NBA Insider brings up a valid but damning point about Raptors' future

The Toronto Raptors are trying to walk a middle road.

Most teams who have multiple All-Star level players shy of their 30th birthday will look to build around their players. If circumstances force or persuade them to trade those players, it's almost always part of a rebuild, turning their focus from winning basketball games to acquiring top-flight draft capital to find their next stars.

The Raptors are not like most teams, and they certainly didn't act like most teams when making some blockbuster trades this past season. After letting star guards in Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet walk for nothing in consecutive summers, they traded OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam for packages that didn't line up with a rebuild.

For OG Anunoby they added two players and no first-round picks; Siakam brought back three firsts, if non-lottery ones, and cap flexibility that the Raptors didn't even use. The team then unabashedly tanked to end the season after injuries ravaged the roster, only to give up the No. 8 pick to the San Antonio Spurs because of another non-rebuilding trade they made for center Jakob Poeltl in 2023.

The Raptors are expensive moving forward

The Raptors' cap sheet for this upcoming season is packed with players added via trade in the last 18 months, all of whom suggest a commitment to trying to win rather than rebuild. Poeltl makes $19.5 million as a 29-year-old starting center. Bruce Brown is on the roster awaiting a trade and making $23 million. RJ Barrett, acquired in the Anunoby trade from the New York Knicks, is making $25.8 million.

Immanuel Quickley, the centerpiece of the trade return from the Knicks, will make $32.5 million in the first season of a five-year, $175 million (guaranteed for $162.5 million). Add in Kelly Olynyk, making $12.8 million in the first year of his extension, signed with the Raptors in February after Toronto traded a first-round pick for him, and the five most expensive players on the roster were all acquired via trade since February of 2023 (four of them since December 29, 2023) and represent a clear opposition to a traditional rebuild.

The Raptors could have had significant cap space this summer, instead agreeing to the extension with Olynyk, picking up Bruce Brown's team option and taking on money in a trade with the Sacramento Kings. That's on top of the fact that Anunoby and Siakam were on expiring deals, so trading them for expiring money would have opened even more space. Even trading them for players with two years remaining would have opened up future financial flexibility for the Raptors; instead, by adding Barrett, Quickley and Olynyk (not to mention Poeltl) the Raptors project to be right at the salary cap line with 11 players under contract.

NBA Insider Zach Lowe of ESPN made the point in a recent column and accompanying podcast appearance: the Toronto Raptors have locked themselves financially into this core. Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Jakob Poeltl. Pivoting away from that group will take time. It puts a ton of pressure on Barnes to be a future Top-10 player in the league, and Quickley to reach All-Star status.

The other problem is that the Raptors are not good enough to contend in the Eastern Conference but too good to tank next season; they will likely win 30-something games, fighting for the back-end of the Play-In Tournament. Meanwhile, other rebuilding teams who pivoted into financial flexibility and bad rosters will be lining up for a loaded 2025 NBA Draft class, including crown jewel Cooper Flagg.

Both in terms of salary committed and likelihood of landing a top pick, the Raptors are locked into this team. Their stars are Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley. Perhaps they both reach the necessary heights, and the Raptors do control their own draft picks moving forward plus one Indiana pick remaining from the Siakam trade to upgrade the team.

This is not a typical rebuild. The Raptors believe in Scottie Barnes so much they are taking a middle path. NBA history suggests it won't work out, but the Raptors have defied history before. They are hoping to do so again.