Morning Coffee - Feb. 7, 2025
Raptors couldn't last a full season of rebuilding before switching their direction yet again
Toronto Raptors trade Davion Mitchell to Miami Heat for PJ Tucker and second round pick - Raptors Republic
Per Blake Murphy, the second-round pick is the Los Angeles Lakers’ selection in 2026.
After the Raptors were initially reported to be included in the Jimmy Butler trade to the Golden State Warriors Wednesday night, those negotiations fell through, per Charania. Now Thursday morning, this move could be potentially folded into the Butler deal, as Bobby Marks reports.
While this deal fails in comparison to the Brandon Ingram deal last night, it still has financial impacts. For one, Toronto is now only 4.6 million below the tax threshold, a threshold they will almost surely want to stay under.
The 26-year-old Mitchell averaged 6.3 points, 4.6 assists, and 1.9 rebounds across 44 games as a Raptor while being a pending restricted free agent this upcoming offseason. The Baylor product was initially acquired last off-season alongside Sasha Vezenkov and the 45th overall pick (Jamal Shead) in exchange for Jaden McDaniels.
This also marks the third time PJ Tucker joins the Raps’ organization after initially being drafted by Toronto in the second round in 2006. Through 28 games this season, Tucker is averaging 1.6 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 0.6 assists across 28 games this season. The 39-year-old is in the final year of his contract while making roughly 11.5 million this season.
Raptors Acquire Ingram From Pelicans For Brown, Olynyk, Two Picks - Raptors in 7
The Deal Makes Sense If…
Ingram doesn’t play much the rest of the way so as to preserve the tanking efforts. He’s been out since Dec. 7 and has missed 28 straight games with a severe low left ankle sprain. This is also a bit tricky because you’d like to see him play with Scottie Barnes and the rest of the core to gauge the fit and get them acclimated as soon as possible. It can also be said that if Chris Boucher is dealt by 3 p.m. that the Raptors will have completely gutted its bench strength and so there’d still be enough leeway to tank. Losing Brown and Olynyk may already be enough of a blow.
Ingram re-signs with Toronto in the off-season at less annual value than the four-year, $207.8M max extension he was reportedly seeking from New Orleans. If you’re comparing to Siakam, the Raptors offered the Cameroonian a four-year extension worth around $125M before the 2022-23 season began which he rejected. He wanted to make an All-NBA team and become eligible for four years and around $223M. Siakam became an All-Star but missed out on All-NBA. As tensions grew with the front office in the 2023-24 season, he was traded and re-signed with the Pacers for four years and $189.5M. It’s also worth remembering that Ingram is three years younger than Siakam.
Toronto can either offer Ingram a three-year extension worth $144M until June 30th or use their bird rights to sign him in excess of the cap as a free agent beginning July 1st. The Raptors conceding a first-round pick is a decent indicator that positive conversations have already been had with Ingram about re-signing in Toronto. Remember when Masai Ujiri said free agency is dead? This deal is exactly about that.
Rajakovic can unlock Ingram’s offensive efficiency in a way the Pelicans couldn’t. Hey, if he could do it with Barrett then why not with Ingram? The 27-year-old has had four seasons with a true shooting percentage of at least 57.8 but has yet to crack the esteemed 60% club. If you’re looking for a standard bearer of efficiency for lanky forwards who primarily operate from the mid-range, Kevin Durant has been above 60% true shooting for almost the entirety of his career and his best years have hovered around the 63-65% range.
Ingram maintains or, ideally, continues to increase his 3-point volume. He’s attempted 6.4 triples per game so far this season, something he hadn’t done since his first couple seasons with the Pelicans. We know Toronto sorely lacks 3-point shooting volume and is currently second from bottom in 3-point attempt frequency. In a starting lineup that features Poeltl and Barnes, the other three players have to get their share of threes up to keep up in the math game.
There is a plan to move off R.J. Barrett within the next couple seasons. Respectfully, Ingram is a markedly better offensive talent. Both aren’t great defenders, and neither is Immanuel Quickley. Between Agbaji, Walter, and Gradey Dick, the Raptors have more than enough options to play at shooting guard along with some minutes at small forward at much more palatable contracts. I like that this deal puts Dick in a sixth man role, but I also think Agbaji would offer a better fit in the starting lineup next to Quickley, Ingram, Barnes, and Poeltl than Barrett.
Can Brandon Ingram get it right with Raptors after frustrating tenure in New Orleans? - The Athletic
My initial reaction was that I have a future working in a front office because I almost hit the trade right on the button. Upset I didn’t get more aggressive and throw in that second-round pick. I guess I learned from the school of Nico Harrison.
Ingram’s departure was obvious once the Pelicans handed Trey Murphy a four-year, $112 million extension. The big question was how soon the departure would come and would the Pelicans get any valuable assets back. Luckily for them, Toronto got aggressive and gave them a fair return.
Still, watching him leave the locker room for good Wednesday night in Denver felt like the end of an era. Watching him and Williamson embrace for the last time is an image that will stick in my mind.
I don’t think you’re wrong about Ingram’s fit with Barnes being similar to his fit with Williamson. I’d say Barnes has proven to be a much more impactful defender throughout his career, so that will take some pressure off Ingram.
Over the last two seasons, New Orleans has struggled to build strong defensive lineups when Ingram, Williamson and CJ McCollum were all on the floor together. That won’t be as much of an issue with Barnes and RJ Barrett flanking him on the wing.
To make his game fit better with Williamson, Ingram made a conscious effort to shoot more 3s this season. He went from shooting 35.4 on 3.9 attempts per game over the three previous seasons to shooting 37.4 percent on 6.4 attempts this season.
Ingram’s windup on his 3-ball can be a little slow with those long arms, but he’s fairly accurate when he shoots with confidence.
He’ll get plenty of those looks once he gets a chance to play next to Barnes, Barrett and Immanuel Quickley. Still, Ingram feels most comfortable when he has the ball in his hands and he can probe the defense with high pick-and-rolls or post-ups along the baseline.
His height and proficiency on tough fadeaways make him a tough cover in most one-on-one situations. But what I’ve come to appreciate most about his game is how much he’s grown as a playmaker. His court vision is much better than some people give him credit for and he’s had a lot of success as the primary ballhandler in New Orleans.
My question for you is how will the Raptors spread out all these ballhandling duties because Quickley and Barrett are most comfortable when they have the ball in their hands. Is there any concern over having too many chefs in the kitchen once this group finally comes together?
How trade deadline changes everything for Raptors - Sportsnet
The risk is the Raptors have spent assets to acquire a ‘max’ or ‘near max’ player who simply isn’t available very often, having averaged just 57 games a season in his five years with the Pelicans. Add in the potential for positional overlap with Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett, and this is a deal that could backfire badly.
• But fortune favours the bold. At his best, Ingram is a mesmerizing player, with high-end scoring ability, some passing chops and the ability to make plays defensively packaged in a willowy six-foot-eight frame with a seven-foot-three wingspan. He’s in his ninth season, but just 27 years old. Speaking with some Raptors staffers, there is real optimism that what seems to be a legitimately positive team culture emerging in Toronto – and hey, I’ve had not only coaches, players and team executives but even parents of players swear this to be true – will be a refreshing change for Ingram after some mostly up-and-down years in New Orleans where injuries and uncertainly prevented the Ingram pairing with Zion Williamson from ever gaining any real momentum.
As well, the Raptors believe that director of sports science Alex McKechnie can right whatever nagging underlying ills Ingram may have as he’s done with some other high-profile acquisitions the Raptors have made – Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green come to mind.
So let’s be optimistic here, what is a blue-sky version of what the Raptors have taken a leap of faith on? In the short term I don’t think much will change. According to the people I’ve talked with, Toronto remains very much committed to ‘lottery positioning’ this season.’ There will be no push for the play-in. Now that the trade deadline has come and gone we’ll see a lot of young lineups, and with Olynyk, Brown, Mitchell and maybe Boucher gone, fewer veteran role players to support them. As well, I’d be surprised if Ingram – out since Dec. 7 – is rushed back from a high-ankle sprain.
So, again, being optimistic here, the Raptors maintain their current (fifth-best) lottery odds, get some good luck there and add a Barnes-level talent for next season and someone who is on a cost-effective rookie deal for four seasons. Then Ingram delivers on his potential and a lineup featuring him, Barnes, Poeltl, Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett is almost by default good enough to compete for a playoff spot or, at worst, a spot in the play-in tournament. In the meantime, the glimpses shown by the Raptors' young core so far this season could give Toronto some solid depth. Let that construction simmer for a season or two, by which time the star rookie drafted this coming summer is beginning to impact winning in his own right.
An analogy would be the 2016-17 and 2017-18 Raptors when the bench mob was coming into its own. At that point you’ve got a roster that runs 12 deep with all your own pick capital, or first-rounders at least. It’s at that stage where you can start looking at consolidation trades where you can identify and support the kind of specific needs contending teams have. As coach Darko Rajakovic noted of the Memphis Grizzlies the other night, team building in this league can take four or five years, or more, these days.
If it seems too rosy a picture, it just might be. A lot of things have to go right for it to work. But the alternatives are equally uncertain: trolling along at the bottom of the draft lottery can work but can be dispiriting and potentially damaging and offers no guaranteed outcomes. Similarly, hoping free agency can save you is a fool’s errand. For all the excitement about the step the Detroit Pistons have taken this season, they remain a roughly .500 team that relies heavily on some low-ceiling veterans to reach even that level. They’re better, but only in relative terms.
For better or worse, the Raptors have chosen to build incrementally and acquire talent – and Ingram is very much a talent – where and when the opportunity presents itself. Nothing has really changed in that regard. This team will depend on Barnes being a star, Quickley being a better than average point guard, Barrett maintaining his upward trajectory – either as part of the group going forward or as an attractive trade piece – and Dick making strides while the Jamal Sheads and Jonathan Mogbos of the roster outplay their draft positions. A lot of things have to go right, but in making the Ingram deal we have a better idea of what they need to be.
Initial thoughts on Brandon Ingram trade | Toronto Raptors Trade Deadline - Raptors HQ
The clear consensus about four weeks ago was that Toronto was in deep tank mode, hoping for a top three pick. Then they start winning a lot, THEN they trade for Ingram among other moves.
Is the intention to manage Ingram’s injury for the rest of the season, hope to sign him in the off season, and then be competitive next year? Is there confidence he will resign?
If that’s the plan, I do feel better about it. Yet, if the plan is to try and get Ingram into this lineup ASAP, you’re really jeopardizing your draft capital here. Toronto is about 8ish wins from missing out on top-three draft odds, yet I don’t see them making a playoff run in this state. So then you waste the season just to not get a great pick.
There is also the money aspect of it all. Sure, moving Olynyk helps them to be able to sign Ingram in the off season. Yet, they still have Scottie, IQ, and Barrett on big contracts — so the idea is trying to get Ingram on a bargain?
I think overall what I most want to hear from Masai or Bobby later on today is, shocker, what direction this team is going in this season. Here we are again with no idea what this team is right now. “Supposed” to be tanking, but not really, but also not good enough to be a winning team.
In the time it took me to write this, the Raptors have already traded again (Mitchell for Tucker and picks) so again, we gotta wait until the deadline is passed to really figure out what’s going on.
For now, it’s just... odd?
Don’t like the Brandon Ingram trade? You’re missing the point - Toronto Star
They’re better.
And isn’t that the whole reason for the exercise? To get better?
There are all kinds of arguments being made that acquiring Brandon Ingram (for Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown and two draft picks) as the centrepiece of a 30-hour flurry was a bad move, and heaven knows they’ve been talking points since Wednesday night.
Ingram (there were times during his best years in New Orleans where I made the case he was the best player on a roster that included Zion Williamson) will be an unrestricted free agent after the season and might leave. If you don’t think Ujiri and Webster know exactly what Ingram wants, in money and term, then you’ve forgotten that it’s exactly what they did with Immanuel Quickley a year ago and they got him signed pretty quickly. They think they can make the math work and avoid the luxury tax, but it’s not even calculated until the end of the 2025-26 season. Who knows what opportunities will arise between now and then.
Ingram has been injured almost as often as he’s been healthy for a while. He’s been out with a serious ankle sprain since early December and it’s not clear when he’ll play next. That’s a concern, but if there’s one NBA team with a medical staff that has a track record of managing dicey health issues, it’s Toronto’s. And the trade is not for this year anyway. What’s left this season is to prepare for next year and the year after that, and a 27-year-old proven NBA talent is a huge step forward.
Yeah, but the tank? And Cooper Flagg? And the lottery? Here’s a bulletin: Even if the Raptors had bottomed out and finished as the worst team in the league, it was going to take some lottery luck to get the No. 1 pick. Maybe they would have. Or maybe they would have fallen to No. 5 or 6 and Ingram’s better now than that teenager will be for four or five years.
Ingram’s like RJ Barrett, and kind of like Scottie Barnes. How is it all going to work on the court? No one knows, and it’s another joy of pro sports: You don’t know until you know. But an NBA truth is that talent rules all, and if you get a chance to add talent, you get it.
The Raptors and almost every other NBA team aren’t going to get top-shelf talent in free agency. You have to trade for it or grow it, and trading is a more surefire method.
Every point against the move can be refuted by one for it, and that’s why making it was sensible and necessary.
👍👎 NBA Trade Evaluations: Warriors Get 'Big Face' Lift, Lakers Just Get Bigger - 🏀 5x5 | Royce Webb
👎 Raptors: Ouch, another Masai-type forward
Toronto president Masai Ujiri appears to have a type — long forwards around 6'8" he collects as if they were Pokemons — which might cloud his judgment when evaluating deals.
As with my De'Aaron Fox-to-the-Spurs evaluation, I’d say the Raptors should have asked themselves if they're giving up assets just for the rights to overpay a player later.
Ingram will become an unrestricted free agent this summer. For most of his career, his impact metrics have lagged behind his public perception, and his salary.
It doesn't take much imagination to foresee that he'll want to get paid like a 25-ppg scorer (he scored 24.7 ppg in 2022-23 with the Pelicans). In today's NBA, that player type probably commands north of $30 million per season.
But with essentially all his impact metrics hovering near league average, that contract could turn sour quickly, something the Pelicans figured out.
What did the Raptors gain here? They’re 5.5 games out of 10th in the East. So I’d say they gained a self-inflicted wound.
Immediate Grades on the Toronto Raptors Trade Deadline Moves - Raptors HQ
Brandon Ingram for Bruce Brown, Kelly Olynyk, picks: C+
In the grand scheme of everything the Raptors did ahead of the Trade Deadline, my opinion stays the same as it was this morning. It will be interesting to see how this works out in the grand scheme of things, but immediately I am skeptical of the salary implications this will have on the team vs the level of commitment Ingram has to re-sign in Toronto.
For this season in particular, the implications of this trade make the vision a little murkier. It really all depends if Ingram will play at any point for the rest of the season. If he doesn’t, the current track of “tanking” for a top draft pick continues, and you aim to hit reset next season with Ingram + new pick + current core. That I am down with.
If he does intend to play this season, do the Raptors then head into the 7+ area of the draft?
On first glance this trade is a little confusing, but I have hope it will turn into something good with time.
Davion Mitchell for PJ Tucker, pick, cash: A
This one is very much a roster/salary move. The Raptors will likely buy out Tucker, opening up a roster spot. They gain a pick from Miami, and you get some cash in your pocket.
Mitchell wasn’t getting minutes and the team was clearly prioritizing Jamal Shead’s development over him. Why waste the spot/money.
It’s one of those quick, beneficial trades that help with the book keeping side of things. Also doesn’t harm the team at all.
James Wiseman to the Raptors: Inconclusive.
This one came in at the final buzzer. The Pacers send Wiseman and cash to the Raptors, and the buzz going around right now is that the Raptors are sending back a pick. Pacers clear some salary/a roster spot. Wiseman is out for the season anyway with a torn Achilles.
The question here is if the team plans on keeping Wiseman, buying him out, or what this move was for. Until we know that, it gets an inconclusive grade. For now, he’s not playing though.
Chris Boucher stays: D
Bro. He’s probably going to walk in free agency, and now you get nothing for him? Not even a pick? I’m confusedddddd.
Raptors hoping Brandon Ingram has 'long stay in Toronto' - Toronto Sun
The franchise believes Ingram is young enough to fit long-term with franchise player Scottie Barnes (23), point guard Immanuel Quickley (25), RJ Barrett (24) and the team’s promising youngsters and also don’t think his arrival means the rebuild that began when Fred VanVleet left as a free agent and accelerated when OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam were dealt away last season has not already come to a close.
“Great day for the Raptors rebuild,” Raptors general manager Bobby Webster said at the team’s practice facility. “I think we accomplished a number of things. In the short term, we created some opportunities for our young players to play a lot more. I think people have seen over the past couple weeks, see them start to develop chemistry. I think that’s really what we’re prioritizing for the rest of this season,” Webster said.
Ingram has been out since December 7 with an ankle injury and it’s unclear when he’ll be able to play. The team begins a three-game road trip in Oklahoma City on Friday and Ingram will join them on the trip to meet and consult with Toronto’s medical staff.
Webster said that the Raptors got younger in moving two of its elder statesman in Olynyk and Brown, and intend to work out a fair deal with Ingram.
“We’re also in the unique position where we are eligible to have extension talks with him, so we’re looking forward to those with him, and hope to lock him up so he has a long stay in Toronto,” Webster said.
“Brandon is a player we followed for a long time. Obviously, he was a highly touted amateur player. Attended Duke University, number two pick. All the accolades, you know, we think a fresh start in Toronto would really be a spark in his career.
“As far as Brandon, he’s still early in his career, so, I’d caution against sort of reading too much into sort of the long term play next season, I think it’s still a rebuild,” Webster maintained. “I think it takes time for players to come together. It takes time for them to ascend. So I think we’re looking forward to getting to know Brandon. We don’t know him as a person. We know him as a player from afar, but this will be a great platform for him to sort of get to know the players, get to know the coaches, get to know Toronto. We look forward to that.”
Webster believes Ingram will be a nice complement to Barnes because of his skill and shot-making. The team also doesn’t seem overly concerned by Ingram’s long injury history. In fact, similar in some ways to the Kawhi Leonard deal, that history arguably played into Toronto’s favour here.
“If you think about the deal on its own, I think we feel like it was relative to some of the other deals in the market for similar type players (Ingram has averaged 23 points over the last six seasons, has made an all-star team and won an NBA most improved player award), we got a pretty good deal, sort of relatively speaking. “So maybe some of (the injury history and risk is) baked into that. Also, we have a decent sense of where he wants to go with an extension. So from a value play, whether that’s fair to him or not, I think some of that is baked into this deal,” Webster said.
LOL!!
