Haywood Highsmith and 4 Free Agents the Raptors will definitely regret not signing

Haywood Highsmith, Miami Heat
Haywood Highsmith, Miami Heat | Megan Briggs/GettyImages
4 of 5

No. 2: Goga Bitadze

The Orlando Magic have an abundance of riches at the center position.

They don't have one elite player at the position, but they have four players likely within the Top 50 at the position. That includes Goga Bitadze, a brick tower of a center who signed a three-year, $25 million deal to return to the Orlando Magic this summer, where he will potentially be completely outside of the rotation to start the season.

That has nothing to say about Bitadze as a player, as he is a solid defender, reboudner and screener with underrated touch around the basket. It's merely the reality that the Magic have Wendell Carter Jr., Jonathan Isaac and Mo Wagner also in the mix. The Magic in part were able to bring back Bitadze because he didn't have much of a market elsewhere.

The Raptors should have corrected that and entered the market for Bitadze. It's likely they could have signed him for the same or even a better contract because they could have offered him a real rotation spot backing up Jakob Poeltl. If he played well enough, it wouldn't have been surprising for the Raptors to move on from Jakob Poeltl at the deadline or next summer and allowed Bitadze to be their stopgap at center.

Instead of signing players like Bitadze or Queta, the Raptors chose not to get a reliable backup for Poeltl, which essentially prevents them from trading him this year because of a lack of options behind him, and puts them in a true bind if he misses extended time due to injury this season.

Schedule