This summer we speculated that the Toronto Raptors should get involved in the massive multi-team trade that saw Klay Thompson land in Dallas, among others, and a multitude of players get swapped around the league. Josh Green was one specific trade target the Raptors would have had a chance to acquire, but instead the Charlotte Hornets stepped in and took on his salary.
What the Hornets did was become the third (or in that case, fifth) team in a trade that steps in to take on the unwanted player or excess salary necessary to make a trade work. The new rules around trades and tax aprons is extremely restrictive, and often a third team is required to make everything legal.
Did the Raptors miss their chance?
When news broke Friday night that the Minnesota Timberwolves and New York Knicks had agreed in principle on a blockbuster deal, it immediately became clear that the two teams would need a third team to take on some salary. The Toronto Raptors would have been perfect to fill that role, as they have not used their Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception yet this summer and have breathing room under the luxury tax.
The Raptors are no strangers to such a maneuver; at the draft they received multiple second-round picks and got off of Jalen McDaniels' contract to take on the salaries of Davion Mitchell and Sasha Vezenkov, the latter of whom promptly agreed to a buyout and wiped his entire salary off of the books.
This time around, however, the Raptors were again beat out by the Charlotte Hornets. Because of the construction of the trade, as much as $8.8 million has to be sent out in the deal and likely end up in Charlotte. The details we know about the trade are that Karl-Anthony Towns will be headed to the Knicks in exchange for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo; what other money is heading out is currently unclear.
Toronto is trying to walk the line between outright rebuilding the roster and selling out to win right now; sometimes that balancing act works out, but other times it skews one way or the other. Not being more heavily involved in the asset addition of a deal like this speaks to that balance being somewhat out of whack.
The trade is not official yet, so it's always possible that the Raptors still find a way to step in and make a deal happen. Much more likely, the Charlotte Hornets will finish the deal, earning multiple second-round picks for their troubles, and the Raptors will sit on cap flexibility that they never end up using.
Toronto has to look for small ways to win on the margins, in order to provide enough support to their young core to excel at competing for championships down the line. This kind of a trade would have been just that, an easy win, and instead it's another missed opportunity for Masai Ujiri and his staff.