We are most definitely in a new age of NBA basketball.
I believe a big part of this rejuvenated landscape of competition and parity has been the salary cap and teams being forced to navigate financial restrictions and penalties. The harsh reality is that you can't just get away with throwing out massive deals left and right anymore; front offices must carefully strategize how to spend their franchise’s money wisely to ensure the best success and results.
Now, getting to that point of making smart financial decisions, I don't know if many will point to the Toronto Raptors as the best example of implementing this strategy. In fact, the Raptors might be contributing to a market crash with puzzling deals like the Immanuel Quickley extension.
The Raptors are currently in a salary cap situation that isn't completely horrible per se, but they've definitely spent a good chunk of their available resources on a set group of players. However, that core of talent isn't quite on par with the NBA elite, if you will.
Raptors playing dangerous game by overspending in a frugal NBA era
Many see Toronto as having bought into the idea of paying big bucks to their middle-of-the-pack squad and just hoping for the best to come out of it. What makes things worse is that these aren't just one-year or two-year deals; Toronto is locking in long-term contracts. In an ultra-competitive NBA environment where every dollar counts, it's not crazy to think this approach could eventually come back to seriously hurt the Raptors.
And Fred Katz, Senior NBA Writer and Reporter for The Athletic, touched on this point as a guest on The Zach Lowe Show on July 31:
"... But the Raptors have committed dollars and years to a core that hasn't won anything yet. And I'm just very skeptical when you have a group in general, who, when they are at their best, the team is not necessarily at their best ... However, when these guys have the balls in their hands and other guys don't, they're not going to complement each other and they're going to put somewhat of a ceiling on your attack. And I'm just very curious to see how they all bring the best out of each other, how they mesh, if there's a lot of just kind of standing around ... And if the Raptors end up like 9th, 10th, 11th in the East and they have this much money committed to this roster, like you're kind of locked in."Fred Katz
This is no secret in the broader NBA landscape when it comes to the Raptors; Katz is certainly not the first analyst to bring it up as I've also referred to Zach Lowe raising the same concerns. And Raptors fans aren't clueless; they definitely know, just as much as anyone else, that the team's finances have been allocated in a somewhat confusing way.
There still has to be a sense of optimism that the Raptors can see their way through, and I think many rational analysts have kept that in mind. However, perhaps the gamble that Toronto seems to be making here is much too risky to ignore. If they can't put it all together as Katz suggests, the financial burden could really become a foreboding presence in the Raptors' shadow for years to come.