Golden State and Miami. This past season, he suited up for the Jazz, Grizzlies, and Timberwolves. Despite the many moves, he saw relatively steady minutes in the regular season.
In Toronto, Anderson will probably fall somewhere between ninth and eleventh in the rotation. If the Kawhi Leonard trade goes through, the Raptors will likely start Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Leonard, Scottie Barnes, and Jakob Poeltl. Youngsters Jamal Shead, Ja’Kobe Walter, and Collin Murray-Boyles will be the main contributors off the bench. Anderson should be in the next tier with Jamison Battle and rookie Allen Graves.
If everything goes right and the young players are ready to anchor the bench, the Raptors don’t need Anderson to play a ton, but it’s nice to know that he can give them around 20 really solid minutes a game when his number is called. Temple was a great locker room presence, but he didn’t have many minutes left in him in his sixteenth season. He averaged just 3.3 minutes per game and saw just two minutes of playoff action in a 126-104 Game 3 victory.
Anderson’s experience and leadership should be particularly valuable for Graves, as the vet was one of the NBA comparisons used in Graves’s draft profile. Moreover, Anderson has appeared in 76 playoff games so far, including a run to the Western Conference Finals just two years ago. The rest of the roster, meanwhile, still doesn’t have a ton of playoff experience outside of Poeltl, Barrett, and Leonard if he’s on the team next season. Barnes just played his second playoff series and the first as one of the best players on the team, while Murray-Boyles, Walter, and Shead got their first taste of playoff basketball.
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